As hard as it is to not take it personal and be angry. It's really unfortunate when people consider being stabbed a waste of their time. Yes you feel betrayed but that really is the game.
I think it's forgiveable in the moment; Diplomacy is a game that really brings out emotions especially when an ally you've been invested in for a month suddenly stabs you. The player and I talked a good deal after the game, and they'd definitely gotten over it. Although I haven't heard from them in a long time now, we did part ways on good terms!
It's one of those things, in a social and mechanical game which is also quite competitive, being betrayed hurts. Same thing happens in any zero sum game
I played France in this game. The following is reported from post-game chat on Discord. Key moment #1 - Munich in Autumn 1901. Negotiations had been going well with England and Germany. G had accepted my warning of a move to Burgundy and no fleet was in English Channel. I knew England was going to bounce in Holland and Germany proposed a F/G bounce in Belgium, leaving me with a big decision. Diving for Munich would severely alienate G and create a reputation of me as a greedy, opportunistic player. Both of these downsides had potential to haunt me for the rest of the game, making it near impossible to form a strong alliance like A/T eventually did, but I went with it anyway. Fleet Brest was 100% off the table afterwards to reduce the probability of E/G. Key moment #2 - Autumn 1902. I had placed my fleets in Mao and Spa(sc), a personal favorite of mine for its flexibility. With no clear advantage to be gained from a retreat to Tyrolia after discussing with A/I, I didn't have too hard of a time deciding how to continue. Swapping Munich for Belgium and sending forces into the Med against a faltering Italy would keep E/G at war and reasonably balanced while I could make a play for Tunis. Couldn't ask for more! Key moment #3 - Stab on England. This one was provoked mostly by builds with some greed mixed in. E claimed Fleet London was a precautionary measure and would backfill North Sea, but this didn't add up in my mind. If it were really going to North Sea, building in Edi and remaining consistent with the previous anti-G press would have made more sense. If it were defensive, demanding a bounce would be a solid continuation. Combined with the Fleet Berlin build and my read that an unsupported move to Tunis would succeed, I knew what I needed to do. Donny, I swear I don't generally like turning on allies (cooperative rivals, as Swordsman would say) for only one center like this, but the situation has arose where it ended up making the most sense on two occasions for us now. Asiago, Fleet Berlin was just what the doctor ordered to salvage your game. Key moment #4 - Marseilles in Autumn 1903. It was only at this point, seeing Black-Constantinople from the prior phase, that I really began to respect the power of A/T. I needed a Southern fleet build to defend. Austria needed all three of his armies to force Venice. The 1901 Munich trickery was coming back to haunt me, as I was convinced there was a high probability of a delayed retaliation by Germany in Belgium. All signs pointed to leaving Marseilles unguarded. Still, it took nerves of steel. Would Austria reach the same conclusion thinking from my perspective and make the dive? I was nervous watching the minutes and seconds tick to zero and felt deep regret when I first saw I was in possession of 7 centers rather than 8. Never before had I been so excited to discover that I had lost Tunis. I did not consider sending Brest towards the South in the following phase as Captainmeme suggested. I judged an England allowed to linger on 3/4 centers as more dangerous than a potential A/T breach of Tunis and eventually Wms/Gol. I joked with G about the potential of us being EATen. Key Moment #5 - Fall of Munich, second edition. I didn't care for the German convoy to Livonia and didn't mind the prospect of Austria in Munich all that much. It would give the Archduke that much more strength to counter an eventual Turkish stab, which at this point looked like it might net the Sultan over 50 points under SoS. My rant to Turkey about being unwilling to support hold Munich was genuine, though I'm satisfied that it turned out to be slightly effective as reverse-reverse-psychology. Key moment #6 - Reaction to the Turkish stab. My goal was simple: minimize how many centers T could take to maximize the value of my own holdings. I figured A/G were incentivized similarly, so I aggressively tried to organize moves for all three of us, perhaps to the point of being annoying, but succeeded anyway. My follow up plan was to support myself from Munich to Tyrolia, leaving the center in Austria's hands to better fight Turkey, while prioritizing supporting Austria in Rome/Naples over conquering Tunis for myself. I did not anticipate being able to take centers off of either Germany or Austria for fear of supercharging Turkey, except maybe in 1910 when alliance play goes out the window in this format. Key Moment #7 - Draw vote. At the time, I felt this was a no-brainer. Even with F/G/A coordination, Turkey looked poised to control Ser/Tri/Vie/Ven with uphill battles ahead for the triple alliance in Rom/Nap/War/Mos. I judged myself as picking up either Tunis only or nothing at all. In hindsight, I think Turkey and I were both pessimistic about our own prospects in a continued game. In particular, I disagree with Captainmeme's prediction of German War/Mos long term. I think G would have maintained some sort of a rear guard against me, motivated by distrust that started so long ago in Munich, leading to him influence War/Mos at most by support holding Austria. Public draw vote politics surely played at least a secondary role in the game ending right where it did. Major props to Cougs for identifying and inflaming F/T insecurities. Last but not least, a shout out to Captainmeme for posting his excellent video!
