A Boh S A Trl-Mun
Oct. 26th, 2008 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sniffnoySo, an actual game of Diplomacy.
I was Russia, Mike Baumer was Turkey, Peter was Austria-Hungary, Oscar was Germany, Brita[0] was Italy, Matt (the only experienced player) was France, and Jack (!) was England, though Steve[3] later took over for him.
(Remember, I'd only played once before, and that game just sort of stopped after like 3 turns. Also that was before I had played Illuminati and AGoT much.)
[Note: my memory is not so good, so things I say as simultaneous may not be so. Things may in general be out of order.]
So at the beginning of the game Turkey and I discussed allying against A-H, but it seemed the two of them were also allying against Italy. Though that hardly seemed necessary, as Italy made some apparently boneheaded moves at the start of the game - Brita and Peter had some agreement that he broke on the second turn, because, well, she couldn't do anything about it - and was kind of screwed for basically the entire game until she was eliminated. Meanwhile I had agreed to a sort of peace with Germany on the first turn, but by the second I was working together with France and England in moving against him. (Largely because it didn't seem I could effectively attack A-H, even with Turkey's help that I wasn't about to actually get. I had a fleet in Rumania, which just stayed there, preventing Mike from helping me; I could pull back to the Black Sea to let him through, but I figured that would be considered as aggressive against him, and I didn't want to fight him then. In retrospect, I probably should have done it.)
Italy ended up with an army stranded in Tyrolia. I tried to convince her first to use it to attack Germany, and supported her making an attack against it which never actually occurred. The next turn, the same thing happened, except against (or rather, not against) Austria-Hungary. Hm.
Eventually Italy is reduced to a single unit and concedes, and things start coming down hard on Germany - but also on me. Germany makes some successful attacks on me and I'm forced to pull back. Turkey finally ends our peace by taking Rumania and the Black Sea. I'm almost reduced to my original 4 supply centers.
France is dominating. England controls the northern seas but doesn't seem to be able to do much with it. Germany is on the edge of elimination. A-H and Turkey are moving against France in the south and not doing so badly.
Finally I decide, it's at that point in the game where my natural instinct is to hole up and defend, except that'll get me killed, and I need to strike out and try something unexpected. I move my fleet from Barents to Norway. I make an attack on Rumania, attempting to get Peter's support. And I move northward out of Warsaw, hoping Matt will let me take Munich from Germany. Unfortunately, letting Peter know I was vacating Warsaw did not work out so well. A-H and Turkey moved against me. Britain took Sweden from me (so as it happened we both broke our alliance at the same time). And a gambit of abandoning Sevastopol to take Armenia doesn't work out because Turkey was moving into Sevastopol and oops it's the fall. In spring, it might have helped, but...
As Turkey takes over my homeland, I'm reduced to a single fleet in the Barents sea. Oscar "concedes" (rather, holds, knowing he's going to be eliminated). Instead of pulling back to Saint Petersburg like people expect, however, I move into the Norwegian Sea. England naturally is annoyed. My next move, it's the fall, so I attempt to move into Norway, fail because of a standoff, and am eliminated for having no supply centers.
I left after that; apparently Matt got very close to actually winning via supply centers, but apparently it would have taken a while and the other players conceded.
Notes on this game:
This is the second game that's been played here this year, and in the first Matt was Russia. Some people complained how he got the two good countries both games, but it was random.
Russia really is like Stark.
Winston has yet to compare Diplomacy to Starcraft.
Rules mistakes:
We played controlling supply centers wrong - apparently, you need to control it in the end of fall to take control of one, and don't lose it until someone else takes control of it. We played taking control correctly, but thought you lost control as soon as someone else moved in. Also we thought attacking a convoy, rather than disloding it, cuts it, but I don't think that came up.
Annoyances:
This is an old set that Youlian has, and there are no markers for control of supply centers; you just have to remember or write it down or something.
Looking things up, apparently the rules aren't entirely consistent and nonambiguous. Gah. To game designers everywhere: Write your rules algorithmically, not as a collection of constraints! Whenever they next reprint the game, they should change the rules so they actually work. Admittedly such situations are rare (and certainly didn't come up), but also just in general the fact that the rules are written as a collection of constraints rather than algorithmically make it annoying to figure out what's happened. Rather than following a process, in effect you have to solve a puzzle.
Notes on the game in general and comparisons to AGoT:
Russia really is like Stark. (I said that already, but it's relevant again.)
