Nope, your statement only proves the point all the more. "try getting into" shows the offensive nature of the spaces. You want to prove people can get into spaces they otherwise could not and how this helps. But how can you hold such a space that was so much easier to gain? That and defense in general is for those in that defensive mode that simply do not have those extra units available. These lanes are heavily weighted to offense and offense only.

Are we supposed to be apologizing for playing offensively? How is making a game where players actually play to win a bad thing? The "sea-lanes" concept can be applied offensively and defensively on sea. It just requires some imagination and experimentation. It is worth noting that the lanes concept was created because the original map has design mistakes in it that lead to severe congestion in the oceans, which led to huge draws where solos were impossible to contemplate. Solos should be hard, but not impossible. Thus far in the game underway the sea-lanes appear to be doing exactly what they were designed to do. So yes, they are intentionally weighted heavily for offense. Is that a bad thing? Maybe the maps would less of the mega alliance and more real cooperation if offensive opportunities were made available? I like it so far.

http://vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=20562

Offense is not bad, never did I state that did I?
But defense is not a bad thing either and a well balanced game requires both. I think we all accept the standard game as darn near perfect? We want to emulate that design?
Well, the WW4 game in it's standard form resulted in a situation quite comparable to the standard game in many ways and that includes late game stalemates. Stalemates are a part of the game! Go to a tourney and you will find the vast majority of games end stalemated and solos are quite rare.

I will grant you the game will not end in a half plus one center finish. It will not end at 100 centers either! Basic game mechanics simply make this impossible and playing the game as it was intended to be played requires a lower number of centers to determine a solo victory. If you want to claim otherwise then you simply do not understand the way the game mechanics come into play.

If you want an offensive themed way to play Diplomacy, then this is it. But that being said, it is quite a different animal and is not played the same while the basic WW4 game is played the basic way. It also follows, if you want these sea lanes, then don't pretend it is the same basic game also accept it needs to be applied equally everywhere. The way this map is laid out we have several areas that are unaffected by the sea lanes and we have a big difference of how to play inland powers that is not fare in the least. It also makes developing any sort of power base on a coast you did not control early on very very difficult in the later stages of the game that is not the situation in the standard game.

So again, because you like it so far does not mean you looked at what has been happening outside your little corner of the world and does not mean the game is equal as was the base in designing the world as it has been designed. If you want to have such an offensive oriented game, that's ok, it really is! But surely you can see fixes are required and it is not balanced correctly at all. We found a solution to the stalemate problem! But it was found to be lacking as far as balance. Any who claim they like it so far is blind to the map irregularities. Why does South America have so many lanes attached to their centers making taking them so much easier (as was intended) but the eastern Coast of the United Sates and most of Europe do not have this same situation, it is easy to stalemate some areas and not others. Saying it's fine as is and starting a second run of the game when the mistakes (that are correctable) are so obvious is foolhardy!

And I can hear the complaints now regarding fewer centers result in not interacting with enough of the rest of the world. That's pure nonsense! If you want to emulate the standard game then you need to understand how the mechanics of the game play out and adding more powers is not a simple math formula where you add two times the players equals requiring two times the centers. It does not work that way.

Saying so does not make it so. The game statistics played here already bear out that I am correct. History and knowledge of the game developing larger and larger over time also prove this to be true. Stalemates are not the "problem" playing to too high a victory condition is the problem. One needs to understand the real problem and then work to fix things. If someone had lung cancer, is the fix simply to address ones cough? That's what is being done here.

All that said, if you like uber offense, then this variant is pretty darned cool for that! But even if you want the uber offensive game, it needs to be tweaked to apply equally to all. We are not there yet but it certainly CAN be done, just realize what you are doing and realize the game is not the same and is not any sort of "answer" to what was attempting to be "fixed".

