The limit of games at once is not because you might be learning the game; it is because you are new to vDiplomacy. Once you establish loyalty to the site, you get rewarded with more ability to use the site.

A pity, 2 is so little. I understand not wanting new players to sign in, join 10 games, and never log in again... but still...

Yeah, I've taken a liking to vdiplomacy, but the only games I'm in have 2 day phase lengths so it'll take awhile before I can join any more games. But when I get a third game option I'm just gonna join a live game so that I can unlock more games quicker.

Oh gosh 2 days and here i find 24h long

@Alex: Live games (and 2--player games) are not affected by this restriction.
After 20 phases played you can join 2 more games. (And it looks like you hit 20 phases already).

Where can we see how many phases we have? The link says the profile, but looking up my profile, and then using the search function, have not yielded me any info on how many phases I've played. Does it include build phases, retreat phases, etc., or just diplomacy phases?

I always like to think of the restriction as a way to teach people to focus on quality, not quantity. Being perfectly honest, 24 HR is barely enough to have decent diplomacy, let alone high quality interactions unless you happen to be online at the exact same time. Anything shorter and you're basically going to be saying like one message to a person per phase many times, which can't possibly contain the back-and-forth that is a hallmark of high quality diplomacy.

Can people play 5-7 games at once? Of course they can. Can they play 5-7 games with high quality diplomacy and strategy? I'd wager few peioke have the time and inclination and ability to do so. I feel it'd be good for the site as a whole to focus on improving the quality of play instead of the quantity of games played.

Goblin_Priest: Just click on your name, and you'll get your profile.

KingOfSwords: I can view my profile just fine, I just can't see where, on said profile, it tells me how many phases I've played.

Drano019, different people play differently. I've not played on games with phases longer than 24h, but to me, most people don't write many messages, and it's not because they can't, it's just that they don't. Giving them 48 additional hours isn't likely to make them talk more, it just delays time the game takes, and gives more time for everyone to forget what was going on. I find it harder to keep interest in a game where everyone said everything they wanted to say to each other in the first hours, and then you wait a dozen hours, or two, just for the one or few guys that either aren't logging on and will miss the phase, or just decided not to ready, "just in case" or "to provide doubt", the latter case everyone having already input their orders and said what they had to say, and the game is just idling for no purpose whatsoever. I'd argue I could probably play 7 games with higher quality diplomacy and strategy than a lot could with 1, but that's kind of irrelevant, though, because the game cap is based on seniority, and not quality. I don't think I'd want to play 7 games, on the other hand, but 3-4 would be much nicer than 2.

I don't mean to whine, though. I'll just keep playing my games and I'll hit that cap sooner than later, but overall 2 just feels pretty low to me, and it'd be nicer if the increase to 3 and 4 games came a wee bit quicker. ;)

The number of phases is in the Reliability Stats section.

@Goblin Priest -

Look under "Reliability Stats" in your profile on the right side. It'll say NoNMR: 100% (0 missed phases out of 17). So you've completed 17 phases it seems like.

Regarding different people playing differently: If you're playing with people who don't write a lot of messages, and say everything they want to in the first couple hours always, I'd argue you need to find different opponents. There is no way that's "high quality" diplomacy. That sounds like people who just make alliances game-long and draw as soon as they eliminate a few people. If you want to try some indepth Diplomacy, I'd happily try out a game with you as soon as you're able to put another one on your schedule. There's a decent number of us who dislike that style of play you mention and would be happy to find another who feels the same way.

Oh... doh. I saw the "0 missed phases" a bunch of times, and never noticed the "out of X" that followed. Thanks.

Well, hard to say. Maybe they are making deals with others and changing those, I can't pretend to know what others are telling each other. I don't mean any disrespect to the other players I'm dealing with. But myself included, once I've set my orders and had a few exchanges with key players, I can't often think of much to say. Either the map has too few players, and so the possibilities are limited, or the map has a lot of players, and many of them you can't really have any meaningful relations with, and the others, there's really no way to know if you can trust them other than wait and see. Once you've finalized your agreements there's usually not much more to say until the phase runs and you see if they were respected, or otherwise just deal with the aftermath.

I only finished 1 game and played in 2 others (which are fairly early), though. I do recognize my experiences may not be representative.

I think you have to remember that different time zones come into play with diplomacy here as well. I can send a message and may or may not get a reply for 10 -12 hours. Minimum phase length I will play is 24 hours 36 is better for me and despite that I still miss phases with work and sleep factored in. I can check games every 8 or so hours.