It was great to play against you, and thanks for writing up the AAR! The downside to videos like this is that you only get one player's perspective; there was a lot of interesting stuff happening on your side of the board throughout too. I'm glad you were in the game, I think you played exceptionally well! And I'm going to try to be a bit less down about my chances in future :D
WOW! I stumbled across this, having never played a game of Diplomacy in my life. No idea how I got here. This was THRILLING. Thanks for four hours of top-notch entertainment.
I love this video the tactics, drama, pure entertainment. I found diplomacy a month ago because my GF had to play it for her random college elective and I have kinda fallen in love with the commentary to these games. I’m thinking of playing but I’m not sure yet. Anyway this was amazing thank you for sharing this game it has honestly proved all of the entertainment for my day.
Trying out a new commentary format! I'd appreciate hearing any comments/thoughts on it - it's not as easy to make as the post-game streams, but I'd be down to do more if people enjoy. Apologies for the heavy breathing at parts and the big black squares on the screen at others - I was fighting a cold for part of the month, and the squares are there to prevent anonymity issues with another game I'm playing.
DiploStrats this video was awesome. I hope you make more commentaries in this style! It was an exciting play by play that one can’t normally get in Diplomacy. Nice work.
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm actually in the early stages of making another one of these at the moment, but it's likely at least a month and a half away from completion right now. Unfortunately this style of video is waaay more time consuming to make than anything else, so they're never going to end up being as regular as the standard commentaries.
Great video. It’s a real treat to be getting such quality Diplomacy content. I very much hope that you will be doing this on a regular basis. That being said, I am still looking forward to seeing a game where Italy and Austria employ some decent strategy rather than offering Turkey a monstrous position on a silver platter (which is of course not to say that you didn’t display great skill in exploiting the situation).
If I have the free time, I'm planning to do at least 3 more of these before May 1st (the deadline for finishing Nexus games) - hopefully one of them has a strong A/I :D Maybe I draw one in one of them, I sure hope so because Austria is one of my favourite countries to play.
Don't ever stop making videos, man - they're fantastic! I haven't seen anything this intense since the first few seasons of GoT! It's just a shame you had to show people the trick of editing the html to fake screenshots ... but I guess democratizing deception tactics will ultimately lead to better play.
Glad you enjoyed it! It's comments like these that keep me making them :) I figured the editing trick would be a small bonus for anyone who managed to make it all the way to the end. 4 hours is a long time to watch and not all that many people watch it all the way through, so the tactic still shouldn't be that widely known :D
In the middle of working towards a solo on my first game (non-anon but online with people I dont know well), and trying to get ideas. The video was super enlightening. But the screenshot editing... that's going in the arsenal. I knew it was possible to do, but I didn't know it was possible for ME to do.
Glad to hear it! I actually just finished the last recording of the next one of these last week. It might not be up for a couple weeks yet but it's coming!
I know this is an old video but I just stumbled across it as I just re found web diplomacy after 2 years of being gone. I am so excited to see more of your videos and get back into the game.
I love this, thank you for analysing your own game, I am new to diplomacy and I have recently made a bunch of mistakes in terms of talking to players that I'm antagonistic with, this has helped me recognise what i did incorrectly.
My friends and I are all new to this game and just started one. Seeing this play out at a higher level is very interesting to see the potential of how the game can evolve, given enough practice. I am Turkey, which is how I stumbled on this video.
Glad it's interesting, and I hope your game goes well! I'm actually not certain how well this video comes off to new players, so I'd be interested to hear any feedback in that respect :D
@@DiploStrats I haven't played before so I didn't pay much attention to the movement tactics (the convoy kidnapping is a notable exception), BUT the press aspect of the game was very compelling even for newcomers. It was not only very useful for learning how to do press well (or badly in the case of russkie), but also an emotional rollercoaster. Quite a sad note to end in though...
