vDip stands for variant Dip. If you want classic large pots, you will get the best response at webDiplomacy.

But vdip also has many great features that webdip does not.

Yep. Features that aren't part of the classic boardgame, even if they are used in *some* (not *all*) of the major tournaments.

@YCHT, you got some things wrong.

1) Compared to webDip's numbers, vDiplomacy has no large pots at all. I guess it's because of the much smaller community. In any case it does not matter, since larger pots for full-press Classic are not the only thing I wanted - you know that if you read the entire post.

2) What's the problem with features not part of the boad game? Like the consolidation of 5/6 phases into 2/3 (because a digital interation mixes Negotiation, Order Writing and Adjucation phases into "Movement"), or the ability to negotiate during Retreats and Builds?

You also claim that not all major tournaments uses that feature. The last *one hundred* tourneys do use it; since I love different scoring systems, please tell me which "major tournaments" play differently. Source: http://www.world-diplomacy-database.com/php/results/tournament_list.php

3) As @ubercacher16 wisely pointed out, vDip has different features from webDip, being different websites under different administrations. You misread the intent of the post; it's not asking *where* I should look for in order to play that kind of game, but *if* anyone wishes to play it right here on vDiplomacy.com. If you do, please say so. Otherwise I humbly ask you to not derail the topic into a conceptual battle, since it's all about recruiting for a tournament. =)

Thanks for your contribution anyway!

Well, no major tournaments anywhere use the PPSC scoring, so it looks like you're trying to have things both ways. Also the notion the limited end point games is applicable to the online game is misleading. Tournaments set end game turns because of real life time constraints. Many tournaments start on Friday evening, leaving very little time to get games played. Because tournaments seek to have consistency from each preliminary round, they limit the number of game years. This is an online community where real life time constraints like Friday 6:00 PM to Midnight or last day afternoon trips to the airport aren't a parameter to work around.

VDiplomacy has large pot games. That is a fact. Comparing us to WebDiplomacy is irrelevant. As YCHTT pointed out if you're looking for standard Diplomacy games, then this isn't the best place to do it. This site focuses on variant play. And if we want to split hairs about what is and is not "Diplomacy" I'll take the variant over a PPSC scoring model. The large player rosters have plenty of Diplomacy in them.

Large pot games only exacerbate the issues of playing in a points based community. The game and the fun become less important than the points. PPSC in a large pot event puts that problem on steroids. Average Joe doesn't stroll into the casino and sit down at the high roller table. And the Harry High Roller does not not play nickle slots. Neither of them wants to be rushed into an unfinished event. They both came to play the game.

You are correct in noting that the debate on these matter discourages sign-ups. But you might have avoided that commentary by not opening your invitations with negatives about the existing community here, and shifting the debate over concept to another location. Over the years here many cowpokes have rolled into town looking for large pot games, which attracts and then immediately discourages play of new players with their eyes on points totals. This behavior is generally viewed with skepticism for very good reasons. Perhaps if you explained why you want to implement high pots, PPSC, and short games, you might get some interest.

@Ruff, while you are right in some points you made some misconceptions.

PPSC's a "center-based system", similar to C-Diplo and the like, since final play position is decided by the number of supply centers held by the endgame. It's not close to Calhamer's design goals indeed, but it does approach the main scoring system used by the hobby worldwide much better than WTA.

While FtF tourneys obviously need short games due to time restraints, those have become hallmarks of Diplomacy in the process, with its own strategical considerations given the limited time and emphasis on a meta scoring. Nothing is lost in trying to replicate it in an online environment.

Besides, you clearly forget that Allan Calhamer himself made a provision for a "Short Game" in the official rules of Diplomacy - from the very first set of rules all the way to the 1990s. (http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/rulebooks/1971GRI.pdf). If an alternate way of playing written by the game designer himself isn't "Diplomacy" for you (compared to map variants) then there isn't much to talk here.

The relative size of a pot, whether large or small, relies on a multitude of things. Personally, since everyone always have 100 points in play, any bet shorter than 100 is, in my humble opinion, suboptimal - and even when taking into account proportion (compared to webDip) most pots fail to reach a 700+ pot. Discussing doesn't serve for much though.

I don't get what you say about "exacerbate the issues of playing in a points based community". If both large pots *and* PPSC scoring are perfectly allowed on this website, what is the problem of players deciding to use the mechanisms provided by the site itself in the way they were intended to?

I believe WTA is better suited to good old Diplomacy. However the hobby itself, using Calhamer's own rules, decided to make an alternate way of playing that is incredibly fun for anyone who played it - it's a thrill to lead the board within only a few years of fierce fighting. Then, players across the world added the concept of center-based scoring (dozens of them, our PPSC being one). While this concept does not make much sense in traditional "get 18 centers" play, in short games it makes for an amazing way to reward those who came close to top the board - always a much closer race than the race to 18.

