Board 8 > Diplomacy General Discussion Topic - The new era of virtual face-to-face play

(+) Yeah! (+)

hope you didnt lose to the nasally 16 year old

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Well.

I lost to the nasally kid.

But! it's not really that straightforward. He and I were part of a 3-way alliance to begin the game and the 3rd player betrayed me without even discussing it with him. So I just directed all my ire at the betrayer until he died and supported the teenager to win after that since he had played nice with me. That's how it goes

turbopuns3 posted...

Well.

I lost to the nasally kid.

But! it's not really that straightforward. He and I were part of a 3-way alliance to begin the game and the 3rd player betrayed me without even discussing it with him. So I just directed all my ire at the betrayer until he died and supported the teenager to win after that since he had played nice with me. That's how it goes

I didn't play, but feel like I could be you or the betrayer in this situation. I both like betraying and can be extremely spiteful.

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There are different camps. Some players are vengeful and others actually support the person who stabbed them if it was done well. With the stance of like "man, great job I can hardly blame you for taking that opportunity". Well, also the fact that offering yourself up to be their little helper is often the only way to stay alive, because most of the time if your ally effectively stabs you then you're immediately in a vulnerable position where they can forcefully kill you if they want.

In this case the Austrian was dumb to stab when he did. It was way, way too early. He would have gotten a tremendously better result if he just killed Italy instead.

He went from having 2 allies and 1 enemy, to having 2 enemies and 1 ally, and he didn't even gain a single dot from the stab. Talk about an epic fail.

Oh, and the "1 ally" he got from it, wasn't even an ally. Italy attacked him back on the very next turn lol

It's a mistake I'd probably make at least once, I tend to be kinda aggressive... Though in a lot of board games I play know one wants to be on a team with me because I can either be a great teammate or a terrible teammate... I tend to backstab easily.

And you're like why are you saying this if we're gonna possibly play?

I am using the good ol' Tony Vlachos strategy. By telling you I'd backstab you, you can actually trust me more than you would (Cagayan was wild)

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Though to not gain even gain a dot would make me so deflated haha

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Yeah timing is one of the tricker aspects of the game to nail down.

Because I mean think about it. Everyone knows you pretty much can't win without stabbing. But you can't get off the ground without allying. So inevitably every alliance is entered into with the knowledge there will be a bloody ending. So you're both aware and both watching out. Finding just the right moment is kind of an art.

turbopuns3 posted...

Yeah timing is one of the tricker aspects of the game to nail down.

Because I mean think about it. Everyone knows you pretty much can't win without stabbing. But you can't get off the ground without allying. So inevitably every alliance is entered into with the knowledge there will be a bloody ending. So you're both aware and both watching out. Finding just the right moment is kind of an art.

I recently got back into Survivor out of boredom and there are a lot of people who make that exact mistake.

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Technically speaking, I stabbed the Russian in my game. I took 2 dots off him when he thought I was going to help him finish off Austria.

You know you made the correct decision to stab your ally when, after you take 2 dots off them, they still build 1 that year. And are in such a good position that they are like "ya know what, I get it" and don't even stop cooperating with you afterward.

Sighhhhhhhhh

i have to pull out of the festivities tomorrow

work called me in for a 2:30 shift

i was super stoked to play, too :(

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Poop.

In my 2nd round of Boston Massacre I played England and basically got jumped by France, Russia, and Germany all at the same time. I am watching my round 1 game again and just noticing that the England in that game made the literal exact same orders in 1901 as I did.

Edi - NTH
Lon - ENG
Lvp - Yor
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NTH C Yor - Nwy
ENG - Bel
Yor - Nwy

And, what a surprise, both of us got our asses kicked as England after that 1901.

Funny how you see stuff after the fact that was right in front of your face. It's really, really difficult to fully pay attention to everything that is happening on the board at once and to actually take in info and learn from it.

I think they're in search of 1 more player for tomorrow (Saturday) if anyone is interested

Game starts at 1pm eastern

I don't know about those games, but I'd be down for a game here using backstabbr like last time.

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plum is playing and we are neighbors and they're gonna stream it

tune in :)

Good luck guys :/

any link?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5KnAjMQhOU

I am just destined to play Turkey apparently. This was my 6th game in this format and 3rd time playing Turkey.