@@DiploStrats I don't know if videos this long are okay. I watched the whole thing and it seems like long form content can find an audience, but newcomers would probably prefer your post commentaries. I haven't seen one, but I assume they are shorter and tighter.
@@nahometesfay1112 Aha, the postgame commentaries are not much shorter. This channel has long videos all around! I'm really glad to hear that the press was interesting/useful. I don't make this kind of video much, this kind of press analysis takes a heck of a lot more time and effort than the usual one - but it's always awesome to hear that that effort made for a good watch!
The first game that I ever won on web diplomacy was an Austro-Turkish alliance that went from the start to the end of the game and ended with a Franco-Austro-Turkish draw
Would really like another one of these. One can practice tactics through brute force, but the nuances of the actual diplomacy are absolutely fascinating.
I'm in the process of making one now, for the Media Wars game (a game between 7 Diplomacy content creators). It'll be a while, because the game is still a long way from completion and it's going to take a lot of editing down afterwards - we're currently in F05 and my current footage is a little over 4 hours in total so far - but it'll come out eventually!
Good Grief 4 hours? I worry about my 20 minute videos being too long! :D Seriously great stuff here, would love to do a commentary collaboration with you sometime!
Glad you enjoyed it! And I guess Diplomacy players tend to be down to watch longer videos :D I really enjoy your stuff and I'd absolutely be down to do a commentary collab at some point!
That is reasonable and very possible - the more casual opening conversation definitely doesn't work for everyone and maybe I put him off by talking so much before getting to moves/alliances. An important part to Diplomacy negotiation is responding in kind - if someone is very heavily tactics-oriented, talk tactics to them - and I probably failed in that aspect in talks with Russia, but in this case I just really didn't want to work with someone who was giving me so little to go off. Even when we did start talking tactics (re: the Black Sea, you can see his response at 15:51 ) he was very terse and not very open to discussing the moves in detail or putting forward any kind of plan.
It was an interesting video and I'd enjoy more. But d not fear, I didn't watch it all in one sitting and I alternate between playback speed 1.5 and 2. ;)
Turkey is 1 of my favorite country. An alliance with Russia is very dangerous but if you open with Russia, play a Juggernaut. Eng is also very useful. Open with Eng to Norway, pressure on Russia
Yeah, was forced into this alliance as well, Russia and Italy attacked me but I was able to play them and ally with turkey(and after a short small backstab before re-working with turkey) I got the balkans and eventually italy while Turkey got russia and Tunis. I wanted to turn on turkey but Turkey got hte black sea and italy then France prevented me from getting to the ionian. At that point killing turkey wouldve been impossible, and England was massive to Turkey and I worked for a 3 way draw
I did watch all the way to the end. Obviously, a gunboat would be much less time-consuming to watch (as well as to play). If you do play any gunboat, I'd be interested in watching. (Gunboat varies more from site to site than any other variant, because of what illegal moves are allowed and whether draw votes are public.) I have a game going at each of WebDip, PlayDip, Backstabbr, and BOUNCED.
I still don't play much gunboat, and I'm not sure my skill level in it is at the point where I'd want to make a video in this style. We're quite likely to commentate some Gunboat tournament finals in the usual style soon though!
Honestly, while I agree with your logic. For me I would not have turned on Austria, I like play that is unusual in all games. Not "meta" or "best for me" necessarily. It would have been awesome for you both to pull out a duo instead in my mind. It is interesting to see his chat, he is quick to emotions, which was easy for you to play into.
@@nahometesfay1112 but the alliance didn't hold, even in this situation which has both players doing very well and liking one another. The problem is the exact thing everyone knows about this alliance, that Austria is too easily stabbed by Turkey.
@@kinglyknight Are you saying Austria didn't benefit from the alliance? Imagine what would happen to Austria if Turkey teamed up with Italy instead. Alliances don't have to last forever to be worthwhile.
The flaw is that the alliance only works as long as turkey doesn't just stab. The proposal is almost always a loss loss for Austria. Decide to ally with turkey until Russia is defeated, then you get caught up fighting turkey for years, stalling your side of the board. Stay with turkey and dominate leading to an endgame that stalls with all your forces committed to the front line and completely at turkeys mercy. The only possiblity I see is if you managed to break Italy early and get turkey through to Iberia, while turkey commits to entirely navy, with a single army build being seen as a stab. In terms of the question "does this alliance work" the answer is yes. For Turkey, but the problem is it is almost always a bad decision for Austria over Austria's alternative allies. This video asks the question "does it work" and we see within the video Turkey is just waiting... Year to year always ready to stab, and if Austria wants to win he can't position himself in a way to protect his own centers, there are alliances that don't share that weakness.
