Features
Features you should be aware of (not available at webdiplomacy.net)
Sections:
Variants - Interface - Reliability-rating - Game options - Special votes

Variants

With the new variant-framework of the webdip-code it's easy to make custom variants. The main webdiplomacy.net is very careful about adding new variants, so this is a place where developers can test their ideas.

You can check the variant-description of each variant using the "Variants"-tab.

Different variants are for different tastes. You can check the variants-page for the overall rating of a variant or see what variant is played most at the moment.

To prevent abuse the 2-player variants are limited to a very low DPoint-count. People abused this to gain massive amounts of points in the early days...

Please report this in the Modforum.

If the game processed only one turn the last turn will be reprocessed. The bugged order will be set to Hold/Destoy. If the game progressed more than one turn the bug will be fixed, but no action on that game will be taken.

Interface

There is a chat-window in your games during the pregame phase too. So you can discuss custom rules and kill some time bevore the game starts. Make sure to check the chat bevore the game starts.

In the board-view there is an option to turn off the move-arrows ( ), so you can get a plain board with just the units.

If you encounter an unpleasant user to play agains you can choose to "block" him. To do this enter his profile and click on the smilyface behind it's name. You can unblock the user by clicking the face again. In your settings page there are all blocked users listed and you can choose th unblock any users there too.

Instead of sending an EMail the preferred way to contact the mods is opening a thread in the Modforum. You can access this from the "Mods"-tab. A message postet there will alert all mods to check on this issue and you can keep track of your issue in the thread. You are only able to view threads you started and nobody else but the mods can see your threads there.

If you can't play your games for some time please try to find a sitter. You can send your games temporary to a different player using your settings-page. (better explanation needed)

You can browse many information and statistics for all variants and view and download the code for the variant.

You can make an anonymous post in the forum (to search for players in an anon game for example) by linking to an anon game you have joined. If you link to the game in the subject line all posts are labeled as anon, if you link to an anon game in the post only this post is anon. At the moment only the first gameID provided will trigger the Anon-post (So if you link to an non-anon game and an anon the post will still be non anon.) Be careful, the mods still can see your real username, so don't misuse this feature.

On the settings page you can select between 3 different types of colorblindnes to enhance the map of each variant.

On the settings page you can select to always display the country name in front of each chatline.

In the board-view there is an option to turn on a preview of your orders ( ). This visualize your orders as saved on the server. If you update your orders don't forget to hit "Save" for a reload.

Mods can change the effect of a given game to your vDip-raing. Usually because your game got screwed by some cheaters. You can't loose rating-points in these games, and the overall rating changes might reduced.

Reliability-rating

The reliable rating is an easy calculation that represents how reliable you enter your commands and how reliable you play your games till the end. You can read more about this on the explaination-page.

Game options

When creating a game, one of the advanced options allows you to choose your country, choosing random will give the usual random country distribution for all players, however choosing a country will allow each player the pick the country they want on a first come first serve basis.

When creating a game, one of the advanced options allows you to limit the maximum number of turns that can be played and/or how many SCs need to be conquered before a winner is declared. Please check the variant-description for information about the average turns or the default SCs for a win. The winning player is decided by who has the most SCs after that turn's diplomacy phase. If 2 or more player have the same SCs at the end of the game, the game checks for the turn before, and so on. If player's SC counts are the same throughout the whole game the winner is decided at random.

This special rule sends a country into civil disorder (CD) if it does not enter an order (NMR) and extend the phase so a replacement can be found. This works on all phases of a turn (diplomacy, retreat, build). Be careful, this might lead to locked games, if players leave and no replacement is found.

In the gamecreate options you can choose to create an unrated game instead of entering a betsize.
These games have a pot of 0, require 0 points to join, do not change any stats on your profile and are not used to calculate your vDip-Rating.

Special votes

If everyone (but one) votes Concede the game will end and the player _not_ voting Concede will get all the points. Everybody else will get a defeat. The main purpose is in 2-player games that have a clear winner you don't need to play many fake-moves till one player reach the winning SC-count.

If 2/3 of the active players vote Extend the the current phase will be extended by 4 days. You can extend the same phase more than once to push the process-date back even further.