That second point is actually a good one that I never considered before, where people have to option to PM their neighbours in the pregame.

That would technically be metagaming that, absent of getting mods to read PMs (which we don't really want to do, due to how much the time that would take as well as privacy concerns), would be difficult to prove.

I think that RUFFHAUSE and Tom has a point here. But if you have a game with no anonymous players and a Nation goes into CD then someone who know a player in that game can join and then you also got all the problems. Or someone that is in a game and have another account can take over a nation and then you have cheating problems. I hope I'm wrong though.

you can most certainly join a game where you know others who are playing! It's also okay to have you and a buddy join a game. What you can NOT do is pre-arrange an alliance with that person. I once played in a game with my real life brother (who lives in a different state) and I stabbed him brutally. I would never make such arrangements ahead of time! For example, in the WW4 game I am waiting to start I happen to know several people from Redscape. There is no plan to work with them, there is no plan to not work with them. No doubt some will be allies, no doubt some will be enemies as well. By allowing players to select their power preference before the game starts you are encouraging such "cheating" in BOTH ways, players who are setting up prearranged alliances as well as allowing early signups to get a distinct advantage and contacting any others before the game started most certainly would be cheating. This condition is allowing multiple examples of cheating and in fact almost encourages it!

Some point to some incredibly MINOR reasons to allow such an option but the benefits of this are FAR fewer than the negatives, so much so it would seem to me only a cheater would argue for the option to be allowed, integrity should be more important than being able to play a nation of your choosing!

Tom -

To begin, anyone who is characterizing webdip as a bunch of noobs, and vdip as a bunch of metagamers clearly hasnt soent much time on either. Whike of course there ARE noobs at webdip and metagamers here on vdip, youll find those at any dip site that has a large membership. Anyone painting with such a broad brush ought to be ignored, just like everyone who calls all Republicans women-hating Bible-thumpers or all Democrats Socialists who want to destroy the fabric of society via gay marriage. Redscape largely avoids that with its smaller community where most people seem to know each other.

That being said, i agree completely with your assessment. Picking your own country opens up some very easy paths to metagaming. And whats worse is that many people would likely not even see it as such. Theyd assume that since theyre in-game, theyre free to discuss with their neighbors. And whike it is a useful tool for SRGs and tournaments, is it wise to allow such an easy path to cheating to remain so accessible? After all, its just as easy to PM a mod to ask them to assign people to certain countries. In my experience, thebmods have been more than willing to do so when requested.

If the mods feel thatd be too much of an increased workload, then why not empower some of the people? Surely theres many of us here who are known on thebsite and woukd be willing to step in and make changes like this if requested? Ill be thebfirst to sign up if needed.

Tom, you wrote many things that seem very interesting.

I would please like to offer you, and everybody of course, another point of view.

As far as I am concerned, I prefer most of the time a random country assignment. However, since I play very few games and since I absolutely don't have the time now to play more than one game at a time, I really appreciate to have the freedom to choose my country, especially on the WWIV map.

If two players decide to form an alliance before the game begins, which combination of countries should they choose in order to have the best benefits from their alliance ? Obviously, if they are immediate neighbours, they would enjoy great security in the early game. But of course, it could even be stronger to choose countries which are two, or even three, countries away so that they could easily target the same enemies and control a larger area in the middle game. Finally, it could also be very effective that the two players choose two countries that are as far away as possible so that the gains of their alliance will be maximum in the endgame. These possibilities already exist with very large variants like the 36-player WWIV(V6.2) variant.

Of course with smaller variants, like for example the 7-player Classic variant, any combination of two countries could give a tremendous advantage to a pair of players deciding to cooperate together.

What I am saying is that it is so easy to cheat that I don't see at all how choosing your country can even make it easier.

If you don't like choose your country games, just don't play them but please respect other players' freedom to play as they see fit.

You answered part of the one problem of why you wish to allow country preference to be allowed and I get that part...it's "nice" to play what you want. But you must look at the greater good. Is it better for the community as a whole or even the game as a whole to allow a person to feel good about his power draw? You make a very slight argument for this... a "feel good" reason only vs one of game integrity.

If your reason is people are going to cheat anyways so why not make it easier, that's defeatism at it's best!

And you fail to answer the maybe even more important part of this that allows the early to sign players to negotiate before the game even starts. Yes, you said it was considered cheating but 1. where is this written, 2. How many people know this? (again, I have a few pms from onlookers telling me this has happened to them) and 3. once again, why make cheating easier?

