The adjudicator does #3, unless it's the same going all the way back to the start of the game, in which case it does #2.

From the game-creation-page:
The winning player is decided by who has the most SCs after that turn's diplomacy phase. If 2 or more player have the same SCs at the end of the game, the game checks for the turn before, and so on. If player's SC counts are the same throughout the whole game the winner is decided at random.

But #1 looks like a good option too. Maybe I can make this an option sometime...

Is there any reason why it checks specifically before Autumn retreats? I would have thought the actual supply change shouldn't actually occur until Winter/builds.

That's something that's built into the webDip code itself... I've talked to their old site dev (A_Tin_Can) about this, and he said it wasn't an easy fix, unfortunately.

I like the way this site solves it. The game is supposed to *end* when someone gets the required number of centers. In the unlikely case there is a tie, you award the most consistent player. If in the extremely rare case where both winners had the exact same performance throughout the years, coin toss is as good a solution as any.

Thanks everyone. I've never seen this used as an actual rule in a variant, so it seemed odd to me.

I will probably implement Option 1 for the 1900 variant, as that's part of the rules for the variant itself. If two players are at/above the SC requirement (18), the player with the greater SC's wins. If they are tied for current SC count, the game continues into the next year.

Why not just set victory total to floor((centres/2)+1) and avoid the possibility of there being simultaneous winners altogether?

Because that's not how all variants are designed.

And we have a special Game-setting that let's you decide a targetSC or a targetTurn.

"Because that's not how all variants are designed."

So what is the point of setting the victory conditions at 18 of 50 total? What are you trying to achieve?

I've played in games like this before and what you get is a horse race, often decided by factors like initial nation assignment and NMRs. You also create scenarios where you isolate players from any ability to affect the outcome. Is there a reason why this is intentionally being implemented, and victory is being assigned for controlling 36% of the map?

I absolutely agree with you Ruffhaus, I personally see no reason why a variant should have win conditions of less than 50%. However some variant designers do, for whatever reason, and so when the variant is made for playing then the variant designers wishes should be allowed as the default. As Oli says we have tools to allow alternative SC counts during game creation for players like ourselves who prefer the 50% +1 formula

The only reason I can find for a less-than-50% victory condition is when you want both 1) a large map with many centers and 2) a game that isn't an eternal slog where 99% of games end in a boring draw.

Otherwise, 50% + 1 is fair and nice. I prefer using a fixed end date when I wish a faster game anyway =P

@RUFFHAUS

To be clear, I'm only turning this on for the variant that I'm developing for vDip. I'm not changing existing behavior.

In practice, the concerns you list (horse race, isolated players, etc.) are highly dependent on the specific variant rather than just the victory condition. There are other concerns as well, like the audience that a variant is targeted for.

And for those of you curious, for the variant I'm working on (1900), I have a set of 232 full-press online games' results to evaluate.

Over half of them ended in a solo.

The median (and average) difference in SC count between the player receiving the solo and the next-highest player on the map was 8.

So while the player doesn't necessarily have to have a full majority of the map in 1900 to win, in practice they have a very clear plurality. It's rare that it comes down to two leading players neck-and-neck with 17 each.

And as for overall balance, it's roughly about as balanced as classic Diplomacy, though said balance is distributed differently between the seven powers.

So what exactly is the targeted audience for this? If you've got 232 games to study and half of them ending in solos, it seems pretty clear to me that you have a major problem.

In any case I cannot see that set up working well, except in unrated games. The consequences of surrendering a solo here are severe as they should be, but rewarding a victory of 18/50 centers as a solo is absurd. I guess it may also appeal to the PPSC crowd where losing is rewarded. This is the kinda of variant that point vultures love here.

The 1900 variant has 39 supply centers. While I don't agree with the departure from the 50%+1 victory convention, this is much more tolerable. Where did the other 11 supply centers come for and why?

