right on, let's get rid of all stats and just give everyone a vdip trophy and certificate

Yay for participation trophies!!

I've played all of one 1v1 game and it was a much different game, so in that sense I think separate stats for 1v1's are needed, as 1v1's are a fundamentally different game. It's hard for me to compare my stats with say PE's or fasces349's stats to see how I measure up as a diplomat.

Oh look, another thread where people arbitrarily decide something is bad and ban it without thinking it through.

Gunboat is chess, should we remove all gunboat stats as well? Public press is incomplete, shouldn't we remove those as well? FoW is a completely different game, throw it out, oh and not all the variants are balanced so throw them out too.

You're on a website with literally >50 variants that are all very different games from one another and you want to throw out stats for six of them. That makes sense.

ok, let's just throw out Eden's stats then ...

Wow nice moves there PE.

PE, all I'm saying is, that the stats have no use to me if I can't compare my play to yours. Out of your 166 wins, how many are 1v1 wins? I have 4 games won, 1 of those is 1v1. I simply have no way to compare my play to yours with the current lump sum stats. Banning 1v1 stats (which is absolutely NOT what I said) is a terrible idea. More stat categories is the idea I put out there, to capture the stats across the variety rather than equate the varieties of games. Is a 1v1 win equal to a known world variant win or a modern II win in your book?

Do you propose including 50+ stat categories for wins/draws/defeats?

@PE - Nobody said "ban". Where do you see "ban"? And gunboat is not chess. Chess doesn't have communication and alliances between players using their moves as indicators. 1v1 is chess.

Maybe we could do stats by primary variant or at least player count. 2 players, 3-5 players, 6-9 players, 10-15 players, >15 players...

@2WL - I posted just as you posted. Do you like the 5 categories by player size breakdown?

Not really, since it doesn't take into account the imbalances inherent in the variants. Stats are more straightforward on webdip, but on here, wins are imbalanced even between different countries on the same variant. Does a win as Japan count as much as a win as Turkey on Colonial? And that's just one example. IMO, a win is a win and if you take stats too seriously on VDip, you're hopeless :)

"PE, all I'm saying is, that the stats have no use to me if I can't compare my play to yours. Out of your 166 wins, how many are 1v1 wins? I have 4 games won, 1 of those is 1v1. I simply have no way to compare my play to yours with the current lump sum stats. Banning 1v1 stats (which is absolutely NOT what I said) is a terrible idea. More stat categories is the idea I put out there, to capture the stats across the variety rather than equate the varieties of games. Is a 1v1 win equal to a known world variant win or a modern II win in your book?"

Of course not. No win in one variant is equal to a win in another. You'd need stat categories for every single game. There's no reason not to count 1v1s if you're not going to make separate categories for each and every variant.

"@PE - Nobody said "ban". Where do you see "ban"?"

cypeg was talking about banning 1v1 stats from the total counts. You and I should both be able to understand that just because someone doesn't use the exact word that I do that the sentiment is still the same.

"And gunboat is not chess. Chess doesn't have communication and alliances between players using their moves as indicators. 1v1 is chess."

You missed the point. Gunboat is a separate game which is essentially what chess would look like with 3+ players. If we want to be literal (you do seem to prefer it, so let's extend it literally), neither of them are chess, as chess has more than 2 unit types and only one kind of terrain. The point stands: they're different games, just like 1v1 is, and singling out 1v1 is silly.

"Maybe we could do stats by primary variant or at least player count. 2 players, 3-5 players, 6-9 players, 10-15 players, >15 players..."

So the 34+-player group has Chaos and WWIV? I don't think those stats are going to be useful at all, Chaos and WWIV are enormously different games. Grouping them by the number of players doesn't work because the number of players is only one of *many* variables that differentiate variants from one another.

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I stand by what I said before: each variant is VERY different from the other variants. Fleet Rome completely changes the dynamics of standard Diplomacy - and the only change was *one starting unit*. You're not going to have meaningful statistics unless you group by individual variant. That's just the fact of the matter, I'm afraid.

1v1 differs from other variants enough that I'm willing to argue that it should a separate stat. If we want stats at all, at least have some usable stats. PE has an incredible 1v1 record, which he has taken the time on his profile to update as a separate group of stats, why? Because those stats are important and useful when separated from the lump sum stats.

I actually would be highly interested seeing extensive stat breakdowns for myself and various people across the variants and sorted by countries played. I readily admit this is far too much to ask for unless I wish to volunteer to do so myself (which I'm tempted to do but I need to finish my thesis first). However, it would be nice to be able to break things down some. We already have a variety of stats about the variants themselves, why is it crazy to want stats about player history on the variants?

I think simply separating 1v1 stats would be sufficient to make the stats more usable, but I also think YCHTT's (tempted to just call you by your webDip name as it's easier) proposal of separating stats by player count is quite useful as well.

That's an incredibly arbitrary line to draw. For one, just "1v1" stats is misleading. Within the 1v1 subgenre of games you have:

* a game with entirely different units, concepts of "supply" and a different victory condition (Lepanto);
* a perfectly symmetrical game (Duo);
* and 3 different variations on the standard map with different degrees of balance (GvI, FvA, E*vT)

They're all radically different games. Just separating 1v1 doesn't go far enough.


I don't think it's crazy to want player history stats on the variants or any other statistical breakdowns. It's just (presumably) a lot of work for Oli and company to make something meaningful. Again, simply splitting by player count doesn't work, because you have Chaos and WWIV in the same group, Modern and World IX possibly, the Fantasy game is in there somewhere with its multiple levels of play... there are too many variants with too much variety to simply lump them into "x number of players play the game" groups.