Can we actually discuss the sea-lanes game please? Tomahaha's objections to tinkering with his design have been made perfectly clear over and over. He objected to this idea before there was a sealanes variant. It's well documented that he dislikes it. Shouting down the opinions of others is just rude. Before this turns ugly like everything else does here can we get some thoughts from others who are actually playing in the game, and have personal experiences with the new spaces?

http://vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=20562

Seeing as I'm already eliminated, I'll comment that I didn't really get a chance to experience much with them, although I did get to do the first convoy in the game. :-) I look forward to trying again.

No, I am not against tinkering in the least (or I would not have played, I am actually playing in it as well and I have some personal experiences that are as valid if not more valid since I can point to pros and cons and I understand the flow of the game). But when we see a problem, it doesn't go away by not talking about it. I pointed out some obvious issues, how about discussing those issues and not trying to simply dismiss them if they are counter to your own position.

Does the game heavily favor offense and make defense very difficult?
Is the map currently designed where the lanes affect all areas equally?

Both valid concerns and spelled out, if it turns ugly it's because you have trouble discussing things you do not agree with as is evident with your dismissal! Go ahead and spell out how anything I stated is wrong, that is what discussion is about not a simple group hug.

http://vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=20562

While my country in the game has not had use of the sealanes, I do agree with some of what Tom is saying although it is hard to draw any conclusions from this particular game.

I certainly do agree that sealanes favour the offence, which while not necessarily bad, makes me think that naval countries are going to have it tougher. Again, I am not sure if that rings true in this particular game.

An interesting situation is when two bordering naval powers are about equal in strength as see with Nigeria and Amazonia. Either power can leak into the other so it makes for more shaky alliances.

I can attest that Island nations have to go almost completely fleet just to defend again nearby sea-lanes. Which means they can't even consider convoying armies to the mainland or they get decimated as I did.

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The game will end up favoring fleet heavy nations in the end and it has already worked that way as it is. There are certainly many things we will not learn from only one play test. We had NMR's that will skew things, Eastern Asia went light on fleets and that could affect things wildly in another game, no to mention all the little things that will change from game to game. Much will not be known after one playing! That said, some things are crystal clear and already we can see several problems that "should" be fixed before another run.

Please do not take my criticisms as being all negative either! I said over and over that this detracts from defense, while that could be seen as negative to some, it can be a real sweet positive for others! It simply needs to be discussed and acknowledged as such.

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That's just plain nonsense Tom. So far most of the countries that have been eliminated were 'fleet-heavy'. Remember that there is no tranform option, so at some point being 'fleet-heavy' will become a burden, just as 'land-heavy' countries will have to gain some fleets otherwise they will stalemate on rather predictable stalemate corridors.

I feel the abundance of NMRs in this game has hampered any analysis of the concept in general, and that more games should be experimented with. We can still get an idea of the mechanics of it, and perhaps some ideas for tinkering with it. Yet, it makes sense to at least try a few games under different circumstances to see how things play out in a larger sampling. There is another game recruiting players now. My suggestion would be to shorten the game turns to allow for faster games. Another idea might be to lower the bet and (shudder) and RR for the game. This carries risk, but NMR are a way of life at VDip, and even the so-called dedicated games see waves of NMRs. Bottom line here is that the sampling size from a half played game is too early to draw any real conclusions.

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http://vdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=20562

I'm going to put forward a contrarian view and say the Sealanes actually generally fuck up coastal powers. Look at who's doing well: Illinois, Central Asia and Egypt. All of whom have/had no coastal SCs (I'll count Egypt as a non-coastal only by the fact he's expanded by land.) the next lot of players doing well got ahead largely by consolidating their land position (Columbia, Amazon, Nigeria) before projecting power into the open seas. Only the Philippines have done well as a coastal power.

Other predominately coastal powers are having a shit time eg japan, Australia, USA, Cuba (already gone), etc.

http://vdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=20562

I should've also included UK, Oceania and Indonesia in the list of powers gone who we're island based. Other strongly coastal countries getting shafted include Quebec, Thailand, India and a heap of other Asian, African and North American powers who have been and gone.