I'm not disputing the balance of the map other than to note that when factors of imbalanced player skill, and NMRs factor in the lessened victory conditions become even more acute as a problem. The only varaint that these factors are highly dependent on are those like this version of 1900 where you're lowering the standard of achievement for victory. In doing so you are completely ignoring one of the basic concepts of the game of Diplomacy. Why? You have yet to provide a reason for this.

@RUFF

The 18/39 victory criteria comes from 1900 itself. The goal, according to its creator, was to incentive solos and preclude stalemates (page 4 of his awesome Gamers' Guide to 1900).

@Ruff

Point of clarification: the 50 is not an actual number of SC's for 1900.

I was just making up a number in order to ask a hypothetical for current site functionality.

Thanks for the clarifications, guys. As I said above 18 of 39 is much more tolerable than 18 of 50. The same concerns remain though, particularly if the 252 game sampling nopunin10did mentioned has shown a 50% solo rate. That's too high in my opinion, particularly for this community that plays for points and ratings.

I like the map, and the special rules. I just think it would be more appropriate to be played to 20 centers here. I do realize that you can alter the victory conditions when creating the game, but also note that the default setting is the key point of focus.

Solos are already heavily valued here. A solo victory appears in the automatically tracked statistics, awards all points in WTA games, gives zero points to defeated nations in WTA games, and has similar positive and negative affects in the elo-ratings system. All of these features recognize the rarity of solo results. If 1900 is installed here and yields a similar 50% solo result, it's going to undermine the value of solos and push us more towards the PPSC mentality, which is quite simply contrary to the concepts of the game of Diplomacy. If the default is set at 20 centers (50%+1), then the 18 center game will still be possible with the advanced setting. It will just be the lark, and not the norm.

Surely your points system here is zero-sum, though, right? Then the higher chance of solo also means a higher chance of loss for the six other players.

I think you're fretting over hypotheticals on a website that already supports a vast hodgepodge of variants, some of which already don't require a majority. You're going to be just fine.

The issue isn't zero sum though. It has wide ranging implications. And I'm fretting over how this design is going to affect the community's overall game play across all variants. The PPSC setup already has players dumping solos to capture "second place" points. It took years of lobbying folks here to remove PPSC as the default setting. If implemented here at 18 supply centers for victory (as a default), this 1900 variant is going to create a wave of negative reinforcement of the concept of acceptance of solos as okay because players can still earn points by losing.

The map is fine, and fun to play. I've played it before in PBEM communities where there's no scoring other than win/lose/draw, and players do not dump solos for points. It works there as an experimental horse race type game. Here at VDiplomacy it needs to be implemented with certain considerations in mind since this is a points and ratings based Dip community. This isn't just some hypothetical crap I'm spouting either. We've seen it first hand before, specifically the same problem with the WW4 map, which sets victory at 50 of 244 centers as a default (and still does). WW4 was designed to be played for about 10 game years,a nd then players voted on the winners. When implemented at VDiplomacy it need to be adjusted to regular victory conditions. That's a starker example of the issue, but we've already seen the damage it does. And if your testing has show a 50% solo rate, that's reason enough to set the default at 20 centers for victory.

It sounds like what your concerns are is with the site's rating system and other players' use of it. That's a site issue, not a game design issue.

I'll let you sort that out elsewhere. The variant will be staying intact.

From my experience, the maps that require less than 50% of centers to win also usually have world wrap and/or are almost impossible to get to 50%. These maps often make it easier for players to border each other, and many times, players have more than enough units to form stalemate lines with just a fraction of the SCs needed for a solo.

WW4 is a perfect example of this. 100 SCs is nearly impossible to get (In 6.2 the closest anyone ever got was a Saudi Arabia with 93 SCs), and even if somebody gets close, they probably border every remaining player already. The other factor is a lack of empty spaces in WW4. There are about 2.14 spaces per unit in WW4 (compared to 2.2 in normal dip, though WW4 also allows players to get a better perimeter-to-area ratio because it's larger). A map that big with that many SCs compared to empty space is almost impossible to get more than 50% on. Compare that to WW4 sealanes, which has 2.78 territories per unit. Sealanes needs its victory condition set at 50% + 1 because it is much easier to gain the territory needed.

