No great 'zine is complete without statistics. In a recent poll on the rec.games.diplomacy newsgroup, I asked people to send me their preferences and opinions regarding different facets of Diplomacy. Let's take a look at the results, and see how you measure up to the average player of Diplomacy!
| Favorite Power | Least Favorite Power | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| France | 24% | Austria | 30% | |
| Austria | 18% | Italy | 24% | |
| Turkey | 15% | Turkey | 21% | |
| England | 14% | Germany | 15% | |
| Italy | 12% | Russia | 6% | |
| Russia | 12% | England | 4% | |
| Germany | 5% | France | 0% | |
One of the most interesting things I noticed when I first examined the results is that Austria is very high on both lists, being both second favorite and least favorite! It seems that people either like Austria, or they hate it. Russia is quite the opposite, being near the bottom of both lists. People neither strongly like it nor strongly dislike it. Italy was slightly more popular than I thought it would be, since many consider it to be the weakest country on the board. As for the most popular, France is the clear winner. In fact, not even a single person that France was their least favorite country.
There was also a small number of people who said they had no country preference.
At any rate, it would seem that personal style has a great deal to do with which country a particular person likes to play. After averaging out all results, a preference list from most to least favorite would be:
| Yes | Sometimes | No |
|---|---|---|
| 36% | 46% | 18% |
The "sometimes" category is quite broad, ranging from "almost always" to "rarely." Most of the people in this category stated that it depended on the other players in the game. At any rate, those who do role-play outnumber those who don't by a fair margin.
| White Press | 58% | Grey Press | 36% | Fake Press | 6% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Partial Press | 79% | Broadcast Only | 4% | No Press | 17% |
Many people indicated that a number of their games were merely mercy positions that they had taken over. I decided not include these in my calculations. In one instance, a player told me that he had been in as many as 40 games at a time, when mercy positions, takeovers, etc. were included. This would obviously have thrown my figures off.
| Only For A Win | 18% |
|---|---|
| For A Large Advantage Or A Kill | 39% |
| For Any Advantage | 37% |
| For No Reason | 5% |
One stabbing philosophy which deserves mention is that of Jim Burgess:
"Stabbing is part of the contract of the game. When you sign up for the game (unless you have a CareBear contract in which [agreeing with Dan Shoham -- shocker] only stabbing for the win is permissible) part of the implicit contract is that stabbing is permitted by the rules. Diplomacy players who have ethical standards strive for a strength of character whereby they will admit their stabs freely within the context of the game and any "bad feeling" will stay within the context of the game. Stabbing and being stabbed is fun, in my (humble) opinion."
Well said!
"I won, outright, the very first Judge game I signed on to, Empress, on USEF. In it I stabbed England and France twice, once on the same move, and managed to race to a win by 1906 or 1907. I am very proud of this."
I would be too. Here's an interesting tactic for gaining allies, sent to me by G. Broster:
"As Russia, I once came into the game at about 1905 and attacked Germany, England, Austria, and Turkey in my first turn. The next turn I had 4 offers of alliances sent to me."
"In a nopress game as Italy, in Fall 1901, I order F Ion-Nap instead of F Ion-Tun! Then someone posted to rec.games.diplomacy that in one of his games, some lamebrain had ordered F Ion-Nap!"
Andy has this bit of wisdom to add:
"I was in too many games at once. I used MacDip to click in my moves and I somehow misclicked it. I copied and pasted without checking the Judge reply, and I learned my lesson the hard way: always verify when the Judge accepts your moves."Another mistake many respondants had made was forgetting to occupy an SC through to the fall, or forgetting to occupy it altogether. Rick Jenkins writes:
"I forgot to recapture a SC that was mine to begin with, lost to another power and then vacated, ready for me to walk into. I had to remove a unit and that cost me the game."
Other common mistakes were trusting the wrong person too much and sending press to the wrong power. It seems even the best Diplomacy players have made and still make these mistakes. It's comforting, in a way.
This person wisely chose to remain anonymous. ;-)
I know that deep down, we all appreciate Joel.
Paul Davidson
(ae378@freenet.unbc.edu)
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