Just some things that bug in the average diplomacy game.

1.When you can't declare war.
Usually declaring war is viewed negatively. Often times the player that declared is attacked by half the players, even the ones that are halfway across the map. This is especialy true when a low-income player is attacked, but in my opinion, it's the player's fault for not securing an alliance with another player who can help protect him. That usually makes people afraid to declare war and leads the game to stagnation.

2.Group alliances.
Group alliances are often formed and usually have a huge chunk of players in them. Because of that two or more group alliances are formed which are too afraid to attack eachother and once again leave the game to stagnate.

3.How every war has to be fair.
I've mentioned how everyone usually teams up to help a small country, but when two small countries attack eachother apparently it's unfair to interfere, if you're a large nation, if you're an ally. The country that declared war should face the concequences, plain and simple. And gangbanging is also the player's fault for not securing good relations with neighbours.

4.How everyone treats every scenario as if it were a global, modern-day diplomacy.

5.Players that can't make a destinction between the player and the country/role they play in a game.

Making Diplo as my WL career , I see no major problem(s) with this. The problems mostly lies in rp not normal diplos.

If you don't want the hassle make your own diplo templates

Edited 11/14/2015 18:09:28

Omega is the most active template creator I know. This is from personal experience, of course.

#4 and #5 are some big problems.. I don't see much trouble on the rest.

Diplomacy is a mental game.

You've got to convince the right people not to attack you, and that the person you're attacking deserves it.

FFA rules ok ;-)

FFA FTW!

i am naive, what is FTW ?

After a quick stroll I noticed my first ever diplo game played had Colonel in it... c_c

And I spent half the game long plotting on killing him with a random guy I never saw again xD

1: +
2: Doesn't actually seem to be much a problem in the diplomacies I play in, you'd think so, but no.
3: +
4: Not usually a problem for me/don't notice
5: Not a problem. You can say I declare war on [WOLF] Zephyrum, or Brazil, what's the difference?

I could have elaborated a bit more on #5. Basically what I meant is that, if you declare war on a player you would be treated by him as a warmonger in all games you play together regarless of the scenario, country or role in it.

Ppl call you a warmongerer because they are jealous.

Solution : beat the crap out of them

A Diplo game move on Warlight would be a REALLY REALLY nice feature.

Wink wink, nudge nudge Fizzer.

The only thing that will correct this issue is democracy.

Omega I've definitely felt the pain of most of the points before. I've played in games where one person declared on someone else and then next thing you know literally everyone is at war with the attacker. After he was eliminated, nobody made a move for several turns because nobody had the balls to declare on anyone.

A minor yet annoying thing about diplo games is when people get booted and other gather their land and think they are masterful conquerors or something even though they did nothing to earn that land

1.When you can't declare war.
Usually declaring war is viewed negatively. Often times the player that declared is attacked by half the players, even the ones that are halfway across the map. This is especialy true when a low-income player is attacked, but in my opinion, it's the player's fault for not securing an alliance with another player who can help protect him. That usually makes people afraid to declare war and leads the game to stagnation.

In every diplo game I have played so far with one exception, people always support the attacker... did I miss something?

#5 in the definition assumed by xpabty generally applies to a person with a name like me(this creates minor confusion) Generally I'm either Japan or so far away from it that the game has to be in like end-game status before confusion can arise.

Generally avoided though.

Other definition: people hold grudges, if they maintain them across more than 5 or so games, just Blacklist them.

1,2,3 can be avoided by implementing special alliance and war rules into your template.

4 can be annoying, but avoided if you play a serious RP game, in which people playing as the state have done their background, and as such, treat it as such.

Edited 11/17/2015 05:33:22

I view most of my Diplo games as more Role-play than Diplomacy... Basically just finding creative ways to justify yourself and secure alliances. Do you do many ASOIAF diplo's?

Dameon's maps are especially good for this. Because of the lore that already exists, the Cities and forts dynamic, and the plentiful choke-points, I find that these are the most intensive and interesting diplomacy games. All of the diplo's I do on other maps (except perhaps Land of Kalador) seem to disintegrate into the problems you described above.

Anyways, at the end of the day it is Warlight, and only one player can win. So all diplo games usually end up heading that way.

Role play is the #1 thing I look for in diplomacies, but usually players just play to win. It's sad tbh fam.

Also sorry guy above, but only retards play fantasy diplos.

The way people play diplomacy games on Warlight is a really strange thing: they have set up a way to play which is riddled with problems, and keep hitting their heads against the same wall over and over.

This conversation (like this thread) happens over and over again, and somehow no one realizes that it's a natural function of the way diplomacy games are run as well as their rules.

Complex "declaration" and "PE" rules start the whole ball rolling, but then people try to fix the undesirable effects by making even more complex declaration and PE rules, until they're complicated enough that only about half the players understand them well enough to follow them. (It doesn't help that they're often poorly explained, not play-tested, or the players just *assume* that they know what the rules are because it's a "diplomacy" game, even though each one actually has different rules and objectives.)

I'm not knocking on diplomacy games: I'm in several right now, and I think the concept is great.

I DO think that people constantly complaining about the way the games go are barking up the wrong tree, however: the combination of the rules and the culture you are using ARE the very cause of the problems you describe.

The first thing that would need to be fixed is to understand that a competitive diplomacy game (like the Diplomacy boardgame) has completely different goals and needs (and therefore needs different rules) than a roleplaying game. In my experience, half the diplomacy players think it's a competitive endeavour and the other half think it's a roleplaying game. No wonder they clash!

Do everyone a favour, and, when you set up a diplomacy game, make it 100% clear what the objectives are: are we playing to win, or are we roleplaying? (Of course, you can still have roleplaying in a competitive game, but it's a "nice" bonus, not the point of playing in the first place.)