@@kinglyknight I think this would have worked if this was not in a tournament format as in a one and done game there is no reason for turkey to stab Austria in this situation as there is no benefit to stab over declaring a draw
Got 3 more Nexus games to play; I don't know whether I'll have the free time to record all of them but I'm going to try to record as many as I can. I'm glad you enjoyed this one!
SPOILER ALERT: Considering that you ended up in a draw it would have been better to take the draw with austria a an ally rather than making him angry in my opinion.
From a personal standpoint, probably. I really like the guy; we've talked a fair bit and made up since the game! I wouldn't have stabbed in a more casual setting. But in the context of the game itself, because it was scored by Sum of Squares, I still scored ~50% higher than I would have done with the straight 4-way. The only way I was scoring that much without stabbing was if we managed to push through the stalemate line, and I don't think France/Germany would have let that happen - so while it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, from the tournament perspective, I think it was the right move.
@@DiploStrats OK so you indeed got more points by the "stab draw" instead of the immediate draw? I thought it would be nearly the same so I wondered. However, I am not familiar with the rules of this tournament so apoligize.
@@martinmartin6300 Sum of Squares is a scoring system that rewards you for being far ahead of your competition in SC count, so I ended up taking 43 points (out of 100 total) from this board - France got 29, Germany and Austria got 13 each. Prior to the stab my position was worth about 26 points, so it was a pretty big leap. It's not the best scoring system out there, since you do gain a fair bit by stabbing just for SCs when you can't solo, but since these games end at 1910 you really need a center-based system, if you give equal points to everyone in the draw then in the last few years you'll always get the larger powers ganging up on the smaller ones to eliminate as many as possible before the game ends.
@@DiploStrats What's wrong with big nations taking out the smaller ones? Isn't that kinda the point? I think a 3 way draw is more decisive than a 5 way draw with a stab.
This game was using a scoring system called 'Sum of Squares' - you square your SC count (let's call that N), then add it to the squares of everyone else's SC counts (call that total T). Your score is P * (N/T), where P is the size of the prize pool, usually 100. It's a bit complicated to figure out but essentially - it's a scoring system that rewards you a great deal for keeping the rest of the board as divided as possible while you grow.
Captain, I'm not in this game, but I could have been. I'm in another SNT4 game on Webdiplomacy. Don't you think you might give away something you wouldn't want to?
Yes and no. If someone watches this video and then identifies me in a game, yes, they'll have a much better understanding of the way I think and that may well cause me problems - but on the whole I'm not too bothered about that because: - I don't play that much Diplomacy anymore (I'm only really playing games for commentary purposes right now) - Even if I did, I think having resources like this out there is important enough that I don't mind taking the potential hit for it Hopefully it's worth the watch :D I hope your game goes well!
I love how Austria was about to get stabbed and saved themself by being excited.
As hard as it is to not take it personal and be angry. It's really unfortunate when people consider being stabbed a waste of their time. Yes you feel betrayed but that really is the game.
I think it's forgiveable in the moment; Diplomacy is a game that really brings out emotions especially when an ally you've been invested in for a month suddenly stabs you.
The player and I talked a good deal after the game, and they'd definitely gotten over it. Although I haven't heard from them in a long time now, we did part ways on good terms!
It's one of those things, in a social and mechanical game which is also quite competitive, being betrayed hurts. Same thing happens in any zero sum game
I played France in this game. The following is reported from post-game chat on Discord.
Key moment #1 - Munich in Autumn 1901. Negotiations had been going well with England and Germany. G had accepted my warning of a move to Burgundy and no fleet was in English Channel. I knew England was going to bounce in Holland and Germany proposed a F/G bounce in Belgium, leaving me with a big decision. Diving for Munich would severely alienate G and create a reputation of me as a greedy, opportunistic player. Both of these downsides had potential to haunt me for the rest of the game, making it near impossible to form a strong alliance like A/T eventually did, but I went with it anyway. Fleet Brest was 100% off the table afterwards to reduce the probability of E/G.