It's really hard to get many units in this game. Not something I like about it, I must say. This combined with the fact that it's hard to attack anyone by yourself make making an expanding front a difficult strategy, it seems. Also I think standoffs are way too common.
Since there's no "defend" order, you may as well attack somewhere unlikely to succeed as hold (as long as noone's supporting your hold, and you're already hostile to the person you're attacking, anyway).
Unlike in AGoT, you can't try to draw someone's strong cards out to make them weaker later. The house cards in AGoT don't seem to do a lot, as it's rare that there are more than 2 good choices, but they really do add a lot to the game, it seems.
Most games of AGoT start off not so diplomatic as people take what they can, or attack each other, and then grow more so as you start to get more than 2 people along a border and people need to attack areas that are heavily defended. Here it seems the reverse happens (well, Matt made it sound like it happens in general), where people need diplomacy to get anything done at the beginning, but eventually someone gets overwhelming force and it breaks down.
Though longer, the game actually plays faster than AGoT as all the decisions are made before orders are revealed.
Navies in the north don't seem to do a lot unless you're England; it seems most of the convoying action happens in the Mediterranean. And convoying obviously isn't anywhere near as powerful as in AGoT...
So, definitely interesting. Definitely want to play again. So far I think I probably like AGoT better on balance.
-Harry
(Also, yesterday, and the day before, there was like noone in the lounge, except to play Smash, until yesterday suddenly people materialized to play Diplomacy! What happened? There was never time for anything other than Smash or Diplomacy...)
[0]Nominally, it was Brita and Mike K "as a team", but Mike didn't actually do anything past maybe some stuff on the first turn. Though he did stick around as the World Series was on.
[3]First-year Steve, not third-year Steve who is now RA in Graham. In general "Steve" will now refer to first-year Steve unless otherwise specified.
I was Russia, Mike Baumer was Turkey, Peter was Austria-Hungary, Oscar was Germany, Brita[0] was Italy, Matt (the only experienced player) was France, and Jack (!) was England, though Steve[3] later took over for him.
(Remember, I'd only played once before, and that game just sort of stopped after like 3 turns. Also that was before I had played Illuminati and AGoT much.)
[Note: my memory is not so good, so things I say as simultaneous may not be so. Things may in general be out of order.]
So at the beginning of the game Turkey and I discussed allying against A-H, but it seemed the two of them were also allying against Italy. Though that hardly seemed necessary, as Italy made some apparently boneheaded moves at the start of the game - Brita and Peter had some agreement that he broke on the second turn, because, well, she couldn't do anything about it - and was kind of screwed for basically the entire game until she was eliminated. Meanwhile I had agreed to a sort of peace with Germany on the first turn, but by the second I was working together with France and England in moving against him. (Largely because it didn't seem I could effectively attack A-H, even with Turkey's help that I wasn't about to actually get. I had a fleet in Rumania, which just stayed there, preventing Mike from helping me; I could pull back to the Black Sea to let him through, but I figured that would be considered as aggressive against him, and I didn't want to fight him then. In retrospect, I probably should have done it.)
Italy ended up with an army stranded in Tyrolia. I tried to convince her first to use it to attack Germany, and supported her making an attack against it which never actually occurred. The next turn, the same thing happened, except against (or rather, not against) Austria-Hungary. Hm.
Eventually Italy is reduced to a single unit and concedes, and things start coming down hard on Germany - but also on me. Germany makes some successful attacks on me and I'm forced to pull back. Turkey finally ends our peace by taking Rumania and the Black Sea. I'm almost reduced to my original 4 supply centers.
France is dominating. England controls the northern seas but doesn't seem to be able to do much with it. Germany is on the edge of elimination. A-H and Turkey are moving against France in the south and not doing so badly.
Finally I decide, it's at that point in the game where my natural instinct is to hole up and defend, except that'll get me killed, and I need to strike out and try something unexpected. I move my fleet from Barents to Norway. I make an attack on Rumania, attempting to get Peter's support. And I move northward out of Warsaw, hoping Matt will let me take Munich from Germany. Unfortunately, letting Peter know I was vacating Warsaw did not work out so well. A-H and Turkey moved against me. Britain took Sweden from me (so as it happened we both broke our alliance at the same time). And a gambit of abandoning Sevastopol to take Armenia doesn't work out because Turkey was moving into Sevastopol and oops it's the fall. In spring, it might have helped, but...