Strider brings up a great point, which lines up perfectly with my feeling that 24 HR never allows enough time for "great" diplomacy really. If you've got 7 college kids all in the SE time zone, sure, maybe 24 HR is enough time to talk. Have a player in NYC, London, and Shanghai, and you're going to have a hard time getting more than a message or two back and forth on 24 HR

Well I'm just about to hit 20 phases, so hit me up with some of that "high quality diplomacy". XD

Hey Gobo you make the game and they will come

Well, I don't really have the experience of what constitutes "great diplomacy". How long should the phases be? WTA or PPSC? Are some maps better than others?

Personally, I'd tend towards 16 hour phases, PPSC, and a new-ish variant where my lack of experience is likely to be shared by those I am playing against.

But from the comments here I'm getting the impression some would say 36 hour phases, WTA, and the classic map. ;)

Regarding sleep phases, sure, 36 hours does give enough time for everyone to discuss plenty without regards to sleep. But personally, I like that shorter phase time can give plausible deniability to those that don't want to reply, or want to reply too late, or want to pretend they didn't get orders. I guess that's a dynamic that's not at all present in normal face-to-face Diplomacy, but it's certainly not one I dislike. I'd be willing to try one longer-phased game to see if players really react any differently than in 24h phases, though, because despite the claims to that effect, I'm somewhat skeptical.

@Goblin -

16 hour phases? With all due respect, that's pretty insane. Lots of people on here have full time jobs, family, and need to sleep. With a 16 hour phase, you could conceivably lose half of that just to sleep! Let alone having to get ready for work, working, or just being with your family. There's absolutely ZERO chance of anyone having "quality" diplomacy on a time schedule like that. That's a recipe for NMRs and people just dialing it in all game.

My personal opinion: 36 hr minimum, preferably at least 48 if it's a bigger map with more players. The bigger the map, the longer the phases if you want actual solid diplomacy. But 36 or 48 hr phases on one of the 10-ish player maps is probably sufficient. The real critical thing though is who you have in the game. Many people on vDip simply don't talk a lot.

Then there's those of us who love to talk. According to my profile, I average over 200 messages a game - including games I've played on smaller maps which naturally have less discussion. Find the right people and you'll have a solid game, no matter what map you choose. Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss it further!

Haha. The way I see it, nobody sleeps 16 hours. So if one phase happens with your whole sleep period in it, then that means you still have time both before and after you sleep. If the phase change occurs during your sleep, then that just means you have all that much more "awake" time on the following phase. Same thing with work: the way I see it, nobody works 16 hours a day. Well, very few, anyways, and if they don't have breaks, those people aren't likely to be playing a game like this anyways, even if it had 1 week long phases.

In reality, most people are going to have 9 hour shifts at most (I've got buddies with 12 hour shifts, but at that point, if you have a family, you don't have much time for games anyways, so same argument as above). And most people are also going to sleep 9 hours at most. So that means that if the phase change occurs outside of your sleep or work, you have a total of at least 7 hours on both sides combined to send out orders and messages, so average of 3.5 hours per side. If the phase change occurs during your sleep or work, then you have the whole time between sleep and work to deal with it, and possibly then some, depending on your schedule, in most cases there's probably at least 4 hours between work and going back to sleep (morning can be tighter, though).

So yea, I dunno. I've got kids, I work, and though I've got more free time than most right now due to being out of season, even in peak season when I have less time than most, I wouldn't really see it as being a major obstacle.

Besides, time per phase has little influence of messages per day, in my opinion. People who don't have time won't write more per day because the phases are longer. They *might* write more per phase, since there is more time per phase, but I'm far from convinced that this is automatic, from my limited experience (I've only played a week, now, though I've sent 149 messages).

Still, I'm willing to try slower games, but if it's about who you play with, then I don't know folks, so sounds to me like you should invite me in a game with all of those folks you know. ;)

@Goblin -

I think you're being a little too optimistic with things here. Yes, noone sleeps 16 hours or works 16 hours. But it's not uncommon at all for people to be unavailable during work hours to check vDip. So if someone wakes up at 6 am, and leaves for work on their commute at say, 7:30 AM, then they won't have much time at all to talk. Let's use an example from my industry, construction.

