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World DipCon VI: |
World DipCon was a most interesting experience for me. I've been playing Diplomacy by e-mail for so long that I forgot what playing face-to-face over a real board was like. The "board" that I use is just an electronic map on the computer. I own the game, but I never unpacked it from whatever box I put it in last time I moved. I can't recall when the last time I played face-to-face Diplomacy before World DipCon was, but it can't have been more than once or twice in the more-than-a-decade it's been since I graduated high school. It had been long enough that playing with "real people" had a certain novelty to it.
From conversations at WDC, I got the impression that some people believe that the differences between face-to-face (FTF) and play-by-e-mail (PBEM) Diplomacy could make some people better players in one medium and other people better in the other. I argued something a bit different from that view -- that while the two media do differ, the essence of what makes an excellent Diplomacy player remains the same. The ingredients are being an excellent diplomat, an excellent tactician/strategist, a bit suspicious, throw in a dab of intuition, make sure you don't have too many scruples in the mix, add a good amount of practice, and so on. (This isn't a complete list, but I don't want to give away the recipe since those who already have it might get upset.)
It's true, there are differences. The dynamics of the game are quite different. The games generally have completely different time frames; FTF Diplomacy turns occur on the order minutes while PBEM turns happen on the order of days. Having orders due every 24 hours is "fast", every 72 hours is typical and once a week is not terribly rare. Obviously the ability to bide one's time in composing messages (and in particular composing good lies) to other players changes how the game is played.
Another difference is the increased amount of anonymity in PBEM Diplomacy. There are different levels of anonymity in PBEM Diplomacy: it is easy for players' identities to be hidden from one another (generally referred to as "gunboat" in the PBEM community and "anonymous" in the FTF community but don't ask why or you'll start a fight), and consequently a large majority of PBEM Diplomacy games are anonymous. It is also easy to play games with no "press" or verbal negotiations (called "gunboat" in the FTF community; again, don't ask) and these are quite common.
In games where you do have press, you can't tell when two other people (say, your best ally and your worst enemy) are off in a corner talking (about you, perhaps?) the way you can in FTF Diplomacy. Furthermore, in PBEM games where you do know the identities of other players, the fact that you sit at a computer not seeing the faces of other players imposes a certain amount of unremovable anonymity. This too, makes for a different dynamic. It's easier to lie to somebody who can't look you in the eye. One might find it easier to stab a player who is on a different continent rather than across a table.
In some senses, your environment has less impact on a game when you play PBEM Diplomacy. You never have to end the game early because you have to be somewhere, or because you need to have dinner, or go to sleep. You just wait until tomorrow. On the other hand, the fact that time is less of a constraint may work the other way as well. When playing FTF Diplomacy, the game is your primary focus, while in PBEM Diplomacy, you are interleaving your play with any number of other things that take up your time.
There are other differences as well, but my aim is not to take a full inventory of the differences. Rather, I acknowledge that there are differences which affect people in different ways, but I believe that making that statement is not the same as saying that somebody who is excellent at PBEM Diplomacy may not be good at FTF Diplomacy or vice versa. I think that somebody who is truly an excellent player can be excellent in either medium. Because of the different dynamics, I'd expect it to take a few games to adapt one's approach and style from one medium to the other, but when I say a few, I mean maybe five, maybe more, but nothing like the number it would take to become an accomplished player in the first place, in either medium.
In support of my view, I'll submit the 1996 World Diplomacy Champion: Pitt Crandlemire. Not only was this year's champion a PBEM Diplomacy player, but he made the transition perfectly from game one without even needing those few games to adapt. Being a PBEM player obviously did not hinder him to a great extent, and he had the qualities that it took to win the tournament.
I can also draw from my own experience, as a not-quite-as-accomplished player at World DipCon. My performance at World DipCon was tepid. I got eliminated from the first two rounds of the tournament. I believe that this was due not only to the high quality of my competitors (though that surely had something to do with it), but primarily because I was simply not accustomed to FTF play and its dynamics - how to interact with people, how to make use of information I didn't have access to in PBEM Diplomacy (such as seeing faces and knowing which players are talking to who) and so on. But being a relatively good player (my opinion, of course), I was able to learn and adapt relatively quickly. My performance at the one-round variant tournament was far better (tied for second place) and my performance in the third round of the regular tournament was far better as well.
At the risk of sounding like I'm saying "just gimmie another chance; I know I can do it!", I believe that if I were to play another couple of FTF games and then attend another three-round tournament of the same level as World DipCon, my performance would be notably better. I might manage to not get eliminated at all, and perhaps pull off a couple of draws or possibly even a win. I certainly don't think I'd come in near first, but that would be because I wasn't be the best player there and not because I'm a PBEM Diplomacy player.
In many respects, postal Diplomacy is more like PBEM Diplomacy than FTF Diplomacy, though postal play does have it's own unique aspects as well. Although I drew from my own experiences and focused on PBEM and FTF Diplomacy, my statements about the common underlying essence of a skilled Diplomacy player across media should extend to postal play as well.
While these commonalties lie within the player, the play of the game does differ for reasons I mentioned above. I would say that the difference that struck me the most (though not necessarily the one that had the greatest impact on my game) was the human factor, the interaction with other people, which simply does not occur to the same extent in PBEM Diplomacy. In a large gathering such as World DipCon, this interaction happens not only within a game, but outside the game as well.
Upon arriving at World DipCon, I introduced myself to Manus Hand, a good friend of mine with whom I'd corresponded by e-mail extensively but whom I'd never met in person. I also got to meet other people I "knew" (such as Pitt Crandlemire, Larry Peery, Jamie McQuinn), people who I previously would have called acquaintances but whom I'd now call friends.
I also met people I didn't know, both inside and outside of the games I played. I met a couple of past world Diplomacy champions, one of whom nearly managed to get a solo win in a game without having formed a single alliance. I met a player who had a chess master-like familiarity with the game. For instance, he knew things like how long it takes for Italy and Austria to eliminate Turkey using different Lepanto openings if all players play "optimally". Most players could figure that out given a board and some game pieces, but he just knew it off the top of his head.
I encountered a player who was so stupendously stubborn that even his ally could not reason with him despite obviously "illogical" play such as using three units to protect a single distant supply center while his home centers were being overrun by a player who was growing dangerously large. Ultimately, frustration among others led his close ally and his main foe to mend their differences just so that they could team up and eliminate him. I also ran into a couple of garden-variety terrorists who enlisted the help of a third player by threatening to take out that player and throw the game to an enemy alliance unless that player worked with them.
While you occasionally get an inkling of a player's personality in PBEM Diplomacy, playing across a table has an entirely different feel to it. In general (though there have been an exception or two), I don't look forward to a PBEM game in the hopes of playing with a particular person, and interactions with players (say, striking up a conversation) outside of a game are even less common. However, I'm already looking forward to my next FTF gathering, because of the social aspect that PBEM Diplomacy does not present. I'm hoping to be able to make it to the next US DipCon next March. If you run into me there, introduce yourself. If you find yourself in a game with me, remember: you can trust me. Really.
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Simon Szykman (simon@diplom.org) |
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