Messages - vDiplomacy

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12 Dec 23 UTC	Spring, 1960: Well met! Haven't played this map yet. Good luck.
12 Dec 23 UTC	Spring, 1960: Never? It's the classic duel map. I've played a few times.
12 Dec 23 UTC	Spring, 1960: Never? It's the classic duel map. I've played a few times.
12 Dec 23 UTC	Spring, 1960: It tends to be over quite quickly. There's no backstabbing, no alliances turning the tide.
12 Dec 23 UTC	Autumn, 1960: But for me it's been about half a year too since I last played this map. Let's see how it goes. Good luck!
13 Dec 23 UTC	Autumn, 1962: I lose duels most of the time. Moving units isn't my strong side of diplomacy, but I can compensate with talking everyones ears off. Helps a lot, but not here or in gunboat. What are you best at in diplomacy?
14 Dec 23 UTC	Autumn, 1962: Lol. I like to think of myself as fairly good at both aspects of the game, always room for improvement though. I am definitely too trusting sometimes, which is something I'm working on -- that's why I had a spare army or two in France last game ;) Only discovered Diplomacy about a year ago now, so there's still plenty to learn. I have noticed that I perform better in variants rather than on the Classic map, which is curious, but I think it's because I haven't played that many Classic games (<20) which puts me at a disadvantage on the Classic-specific metas compared to how my skills generalize to other maps. That's my theory, at least.
14 Dec 23 UTC	Autumn, 1962: How long have you been playing? I was lucky to find some fellow players at a board game club so I've been able to get some in-person games in recently, and it's crazy how different an experience it is.
14 Dec 23 UTC	Autumn, 1962: I am usually pretty good in variants too. People don't know the map, and when you just take a couple minutes and analyse it, you know which convincing lies to tell everyone. Everyone's on your side because they think it benefits them. And then I stab. It's always better to stab than to be stabbed.
14 Dec 23 UTC	Autumn, 1962: I've been playing on-and-off for about six years now. Started on Conspiracy, an android app, but since I've switched to IOS I use Vdiplomacy and Webdiplomacy. The best advice I can give you is that you need to learn some diplomacy theory for the basic map. There is a lot to learn, much more than you'd think. The best resource I know is BrotherBoreds blog. Great analyses, and he's one of highest ranking online diplomacy players his username is swordsman3003 on webdiplomacy, look it up, he has a 33% solo win rate in classic!) This is a good starting article to get started, but you can really just browse: https://brotherbored.com/edens-diplomacy-dossier-overview/ But I recommend you read this one first just to see how much it is that you still need to know: https://brotherbored.com/when-should-germany-let-russia-have-sweden-in-1901/
14 Dec 23 UTC	Spring, 1963: And yeah, moving units isn't my strong side, as you can see. That's why I don't like playing gunboat as much.
14 Dec 23 UTC	Spring, 1963: You found players to play in real life? That's amazing. Very happy for you! Where do you live? In my town of 120000 people (Netherlands) there is no established group. I suppose I could set up one, create an instagram account or use the uni newspaper to run an ad... but I don't have the board game.
15 Dec 23 UTC	Spring, 1963: Very nice. Thanks for the recs I wholeheartedly agree wrt gunboat, it takes literally half the game away and for what? It's so much more luck-based when you can't manipulate people. I know! Very happy about it. I go to university in Atlanta, Georgia, USA so I found some people through a board game club. Netherlands, nice. I got to visit Amsterdam & the Hague this spring, very pretty country. Any chance you speak French? I'm trying to improve my conversation.
15 Dec 23 UTC	Yes, the conversation is what makes it fun. I'm sure when playing in a club it's even better. I am a student in Maastricht, southernmost tip of the Netherlands. Pretty much the furthest you can go from Amsterdam haha. But it's a small country, everything is at most five hours away, train or car, doesn't make much of a difference. I don't speak french, no... but I can offer dutch, german, and afrikaans Why are you visiting the Netherlands? And what did you think of the articles, if you've already read them
15 Dec 23 UTC	Ah, very nice. I was studying abroad in France in the spring and got to do some traveling. First time out of the US so it was awesome :) Lots of good info in them! It really is crazy how much depth the game has Here's one I found on this map which is pretty good https://www.diplomacybriefing.com/cold-war-resources
15 Dec 23 UTC	Thanks! A good article. Let's see if the next game goes better than this.
15 Dec 23 UTC	I challenge you again, I'll play the US, if that's okay. Invite code is the same.
15 Dec 23 UTC	Yes, the depth... That's why the classic map is the best. Every power is so different, and the uneven number makes things interesting. But what really makes it enjoyable is the mutual knowledge of the metagame. People know that France is easy to defend. Every good Austrian player knows that attacking Italy in 1901 will kill them just a year later. A good Germany knows the leverage the decision over Sweden gives them, and a good Italian sees their position as an advantage, and influences the northern theatre to keep it balanced whilst overrunning the south.
15 Dec 23 UTC	I'd love to go visit the US someday. An interesting and important country. What's your study?