PPSC is definitely a unwanted child of this whole play diplomacy online thing. Should I set up a game?

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Let us cross swords in the long lost halls of Khazad-dûm.

PPSC is bad because it rewards players who finish close to a solo, and in fact is scores draws the same as WTA, which is hilarious.

Here are some examples of games that drew and gave everyone the same D points.
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So PPSC games only actually distribute PPSC in case of a solo? I Never realised lol.

Yeah, both PPSC and WTA actually follow the rules and share draws equally (unlike SoS scoring). That's a a big plus in my book! The help pages used to explain that very clearly.

I don't remember the part of the rule book that says soloists don't get all the points for the win. I also think the "all players share equally in a draw" line has been vastly misconstrued to establish a basis for DSS systems. "A draw" is never defined by the rulebook, and frankly if we were trying to replicate the rulebook accurately we would all play systems where you get one point for a solo and zero for everything else.

I'm not sure what you're on about.

A draw is defined very clearly on the very first page of the rulebook, with a slight difference between the new rulebook ("[a]ll players who still have supply centers") and the previous rulebook ("all players who still have pieces on the game board").

And points themselves aren't in the rulebook, so any system that gives more points to the winner would satisfy the requirement to recognize the winner.

Battalion: You're talking about blue's stab in the very last turn of the game?

GOD: It's actually not strictly points-per-supply-center in solos either. Assuming that the coding still works, PPSC was changed at some point so that the winner only wins the portion of the pot that they needed to win. That way games aren't drawn out by the winner trying to win, for example, by 20 supply centers in a classic game.

Battalion: I mean purple/Jolof's stab

What I meant was the rulebook does not define how draws are to be awarded. If anything they aren't supposed to be. My point is that it doesn't make sense to use the rulebook to justify any scoring system, because as you said they all satisfy the requirement to recognize the winner. All arguments about what point system to use should not include reference to the rulebook beyond this basic question.

JECE, it's not necessarily obvious from the moves, but Jolof had long decided not to worry about the solo and instead concentrate on PPSC. Working with Benin to take Begho in Spring 1406 would be a good example - it undermined Bonoman who was essential if we were to have any change of preventing the solo. Attacking me at the end was just the final part of that.

Battalion: Under PPSC draws are shared equally, so Jolof would have done just as well if not better by collaborating to stop the solo. I don't see how you can blame PPSC here for your loss.

Beyond the points scoring system, It's hard to judge since I can't see the press, but I think that you had tactical and strategic options to stop the solo that you didn't exploit. Tactically, you and Bonoman still had a fighting chance in 1406 to stop the Benin-Jolof alliance. In fact, you could have counted on 11 armies when the other alliance had 12 armies, but it looks like you chose to maintain neutrality with Jolof, even though Jolof didn't have a single fleet with which to fight Benin. Alternatively, you could have maybe taken the strategic approach of convincing Jolof that it could still win the game, but it looks like you didn't support a Jolof solo push either.

Just to clarify, I wasn't blaming PPSC on the loss, just the style of play.

At the very least a misconception of PPSC rules was to blame, even if unfounded - Jolof stated that PPSC was the reason for their actions.

We may have had numbers, but we didn't have a chance in my opinion - in part because there was little trust between Bonoman and myself. Even if we were a cohesive unit, I think I'd have had a very hard time breaking down Jolof and I was of the opinion that if I could convince Jolof (who'd not yet worked with Benin) to lay off we had a better chance if my units were used to try to contain Benin.

Let's get some more big hitters in the game.

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JOIN HERE TO HIT IT BIG

How about playing Fantasy World Diplomacy?
https://vdiplomacy.net/variants.php?variantID=44

It looks like a balanced 12-player variant and only 11 of 19 players have joined the Big Hitters game.

If you only have eleven it may be worth trying the 13th century Mongolian Empire variant. I hear that’s pretty balanced.

I saw that, but the stats don't look very balanced. Notice how badly the Khmer Empire has done:
https://vdiplomacy.net/stats.php?variantID=138

Please join gameID=58667

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I created this if anyone is interested gameID=58910

Thank you Anon very cool

GB a bit lame for the big hitters purpose, is it not?

I just wanted to play that variant and posted it here because the bet size
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Buy-in: 400 points
Map: Abstraction III
Phases: 1,5 days
Press: rulebook

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Joined. Not many places left, selling like hot cakes, etc., etc.
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How does one achieve an anonymous account even

If you post the line to an anon game you have joined anywhere in the message it will remove your name.

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I meant link lol
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