As Turkey takes over my homeland, I'm reduced to a single fleet in the Barents sea. Oscar "concedes" (rather, holds, knowing he's going to be eliminated). Instead of pulling back to Saint Petersburg like people expect, however, I move into the Norwegian Sea. England naturally is annoyed. My next move, it's the fall, so I attempt to move into Norway, fail because of a standoff, and am eliminated for having no supply centers.
I left after that; apparently Matt got very close to actually winning via supply centers, but apparently it would have taken a while and the other players conceded.
Notes on this game:
This is the second game that's been played here this year, and in the first Matt was Russia. Some people complained how he got the two good countries both games, but it was random.
Russia really is like Stark.
Winston has yet to compare Diplomacy to Starcraft.
Rules mistakes:
We played controlling supply centers wrong - apparently, you need to control it in the end of fall to take control of one, and don't lose it until someone else takes control of it. We played taking control correctly, but thought you lost control as soon as someone else moved in. Also we thought attacking a convoy, rather than disloding it, cuts it, but I don't think that came up.
Annoyances:
This is an old set that Youlian has, and there are no markers for control of supply centers; you just have to remember or write it down or something.
Looking things up, apparently the rules aren't entirely consistent and nonambiguous. Gah. To game designers everywhere: Write your rules algorithmically, not as a collection of constraints! Whenever they next reprint the game, they should change the rules so they actually work. Admittedly such situations are rare (and certainly didn't come up), but also just in general the fact that the rules are written as a collection of constraints rather than algorithmically make it annoying to figure out what's happened. Rather than following a process, in effect you have to solve a puzzle.
Notes on the game in general and comparisons to AGoT:
Russia really is like Stark. (I said that already, but it's relevant again.)
It's really hard to get many units in this game. Not something I like about it, I must say. This combined with the fact that it's hard to attack anyone by yourself make making an expanding front a difficult strategy, it seems. Also I think standoffs are way too common.
Since there's no "defend" order, you may as well attack somewhere unlikely to succeed as hold (as long as noone's supporting your hold, and you're already hostile to the person you're attacking, anyway).
Unlike in AGoT, you can't try to draw someone's strong cards out to make them weaker later. The house cards in AGoT don't seem to do a lot, as it's rare that there are more than 2 good choices, but they really do add a lot to the game, it seems.
Most games of AGoT start off not so diplomatic as people take what they can, or attack each other, and then grow more so as you start to get more than 2 people along a border and people need to attack areas that are heavily defended. Here it seems the reverse happens (well, Matt made it sound like it happens in general), where people need diplomacy to get anything done at the beginning, but eventually someone gets overwhelming force and it breaks down.
Though longer, the game actually plays faster than AGoT as all the decisions are made before orders are revealed.
Navies in the north don't seem to do a lot unless you're England; it seems most of the convoying action happens in the Mediterranean. And convoying obviously isn't anywhere near as powerful as in AGoT...
So, definitely interesting. Definitely want to play again. So far I think I probably like AGoT better on balance.
-Harry
(Also, yesterday, and the day before, there was like noone in the lounge, except to play Smash, until yesterday suddenly people materialized to play Diplomacy! What happened? There was never time for anything other than Smash or Diplomacy...)
[0]Nominally, it was Brita and Mike K "as a team", but Mike didn't actually do anything past maybe some stuff on the first turn. Though he did stick around as the World Series was on.
[3]First-year Steve, not third-year Steve who is now RA in Graham. In general "Steve" will now refer to first-year Steve unless otherwise specified.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 12:46 am (UTC)I actually enjoy playing Italy the most. Italy has some cool moves it can do that are effective only because nobody can ever see them coming; everyone expects Italy to play passive or stick to the script.
Diplomacy really is one game where psychology is probably more useful than math.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 08:37 pm (UTC)Well, OK, that's different from Stark.
I actually enjoy playing Italy the most. Italy has some cool moves it can do that are effective only because nobody can ever see them coming; everyone expects Italy to play passive or stick to the script.
As a first-time player, I just wish I knew what this "script" is.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 02:07 am (UTC)2) That is a component of AH's arguably best opening: F(Tri)-Ven A(Vie)-Gal
A(Bud)-Ser. (or so says the internet)
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 04:27 am (UTC)Of course Russia is like Stark
Date: 2008-11-04 04:41 am (UTC)Josh Z