Key moment #2 - Autumn 1902. I had placed my fleets in Mao and Spa(sc), a personal favorite of mine for its flexibility. With no clear advantage to be gained from a retreat to Tyrolia after discussing with A/I, I didn't have too hard of a time deciding how to continue. Swapping Munich for Belgium and sending forces into the Med against a faltering Italy would keep E/G at war and reasonably balanced while I could make a play for Tunis. Couldn't ask for more!
Key moment #3 - Stab on England. This one was provoked mostly by builds with some greed mixed in. E claimed Fleet London was a precautionary measure and would backfill North Sea, but this didn't add up in my mind. If it were really going to North Sea, building in Edi and remaining consistent with the previous anti-G press would have made more sense. If it were defensive, demanding a bounce would be a solid continuation. Combined with the Fleet Berlin build and my read that an unsupported move to Tunis would succeed, I knew what I needed to do.
Donny, I swear I don't generally like turning on allies (cooperative rivals, as Swordsman would say) for only one center like this, but the situation has arose where it ended up making the most sense on two occasions for us now. Asiago, Fleet Berlin was just what the doctor ordered to salvage your game.
Key moment #4 - Marseilles in Autumn 1903. It was only at this point, seeing Black-Constantinople from the prior phase, that I really began to respect the power of A/T. I needed a Southern fleet build to defend. Austria needed all three of his armies to force Venice. The 1901 Munich trickery was coming back to haunt me, as I was convinced there was a high probability of a delayed retaliation by Germany in Belgium. All signs pointed to leaving Marseilles unguarded. Still, it took nerves of steel. Would Austria reach the same conclusion thinking from my perspective and make the dive? I was nervous watching the minutes and seconds tick to zero and felt deep regret when I first saw I was in possession of 7 centers rather than 8. Never before had I been so excited to discover that I had lost Tunis.
I did not consider sending Brest towards the South in the following phase as Captainmeme suggested. I judged an England allowed to linger on 3/4 centers as more dangerous than a potential A/T breach of Tunis and eventually Wms/Gol. I joked with G about the potential of us being EATen.
Key Moment #5 - Fall of Munich, second edition. I didn't care for the German convoy to Livonia and didn't mind the prospect of Austria in Munich all that much. It would give the Archduke that much more strength to counter an eventual Turkish stab, which at this point looked like it might net the Sultan over 50 points under SoS. My rant to Turkey about being unwilling to support hold Munich was genuine, though I'm satisfied that it turned out to be slightly effective as reverse-reverse-psychology.
Key moment #6 - Reaction to the Turkish stab. My goal was simple: minimize how many centers T could take to maximize the value of my own holdings. I figured A/G were incentivized similarly, so I aggressively tried to organize moves for all three of us, perhaps to the point of being annoying, but succeeded anyway. My follow up plan was to support myself from Munich to Tyrolia, leaving the center in Austria's hands to better fight Turkey, while prioritizing supporting Austria in Rome/Naples over conquering Tunis for myself. I did not anticipate being able to take centers off of either Germany or Austria for fear of supercharging Turkey, except maybe in 1910 when alliance play goes out the window in this format.
Key Moment #7 - Draw vote. At the time, I felt this was a no-brainer. Even with F/G/A coordination, Turkey looked poised to control Ser/Tri/Vie/Ven with uphill battles ahead for the triple alliance in Rom/Nap/War/Mos. I judged myself as picking up either Tunis only or nothing at all.
In hindsight, I think Turkey and I were both pessimistic about our own prospects in a continued game. In particular, I disagree with Captainmeme's prediction of German War/Mos long term. I think G would have maintained some sort of a rear guard against me, motivated by distrust that started so long ago in Munich, leading to him influence War/Mos at most by support holding Austria. Public draw vote politics surely played at least a secondary role in the game ending right where it did. Major props to Cougs for identifying and inflaming F/T insecurities.
Last but not least, a shout out to Captainmeme for posting his excellent video!
It was great to play against you, and thanks for writing up the AAR! The downside to videos like this is that you only get one player's perspective; there was a lot of interesting stuff happening on your side of the board throughout too.
I'm glad you were in the game, I think you played exceptionally well! And I'm going to try to be a bit less down about my chances in future :D
WOW! I stumbled across this, having never played a game of Diplomacy in my life. No idea how I got here. This was THRILLING. Thanks for four hours of top-notch entertainment.