The Sealanes concept is great, but to make it fair and balanced Landlanes may be needed to even things up.

http://vdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=20562

It must, however, be noted that in most games (at least from what I’ve seen) fleet powers get screwed over anywaym Often times Philippines/Indonesia/Japan/Australia/Oceania end up fighting each other, thus making the elimination of most inevitable. I rarely see fleet powers in general do well in original map, hence I’d contend sealanes are good. It encourages fleet powers to expand aggressively as defense is untenable against a determined enemy of equal strength. Positionining and diplomacy become even more important.

I think more testing is necessary before we jump to conclusions though. I know for a fact thst several coastal powers that were eliminated were taken down because they focused too much on trying to project sea power and instead igored their landlocked rivals.

http://vdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=20562

Thanks Anon (from 1 anon to another), but I've often seen in the original map japan, Oceania and to a lesser extent Australia and UK do reasonably well.

Don't get me wrong I think Sealanes are an excellent idea and welcome the wholeheartedly to break up the traditional stalemates, but some similar concept is needed so land powers are equally exposed.

http://vdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=20562

Sorry after "welcome the" should be the word "change". Less drinking needed methinks!

Nothing changed as far as what was said and what has developed. The sea lanes are absolutely screwing up defenses and will continue to do so. It also doesn't change the fact that these lanes were not equally applied to all areas. How can anyone say the lanes make defense easier? That's simply not true, an offensive attack using these lanes will be FAR easier than trying to defend using them. The whole concept that brought them to us was to break late game stalemates!
It is clear in a few areas that this is indeed happening, it is also clear that some areas are lacking those same lanes. To say we need to keep experimenting when these two issues are so clear is nonsense and nothing more. We can learn everything we need to know from one play test, but to say we can't already spot these issues is only being ignorant of what is actually going on! How blind are some people here? They can't see what is under their own nose! So we can clearly see the US East coast and Europe have no such lanes to concern themselves with, but another several tests are required to see the obvious???

I am not saying this idea should be scrapped. I am saying we know enough to already tweak the map for a second go at things, we do not need to go on and on to see what is already clear! And I am also stating the offensive nature also needs to be acknowledged, the very nature of these lanes is one of added offense, pointing to a power or two who failed is not the litmus test, it's how the lanes were used to do so.

Japan NMR'ed early
UK has very few such lanes and none vs the continent
on and on, the examples you want is how the lanes were used, not the powers who lived or not

There is no harm in seeing this game go on, and others play out before jumping to make changes. Yes the game was intended to provide more offensive opportunities and that's not a bad thing. But yes we do need to go on to see how things work out. We also need to play more sea-lanes games to establish trends vs. anomalies. NMRs are just unpredictable. You point out that some nations NMR'd early, which only serves to prove that we need to see the game function when these nations contribute to the action. NMRs are not something that any design can account for so why you are noting it is weird. I would agree that the lack of sea-lanes against some continents spaces is something worth looking at and planning for.

http://vdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=20562

I am in near total agreement with the above. The only change is i feel further plays at this stage is foolish. Lets learn from this one and make the tweaks we can see the game is in need of. This will not be perfect even then but why keep playong something we already know needs adjusting?

Because even though my Indonesia got it's ass handed to it, I still had fun as did others I'm sure and we might learn even more tweaks so that instead of numerous small changes, we cam have a few bigger ones. When no safety or financial risks are in play, that is the preferred release schedule for software. QA continues testing and reporting issues while Engineering goes back and fixes the ones reported. Unless a true showstopper comes up that stops testing from continuing, QA keeps on trudging. Then when a sufficient number of high or medium priority issues are corrected, a new release goes to QA.

http://vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=20562

All I have to say is that my location sucks and I stalled too much in growth. Defense does feel very hard, but my location isn't the most defensible place anyway. I did mess up early game though.