Sure..
I wasn't aware (not having played many 1v1 games) of the first 2 (lepanto and duo) and considered lumping GvI, FvA, and EvT into one stat to be doable. There is also a civil war variant (the only one of the 1v1 games I've played). Seems there are two other classic based variants GvR and frankland vs juggernaut as well. So I see your point there.

However, one of the reasons to separate the 1v1 games is the sheer numbers of 1v1 games that can be completed compared to the multiplayer variants. The 1v1 statistics overshadow the multiplayer variants because of quantity when they are lumped with the other variants. On that point alone I feel it's relevant to say that 1v1 games should be separate as they unbalance the lump sum statistics for those who play them often, simply because of volume.

OK, so since draugnar.com is the new stats home (not a rating system, just stats) for webdip.com, I will volunteer to develop a full breakdown stats cube site starting with the "by player" stats fully broken out. I'm rather busy doing analytics cubes for work right now, but will jump on that of Oli can either send me a dump of a cleaned up DB or give me read only access to it via a named pipes or TCP connection. All I need are the game results and who was in them for what I want to do right now. I'm not interested in openings as 50 variants with 3 press types and 2 game types (live versus non-live) would be 300 potential game types to anaylize all the hundreds of possible openeings in each. No thanks. Way to massive of a cube...

So, Oli, if you can please set up an account with read only access to just those couple of tables, I can set up a cube on my own SQL server that will keep track of the 50 odd variants (gibve me access to that list to so it will self adjust as the list grows, please) by player, by press, and by live/nonlive game type. It will be both detailed and aggregate reporting so you can twist and turn it and see it any way you want.

gg. I'm okay with this

I think instead of hosting this stuff on a different site we should add a better stats page here.
If someone with enough PHP skills want to give it a try send me a message.
You should be able to setup a local Apache-PHP-MySQL-webdip install. I can give an anonymized PHP-dump of the database so you have some data to test your code with.

Well, then I'm out. I offered my site and services because I know ASP.Net like no one's business. But if you want to turn down a professional's offer to help for free and beg for PHP help which you may never find, so be it.

that's begging?

I thought it was a very cool offer, but honestly I don't know how many people would go to another site just to check stats. If it's possible, I think a stats page here would be better, and would get more use.

Gee, took that a bit personal, don't ya think, YCHTT?

No, just explaining I don't do PHP and have no desire to learn something rarely used in the business world. And I'd really have to hate to write all those SQL aggregates when I could build an SSAS cube in a fraction of the time.

And it could easily be integrated into the current stats page with a web service from my site feeding an AJAX call. No need to leave the site ot get the stats, just a relatively simple change to the current states page.

The macro-difference among 1vs1 and any other multiplayer variant is Diplomacy itself.

1vs1 games are exclusively about tactics: the best “general” wins.

Multiplayer games (either no-press or full press) are about tactics AND Diplomacy: the best “diplomat” wins.

Because of this I’d prefer to see the two scores separated, but I’m grateful with YCHTT if he wants to work on something more accurate.

About multiplayer games:
Well, in the past I pointed out that something like 60-70% of games are affected by CD.
The NMR-affected games percentage is about 90% .
So, pity, usually “the best diplomat wins” is unnecessary true, but “the player closest to NMR-CD countries wins” is something closer to reality.
I’m not saying: “let’s take into account only flawless games”. I am aware that stats have sense only if the sample is big enough. I’m just saying that games stats don’t have to be taken so seriously… they’re just… indications.

A good diplomat can use any situation to his advantage, even a CD on the far side of the map.

my original thought was as DEcima said
"The macro-difference among 1vs1 and another multiplayer variant is Diplomacy itself"
nevertheless What I have done in my settings is to list the games I played (except 1v1). It is something I find useful rather than an endless scrolling of pages to find Where that player actually won solos.
And to be honest I will think twice how t deal with someone who won Chaos than someone who has fun winning 1v1.

Again... there are a lot of significant differences that are worth factoring out as well. I'd agree that the macrodifference is probably the biggest, but even within that, again, 1v1 has a lot of depth, 3-player games have depth, 7-player games have depth, etc. The type of diplomacy done in those games is radically different. In a 3-player one it's all about how well you can get two people entangled against one another and set up for one big play. In a 7-player one, you're talking about having to do immediate diplomacy to get an early ally and strategic diplomacy to prepare to cut him out later, or ensure there's a lane for mutual expansion after the initial target. In 34-player ones, you're basically testing how well you can form and manage large blocs of alliances. The macrodifference is still the biggest, but the other differences are big enough that they all ought to be factored out as well at a minimum.

And even *that* said, I stand by my original two points:
* Not counting stats for any of those groups is absurd;
* There's really no point to differentiating the stats at all if we're going to be incomplete, so we ought to separate them out by each variant.

I'm willing to do that in such a way it could be incorporated into the stats page if Oli is willing to work with me here and not insist it be done in the page's code. It can be done with a simple Div tag that get's it's HTML from a URL. jQuery and AJAX are more than capable of doing this and doing it easily. All I need is read only access to the games and their player list. A simple SQL query splits pulls in a list of games completed with that player in it, then I run the aggregates against it, format it into whatever structure is desired, and pass back the HTML to be included as the DIV's .innerHTML.

With AJAX, I could even provide a series of drop downs that would let the user pick variant, game type (Live or non), and press. If they selected "all" for any of the options, all the records for that breakdown would be aggregated together, so you could still get a total over all but selecting all for all three options.