I somehow got assumed the sale in. Got a message at 1 saying "Your game is starting"

So uh I played

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I only wasn't 100% honest with you once... :D

and it was the exact moment you expected lol

you should've just taken ank

It was of little consequence, obviously

I had that move submitted for a while.

then decided it wasnt really worth it

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It was the classic case of the time when it's best to do what's best for you instead of what's best for the team. But again, it wasn't like I was actively attacking you or anything. I just wanted to keep a dot as opposed to lose a dot so of course I was going to suggest whatever it meant for that to happen

But you completely caught it and I knew it. Like I could tell you weren't really buying what I was selling. But I was in no position to stop you so I couldn't have been mad if you took it

Anyway what I should be saying is you did an amazing job given you learned to play as the game started lol

Very solid game, I know it was more time than you really wanted to give up but I hope you enjoyed it for what it was at least!

Oh yeah. I want to play again, but I don't know how I ever have time for it again.

It helped that tomorrow was my birthday so I was able to play it off as birthday activity

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Im stoked to watch the broadcast

Ive fallen a bit behind....only started day 2 of the Boston massacre so Ive got some catching up to do

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oh yeah, @masterplum I wanted to reiterate something. about the black sea. I know it was your first game and you were up to your eyeballs in WTF but just to reflect and shed some light on the dynamics we had on our side of the board, for future reference

The strategic purpose of me not moving to the black sea in spring 1901 was so that you could move there yourself. Then in the fall, you take Rumania with your army which started in Moscow (Mos - Ukr, then Ukr - Rum with support by Black Sea). The reason is twofold. #1, when the other players see I didn't go the black sea and you did, it's really easy to play it off like you lied to me. Like I didn't know you were going there. That will make people slow to assume Russia and Turkey are cooperating. The reason Austria and Italy united and refused to attack each other was because our moves could hardly have done anything to telegraph harder that we were cooperating. #2, a fleet in rumania is really gimped. It can't attack Austria or even support your other units that are attacking Austria. All it can do is hold in place or attack Bulgaria, which was Turkish so not exactly useful to the alliance.

Ultimately had you gone to the Black Sea, the eastern side of the board would have "resolved" much more quickly, in other words we would have picked an odd man out and killed him a lot faster, which is what you want to happen. Efficiency and speed. So that your side's alliance grows faster than the other side's alliance. That enables you to continue the alliance even after a neighbor is dead, because the next targets are across the board as opposed to right beside you. When the other side's alliance comes at your side first, then you have the sticky situations where you don't have time to grow because a bigger threat is looming. And everybody ends up on 3 or 4 or 5 with no chance for expansion. (Or worse, you don't organize in time and the other side just rolls over you mercilessly. See board 1 from the stream for a textbook example.)

In other words if it was not your first game and I didn't know you I would have started attacking you beginning in Fall 1901, lol.

turbopuns3 posted...

(Or worse, you don't organize in time and the other side just rolls over you mercilessly. See board 1 from the stream for a textbook example.)

here we go

Holy shit lol

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Poor Italy!

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ViolentAbacus posted...

Poor Italy!

Poor Italy? How about Germany and Austria?

turbopuns3 posted...

Poor Italy? How about Germany and Austria?

I was just looking at the pieces on the board haha

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I reached out to Andrew Goff (3-time world dipcon champ) and he agreed to do a commentary over the backstabbr moves for the first game I ever played, with 6 of my coworkers who had also never played before. He can't do it until mid-July, but I am so excited. I've been saying for months and months that I'd put together a sort of recap to immortalize the game, but this is gonna be even better than anything I could've done, I think.

Oh yeah I may have offered a $100 donation upfront

Oh, awesome! It's cool that he's gonna recap it. Hope it turns out well!

How many people are needed for a game?

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The game has rules variants for fewer than 7, but really anything other than exactly 7 is a bastatd game

Well then, the only chance I got is a B8 game!

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I'm interested in a b8 game with longer turns

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Or I guess over a few days. Longer turns maybe don't solve the problem

Idk, some way to not make it so long at once.

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Leanansidhe posted...

Yeah, I've actually owned a physical copy of Diplomacy for like five years that's never been used because I don't know six people who would play.

I bought my friend a copy once, but he sold it after trying for like 5 minutes because he couldn't figure it out... So never really tried again. Though, probably could never find more than 3-4 to play anyways.

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