An electrician is on a construction site. Work is from 7 am - 3 pm, and he sleeps from 10 pm - 5 am everyday, with a commute of 45 minutes from about 6 am - 6:45 am. For simplicity, if the phase advanced at 11 pm, he wakes up having missed the first 6 hours of the phase. That leaves 10 hours left. He hurriedly sends some messages (at 5 am) when he wakes up, then gets ready for work. It's highly likely no one messages him back between 5 am and 6 am (as most people are still asleep), and so he gets to work and starts at 7 am. Now, the phase advances at 3 pm. But he doen't get off until 3 pm (at least). So now he has no chance to message anyone, or even read his messages until after the phase advances.

Do you not see how this might be a problem?

This isn't even getting into the fact that this website is not a USA-only website. There's games where people in Los Angeles are playing against people in London, which I think is a 7 or 8 hour time difference. So again, if the phase advances at midnight LA time, the player in London might send a message out right away, but the player in LA doesn't see it for 6-7 hours. At that point, by the time the player in LA goes to work, the player in London is off work, so he manages to see the message. But again, now that the player in LA is at work, they might not be able to respond. And with 16 hour phases, the deadline rotates every time, so what works for the player in London this time, doesn't the next time.

Simply put, I think you're being way too idealistic with how much time people have to spend on a website. I'm lucky that I have the opportunity to check it often and write and read messages. Even during work. Many people don't have that luxury. Saying everyone has at least 7 hours of time to check vDip is a gross oversimplification of life.

I've played another game for a very long time, that had world-wide membership, and ran on 12 hour turns, and like Diplomacy involved a lot of text (heck, more than here, from my experience so far). People mostly managed without major issue. Had a lot more players than what I assume this has, too.

When I say that it leaves "7 hours to check on vDip", I don't mean that they'll be able to spend 7 hours looking at the maps and sending out messages and orders, though. But I mean, how long do you spend per phase, actively writing, reading, and giving orders?

So far, it's not really requiring a lot of time on my part per phase, and despite the fact that I'm mostly the one going out of my way to write to everyone, and write a lot more than I receive. Still, I've got a bunch of deals going, and I get to gather enough info on what's going on elsewhere, influence others, etc.

In the end, I just don't really see what's the big deal with having a timer. After all, aren't most tournaments time-limited? So what if sometimes, you didn't quite get to have the exhaustive discussion with someone, iron out all of the potential details of a deal before orders kick in? I don't see this as a problem at all. Heck, I see it as potential. And if you already know ahead of time that the next phase, you'd need a little more time, then you can play with your "ready" (or not) to potentially influence when that phase will start.

You said it yourself "The real critical thing though is who you have in the game. Many people on vDip simply don't talk a lot." Why should I presume that increasing the phase time will change anything whatsoever? I guess for people who can play as many games as they want, there's little downside to longer phase time, because having more games means there's more going on. But when one has a low game cap (especially when it's still 2), then longer phase time just means more of nothing happening, and longer before unlocking higher caps.

Sounds like Goblin you will find your own path. Few people will join your 16 hour world in my opinion for reasons stated. Games with many NMR's are not fun and one sided conversation boring. Time for an offer response and counter offer and agreement is just not possible. What do you call diplomacy?

@Goblin
Three words: Time zones, dude

I live in Sydney, and I never, under any circumstances join a game with less than 24 hours, even a gunboat game (I used to actually,and learned that I couldn't cope with it). This is because I usually have a specific one hour time at night when I sort through my orders. Other times I go to school, check the news, catch up with people, etc. I'd only check here if there's a really interesting game I'm in for press and messages outside of that one hour time slot. Basically, this means that even for the games I'm most engaged in, there are at most two messages that I can send and receive from someone in the US within 24 hours. Even for my 24 hour games, I sometimes play semi-gunboat, basically send my ally a message detailing what I will do, then assume they agreed already when inputting my moves because I'll probably receive the reply when I'm very much away. Remember, this site doesn't usually remind you of new messages (I think there's an option to receive emails, but I really don't want that, it would ruin my inbox).

When I first joined, I was also a bit frustrated by the game cap. But I soon learnt why it was there: as soon as my cap was lifted, I basically joined two dozen games, and it really stretched my irl life thin. Although unlike you I never whined on forum about it.

I didn't create a 16h game and try to force anyone to join it, though, I asked you to create a game, with your settings, including longer phase times. Then I will be able to see for myself, if there is a difference or not. I merely stated that, given the players to run it, I'd rather 16h to longer.

