Diplomacy

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Sheap:
In my small gaming group we have thus far played without any diplomacy at all (this is not popular with all the players). However I feel that playing without diplomacy improves the game considerably for the following reasons.

How do you go about ruling out diplomacy through posture, though? There are postures of force one can take which can very clearly indicate a lack of desire to attack: If the other player then reciprocates, what you have is essentially a de-facto peace. After all, it's just not feasible to attack everyone at once, and under the assumption that everyone is a potential enemy, you take what you can get.

In a group of people that know each other, I find that once everyone has met up and borders been established, I can pretty much predict the way the entire rest of the game will play out.

The above behavior is even more magnified when the players know each other. For instance, in our clan matches, there's little to no overt diplomacy. However, the fact that we know each other well, means that it is very easy for us to read postures, and players tend to keep to their tendencies on the grounds of an "implicit" reputation: A player who regularly attacks another player is viewed with suspicion by that player, whereas a player who regularly maintains a peaceful posture towards another player with consistency is thus regarded as "friendly".

2) Diplomacy is a force multiplier and exaggerates the differences between strong (or lucky) players and weak players. Without diplomacy, everyone must defend all their borders and distrust all their neighbors.

Diplomacy is also the counterbalance of weaker players against a stronger player: Even a stronger player may not wish to be drawn into a war on two fronts against two people at once, and may thus restrain his belligerence as a result. On the flipside, an alliance between two strong players more or less just brings the game to its inevitable conclusion that much faster.

With diplomacy, empires that have treaties can pull forces off their borders to go fight other enemies. Strong empires which have more troops can better afford to defend all their borders but gain more from not having to do it. Similarly this allows harder pushes into research, and generally eliminates "drag" on an empire that can further expose any hidden balance issues.

Assuming that players deal predominantly in good faith, and backstabbing is relatively rare due to the damage it inflicts upon one's reputation for future games, this still does not address the fundamental issue of implicit posturing: If a player begins to pull forces off the border, not enough so that the border is weakened to the point of indefensibility, and the other party, finding that he is in little danger of being attacked as a result, reciprocates, having better use for his troops than to station an overly large garrison at a neighbor who is clearly uninterested in conflict, may too elect to pull his forces elsewhere: Pretty soon you have a general reduction of force levels on the border, and the exact same effect implicitly.

Trading encourages specialization and specialization disrupts game balance. Allowing empires to focus on one particular thing gives them more of an opportunity to exploit any design flaws or imbalances that may be present.

You may have a point: This is clearly apparent in the fact that an explicitly declared team game players to an entirely different strategy - no longer is it optimal for both players to pursue advancement of their own nation in all fields, and instead specialization becomes optimal - one player may research and focus on forging, while the other harvests the resources, and remits these resources to the other player. However, if the idea that ultimately, there can only be one real winner, is retained, then there's a counterbalance to this tendency - if at the end, all players, regardless of any alliances, are required to either fight or concede to a single player, then this is moot.

4) Diplomacy causes hard feelings which can often spill over out of the game, or Last into future games.

Depending on how you define "hard feelings", this may or may not be a problem. If players hold personal grudges against other players for diplomacy performed in game, this is childish. If players maintain a certain level of wary distrust after a particularly sneaky backstab, this is only to be expected. Unavoidable implicit diplomacy can present the same effect: Even winning or losing a game in a particularly noteworthy manner can have this effect.

5) Some people invariably know each other better than others and have an advantage forging alliances with each other (and have an advantage in predicting how the other person will play). Even if they don't go into the game with this intent, these people have a natural advantage which has nothing to do with how well they play or even how well they conduct diplomacy.

Knowledge of another player's psychology is already a strong advantage in both making war against, and seeking peace with, that player: If anything, psychoanalysis is even more important when explicit diplomacy is forbidden, since then all that you have is the implicit posturing of the other player - failure to correctly read your opponent's posture results in being unpleasantly surprised, or wasting resources defending against an attack which will not come.

5a) Some people do not have the time, or are located in different time zones, and cannot chat in IRC all day or answer e-mails promptly. These people are disadvantaged.

This is a case for a ban on external diplomacy, certainly. Some games are played by the rule that diplomacy can only be conducted via in-game Messages, which puts everyone on an equal footing. There is, however, no guarantee that the player simply speaking to each other, does not already color relationships. Even if no attempt is made to actually diplomacize, merely talking about the game may be enough to influence one's course of action.

Frankly, other than the nagging feeling that "I ought to be able to do this," I don't feel that diplomacy adds anything to the game whatsoever. It just creates problems.

Ironically, the human desire to seek peace proves as much a problem in a game about war as the human tendency to fight is an obstacle to world peace.

[Wendigo]

Originally posted by Gandalf Parker:

In any case, I know that I personally would appreciate some totally anonymous games where I could play as Murgatroid instead of Gandalf Parker. I WOULD use the chance to play very differently.

Jeff Tang, where arth thou?

I did enjoy a lot those anonymous blitz games with no diplomacy that JT organized like a year ago. The map was kind of biased towards a certain strategy (Amphibious pretender, full economy pics & hyperexpansion), but having a close neighbour on each side & little control over what happened at the other side of the world did indeed keep the players on their toes...very intense.

