cool, thanks for the intel!

If you enter order and don't finalize them, does the server accept them when time expires or treat it as NMR?

@michaelpri Stars Crafts bro

I finalized mine a while ago.

@Undo have you noticed this room yet?

ah there he is:

@Seth Oh, missed that. I scrolled through and searched but forgot that chat search treats an empty query as '' rather than *

@Air yeah

Okay, time to make some clueless moves

@Undo Don't just jump in moving stuff around - talk to folks first.

You're Italy, right?

I think so?

yeah

Okay, you have the advantage of fairly limited openings, I think

But all things are possible with a little... (•_•) / ( •_•)>⌐□-□ / (⌐□_□) diplomacy

I wish there was a way to see all the messages at once

I have concluded that this is a two-monitor game.

Yeah, the user interface could use a little work. Home page reminds me of 2005. I think I prefer the more bare-bones design of webdiplomacy.net - though its messaging system is a little more rudimentary.

I find it amazing that I can figure out who's what country just by writing style

If we played an anonymous game, that would introduce an extra element of subterfuge. :)

I mean, "GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE"

Aaak I dunno who's lying to me and who isn't

So... is lying considered Normal and Okay, or is it Frowned Upon by the meta-game?

I mean, are we expected to always tell the truth in messages or is lying just part of the game and you have to learn to detect it?

I'm scared :P

@Undo this

You know the expression, "All's fair in love and war?"

Diplomacy is a love and war sort of game.

One thing I don't quite get, is it either 1 country wins or a 7 way tie, or are there other ways of ending the game too?

Can an "alliance" win the game? I can see pros and cons to that.

@Seth If a player holds no supply centers at the end of a year, they are eliminated.

@Air right, so does it come down to a dual to the death when there are just 2 players left?

@Seth Well, no—because the straightforward win condition is one player controlling more than half the board (18 SCs, since there are 34 total, and 34 / 2 = 17).

oh right

So it would be rare for 5 players to be eliminated, unless the 5th is eliminated just as someone reaches 18 SCs.

Anyway with respect to lying in messages, you kind of have to weigh the present value of giving either good or bad intel against the expected future value of the impact it'll have on your reputation.

Just like how in poker, you can't win by constantly bluffing, except even moreso because Diplomacy isn't a game of chance.

@Undo tip I've found: You can watch real games on YouTube.

Hrm, neat

I don't think there would be any objections to that?

This game is starting to sound like lots of fun :D

The mortals must never know of this game, they might play it and get too good at writing convincing replies to mod messages.

@Emrakul Oh, now I'm all curious. (But since it pertains to the in-progress game, we shouldn't talk about it.)

I think the biggest risk with this messaging interface might be accidentally checking the wrong recipient, or an additional recipient.

A confirmation dialog would take care of that, methinks.

No

No confirmation dialog

Opening orders are tough; there are just so many possibilities. It gets a little clearer when some forces move around and the number of reasonable moves based on everyone's positions is reduced.

looks like an interesting series btw:

Videos of live play might mislead you a bit. Online play and live play are subtly different, much like with poker

The rules will be the same, but communication is different because everyone's got a lot more information about who's talking to who at what time

(I haven't played a face to face game though, so this is second-hand)

Really? I would have approached them the opposite way. If I were playing face to face, I'd want to be relaxed. And probably drinking.

Although now that I think of it, I was relaxed and drinking when checking messages last night... I guess that's just a nice way to play games.

...OR WAS I?

(Yes. I was.)

Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale. Such a great beer.

"filthy casuals"

I am Le France, I have to drink, I'm a method player

Though, I guess wine or cognac would be the more authentic thing to drink.

In that case, I'm glad I didn't draw England.

I would probably avoid talking about who has or hasn't finalized orders in the chat room. It's meta, but it's still part of the game, and something people can take advantage of.

For instance, say Country A has been negotiating with Country B and agreed on a specific set of opening moves. If one has reason to be confident the other has finalized those orders, the player who hasn't finalized is in an advantageous position—they could tell Country C, hey, I know what so-and-so is doing this turn, and they think I'm doing X, but together we could do Y and blah blah blah

Anyway, I'll try not to make anyone more paranoid than necessary. :P

Sup peeps!

How is your game going?

Ah, has the second game started?

Alright. Sounds good :)

Orders finalized :)

Who's in the second game so far?

Alwight, I shall find people...

I haven't registered yet, will do that now :)

I'll play the second game if you need more people

Yaay! :D

What's the password? It's asking for one..

Thanks :)

I need to learn the terms... What's an NMR?

Ah, okay :)

heh, so the guy who published that video owns jmac.org. I find that a little ironic/funny.

@Seth Clearly @jmac is waiting to shark us all when we start laying down real-money wagers.

It's all a clever ruse! The Diplomacy illuminati, come to destroy SE from the inside!

Who hasn't finalized their orders yet?

I mean, it's the first move... :P

@Air Obviously. Good think I'm always broke xD

@Doorknob Says the guy playing Turkey :P

> Turkey has the fewest named openings, and consequently no need for a formal system of categorization has arisen.

> A big French problem is that she has almost too many possible openings. The price of guessing wrong is often grim.

Grim!

Le gasp!

Russia also has a lot of possible openings

@Seth It's like rain, on your wedding day. Or a free lunch, when you've already paid.

@Air The game hasn't even started and I'm screwing with your heads. Mission accomplished.

@jmac Fortunately the fact that I have resisted becoming one of your exobrains thus far makes that more difficult for you.

Must make @Doorknob an exobrain

@Doorknob You would think so. Thankfully there is a secret portion of the exobrain program which hasn't been shared with the general public.