PDL 1. Round 3 Game 3. AAR

[V]

In all my games of diplomacy on this site, this has to be in my opinion the worst I've seen. Although I have noticed a growing trend in this direction of what I'll term "personality politics". In this game England, France, Germany had all decided to stick to each other come what may. Not even interested in discussing the board and looking for other alliances. They just thought "who do I like the most" and go with that.

My perspective on this is as someone who plays FtF, where this can sometimes also be a thing.

The thing about this dynamic is, the top players are using it to their advantage.

In this game, Pootleflump didn't let her "stick[ing] with" her 2 allies get in the way of what she wanted to do. When you look at the game from an outsider's perspective, she did exactly what you're supposed to do in this game--find allies who would not stab her, have them help her get past the stalemate line, then stab them for their centers. So how is Pootle's game tainted by "personality politics"? She is playing the game.

I think what you're annoyed at is the fact that you were playing with at least 2 players on whom the techniques she used worked. And as someone whose 2 favorite games are Diplomacy and poker, I have to tell you, if you are going to take it personally when bad players play badly, you may as well just quit the game. I don't consider myself a top Diplomacy player--yet--but I do know this: if you want to be a top player, you have to adapt your methods of persuasion to your opponents, not just bail when they don't respond as you like.

Oh dear, reluctantly...I guess I must defend my failed strategy in this game (failure is always a challenge to justify). It was never about personality issues as Jimbobicus claims. I’ve never played with Pootleflump before (or since) & she did nothing in this game to establish “absolute” trust as is being postulated. I had played with RD45 once before, but stabbed him, so had no reason to “absolutely” trust him either.

WT alliances as Germany are challenging, especially against quality opposition & I almost never attempt them, but this time I did for multiple reasons that for the purposes of this discussion are irrelevant.
Once you start there isn’t much turning back for Germany, it’s all or nothing from S01. The tactics have to be spot on, the communication excellent, the ruses to confuse the enemy well executed. If Germany doesn’t cross the stalemate line at least as far as Vienna, then it stalls. I usually have to win Moscow as well, but that can subsequently become English. Germany’s role is to win the fight, otherwise you’re of zero value to your two allies & it ain’t easy.

So why do such a crazy stunt if all that happens is you get stabbed by E or F once you’ve achieved the objectives? Because the defense is not based on being able to protect Germany from assault at all times. When all 3 alliance partners are the same side of the stalemate line, then to stab one with the collaboration of the remaining ally should send massive alarm bells ringing. It’s not possible that could be a 2-way attempt (as was successfully pulled off in this game by France). Turkey is still there & it’s crazy to start a civil war amongst the three, before the enemies are reduced to ruins. It has to be a solo attempt & not only that, in many cases a deal has been struck with the remaining eastern power (in this case Turkey). Plan being the westerners get whittled, with his cooperation as necessary, to achieve a 2-way including Turkey.

Germany is sadly at times during a WT attempt in a position where his only defense against France is England & his only defense against England is France. It is only the threat of repercussions should a stab be attempted that saves Germany, until sufficient builds are gathered to pursue the attack east & simultaneously defend Germany. A situation I nearly achieved (but nearly ain’t good enough). My contingency plan that France wouldn’t dare stab Germany was a a real strategic tool, but that also failed for reasons I didn’t anticipate, or discover until it was way too late, so I lost.

England had decided to take a Dip break for personal reasons. It was agreed that a 2-way EF would be an appropriate send off & for some reason England never did the strategic analysis to see that the odds France was not lying were close to zero. My help England to solo stunt if betrayed by France, never got off the ground. I know what I could/should have done to avert the disaster that followed (every defeat carries with it lessons for future avoidance) but it has nothing, I say absolutely nothing, to do with this personality politics bullshit diatribe that Jimbobicus continues to throw up.