Do you need someone to take over Kenya? If so, PM me the password and I'll see how badly I can lose.

Kenya only has 1 SC left with no unit to defend it. It's about to be taken by someone, so no point.

Crap, forgot the anon thing. Can someone delete that comment? Don't know if it's possible.

http://vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=20562
Kenya only has 1 SC left with no unit to defend it. It's about to be taken by someone, so no point.

YCHTT
Where I work we do things differently. When we launch a new product, it is usually in a limited batch size. If we discover problems, even slight ones, we quickly develop a rev.2
That is my suggestion here, we can see promise and do not want to discontinue the product but we also see some problems that need fixing. Will rev 2 be a perfect fix? possible but doubtful! The base game has been altered a dozen times or so as it is, after each game tweaks were made. If I ever get my laptop working again I can show you rev 1, the games are not very similar. I made changes after every single run, why is this one so different? Why would you continue to sell a product you knew was faulty when a fix is easy to make? Maybe in your software example, the minor fixes are not so easy as they are for our products and/or this game? But if the fix was relatively easy would your company turn a blind eye to something obvious? Seems to me your example fails.

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Tomahaha this seal-lanes variant is not your business. Comparisons to it are completely invalid. The best thing to do at this point is to play this game out, with all players compiling a lists of perceived pros and cons. It is very likely that one player's pro is another player's con. To that end you need independent analysis, and quite probably additional tests plays to determine the proper solution. Players tend to see the game and the map with the tunnel vision of their own perspective. The reality is that we could play this game for 5 years and never get it perfect. The scale of the map is so large and the games takes months to play. Every revision should be thoroughly tested, but making revisions based upon one experience, and one player's perspective is a waste of time. I might see a map design as disaster because I made terrible alliance decisions, or a neighboring player NMRd, whereas another play might see the same map as an advantage based on his decisions and experiences. Diplomacy is far too complex and more so with 35 players to make knee-jerk conclusions on one test game. If you played in this game, great. Keep a list, and contribute to the discussion. Get your butt in the other game too, so that you can see the map from a different nation's position, and someone else can see it from yours in the present game. Not every advantage gained or denied is taken from a map imperfection. Some advantages and misfortunes are based on the actions of players. With the cast of characters in this community there is no standard style of play, and we could wind up making needless changes because of the actions of a genius or those of a lunatic. Those scenarios need to be discarded, and the typical player's reactions sought out. Would you not agree?

I disagree 100%.
You may be correct about "most" observing the game from their own perspective, not I.
The designer of the game may actually know what he is looking at perhaps? Maybe I know what to look for over the casual player?

That said, we KNOW of certain areas that require fixes, we certainly do not know all those areas no doubt but some are clear. You ask us to play with these obvious errors multiple times before adjusting. No doubt even then we will require multiple changes but if you read what I had stated, the basic game was tweaked after EVERY time played and it too is not perfect. To suggest we can not see SOME of these mistakes is frankly stupid! Every revision should be thoroughly tested is another stupid comment, I have designed the game and I have tweaked it after each running, can you say that? Or can you simply make a case for something you can not back up? I'm backing up what i say while you are simply making unfounded assumptions. The game can be tweaked with relative ease. I am not asking for a total overhaul by any means (that would be a major rework and is not so easy) but to add a few more sea lanes here and a few less there is simple and we simply do not require multiple plays to figure this out. In fact, your suggestion to play over and over is further flawed, you know a problem exists right now, you want further plays to determine what? You end up with a list of tweaks that would be a major overhaul when you end up finding you went too far. No, the best way to design a game (spoken from experience designing multiple games) is to do so play by play. Small changes each time results in greater learning as to how the change affected things, major overhauls are a foolish way to make changes and your suggestion to do that is frankly ill conceived to say the least! Slight changes are not "knee jerk" but rather how the game best evolves, it has evolved this way and is best suited to evolve this way. I speak from experience on the matter, with over 15 years doing so on my side, your assertions come from....?