All in all, the pro's for allowing this are so few and so inconsequential vs preserving game integrity this should be a non-issue and this situation "fixed". As far as some website characterizations, no kidding that was a generality, I would not be here if I thought everyone were as stated, nor would I be at redscape if they were all one way either. But these characterizations have some basis in reality and if you have a way to improve this pointed out, it should be considered and frankly I have still not seen any good reason to allow this practice to continue, it's horrible and far worse than many might think. I have hosted well over 100 hand adjudicated games in my time, NEVER did I allow players to start negotiating before the game began, you have not seen any tournaments reveal a power or two before the game was formed, why not? Because it's not right, it's not simply "frowned upon" it's horribly wrong and considered so!

Hi Tom, if you have information pertaining to cheating allegations then please forward them to the mod forum.

That goes for the 'onlookers' to this thread as well, if you have experience where you have experienced meta-gaming, then the proper place to report this in in the mods-forum, where we will investigate your allegations.

We take meta-gaming and multi-accounting seriously so please report suspicious activity when you experience it.

never having played here before, of course I have no accusations. I do understand and appreciate your determination to keep things on the up and up! I am not calling anyone a cheater, I am however saying cheating is made easy by this practice and several have mentioned this to me already. The problem I see is GLARING, as pointed out why allow a few "feel goods" be more important than game integrity?

Perhaps there might be a way to anonymise who is playing what country during game startup for non-anon choose-your-own-country games. I'll speak to Oli about this.

@ kaner406 : to anonymise who is playing which country would certainly be a nice option. However, please realize that it would in fact help cheating. Indeed, cheaters could tell each other which country they have chosen while other players will have even less information.
By the way, I also find that anonymous games help a lot cheaters compared to non-anonymous.

I still see some possible problems with that but it's a good idea.
Could you have the power assignments be anonymous yet still show the players who have signed on to play? For example, we have a couple WW4 games forming and people seem to interested in who is playing in those games. That makes sense and certainly is important to know. So if you can have the actual players shown but the power assignments blanked out it would help. But even then, as I typed all this out, if a game forms, I am the first to join and pick Germany...everyone knows I am Germany! That and ou still have the ability of players to form alliances ahead of time ("Bob" and "Joe" want to cheat, they sign on and pick nations that allow them to work together well and they work out their early negotiations even though the game assignments are still unknown) But it certainly is better than now and is a good start.

I've never thought about it much, but what I can say is that a small proportion of games on this site are actually played in this setting. However, I don't think it matters. One thing that I like about this site is the flexibility to create and play in games which suit your preference. There's many a variety of different game-experiences you can have because of this. What is importanta is that it is an option. If it was default setting I could see your point, but if it is only an option then who cares if some people enjoy playing that way. Retillion is right, if someone is going to cheat, then they are going to cheat, plain and simple. I don't think the feature should be removed as an effort to end all cheating though, because I don't think it will stop anything. Keep adding alternative settings and options!, it's what makes this site special in my opinion.

OK, I guess you are right. If they are going to cheat then let's make it easier for them to do so, don't make it harder for them and don't try to lessen a bad reputation. Hey, cheaters need a place to play as well, so why not it be here? Sounds like a plan.

Ok, I think the central point behind this entire childish argument is that Tomahaha and those who agree with him are pissy because they think that the option to choose allows cheating and that it should be taken off entirely.

I believe that in order for Tomahaha's statement to hold true, one must assume that all people who play in choose your own power games immediately begin the act of cheating as soon as the next powers are input.

Now let me rephrase this concept: It is POSSIBLE and ONLY POSSIBLE that there may be some sort of cheating involved in this.

That is not to say people are cheating. I would have to agree with whoever said, "If you don't like it, don't play it." Forgive me, but if you don't want to join a game, then don't join it. Don't take away another player's opportunity, simply because you feel that if you were player G, you would be immediately screwed. The fact that you keep saying the same damn thing again and again means is redundant.

Guys let's just let this go.

(And to the person who claims that 1v1 are not diplomacy, shame on you for thinking that....

