Poland and Ukraine are allies. We all three were, but they betrayed me. Lesson learned to not be allies with both your neighbors. This is only my second ever game.

Don't worry, you'll learn eventually, you might get a lot of defeats at first, but hey, I also started self-teaching myself in this game, and my first few games were live ones at webdiplomacy.net, then I came here for the variants.

Well, what sucks the most is Poland was my adviser in helping me learn the game.

So, do I just go crazy and attack Turkey/Egypt (Egypt is dead and Turkey moved there) and betray Britain to try to gain SC's elsewhere to offset my losses or should I try to rush back to my heartland and defend it?

You still want to betray me after being willing to work with you again? Really? Go for your heartland and/or Turkey. That way you keep SCs AND an ally.

he is right...making yourself even more allies is certainly a bad idea, as is "running away" with you armies...that wont suffice for more than one or two years.
In my opinion you have only one option:
→make peace in north&south, send everything to the center
→try to get the neighbours of your opponents to intervene, warning them that they cant let a strong block form in the east, as they would be attacked next, after you they can only march westwards...if they are capable, they should understand that
→try to seperate your opponents, offering one or both good parts of the other etc

you will have much diplomatic work to do!

oh and btw: if you have the time, try to play some live two-player games...there aint much diplomcy in there, but its really good to learn the mechanics and techniques how to make the best use of your units :)

Thanks GOD. Biggest player left in center is Italy (he borders both Poland and Ukraine), but he has paid no heed to my warnings of future betrayal. Germany is dead and France is determined to go after Britain rather than bigger threat in Poland. Turkey to my south may go for peace, but has high price.

Umm... Discussing an ongoing game in the forums? :/

well either pay a high price and have a chance to survive or pay nothing and die...id know what I would choose, but its up to you ;)
also, if Italy is really as strong as you described it, you might point out to Pol/Ukr that they should stop Italy or else they enable him to solo...

sry Amwidkle :/
I thought it might be no problem if its non anon and full press?

oh and just in general, @SD77: NEVER just surrender a game, meaning that you stop putting in orders...that is unbalancing the game and giving you a low Reliability Rating

GOD -

I think part of the purpose of not discussing on-going games in the forum is that not everyone reads the forums. If they don't, then one player would have the advantage of soliciting advice from the community and other's would be none the wiser. And even if they do read the forums, soliciting advice from outside the game is generally frowned upon while the game is on-going.

SlawDawg -

Just do your best, and look on it as a learning experience. We'd all be more than happy to discuss it after the game is over!

true enough!

sry I just had nothing to do...wont happen again :d

No worries!

Just be careful, the mods are probably watching your every post now lol 0.o

Sorry, didn't realize I was violating an unwritten rule. Since my prior mentor betrayed me, I didn't know where else to go for advise. I certainly won't surrender though.

the NSA does anyway, so why bother about the mods? :d

lol just looked at the game...100 point buy-in and everyone spent all points they had?
u guys serious? ^^

You're speaking Greek to me. I just signed up and joined game friend set-up.

Yeah, but usually the bet is around 10-20, not 100.

So, either the guy that started my game didn't know that or he is looking to rack up.

Well, SlawDaw is right.
There's no written rule about not posting about an ongoing full press game on the forum.
It's only a *commonly* accepted policy.

The rules explicitly ask only not to post about ongoing gunboats on the Forum...

Decima -

I seem to remember the mods stepping in to stop discussion about on-going games before. So despite it not being written, it seems more than just a *commonly* accepted policy. The fact that it's not explicitly written out is why no one berated SlawDawg about it : )

I don't think that there's anything wrong with the guy seeking some help with a game, and I don't think mentioning the game specifically violates any rules. It may not be the best idea to publicly display all your information and perceptions, but the kid is obviously new to the game and eager to learn. The only reason for concern about this would be that if everyone looking for advice in a game posted a thread about it, the forum would be clogged up with chaos.

Maybe the best way to handle this would be to develop an ongoing Mentor/Protégé thread where players could ask for help without giving specifics in public, And experienced players could either step in to pick up requests or offer their services as they feel they have time. Mentoring is a wonderful process when it all comes together, but it's one that develops best naturally between student and teacher. Such a thread might be skipping step in the building of the relationship, but it's still a good way to help others learn the game.

Yes, I would love that. I call Retillion as my mentor!

It's no big deal, I understand he's new. But generally, I think it's a good idea to keep the discussion of ongoing games bounded within the four corners of the game (so to speak). If new players have questions or comments about their games and want to consult others for advice I think the appropriate time to seek it out is after the game is over. You can always go over the strategy later and make this an educational opportunity. Maybe it would be nice for seasoned players to compile strategy guides & tips, both in general terms of how to negotiate in general and specific variant-based strategies. I am thinking of Richard Sharp's "The Game of Diplomacy" which I very much enjoyed reading when I was first learning the game, but of course Sharp's strategy guide mainly pertains to the Classic map.

That being said, I think Ruffhaus's mentor-protegé idea is fantastic and I would be happy to mentor a new player, but again I would stress not giving advice and tips until after the game is over/before the next game begins.

You can analogize this to chess (which I've played competitively for many years). No one would think it's acceptable for a new chess player to call over his Grandmaster coach in the middle of a tournament and ask him to study the board and recommend a move, whispering in his ear. It's just not a fair fight at that point. That being said, there is a phenomenon called "kibbutzing" which sometimes happens during informal matches, where onlookers or even the players themselves comment on the ongoing game. The difference in my view is that during "kibbutzing" both chess players can overhear the advice being given. The situation of mentor-protegé is more analogous the grandmaster whispering moves into his student's ears.

