This game was an interesting experience for me. I was completely unfamiliar with Diplomacy coming in, and it came at a point in my life when I was incredibly busy with other things. I didn’t even realize the game was beginning until it was hours before the first turn was going to end. I exerted no effort whatsoever to learn the rules or any basic strategic considerations until several turns into the game! During that point my play was entirely experimental, playing around with different diplomatic styles, seeing how people would react to things. The game was also initially anonymous, and I was very concerned with attempting to conceal my identity, which prompted a lot of reflection on my usual writing and decision-making habits. I was also wrong about Scott’s identity, which was very surprising to me.
Basically I failed to optimize the game in a very serious way, and I am not pleased with my performance. I don’t really want you guys to see my moves or my chat logs, but they are posted to the Google Group nonetheless. That said, I was legitimately doing other things with my life, and this game already started eating up hours/day. In the future I think I will do a LOT better. I will also make sure I can seriously devote the time and effort to a game before signing up next term. I recommend either doing very short turns that finish the game in a single day, or week-long turns which don’t require a continuous time investment in negotiation.
Despite my disappointment in myself, I had an enormous amount of fun playing this game. The intrigue brought us all closer together. It has also changed the way I conceptualize the world, which I always appreciate. On net, this was an awesome experience, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
Russia here.
This game was an interesting experience for me. I was completely unfamiliar with Diplomacy coming in, and it came at a point in my life when I was incredibly busy with other things. I didn’t even realize the game was beginning until it was hours before the first turn was going to end. I exerted no effort whatsoever to learn the rules or any basic strategic considerations until several turns into the game! During that point my play was entirely experimental, playing around with different diplomatic styles, seeing how people would react to things. The game was also initially anonymous, and I was very concerned with attempting to conceal my identity, which prompted a lot of reflection on my usual writing and decision-making habits. I was also wrong about Scott’s identity, which was very surprising to me.
Basically I failed to optimize the game in a very serious way, and I am not pleased with my performance. I don’t really want you guys to see my moves or my chat logs, but they are posted to the Google Group nonetheless. That said, I was legitimately doing other things with my life, and this game already started eating up hours/day. In the future I think I will do a LOT better. I will also make sure I can seriously devote the time and effort to a game before signing up next term. I recommend either doing very short turns that finish the game in a single day, or week-long turns which don’t require a continuous time investment in negotiation.
Despite my disappointment in myself, I had an enormous amount of fun playing this game. The intrigue brought us all closer together. It has also changed the way I conceptualize the world, which I always appreciate. On net, this was an awesome experience, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.
In retrospect, I think there was quite a bit of this going on with regards to my play vis a vis Turkey.