I think Retillion made a good address on the concern about pre-game negotiations and cheating. He pointed out correctly that pre-game negotiations and alliances can happen regardless of whether you know your countries beforehand or not. Cheating will occur as long as two people, known to each other conspire to do so. There is thus no linkage between the difficulty of cheating and the option of choosing your countries. That is why in my previous post I talked about the problem-solution gap in your policy.

I disagree with the idea that its just as easy to cheat when countries are jot known. Especially on large maps.

Let's use then new wwiv map as an example. Say 3 buddies want to cheat. they decide to pick Indonesia, south Africa, and Oceania. Quite easily they crush Australia, and then boom, they own then south east end of the board. An easy defensible positikn, and in reality, nothing looks that amiss since I'm sure that's happened before. Now, let's see them replicate that if they pulled central states, Oceania, and Russia. Random countries, especially on large maps, can definitely cut down on potential cheating since the cheaters might not be physically able to help each other due to the large map.

As for this statement by Retillion:
"Obviously, if they are immediate neighbours, they would enjoy great security in the early game. But of course, it could even be stronger to choose countries which are two, or even three, countries away so that they could easily target the same enemies and control a larger area in the middle game. Finally, it could also be very effective that the two players choose two countries that are as far away as possible so that the gains of their alliance will be maximum in the endgame."

Quite frankly, if someone is resorting to cheating, they almost always suck at diplomacy. The only way they're successful is cheating. so picking countries far apart would just end up in them dying. No, they'd pick countries very close like Australia/Oceania or countries only one spot removed like Indonesia/Oceania, otherwise they couldn't stand on their own. Making it easy for them to pick adjacent countries and actually be able to effectively cheat is silly.

I call again for the empowerment of some of then well known people on here. Let those people have then power to assign countries when asked for SRGs and tournaments. To leave as is is asking for people to take advantage of it. How would everyone who's advocating for then status quo feel if theoretically someone arranged via private email to meta game with a few others in a world game and ran the table because of it? You'd be unable to prove it, and we could do it REAL easy with then setting of picking your own country. We could dominate a hemisphere within years and no one would have any idea we're cheating at least with random selection, we wouldn't be able to set up a perfect storm of conditions to do so so easily.

So you wish to allow cheating, you wish to buck the norms and do things differently here, you choose to make cheating easier to do, wish to maintain the reputation of metagaming and cheating? Hey, if that's what you like, then certainly keep things the way they are and do nothing, look the other way.

You want to maintain this, then any suggestion brought up is a "childish argument" while your differing opinion is of course superior. But to anyone who enjoys the game as a hobby, your position is flat out WRONG. It is not accepted by anyone who is even half-serious about Diplomacy. And the reasons to allow this have not been good ones yet, "feel good" and "people are going to cheat anyways" are pretty poor reasons to continue, game integrity and a step towards further such integrity are what you want if you want to be serious, if you want decent competition. I'm sorry if my observation is "Childish" but I think I have a lot of clout on my side and know what I am talking about.

Why create a game site? They're all going to cheat. If you give them the option to play a game, of course they will cheat!!! The reasons to allow playing games on this site have not been good yet, "feel good" and "people are going to cheat anyway" are pretty poor reasons to continue. Allowing us to play a game ruins the game integrity!! You can't allow us to play games if you want decent competition!!

If you want to maintain this, then any suggestion brought up is a "childish argument" while your differing opinion is of course superior.

I'm sorry if my observation is "Childish" but I think I have a lot of clout on my side and know what I am talking about.

Oh, and to anyone who enjoys the game a hobby, your position is flat out WRONG.

Come on guys! Stop ruining this beautiful game by allowing us to play it!!

(sarcasm btw...)

ummm, who says you can't play the game? How does requiring a person to have a power randomly assigned hamper him from playing? Again, yet another bad example to try and prove your point. If you want the site to get better and better game play and better opponents, then you simply need to accept what better opponents expect. If you want to cater to cheaters and childish players, then by all means continue to turn away better quality of player and embrace the newbie feel good mentality. If that's your choice, then by all means do nothing. And honestly, if this is what you want you niche to be, then do nothing. As players get better then many will search for better competition and leave the site. Hey, that's ok if that's what you want. my understanding however is the site wants to grow and get a better name for itself, I guess I was wrong?

How about you just let people have the choice to play with choose their own countries. You don't have to play games with that setting, but why would you block other people from playing with that setting if they wanted? It's not as if you will be forced to play in one of those games.