I dispute that I pointed out any "negatives" about the community. I simply pointed out that there was an *unexplored possibility* that those interested might wish to flesh out.

ULTIMATELY, this proposal is about making a game *similar to Diplomacy FtF tourneys*, where there is 1) a time limit, 2) a meta concept (scoring system to decide top board/champion) underneath the purity of the rules 3) high pots to increase the odds. All of this already mentioned in the OP.

The mechanisms to do it are available at vDiplomacy.com, and - attention there - *uniquely* at vDiplomacy.com. I know that folks here - me included - love a good debate about PPSC vs WTA, what constitutes or not true Dip, etc. In any case, to suggest to "look elsewhere" or to debate the very purpose of the proposal, while certainly in good faith, is utterly useless.

Thank you for your contribution.

I used the Milan variant twice to test the possible dynamics of such a tourney.

http://vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=31916#gamePanel (finished)

http://vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=32359#gamePanel (going into final year)

As you can see, up until the final year 3 players (or more) have a good chance at topping the table. Notably, no player got kicked out of the game until the very end - and I count fewer eliminations as a positive thing, since more players around is always good for diplomatic talks.

Pretty much like a Dip convention game! I am sure that a similar arrangement, using the more well-known Classic map and with a higher pot can be much fun to those willing to try it out. =)

I'd love to see C-diplo scoring and a squares-system like Manorcon. I'd also like to see the option to have black box scoring, i.e. with the scoring system not revealed until the game has ended. Perhaps it would be weird, but I think it could be very interesting.

Sorry for hi-jacking the thread.

@d-ice I too would like to see more varied scoring systems to be honest. Manorcon in particular is fascinating. The closest thing we got to it is PPSC =P

Origins runs shorter phases and start about the time the vendor floor closes. They hard wrap for time only because the host hotels and conference centers have rules. Otherwise they'd play to the end. The reasons are real life only and should never be used as a basis for ending the game early in online tournaments.

And you say I am wrong but then promptly agree that vDip doesn't have high pot games while webDip does. That was my point. If not for the desire to end early (something I abhor in classic Dip) you could run this tournament you so desire over there and probably fill it up with ease.

@YCHT

If:

1) Players "want to end the game early in online tournaments",

and

2) There is a website that makes it possible,

=

It *will* happen. I don't get why you want to convince me so hard that it's a bad idea. You are basically saying "don't do it, because you shouldn't".

I argued that short games provide their own, particular challenge, not dissimilar from a map variant for example. It IS worth playing - and from what I saw in those two Milan games, well-liked by all contestants, the community here definitively can like it.

Regarding pot sizes, I'll try to make it simple: vDip has low Classic pots compared to webDip. It's not necessarily a bad thing, just a reflection of heavy use of PPSC + smaller community. The pot is of secondary concern anyway; it could even be Unranked. The major feature would be the short timeframe.

It makes me remember of another useful reason to use short times: in tournaments spanning multiple games, you can avoid having one game lasting way longer than others, thus further dragging out and delaying the competition.

Thanks for sharing your opinion.

No, I'm saying you might get everything you want except the automated ending on a fixed season/year and that could still be done on the honor of the players over on vDip. If you can get enough players here who want to do it, great. But you were complaining about a lack of high pot games and that, in itself, should tell you that you might have issues getting this off the ground over here. So perhaps you should try getting it off the ground at *both* with the webDip players agreeing to end at a fixed point in the game via draw if no solo has happened by then and asking the mods to distribute the points by whatever means is agreed upon instead of evenly.

Oh, and nearly every tournament I know has a fixed point distribution if the game ends early based on relative positions and tie breakers so that being #1 in the game at game end gets you a set number of points in the tournament. Not a true PPSC but more like winning a poker tournament with points instead of cash.

And if it is unrated, I'll join your game. But see, then it's just an unrated game with an early ending. Hardly a tournament.

@YCHT

I hoped that the games I linked proved that indeed, it "can be done".

I specifically said that I thought how "amazing" was the lack of high pot games here (that weren't Gunboat/large variants); I never "complained", no clue why you jumped to that conclusion. I merely pointed out the fact, and subsequently hoped that we could make that which never happened, happen.

Such an experiment as the one you proposed already happened over at webDip, to good results. However this proposal is not on webDiplomacy, but on vDiplomacy.com hoping to use the features and playerbase of vDiplomacy.com.

Can you tell me which "tournaments that you know" relies exclusively on ranking. Not challenging you at all, I just have a real interest in all kinds of scoring systems. For me the best one by far and wide is Calhamer Scoring (duh) which does not consider centers at all, but I don't know of any tournament which uses it.