No need to invest time in diplo was also refreshing for those of us time handicapped.

[Pickles]

Posted by Kel:-

"That said, I think it *is* fair to say that people who want other people to NOT be able to make joint victories are trying to get them to play the game according to their 'vision' of how it should be played. That is, while they may feel they are trying to give themselves more options, regardless, they are clearly trying to take away options from the people who want to ally."

I would say it is the alliance players who are being unfair. The game Dominion allows only a single victor. If you play a game of dominiom you are expecting to have to defeat everyone - anything else is not the same game and it is unfair to spring this on someone.


Kel

"In summary, alliances have an implicit impact on your strategies while banning alliances explicitly limits those who want them."

Alliances are OK joint wins are verboten.

Kel
"Dominions uniqueness does not boil down to it's diplomatic/political system. I enjoy the game, whether I form an alliance or not in that particular game. If your enjoyment of the game really all comes down to whether or not two people can permanently ally, you always have the option of making house rules for new games. That might actually prove to be a good way to avoid artificially limiting the games options as only people who want to play that way, will join that game."

Allowing a joint win is a house rule.

I am arguing more logic than sentiment here too - as I have said I would love a team Version & in practice would be happy with emergent, rather than (secretly) prearranged alliance wins.


Pickles

[ July 01, 2004, 10:38: Message edited by: Pickles ]

[Pickles]

"1) Most importantly, diplomacy becomes *the single* most important factor in the game once initial expansion is over. It doesn't really matter how well you manage your empire, or how well your armies fight. It only matters who is allied with who. Effectively, diplomacy becomes the game and the entire game becomes micromanagement overhead."

I have made this point myself, in conversation, but was countered, a lot, it is the most important factor but not the only one.

I agree with Norfleets rebuttal of the rest though, with the added point that it does not seem not that easy to specialise as part of an ad hoc team in this game as you cannot share knowledge or search provinces for one another or coperate militarily etc. Pre arranged teams are different.

Pickles

[Kel]

Originally posted by Pickles:
If you play a game of dominiom you are expecting to have to defeat everyone

If people are making alliances in the game, I would say this is apparently untrue.

anything else is not the same game and it is unfair to spring this on someone

Spring this on someone ? You make it sound like noone ever has diplomacy at all and it's a shock if you find out that two people are communicating. If you go into the game, assuming there will be no alliances, no NAPs and no ganging up, you should probably avoid any game with more than 2 people, or find a way to disable the communication that is already built into the game. The idea of the alliance Lasting beyond killing one nation has no effect on you. Really, as far as a dual win goes, unless someone tells you about it, you really don't even have a way of knowing whether they are going to fight it out when there are only two people left, anyway.

Allowing a joint win is a house rule.

Well, no, it isn't really (or at least I have never seen it put that way). I have never heard anyone say that one of the rules or etiquette of the game is to not have alliances that Last until the end of the game. Clearly, if this is a concern, it is not that uncommon to form alliances already. You, or some others, may want it that way but let's face it, the game is played by people the way they want to play it, within the bounds of those rules and etiquette hopefully, and it ends when noone wants to play anymore.

If Joe and Jack are the Last two people standing and you have been wiped out, do you really have any say in what happens to the game after that ? Of course not. Thus, anyone can joint win if they want. Heck, if 2 people who were *never* allied get bored with the game and they both want to end it, why should an eliminated player have a say in whether they keep going ?

I would love a team Version

I think a team Version that allowed you to be a cohesive team would be fine, as an option, but there is no point in having a dual win toggle for the reasons I have already stated. Once you are eliminated from the game, you should have no say or concern over what transpires anyway.

& in practice would be happy with emergent rather than (secretly) prearranged alliance wins.

I have never played a game where I felt *anyone* was allied prior to the game, secretly or otherwise. If it ever happens, I would just avoid those people or make games that explicitly stated that it was undesirable.

- Kel

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Kel:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Pickles:
If you play a game of dominiom you are expecting to have to defeat everyone

If people are making alliances in the game, I would say this is apparently untrue.

---

No, this remains true even if people are making alliances. Even if people are allying, it is still ultimately up to you to KILL THEM ALL....or die gloriously in the attempt! What manipulations you wish to perform to facilitate this is a personal problem: YOU are still going to expect to kill them all.

I have never played a game where I felt *anyone* was allied prior to the game, secretly or otherwise. If it ever happens, I would just avoid those people or make games that explicitly stated that it was undesirable.

I've played in games where I'm predisposed to be peaceful towards certain players and tend to be inclined to agree to at least a "kill you Last" state of affairs. Eventually it transpires that one of us becomes the dominant power, all other opposition having been eliminated or botted, and as a result it is often seen as mostly a formality if an actual final battle were to be fought at all. So the game is just declared over with at that point: it's gone past the point of entertaining. Etiquette dictates that one does not claim an outright win in such a case, so the result is an implicit victory for "our side", a draw between the two remaining players.

[Kel]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
so the result is an implicit victory for "our side", a draw between the two remaining players.

That's pretty much what I was saying, actually.

- Kel