General Cool -

Tom is making his arguments because he feels it is bad for Diplomacy as a hobby if this setting gains acceptance amongst a portion of people who play Dip.

A similar analogy would be thus: Let's say you play college football in the Big10. The SEC decide to legalize face masking and purposely targeting helmets. Should you be concerned? After all, you don't have to play there, so why be worried? Why not let them play with the rules they want to? Or perhaps you should be worried because its bad for football as a whole?

Minus he real life consequences of potentially bad injuries, tom is making the same argument. letting people get used to and accepting choose your own country is bad for diplomacy as a hobby in general.

exactly. I fully understand wanting to choose your power and even agree with THAT aspect to a degree. But is frowned upon elsewhere and is not the norm, it certainly DOES allow cheaters to prosper as well, so why allow it when the cons far outweigh the pros? But yet again, we have so many concentrating on the one aspect only, you have an equally (and maybe even worse?) situation whereby those who sign up early are free to negotiate with other early joiners. Those who come late to the party are disadvantaged and like it or not, that is cheating! Simply saying people should not do this is silly, you are encouraging that sort of behavior while it's so easy to do away with. This is a two pronged problem not just one, both issues stem from the allowance and as such, this is a BAD idea to allow!

and allowing a situation that is thought of as bad does nothing for the website but allow that stink to rub off on all games. And yes, it is most certainly a stink, frowned upon and distasteful to anyone who plays as a hobby. To those who only play a game and really don't care, this is fine. Hell, to these people NMR's are fine, it's only a game to them and not the end of the world. Would you want to encourage NMR's as well? Of course not, so why allow this nonsense?

I guess we have quite a few diplomacy purists on this site.

Or, you know, just a bunch of people who want to encourage good play, less cheating, and quality Diplomacy instead of the crap that quite frankly, we see too often. People who are concerned with Diplomacy turning into a game where people think its OK to only send about 15 to 20 messages a game, or to respond with one line messages all the time. Maybe instead of focusing on little gimmicks like choosing your own nation, which serves no real, valuable purpose where the same thing can be done by mods if needed (and again, I'll volunteer to do this if the mods want), and instead focus on improving the play of people on here. Everyone benefits from better players, arguably no one benefits from a gimmick like choose your own nation. arguably, people get hurt since it DOES make cheating way easier. And can easily be uncatchable.

quality takes work, "feel good" requires no work
quality is not easy to achieve but is worth the work and worth the change.
"feel good" lasts only so long and encourages people to drop out when things get tough, you need to ask yourself what is more important to yourself. If you build a quality "product" people will find it and appreciate it, word will spread. If you build a lesser quality product you will no doubt sell some but it will not last and the lack of quality will eventually be known resulting in the product dying. What do those who take this game a BIT more seriously think of this situation that allows power selection/early negotiating? You will not grow the brands quality and it will eventually die.

Staus Quo is easy, growth is hard ...your call!

Regarding the ability to communicate before the game starts, that's a problem in any smaller variant. IIRC, I was given the other player's email addresses a little while before my Redscape game started, so I could easily have contacted one of them and negotiated an alliance before the game started. True, we couldn't have discussed specific moves, but since an alliance would have been worked out it would have been quick and easy to do so in the first turn, since I would not need to focus on securing an alliance.

The thing is, though, even if I was intending to do something like this I would certainly not do it with somebody I didn't know reasonably well, as for all I know they could report me for it (if it is against the rules - we are rewriting some of them at the moment so out-of-game communication will be on that list soon). Therefore, you end up with mainly friends doing so and so you revert back to the fact that they are metagamers anyway and so would be communicating beforehand that they wanted an alliance anyhow.

I know you don't like this response, but for you not to play this variant if you don't like it would really be the best solution to this. Some players like making sure they play a country that they haven't played before, or that has a certain style of play that they want to try out - for example, I chose Oceania in my first WWIV game because I wanted to see what such a sea-combat based nation would be like to play. It's a nice option in this respect, and there's really no more reason to disable it than there is to disable gunboat because that variant has an increased risk/effect of cheating. If you're not willing to take the slightly increased risk, don't bother playing it, but some people like the variant and so are willing to do so, as is the same with gunboat.

This is all from a player point of view, by the way, not a mod one. As a mod, I would be even more in favour of keeping it because the fact that most metagamers create exclusively CYOC games and pick neighbouring countries instantly makes the job of spotting them a bit easier :)