I don't consider myself whining, either. Someone else said he found the cap low. I agreed. I didn't say it was unreasonably low, though, just stated that I think that it could be better if it was handled slightly differently. Overall, however, it took me 1 week to unlock more games. And as I stated, 4 games is totally fine for me, no matter what's the time requirement for the next cap. It's really not a huge deal, and I never said it was.

I'm told "one needs X, here's why", to which I reply "I'm not convinced, here's why". Do discussions need to be either agreements or whining?

I don't have much experience on vDip. Well, I think I played for a while back in the days, but it's been too long, I don't remember the specifics. I was told that certain parameters influence the quality of the experience. Some parameters, such as the duration of the phases, the variant, and the people involved, were cited as examples. I didn't go "nu uh!". I merely stated skepticism over one of the parameters named, and requested an invitation into a game tailored by a more experienced player in order to see for myself.

Divergences in opinions need not end with personal attacks, dude. Heck, I'm not even stuck on my position, I'm asking for opportunities to challenge my impression.

In my opinion, phases can last as long as people want them. If everyone is done negotiating and putting their orders in, all you have to do is have everyone press ready and the phase ends early. If everyone is ready in 16 hours, great. If it takes 2 days of negotiations, that's fine.

Phase lengths should always either be live speed (15 min or less depending on map size) or 24+ hours. Phases in between those durations are a recipe for NMRs (a good chunk of my NMRs as well as my only CD came from 12 and 18 hour phase games)

It's quite possible that, in practice, certain phase lengths generate higher or lower rates of NMRs. I don't have stats on that, I don't know if they exist. NMRs are obviously not optimal. It's a person-issue, though. Maybe less people can/would handle 16 hours than 24, but that's not really an issue with the 16 in itself, just an issue with player availability. Not like 12 hour turns, imo, which themselves can be very restrictive on the average person, just due to issues of work/sleep/eat/family/etc.

Now, again, I've only been (back) here for a week, only played a limited number of games, and I can't see what other players are doing (or not), but it doesn't /seem/ to me that everyone that's ready will indeed check "ready". Indeed, someone told me that I "shouldn't have readied up so early in the phase" once, despite that, to me, it was the beginning of the game, and though I had already messaged pretty much everyone, due to the current layout of the map, it didn't really seem to me like anything I would say or be said, on that specific turn, would have any influence whatsoever on my orders. It seems to me that, not so infrequently, some people are prone to not check ready, even though they are, for a number of reasons. Either to stall to have more time on the next phase, or, more likely, as a ruse, to pretend they are more open to negotiation than they actually are, or to pretend that they didn't see the messages they received since the last exchange, or other such tactics. In cases like these, where everyone already put their orders, and everyone's already done talking, then the excess phase time is really just stalling the game's progress.

This isn't really a critic against these people, though, and I wouldn't say I'd never do the same. But overall, and that's just a personal preference, I prefer the "whoops" of legitimately not seeing a message in time to change orders, but having the game be more dynamic and make more steady progress, than having infinite time to work out every nagging little detail of any possible agreement, agreements which one, or both parties likely don't even intend to respect. It's not really that one is better than the other, I'm just stating a personal preference. I'd /rather/ play 16h, but since 24h is the norm, I don't really have a problem with joining 24h games.

I think another personal aspect of this is when/where you do Diplomacy. Some players check on their phone the same way they would check texts. Others check every night and morning like they would check email. Still others only check once every 24 hours. This happens for many different reasons. If two players that only check once a day are playing a 24 hour phase game it is likely that they will be unable to have a back-and-forth each phase, or at all. This is bad. So my opinion is that "good" diplomacy is certainly possible in 16 hour phase games, but only when all the players are logging on more then twice a day, which is possible.

But let's talk about "good" diplomacy. Drano's definition of good dip is obviously more strict then Goblin's definition. That is the main point of conflict here, not the utility of various phase lengths. Drano seems to think that good dip most constitute at least one-two messages from each player, proposal, counter-proposal, counter-counter-proposal, followed by general agreement. Goblin seems to think that it is possible to accomplish enough dip in 16 hours, and if it doesn't happen, he doesn't seem to mind. I think that each phase length has it's own merits and intrigues, I generally only play 36h+ for press games because I value more communication. Goblin has pointed out some of the interesting dynamics in 16h dip, and I think some of those could be very interesting. This of course brings us to a basic disagreement of what is good Diplomacy. May I point out that in a face-to-face game one can "go to the bathroom" to avoid talking to an ally or opponent before a plan of yours will be executed, you can also highjack your opponents by occupying another player they want to talk to for most of the phase. So Drano's idea of "good" diplomacy is not the original way the game was, this doesn't mean that his version isn't better, but I think it is worth taking into consideration.

