I agree with Eero’s perspective in general. But notice that he is an experienced player who plays with experienced players where everyone can “trust” each other to play to win.
Another way that Diplomacy can lead to different games is disagreement over playing to win. What constitutes playing to win? Going for a solo win, obviously. But what if the game isn’t going well and you have no chance of soloing, or your chances are low? Here are a couple examples.
You have a 40% chance of a solo with one strategy, and a 60% chance of a draw with a safer strategy. What should you do?
You are Turkey being invaded by Russia. Your elimination seems inevitable. You could do your best to slow the Russian invasion, but then Austria would take some of your territory. Except that even though Russian is your main invader, Austria stabbed you earlier and you are pissed at him. So is it justifiable to hand over your centers to Russia so he will expand more than Austria? If you’ve made a precommitment to Austria to give Russia your centers if he stabs you, does that make it OK?
You are Russia and you have nearly eliminated Turkey. But it’s actually better to make Turkey your puppet regime, because you can use his fleets now rather than eliminating him and rebuilding those fleets under your own banner. Should he agree to be your puppet, or is that dishonorable by screwing over other people on the board? If you successfully expand, should you stab him later, or is that “dishonorable”?
Different diplomacy groups may have different norms for these sorts of cases.
I agree with Eero’s perspective in general. But notice that he is an experienced player who plays with experienced players where everyone can “trust” each other to play to win.
Another way that Diplomacy can lead to different games is disagreement over playing to win. What constitutes playing to win? Going for a solo win, obviously. But what if the game isn’t going well and you have no chance of soloing, or your chances are low? Here are a couple examples.
You have a 40% chance of a solo with one strategy, and a 60% chance of a draw with a safer strategy. What should you do?
You are Turkey being invaded by Russia. Your elimination seems inevitable. You could do your best to slow the Russian invasion, but then Austria would take some of your territory. Except that even though Russian is your main invader, Austria stabbed you earlier and you are pissed at him. So is it justifiable to hand over your centers to Russia so he will expand more than Austria? If you’ve made a precommitment to Austria to give Russia your centers if he stabs you, does that make it OK?
You are Russia and you have nearly eliminated Turkey. But it’s actually better to make Turkey your puppet regime, because you can use his fleets now rather than eliminating him and rebuilding those fleets under your own banner. Should he agree to be your puppet, or is that dishonorable by screwing over other people on the board? If you successfully expand, should you stab him later, or is that “dishonorable”?
Different diplomacy groups may have different norms for these sorts of cases.