I had a plan, it went well, I had a fallback plan if trouble came my way, it failed, I lost, but I can only blame myself for failure to implement the strategy & diplomacy correctly. It wasn’t anyone else’s fault but mine, but what I got wrong has nothing to do with anything Jimbobicus spouts on about. He loves to blame someone else for everything that goes wrong for him. I always blame myself for my failures, but importantly see what really went wrong, not what in my opinion, blind fools say you got wrong. This failure had everything to do with poor EG diplomacy on my part. If I get that right, France cannot pull off the solo she achieved. All credit to France, she saw an opportunity & took it, she may have even identified my lapse & if so, even more well done.

Importantly even in a most unfortunate failure situation, there was no pathetic petulance from Germany in PP. I didn’t (& don’t) blame England for letting France solo. It’s as much my fault due to poor communication. I didn’t either threaten to quit, or more incredibly actually do it! I don’t mind getting enlightened criticism from talented players, but average quitters can keep their feeble abuse to themselves.

[jimbobicus]

V, thank you for reminding me why I quit. I came back to give my take and you attack me. You don't attack my arguments, you attack me.
And since you do, I'll defend myself... at the time I quit, I think board-wise Turkey was in a pretty decent position so your accusations of sour grapes don't really make much sense. In a normal game, I'd have been quite happy with my board position. But I saw that this was no ordinary game. The messages I had with you, England and France made it clear you weren't even interested in discussing the board and possibly making deals. You'd all just decided from the start of the game that this was the way you wanted to play. Since you mention public press - accusing me of petulance there, I should say that I only contributed to PP quite late on and before that there was a lot of nonsense written there - in 1901 some bunny boiler comments and then later on some attacks on me - which again didn't even reference the board; they were just attempts at personality politics.

I also think this game exposed a bit of a flaw in the tournament structure... We'd just came off the back of a round 2 game in which we had fallen out and I could see the repercussions extending to this game. Personally, I'd have liked to treat each game separate and just play the board, preferably without even knowing who the other participants were. But you made it very clear early on who you were and proceeded to guess the identities of all the other players too. I expect that you discovered who I was pretty early as you made a point of speculating right from the off and this may have influenced how you played - you never seemed to have any intention whatsoever of allying with me. To the extent that you did ever communicate about the board, what you said swiftly proved to be lies. In fact I'd go so far as to say pre-meditated lies with the intention of tricking me; rather than the "I was seriously considering allying with you, but then got offered a better deal elsewhere"-type. I'm not really sure what I'm meant to do when confronted with that?

Anyway, lets see if we can actually have a civil conversation about something, because mixed in with your diatribe, you did say something interesting here: "I had a plan, it went well, I had a fallback plan if trouble came my way, it failed."
Second part, I guess we can agree. But first part, I'd be interested to hear at what stage you ever felt this was going well? Because the way I see the board your position got worse pretty much every year. So what years or years did you feel you were in a good position? And what was your objective: 3 way draw? Or what? And how did you see yourself achieving that?

[Strategus]

V, thank you for reminding me why I quit. I came back to give my take and you attack me. You don't attack my arguments, you attack me.
And since you do, I'll defend myself... at the time I quit, I think board-wise Turkey was in a pretty decent position so your accusations of sour grapes don't really make much sense. In a normal game, I'd have been quite happy with my board position. But I saw that this was no ordinary game. The messages I had with you, England and France made it clear you weren't even interested in discussing the board and possibly making deals. You'd all just decided from the start of the game that this was the way you wanted to play. Since you mention public press - accusing me of petulance there, I should say that I only contributed to PP quite late on and before that there was a lot of nonsense written there - in 1901 some bunny boiler comments and then later on some attacks on me - which again didn't even reference the board; they were just attempts at personality politics.

I also think this game exposed a bit of a flaw in the tournament structure... We'd just came off the back of a round 2 game in which we had fallen out and I could see the repercussions extending to this game. Personally, I'd have liked to treat each game separate and just play the board, preferably without even knowing who the other participants were. But you made it very clear early on who you were and proceeded to guess the identities of all the other players too. I expect that you discovered who I was pretty early as you made a point of speculating right from the off and this may have influenced how you played - you never seemed to have any intention whatsoever of allying with me. To the extent that you did ever communicate about the board, what you said swiftly proved to be lies. In fact I'd go so far as to say pre-meditated lies with the intention of tricking me; rather than the "I was seriously considering allying with you, but then got offered a better deal elsewhere"-type. I'm not really sure what I'm meant to do when confronted with that?