1900, however, is not that sort of variant. It is close to classic in both map size and territories per unit, so getting 50% + 1 is not much more of a challenge in 1900 than it is on classic. Solo victories on a map of that size (especially one with changes focused on resolving stalemates, such as Siberia) should take a majority of centers to achieve.

Perhaps players might just do what they did with the original WW4 variant. It had an EoG at 50 SCs, a number so small that a player could solo without a player across the board having any chance of stopping them. People wound up just setting the EoG to 100 SCs for balance.

While there is PPSC, people *will* keep playing for second place, irrespective of the variant. I don't think a single variant would cause an armageddom of any kind, nor really influence those who play for "positions" anymore so.

1900 was designed over a decade, had hundreds of games to test it, and is widely regarded as one of the best variants ever made. The victory criteria was not changed *once*.

The ultimate core of the problem @Ruff points out is with this site itself, and the way its scoring system of PPSC corrupts the core principles of pretty much every variant around.

Actually, is there any movement to remove PPSC altogether?

I would support that.

Me too.

I'd back that proposal! WTA only on all but specialty scenarios (like Riscamento).

Shall we start a petition thread?

We've actually made good strides here on this. After much petitioning in the past VDip has altered the default setting to WTA on the game creation page. That was a huge step. It used to be PPSC, but now you need to specifically set that up. it's beyond me why anyone would want to other than to reward losing.

PPSC definitely needs to be retired, but in the existence of the PPSC setup the best way to address it is to refuse to play in those games. If the bulk of respectable players shun those games, they will eventually go away on their own. Unfortunately in this points and ratings driven community it has a certain appeal, however lame it is.

The most used reason for worrying about points and needing PPSC games historically has been that players losing their points bets could run out of points to play with. But my understanding is that everyone has a minimum of points regardless of lost points. The total points accumulated simply limits your number of games played at the same time. And if you're not earning points, then you really shouldn't be looking to play in more games than the minimum investment total allows for.

The special game scenarios which YCHTT mentions are best handle with unrated games. PPSC still brings with it the temptation to throw solos because you can still earn points.

"I'll let you sort that out elsewhere. The variant will be staying intact."

Nopun: Your arrogance and stubbornness persists, only to be outdone by your lack of actual experience with the relevant matters here at VDip affecting the proposed 1900 variant addition. There are indeed issues with the rating system affecting play at VDip, but you continue to miss the point. Bringing the 1900 variant with a default victory condition of less than 50%+1 will exacerbate the existing problems. You don't appear to care about that, which does a disservice to your efforts to bring variants here. You're also ignoring the fact that the variant could still be optionally setup with the lower victory condition (preferably as unrated). The discussion here hangs on the default set up. You have yet to provide a reason for setting the victory condition at a lower threshold other than that's how it was first designed. With your own stated historical statistics provided, installing 1900 with such reduced conditions would likely bring a 50% solo rate to 1900 games here. That's not in the best interests of the community. 1900 should be set up as a default game to 50%+1 for VDip play, and played as originally designed in unrated games only. Otherwise it becomes just another points whore game. Since it's an otherwise fine map, I'd prefer not to see that happen here.

@RUFF - In the case of Rin, there are nations that have zero chance of ever winning, so rewarding a survive in come manner is the only fair thing to do. There are, literally, nations that are less than half the size to start of neighboring nations whose very survival depends on their big brother protecting them for as long as they are useful. Unrated mean these nations take a hit to their win/lose/draw/defeat percentages which, for some of us, is worse than losing points. I couldn't give 2 fly farts for points, but I do care about my percentages which is part of the reason I rarely play Rin, even unrated.