Isn't the title of the topic about a "mini-tourney" (emphasis on "mini")? Without points to filter entry, vDip/webDip points/position on ranking could be used to ensure all 7 spots were taken by good players. Victory can be considered a prize by itself given the challenge of topping such a board. And that's just with Unranked; the possibilities are huge. A true competition, by any degree.

Thank you a lot for your interest!

Origins is the one I have attended and each game has a set number of points distributed to either A) a solo in full (like our WTA) or B) the player positions when the game ends (ala poker tournaments and the cash distribution). The difference between Origins Dip and poker is that there are several consecutive games and winning is a matter of being at the top of the points board after all your games have completed, much like our 5x5, 7x7, 8x8, 15x15 tournaments we have here.

I wasn't able to travel to Ohio unfortunately, I heard good things about that con. Curiously the system used at Origins was C-Diplo, which I mentioned before.

In my humble opinion C-Diplo is the second best scoring system, and the best for tournaments. It could be used even without an end date: a solo gives all 100 points to winner as usual, a draw shares the points according to both center count and final position.

We're derailing the topic though =P

I have been thinking myself about the possibility of combining PPSC with a fixed end year. In my opinion you should also change the # of SC's which you need to win to all the SC's on the board when you do this, so that you don't get PPSC scoring when someones solos.

I think it is a good idea, though I wouldn't be in for a Classic mini-tourney. A map where this scoring would be useful is, according to me, WWIV. As I see it, the most interesting things on this map happen in the first 15 years of play anyway - I'd rather play the first 15 years of two games than one whole game that takes 30 years - so force ending the game after 15 years there seems to be a good idea to me.

@Mercy

I believe too that such a deadline would be extra useful for lenghty games where most action happens early - Colonial comes to mind. The dynamics it creates in Classic though are highly entertaining as well!

I don't get the point of having both a deadline and a shorter SC criteria. Can you elaborate?

I was talking about higher SC criteria. You would not want the game to end with PPSC scoring when someone reaches 18 supply centers before the deadline, because of the usual disadvantages of PPSC scoring (losing players could throw the game to winning players to end the game sooner, if they think that this will result in them ending up with more points). Ideally you want the winner to get the whole pot if he reaches 18 SC's, but since this is not possible under PPSC scoring, I'd suggest to change the winning condition to 34 SC's instead.

A superb idea! I wonder how that would work mechanically, because if a game has a deadline, a winner is *always* picked - first by center count, then if there is a tie (e.g. Germany and Italy have 9 centers each) the one who was leading previously wins (say, Germany had 8 centers to Italy's 7 last phase). If both powers had grown in the exact same way over the game the winner is picked in random.

Basically, there are no draws in short games. But since we have the option to also set different SC victory criteria, perhaps one cancels the other out, so a draw is gotten instead of a victory?

If only, as you said, the one with 18 centers could get the entire pot...

Sounds like a possible enhancement for all games. WTA but draws distributed by position. A hybrid if you will.

@YCHTT At webdiplomacy they have Sum-of-Squares-Scoring. In this scoring system, the winner always gets the whole pot, but if the game ends in a draw, each players that is part of the draw gets points proportionally to the square of his number of supply centers.
@Enriador I am not sure if I understand what you mean, but a draw will never be gotten if the players don't vote for it. Setting a higher SC victory criterium does nothing except extend the game if someone reaches 18 SC before the deadline.

Are you guys aware that PPSC *only* engages when and if someone solos? A draw still results in equal shares of the pot. Sum of squares or some other alternative center total scoring system seems to be what you're looking for.

It's not WTA that needs adjusting. WTA is the norm. PPSC needs to be shelved completely and revised to something like sum of squares, particularly for a fixed length tournament like you're suggesting. The solution is to use your own scoring system and ignore the VDip one. Play the games as unrated or WTA so the VDip points and rankings don't foul things up, but award tournament victory based on your separate calculations. That's pretty much what the various variant tournaments going on here are doing.

@Mercy Some apps (Droidippy, Conspiracy, the Game of Conspiracy) end the game in a draw if the end year is reached, that's why I pondered that it could happen that way.

A higher SC victory criteria woud not make such a difference, especially if the end year is 1907 as I proposed. After all, to solo until 1907 is extremely unlikely. Possible, yes, but unlikely.

Perhaps instead of - or together with - a defined end year we could lower the required number of centers? Say, 12 (34 centers/3) instead of 18? I'll give the idea some thought.

I know and like Sum-of-Squares, since they make every center count even more; a 10 center power gets considerably more points than an 8 center power for example, even with lower pots. It's slightly confusing though, and webDip's hard limit on actual points gain - to avoid leaders picking the "right time" to cross the 18 deadline and thus get as many extra centers as possible - makes it even worse.

SoS would still work marvelously well in a short game environment. Perhaps something for the future.