Anyway, lets see if we can actually have a civil conversation about something, because mixed in with your diatribe, you did say something interesting here: "I had a plan, it went well, I had a fallback plan if trouble came my way, it failed."
Second part, I guess we can agree. But first part, I'd be interested to hear at what stage you ever felt this was going well? Because the way I see the board your position got worse pretty much every year. So what years or years did you feel you were in a good position? And what was your objective: 3 way draw? Or what? And how did you see yourself achieving that?

You hit the nail on the head.

[V]

No Jimbob, I don’t want a “civil conversation” with you, life’s too short.
You’re “personality politics” view of this game, I summarise as total Bullshit.
In S01 I agreed to a WT. All I knew then was you weren’t E or F. I didn’t care to know more.
From recall (can’t be bothered to look at the map) the “agreed” F08 moves would have put Germany secure on 8/9 SC’s (Your view of my position during the contest is irrelevant) however I got stabbed as everyone knows.
My final objective in the contest was still undetermined at all times, as is normal in Diplomacy. It’s not usually possible to predict what opportunities &/or challenges are 3/4 years ahead.
This is my last contribution to this thread. During the game you earned the title “Twat Waffle” which caused much amusement & it stuck. It’s no longer only the game participants that now see why.

[boldblade]

V is always quick to run away from an argument when he sees an opponent armed with reason. It is much easier to call their arguments bullshit and refuse to further engage.

Also Jimbob is a twat waffle. As is Strategus. As is anyone that pusses out on a game like this. As soon as a game turns sham you should revel in the opportunity to troll and expose the sham nature of the contest rather than run from it. Dispicable. All of you.

[Pootleflump]

Twat Waffle and Tosspot are copywrited.

[V]

V is always quick to run away from an argument when he sees an opponent armed with reason. It is much easier to call their arguments bullshit and refuse to further engage.

Also Jimbob is a twat waffle. As is Strategus. As is anyone that pusses out on a game like this. As soon as a game turns sham you should revel in the opportunity to troll and expose the sham nature of the contest rather than run from it. Dispicable. All of you.

Another contributor! Here, Ladies & Gentlemen, is another splendid example of Twat Waffle. Copyright duly acknowledged.

[boldblade]

Further proving my point. Thank you sir.

[mjparrett]

Considering I am still a mod on this forum I am so tempted to delete half the messages on this thread. Absolutely horseshit most of it. Agree to disagree and move on yeah? Without sounding like the old man I clearly am turning into, most of you sound like you are 13 and in a pissing contest. So what some people have different ideals on how to play the game? Does anyone honestly think they are "better" than others and their opinion is right? So what if V played the game a certain way; well within his right.

@JimB you did the right thing by acknowledging you shouldn't have given up, and as far as I am concerned apology accepted and thank you for stating your case and your reasons. You also highlight another potential flaw in the league; with fixtures planned in advance there is no chance to cool off when people leave a game annoyed at another player. Only to find themselves playing them again 1 week later. Maybe this is partly why Strategus acted how he did in his round 3 game. Without his explanation though I'm not sure but sounds plausible.

IMO though Jim (and I know we disagree here), the personality politics have to come in to it. Otherwise every game would be played out the same as there are clear benefits in 1901 for certain alliances. Obviously you need to see who you like/trust/think you can manipulate the most. That is, for me, what makes this game so good and interesting. And partly why charming buggers like Pootle are so good at it. I'm not sure why you don't think that is the case.

Happy to have a theoretical discussion on all of the above, but please can we keep it polite? Any further messages I deem as just winding people up will be deleted

[mjparrett]

Also Twat Waffle I give you. But TossPot? That phrase is as old as the hills. Copyright denied