I love this video the tactics, drama, pure entertainment. I found diplomacy a month ago because my GF had to play it for her random college elective and I have kinda fallen in love with the commentary to these games. I’m thinking of playing but I’m not sure yet.
Anyway this was amazing thank you for sharing this game it has honestly proved all of the entertainment for my day.
Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Austria is adorable.
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Trying out a new commentary format! I'd appreciate hearing any comments/thoughts on it - it's not as easy to make as the post-game streams, but I'd be down to do more if people enjoy.
Apologies for the heavy breathing at parts and the big black squares on the screen at others - I was fighting a cold for part of the month, and the squares are there to prevent anonymity issues with another game I'm playing.
Also, if it looks really blurry, give it an hour or so and then come back. It's still processing at the moment :D
DiploStrats this video was awesome. I hope you make more commentaries in this style! It was an exciting play by play that one can’t normally get in Diplomacy. Nice work.
Those first messages with Russia. Love the guy. So cold.
That's one way to play Diplomacy. Only accept unconditional surrender from your opponents.
I love this style of video, where we actually get to see a full high-level game play out. I hope you make more of this type of content in the future!
I'm glad you enjoyed it! I'm actually in the early stages of making another one of these at the moment, but it's likely at least a month and a half away from completion right now. Unfortunately this style of video is waaay more time consuming to make than anything else, so they're never going to end up being as regular as the standard commentaries.
@@DiploStrats Yes, haha, I can imagine they are much more time consuming than a typical 2-3 hour commentary. Make them as much as you can or want to!
Great video. It’s a real treat to be getting such quality Diplomacy content. I very much hope that you will be doing this on a regular basis.
That being said, I am still looking forward to seeing a game where Italy and Austria employ some decent strategy rather than offering Turkey a monstrous position on a silver platter (which is of course not to say that you didn’t display great skill in exploiting the situation).
If I have the free time, I'm planning to do at least 3 more of these before May 1st (the deadline for finishing Nexus games) - hopefully one of them has a strong A/I :D Maybe I draw one in one of them, I sure hope so because Austria is one of my favourite countries to play.
Don't ever stop making videos, man - they're fantastic!
I haven't seen anything this intense since the first few seasons of GoT!
It's just a shame you had to show people the trick of editing the html to fake screenshots ... but I guess democratizing deception tactics will ultimately lead to better play.
Glad you enjoyed it! It's comments like these that keep me making them :)
I figured the editing trick would be a small bonus for anyone who managed to make it all the way to the end. 4 hours is a long time to watch and not all that many people watch it all the way through, so the tactic still shouldn't be that widely known :D
In the middle of working towards a solo on my first game (non-anon but online with people I dont know well), and trying to get ideas. The video was super enlightening. But the screenshot editing... that's going in the arsenal. I knew it was possible to do, but I didn't know it was possible for ME to do.
Excellent commentary, I would love to see more like this!
Great stuff. Always good to see a less common alliance like A/T work out as far as it did.
I loved this video. Watched it all in one sitting. Could you please do more?
Glad to hear it! I actually just finished the last recording of the next one of these last week. It might not be up for a couple weeks yet but it's coming!
@@DiploStrats Looking forward to it :)
I know this is an old video but I just stumbled across it as I just re found web diplomacy after 2 years of being gone. I am so excited to see more of your videos and get back into the game.
I love this, thank you for analysing your own game, I am new to diplomacy and I have recently made a bunch of mistakes in terms of talking to players that I'm antagonistic with, this has helped me recognise what i did incorrectly.
My friends and I are all new to this game and just started one. Seeing this play out at a higher level is very interesting to see the potential of how the game can evolve, given enough practice. I am Turkey, which is how I stumbled on this video.
Glad it's interesting, and I hope your game goes well! I'm actually not certain how well this video comes off to new players, so I'd be interested to hear any feedback in that respect :D
@@DiploStrats I haven't played before so I didn't pay much attention to the movement tactics (the convoy kidnapping is a notable exception), BUT the press aspect of the game was very compelling even for newcomers. It was not only very useful for learning how to do press well (or badly in the case of russkie), but also an emotional rollercoaster. Quite a sad note to end in though...
@@DiploStrats I don't know if videos this long are okay. I watched the whole thing and it seems like long form content can find an audience, but newcomers would probably prefer your post commentaries. I haven't seen one, but I assume they are shorter and tighter.
@@nahometesfay1112 Aha, the postgame commentaries are not much shorter. This channel has long videos all around!