Truth, survival to a solo is *always* worth nothing. It's a loss, and should always be reflected as such. The Rinascimento variant is imbalanced for certain, and should not be played for points. Some nations have little to no chance of winning or surviving. Even in a PPSC concept there is no reason to invest a bet of any size for these nations. That only reinforces the reasons for playing this variant as unrated. Playing unrated games allows you to play for fun, challenges, and the experience of playing out difficult positions - even those with no hope. You can learn a lot, and actually have a lot of fun when playing these positions without the consequences of reflection upon points, ratings, percentages, etc. What you learn in such unrated games, playing positions with no hope can be applied to competitive games where you're in tough spot.

The reality is that Rinascimento has not been properly adapted for play at VDiplomacy because it does not implement all of the special rules that make certain nations viable positions. It's not completely without merit, but this variant requires a moderator/GM to adjudicate and enforce the special rules.

@Ruff, I do understand your reasons but you are overreacting IMHO.

As I said before, there is no reason to believe that a single variant alone - 1900 - will cause a cataclysm of any kind towards drawmongery and PPSC. You simply have no proof, no evidence whatsover that it could happen!

Youngstown, one of Dip's most iconic variants, is played here with a ridiculously low rate of 28 centers out of 81, an even lower proportion than 1900. Oh, there is also World War IV, just 50 out of 244 needed... Where is the end of the world? Can't find it! Meanwhile Colonial, a hard-to-solo variant with a 50%+ victory criteria and high proportion of draws, had 149 PPSC games vs... 7 in WTA.

Again: the problem you wisely point out is with PPSC. It's so tempting that even goddamn Hundred, a fast 3 player variant with huge average of solos, has 169 games played under PPSC... and NONE under WTA!

How can 1900, for many the crown jewel of variants, suffer such a dramatic change in its rules because of a problem that *isn't from 1900*, but from vDip itself? Nopun is doing a great service to the community by giving us a critically acclaimed variant to play with.

Our enemy is PPSC, not 1900.

"Your arrogance and stubbornness persists, only to be outdone by your lack of actual experience with the relevant matters here at VDip affecting the proposed 1900 variant addition."

You're partly correct. I have limited experience here at vDip. But I do have extensive enough experience working on online games (from a prior stage in my career) that I know not to listen to sky-is-falling complaints from the vocal minority when it comes to implementing new features.

"You have yet to provide a reason for setting the victory condition at a lower threshold other than that's how it was first designed."

That's reason enough. This isn't some J. Random Variant that is in the middle of being designed. It's a variant that's been out for over a decade now and has gotten quite a lot of play.

I'm not implementing "1900 but with changes because person on the internet wrote a wall of text." I'm implementing "1900."

To the rest of you, I apologize that I'm taking so long programming this. My other GM duties are finally winding down, and I should have some time over the next few weeks.

Please bear in mind, RUFF, that this isn't something like 50scs on WWIV, where there can be a solo on the other side of the board without you being able to do anything about it at all. 1900 was made by one of the best (if not the best) Diplomacy variant designers out there, B.M. Powell, who fully understood what he was doing and is very familiar with the Classic board, probably more so than most of the players on this site. There's good reason why 1900 is praised as being the best Classic variant by a long way.

The victory conditions are perfectly reasonable in the context of the variant, and the method of continuing a game if players are tied to allow for a single victor fits in perfectly with the concept of WTA.

With regard to your argument that this will reinforce the attitude that players can get points for losing - what? 1900 in no way does this. If you play it with WTA, as intended, then nobody gets points for losing. If you play it with PPSC, then PPSC is to blame and the victory conditions for the variant make zero difference - if you're arguing that 1900 shouldn't be here because it's bad with PPSC, then you should say the same for every single other variant. Nothing is good with PPSC - because PPSC is bad.

Finally, a 50% solo rate is not particularly high. The solo rate of Classic games on webDiplomacy, even after they removed PPSC and made all systems WTA, is over that.

"If you play it with PPSC, then PPSC is to blame and the victory conditions for the variant make zero difference".

This. A thousand times this.