That being said, I would say it becomes more acceptable to give advice the lower the stakes are (i.e. point bet level). However, there is currently no option on this site to make a game worth nothing, and due to ELO rankings everyone's performance is relative to everyone else's. Therefore I would say it is never truly acceptable to give advice to other players during an ongoing game... unless, of course, you are also a part of that game. But depending on the relationship between mentor and protegé, then we possibly get into the issue of metagaming. Therefore another rule would be no mentors or protegés in the same game until after the mentoring period has ended.

I would love a Variant strategy section. Specifically, a section for opening moves on the WW4 map. It would be cool if there were named moves for each country like for the classic map. (I have a few that I want to trademark :)

I fully agree with RUFFHAUS 8 :
I don't think that there is anything wrong with a player seeking some help with a game.
The idea of a Mentor-Protégé relation seems very interesting : many players seem to have difficulties to understand how Diplomacy should be played in order to be successful. The whole vdiplomacy community would of course benefit if the global level of play gets better.
Maybe the discussions between Mentor and Protégé should be made only via PM.

@ General Cool :
If the idea of a Mentor-Protégé relation is accepted, I would gladly help you in one of your games. Of course, the relation should start from the very beginning of the game. And it would be much better if the Phase length of the game is long enough to allow all the extra communication.

It's been my experience in Diplomacy (and in the workplace) that the best mentoring relationships are ones that both parties just king of fall into because they want to be in it, and because both parties are getting something out of it. I mention this because when mentoring relationships are assigned the feel forced, and general do not produce a satisfactory result for student or teacher. The logic being here that it will be more successful if both parties actually want the relationship. Additionally mentoring need not be thought of only as an expert+noob partnership. Even very experienced players can benefit from taking on a mentor. I accepted my first student role when I already considered myself to be damn good at the game and had advance deep into several tournaments. But the reality is that as good as any of us may be there's always someone out there that's better. And even expert players can improve with the benefit of someone looking over their shoulders occasionally. I've been mentoring players unofficially for 20 years. For me it's fun, and a way of paying forward the favors of those that helped me. It also raises the overall level of play within a community over time.

Like any relationship, mentoring ones have a lifespan, and in some cases they may need to pause, particularly if the two players find themselves in the same game. And in these cases they require even more effort to play on your honor that the mentor/protégé relationship does not automatically equate to either alliance or rivalry.

As for accepting assistance during a game, I'm not sure that I see the problem. In fact that's the only time that the system would work. Trying to recapture all the variable after the game is next to impossible. I'm not following the concerns of the ELO ratings. I guess the thinking here is that a mentored player will instantly improve because he's getting instruction and advice. Maybe so, but the reality is that real learning only comes with making mistakes. The kind of mentoring I'm talking about isn't a scenario where the teacher scripts the student's moves. It's really more or an analysis and second set of eyes and a sounding board. Thus the improvement is gradual and not necessarily evident in the game underway.

As for phase lengths being extended for the process that would seem to mandate a game where all or enough players were being mentored to allow for the added communication time. And this seems to be more of a formalized system where students and teachers are assigned. I think it's best if we seek out our own partnerships, but having a ongoing forum thread would allow us to reach out with offers and requests.

If there is no written rule, you can't really blame a guy for breaking the rules.

I'm not saying it has to be a situation where the mentor "scripts" the mentee's moves. Plainly that would be educationally unhelpful and also probably crosses the line into cheating. I am talking about how serving as a second set of eyes, or a sounding board, what-have-you, for another player is going to affect that player thinks, communicates, and ultimately moves. In the hypothetical case of Ruffaus mentoring a brand new player, yes, it could be an instant and dramatic improvement in the player's quality of moves and diplomacy. Ruffhaus or any top player are the kind of diplomats that can singlehandedly alter the course of an entire game. Even the sudden appearance of an average-quality mentor could wind up having a profound effect on the countries in the student-player's local sphere (say in a game of WWIV)

Where is the problem in doing a post-mortem analysis of a Diplomacy game? The orders, maps and messages are all on record. A mentor can flip back through the student's game and offer perspectives on what the student could have/should have done or thought about in a given situation. This is exactly the way I used to analyze my chess tournament games with my coach. I didn't have him over my shoulder at the tournament hall giving me advice while I was playing.

I'm not saying I don't agree with being a mentor. On the contrary, I think it would be great fun to supervise someone else's game, even as it was ongoing. I'm just not sure it would uphold the integrity of the game to do so given the setup we have on this site where every game is rated and everyone operates on the assumption that people are playing for themselves. As Ruffhaus is one to typically stand up for integrity in diplomacy I am surprised to see him arguing here that no rule -- written or unwritten -- stops a top player from giving advice to a newbie DURING an ongoing game. Then who's to know if that rookie we're playing isn't really rookie + Ruffhaus, or Retillion. At a minimum, the presence of any such relationship would have to be very public and also factored in accordingly with the ELO rankings. And the idea of employing ad-hoc mentors not publicly accountable to anyone through the use of a forum or PMs would just lead to a metagaming nightmare. Is this a risk we're willing to take for the chance of improving the quality of some new players? This is something that if taken to an extreme really could ruin the entire ethos of diplomacy. To me, the solution is simple: render any and all advice after the game is over. This should pose no trouble for a committed student.

Should the game be set up as a Special Rules Game (SRG) then I see no problem with it. Something similar has been running on WebDip for quite some time - see the School of War thread set up for this purpose.

Other SRGs made that allow for discussion in the forum would also be acceptable.

However if the game has NOT been set-up with this being the intention, then please refraine from discussing on-going games in the forum. It can drastically affect the in-game dynamic, and hence the integrity of the game itself.