I'm really glad to hear that the press was interesting/useful. I don't make this kind of video much, this kind of press analysis takes a heck of a lot more time and effort than the usual one - but it's always awesome to hear that that effort made for a good watch!
The first game that I ever won on web diplomacy was an Austro-Turkish alliance that went from the start to the end of the game and ended with a Franco-Austro-Turkish draw
Nice job! It's a really hard alliance to maintain for that long.
Would really like another one of these. One can practice tactics through brute force, but the nuances of the actual diplomacy are absolutely fascinating.
I'm in the process of making one now, for the Media Wars game (a game between 7 Diplomacy content creators). It'll be a while, because the game is still a long way from completion and it's going to take a lot of editing down afterwards - we're currently in F05 and my current footage is a little over 4 hours in total so far - but it'll come out eventually!
@@DiploStrats That's great to hear, thanks.
Oh wow, I haven't checked if you've uploaded recently. Happy to see you have and loving the fresh Diplomacy content!
Wonderful game commentary! I hope to see more of this in the future.
This video is fantastic so far! Well done I'm half way through and i fell as if i learned a lot. Thank you!
Good Grief 4 hours? I worry about my 20 minute videos being too long! :D Seriously great stuff here, would love to do a commentary collaboration with you sometime!
Glad you enjoyed it! And I guess Diplomacy players tend to be down to watch longer videos :D
I really enjoy your stuff and I'd absolutely be down to do a commentary collab at some point!
Hey I always found it utmost interesting how games evolve; especially regarding press too.
आपके कमेंट्री का अंदाज बहुत ही मनोहर होता हैं, मुझे बहुत अच्छा लगता हैं!
I'm 2h45min in and I'm really invested in the Austro-Turkish bromance... Tell me there's a happy ending here 😅
🥲
9:35 I think that Russia may have been more interested in talking about moves and alliances and wanted to stop talking.
That is reasonable and very possible - the more casual opening conversation definitely doesn't work for everyone and maybe I put him off by talking so much before getting to moves/alliances. An important part to Diplomacy negotiation is responding in kind - if someone is very heavily tactics-oriented, talk tactics to them - and I probably failed in that aspect in talks with Russia, but in this case I just really didn't want to work with someone who was giving me so little to go off. Even when we did start talking tactics (re: the Black Sea, you can see his response at 15:51 ) he was very terse and not very open to discussing the moves in detail or putting forward any kind of plan.
It was an interesting video and I'd enjoy more. But d not fear, I didn't watch it all in one sitting and I alternate between playback speed 1.5 and 2. ;)
I watched all of it now. Pretty exciting stuff!
Turkey is 1 of my favorite country. An alliance with Russia is very dangerous but if you open with Russia, play a Juggernaut. Eng is also very useful. Open with Eng to Norway, pressure on Russia
Yeah, was forced into this alliance as well, Russia and Italy attacked me but I was able to play them and ally with turkey(and after a short small backstab before re-working with turkey) I got the balkans and eventually italy while Turkey got russia and Tunis. I wanted to turn on turkey but Turkey got hte black sea and italy then France prevented me from getting to the ionian. At that point killing turkey wouldve been impossible, and England was massive to Turkey and I worked for a 3 way draw
I did watch all the way to the end. Obviously, a gunboat would be much less time-consuming to watch (as well as to play). If you do play any gunboat, I'd be interested in watching. (Gunboat varies more from site to site than any other variant, because of what illegal moves are allowed and whether draw votes are public.) I have a game going at each of WebDip, PlayDip, Backstabbr, and BOUNCED.
I still don't play much gunboat, and I'm not sure my skill level in it is at the point where I'd want to make a video in this style. We're quite likely to commentate some Gunboat tournament finals in the usual style soon though!
@@DiploStrats How about Broadcast-only? That's a fascinating exercise human diplomacy.
This was excellent, thanks!
Honestly, while I agree with your logic. For me I would not have turned on Austria, I like play that is unusual in all games. Not "meta" or "best for me" necessarily. It would have been awesome for you both to pull out a duo instead in my mind.
It is interesting to see his chat, he is quick to emotions, which was easy for you to play into.
so this shows the alliance can't work
It worked out great. The four countries that formed long term alliances ended up doing way better than the 3 that didn't.
@@nahometesfay1112 but the alliance didn't hold, even in this situation which has both players doing very well and liking one another. The problem is the exact thing everyone knows about this alliance, that Austria is too easily stabbed by Turkey.
