Online Diplomacy Championship 2019 Journal

[BrotherBored]

Hello friends! I recently published a journal I kept while playing in the 2019 Online Diplomacy Championship. There are more than 100 competitors in the tournament, including many players from this website! The tournament is still in its first round.

The journal follows one of my (finished) Round 1 matches. The entries include the press I exchanged with my rivals and my (extensive) commentary.
Word count: approx. 138,000
Here's the link: https://brotherbored.com/online-diplomacy-championship-journal-introduction/

I created this journal for teaching purposes. I think this journal will be a valuable resource because 1) I am an experienced player; 2) I kept a complete real-time record of my thoughts; and 3) I understand my Diplomacy writing to be (relatively) easy to follow. Thus, my journal affords readers the very rare opportunity to peer into the thoughts of another person's Diplomacy match.

I created an account for this site because I'm trying to do my best to help interested players find this new resource. I am a prominent player on webDiplomacy (I have a high rank, donate money, mentor several students, and have been a moderator), but I am trying to branch out after meeting more players from other Diplomacy websites. I hope I can become a contributor here as well.

Thank you friends!

[Fatmo]

This looks really cool actually. I don't have time to go through the whole thing but I just glanced at a few sections and it's clear you pot a lot of work into this. The layout of how you're putting up messages, while on the other side are your secret thoughts about the messaging, looks really good.

I'll definitely be looking at this when I get a chance, and I'm sure others will be able to glean some insights into the game from this journal.

Thanks for spreading the word here! Glad to have you.

[Brumark]

I am part way through, and it is extremely helpful and insightful. I think even the opening section has improved my game so would recommend to all and sundry.

And if anyone who plays gunboat (and even if you havent) hasn't read the gunboat one you really should consider doing so.

Brotherbored/swordsman3003 (on webdip) has put huge amounts of effort into creating a really great diplomacy resource, it is well structured, easy to read yet has great depth.

As this is in part an AAR you may also want to post the link in that forum

[Penelope Pitstop]

This is an astonishing piece of writing. I have read your introduction and the first Spring season. It's compelling reading and there's a tremendous number of things to learn here from you. The format is logical and clever, illuminating the thoughts behind your messages and strategy. I will definitely read more. Thank you for posting this here. It's excellent!

[Custer]

Markin my turf......

The SHIV

[jay65536]

This is a very thorough write-up--if anything it's too long!--and seems like it would be a great resource for novice and intermediate players. I've long wondered why there aren't more "annotated games" (to borrow a chess term) in the online community.

As someone else who isn't "native" to PD (I am mostly a FtF player who was invited to play ODC 2017), I think it's great that the ODC seems to be doing a lot to bring different player pools together. I hope you will stick around and contribute to the forum; always more fun to have more people talking.

(In particular I noticed a good deal of your writing is devoted to bashing the Sum of Squares scoring system. We have spilled some metaphorical ink on scoring systems here too--but there are more than just two!)

[Nanook]

I've only had time to skim, but this looks really awesome. Thanks for sharing it here!

I also strongly dislike sum of squares scoring. There is a phone app that calculates it, called "DipSumOfSquares." It's available on iphone for sure, I think on android too. Carnage is a vastly superior scoring system in my opinion, I'd recommend looking into it, if scoring systems are an interest of yours--it removes all the artificial incentive and shittiness of draw whittling, without the accountantiness and petty dotting of sum of squares.

[jay65536]

If you haven't read this part yet, OP claims to only like draw-based scoring, by which I assume he means Calhamer points, because he never takes the time to distinguish between the different draw-based systems that exist (I guess he assumes scoring is zero-sum?).

My guess is he would not like Carnage either.

[BrotherBored]

Thank you friends for your kind words. When the tournament is over, I intend to join some games around here. The ODC made me think harder about reaching out to the wider community! I feel very welcome.

I've never had an opportunity to play "Carnage" scoring. All I can say is that I like Draw-Size Scoring (divide the pot equally among all drawing players) much more than Sum-of-Squares.

[jay65536]

Thank you friends for your kind words. When the tournament is over, I intend to join some games around here. The ODC made me think harder about reaching out to the wider community! I feel very welcome.

I've never had an opportunity to play "Carnage" scoring. All I can say is that I like Draw-Size Scoring (divide the pot equally among all drawing players) much more than Sum-of-Squares.

The assumption that there is a fixed pot, and that it should be divided equally among all drawing players, means you're advocating something more specific than just "draw-based scoring"--you're advocating a system called "Calhamer points". Not only are there other scoring systems, there are even other draw-based scoring systems.