As to the readying thing: I never rarely ready press games in order to allow time for negotiations, I always ready gunboat. But in non-anon press games I avoid readying because I am prone to do it after I have completed my negotiations. Because some other players might see that I have readied and think that I ignored them or have moved on without them, even if I have not. I don't want to disclose any information I don't have to. For that reason I never ready in non-anon press games.

In a non-anon game, every player can see who has and hasn't entered orders. But I haven't seen any way to tell who has and hasn't clicked on ready. Other than the simple fact that when everyone has entered orders and the turn still hasn't processed, at least one player has clearly not set ready.

Yea, I think it's about being with the right people with the right styles. I won't suggest one is inherently better than another, as I haven't trialed them enough to weigh their value on more than mere speculation. Obviously, 16h phases filled with people who log in once a day doesn't work. I like being able to take my mind off things by checking stuff a few times per day, so I /can/ do a few back and forth exchanges per day on such a window, provided the other actually replies. And I don't think I'd dislike games with 48 hour phases, provided communications advance at least once per 24 hours.

But with the wrong people, I just get the feeling that if I joined a 48 hour phase, the last 30 hours would barely involve any talking whatsoever. And this is just made even worse when the game doesn't use classic communication rules, and people refuse to ready on the retreat and build phases, dragging things a long time despite what was often predictable results for most of the players in the game.

@Goblin
Sorry if I sounded like I'm personally attacking you, the part about whining was part tongue in cheek. However, I do want to say that a lot of what you are saying assumes many things: that everyone is in the US and thus has a similar time zone, making 16 hour phases workable. That the only reason one might refuse to ready up is to use it as a "tactic". Currently half of the games I'm playing are readied, and the other half are saved; I would only ready up when the total number of players is fewer than eight, or its a retreat/build phase, otherwise I believe I'm entitled to allow the game to go through its designed phase length, and to give myself some breathing space because as I had said, I usually only check in once or twice a day, and really don't want to have to enter too many orders. Obviously you can criticize me for joining too many games, but I feel that as long as I am not NMRing and thus throwing the balance of a game out of whack, I am under no obligation to do anything in particular.

You're of course free to create 16 hour games. I'm saying all of this because I don't want there to be only games of a short phase length in the future, because then I would probably be forced to stop playing vDiplomacy

No worries. I don't really mean to criticize anyone. Except if there are serial NMRers in the room, but I haven't come across any yet. ;)

I don't really see the time zone issue, myself, really. If I send a message before work, and the other guy receives it as he's coming back from work, and vice-versa, what's the difference? I don't see any. /Unless/ both guys just log in once per day. But we've already established that guys logging in only once a day isn't even ideal for 24h phases, so obviously it isn't for 16h phases. 16h phases is only workable if everyone /at least/ checks before and after work, and ideally, with some level of frequency, at least once during work (ex: lunch break, or any other break the person might be entitled to). That doesn't at all imply that to properly play vDiplo, someone needs to spend all his free time logging on, though, but rather that 16h phase games are best if they happen to have players who will be logging in 2-3 times per day, more or less evenly spread out.

16h, or even 24h sometimes, can come limit communications, but then that's just a style preference, imo. While we don't actually do it (usually), when I play turn-based games with friends, like Chess, or D&D, when people start taking too long, we inevitably take out the threat of of the timer. Wait is not, inherently, very fun, not for me at least. And shorter time for decision-making increases the importance of what you say, to who, and when. How much are you willing to reveal in your proposal to that other power? Say too little, and the deal might not progress enough on time. Say too much, and he might use it against you. More risk. More excitement. Less time to think out your moves and coordinate, too, so again, more risk, and more excitement. I /like/ the uncertainty factor that time restraints impose.

Presuming, again, you've got enough people who are intending to log in at least before and after work. Because otherwise, yea, people will NMR, and it'll suck, no doubt. Other games do have large communities of people who can reliably connect at least before and after work, and often at 4 fairly dispersed periods through the day. I can't comment on the % of those communities who work and have kids, though. When I was in uni it certainly was easy for me to play games like that, as I had very few schedule restrictions then.