@@kinglyknight Are you saying Austria didn't benefit from the alliance? Imagine what would happen to Austria if Turkey teamed up with Italy instead. Alliances don't have to last forever to be worthwhile.
The flaw is that the alliance only works as long as turkey doesn't just stab. The proposal is almost always a loss loss for Austria.
Decide to ally with turkey until Russia is defeated, then you get caught up fighting turkey for years, stalling your side of the board.
Stay with turkey and dominate leading to an endgame that stalls with all your forces committed to the front line and completely at turkeys mercy.
The only possiblity I see is if you managed to break Italy early and get turkey through to Iberia, while turkey commits to entirely navy, with a single army build being seen as a stab.
In terms of the question "does this alliance work" the answer is yes. For Turkey, but the problem is it is almost always a bad decision for Austria over Austria's alternative allies.
This video asks the question "does it work" and we see within the video Turkey is just waiting... Year to year always ready to stab, and if Austria wants to win he can't position himself in a way to protect his own centers, there are alliances that don't share that weakness.
@@kinglyknight I think this would have worked if this was not in a tournament format as in a one and done game there is no reason for turkey to stab Austria in this situation as there is no benefit to stab over declaring a draw
Please record future games as well :)
Got 3 more Nexus games to play; I don't know whether I'll have the free time to record all of them but I'm going to try to record as many as I can. I'm glad you enjoyed this one!
@@DiploStrats yes, great commentary. Would be awesome to have more of these.
2:18:05 Coronavirus confirmed
Great stuff though, keep it coming!
SPOILER ALERT:
Considering that you ended up in a draw it would have been better to take the draw with austria a an ally rather than making him angry in my opinion.
From a personal standpoint, probably. I really like the guy; we've talked a fair bit and made up since the game! I wouldn't have stabbed in a more casual setting.
But in the context of the game itself, because it was scored by Sum of Squares, I still scored ~50% higher than I would have done with the straight 4-way. The only way I was scoring that much without stabbing was if we managed to push through the stalemate line, and I don't think France/Germany would have let that happen - so while it left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, from the tournament perspective, I think it was the right move.
@@DiploStrats OK so you indeed got more points by the "stab draw" instead of the immediate draw? I thought it would be nearly the same so I wondered. However, I am not familiar with the rules of this tournament so apoligize.
@@martinmartin6300 Sum of Squares is a scoring system that rewards you for being far ahead of your competition in SC count, so I ended up taking 43 points (out of 100 total) from this board - France got 29, Germany and Austria got 13 each. Prior to the stab my position was worth about 26 points, so it was a pretty big leap.
It's not the best scoring system out there, since you do gain a fair bit by stabbing just for SCs when you can't solo, but since these games end at 1910 you really need a center-based system, if you give equal points to everyone in the draw then in the last few years you'll always get the larger powers ganging up on the smaller ones to eliminate as many as possible before the game ends.
@@DiploStrats What's wrong with big nations taking out the smaller ones? Isn't that kinda the point? I think a 3 way draw is more decisive than a 5 way draw with a stab.
@@DiploStrats I'm glad you two made up! It would be kinda silly if he held that against you outside of the game. Are you two still in touch?
Great game, but the ending is...meh. You are such a bad person! VERY BAD! But fantastic player, respect 👍
That's Diplomacy for you! I probably could have stuck with the alliance for longer but pooooooints...
How do the points work? Why did you take 43 points from this one?
This game was using a scoring system called 'Sum of Squares' - you square your SC count (let's call that N), then add it to the squares of everyone else's SC counts (call that total T).
Your score is P * (N/T), where P is the size of the prize pool, usually 100.
It's a bit complicated to figure out but essentially - it's a scoring system that rewards you a great deal for keeping the rest of the board as divided as possible while you grow.
lovely video
Captain, I'm not in this game, but I could have been. I'm in another SNT4 game on Webdiplomacy.
Don't you think you might give away something you wouldn't want to?
Yes and no. If someone watches this video and then identifies me in a game, yes, they'll have a much better understanding of the way I think and that may well cause me problems - but on the whole I'm not too bothered about that because:
- I don't play that much Diplomacy anymore (I'm only really playing games for commentary purposes right now)
- Even if I did, I think having resources like this out there is important enough that I don't mind taking the potential hit for it
Hopefully it's worth the watch :D I hope your game goes well!
ah! I didn't realise the game was over. Great video.
stopped at 59:56