Diplo game thought experiment

[suttree]

this thread made me think of a game variant i posted as a joke a while back

GAME VARIANT: CIVIL WAR



*5 teams, 5 civs, 10 threads, one for each team and one for each civ.
*Each team plays two civs, as shown in the diagram, with teams alternating as turn-players.
*Diplo allowed only between teams in their shared civ threads.
*A team loses and leaves the game if either of its civs is eliminated, ceding complete control of a shared civ to the surviving team.
*Speed play with two city elimination limit.
*Last team standing wins.

[Oxyphenbutazone]

This is a culturally fascinating discussion. We ran a private Pitboss among a group of acquaintances, some of whom were fairly close friends before the game start, but some of whom barely new each other. The game was full diplo, and Gavagai looked for a sub on this very forum after a player dropped out. There, we didn't even discuss the points suggested by WilliamLP, it was just assumed by us, that diplomacy is going to be a viper's nest of intrigue and fraud. And of course that's the way it turned out. No-one was unhappy at the end of it, I don't think, but make no mistake — players went for weeks with discussing two or even three versions of a strategic plan with apparent allies, some of whom then ended up as enemies, so there was a lot of surprise and destruction of in-game trust. Especially when the enemies realised, that they were designated as such pretty much since the start of the negotiations, which were a complete fig leaf.

Yeah that game was exhausting. Never try to negotiate a dogpile on yourself when you're 10 turns from rifling. Also, its a good idea to defend your HE city with 40 base hpt

Though some of the blame has to be put on the unbalanced map- I had triple corn+cows, while others were tundra choked or had double plains cow.

[Bacchus]

Yeah that game was exhausting. Never try to negotiate a dogpile on yourself when you're 10 turns from rifling. Also, its a good idea to defend your HE city with 40 base hpt

Though some of the blame has to be put on the unbalanced map- I had triple corn+cows, while others were tundra choked or had double plains cow.

And you literally haven't seen half of it

The map was shite (unedited), but actually full diplo with tech trading does the best you can in terms of balancing the game without map editing — exactly because you might be ridiculously ahead, and still get smashed by cooperating opposition, who share research to boot.

[Krill]

Too drunk to properly reply, but I played in and won PBEM4V and that is definitely not the lesson to take from it. The lesson isn't that someone can build an army in secret, it's that someone can build and army and not get enough from using it that a third party can tech to victory.

Even worse than that, a player can build an army and not know what they are attacking into, thusly walking into a death trap and effectively giving up a huge chunk of their empire to the counter attack for little loss. Basically, building anything is a fools errand. It is better to maintain enough population, the corret civics, and good tech so that you can whip a out a strong defensive army at a moments notice.

The rule of thumb is that the more aggressive the settings (AW, no diplomacy) the more peaceful the gdame becomes. The most aggressive games you'll ever play are Always peace games.

[TheHumanHydra]

That was a remarkably cogent drunken reply.

[suttree]

Wong Fei-hung is a young and mischievous denzien of the internet. Penniless, he stops in at the realms beyond forum and tries to con a fellow poster into listening to his inane chatter. As is is about to log off after his post, he discovers that the man is actually a mod. He fights with the mod's lackeys in an attempt to escape. An old drunkard nearby is drawn into the fight and helps him escape. The drunkard turns out to be KRILL the DRUNKEN MASTER. KRILL forces Wong into his brutal and rigorous Civ IV training programme. Soon Wong learns KRILL's secret style of Civ 4 a form of Drunken Micro called "The Eight Drunken Immortals", named after the eight xian (Sullla, Seven etc.) that the micro style references.

Jackie Chan stars as Wong Fei-hung and Krill as himself in
THE DRUNKEN MASTER
COMING TO A THEATRE NEAR YOU!

Of the xian it is said:
They are immune to heat and cold, untouched by the elements, and can fly, mounting upward with a fluttering motion. They dwell apart from the chaotic world of man, subsist on air and dew, are not anxious like ordinary people, and have the smooth skin and innocent faces of children. The transcendents live an effortless existence that is best described as spontaneous.

[NobleHelium]

I can't think of any situations where cooperation is possible in Poker (at least in Hold 'em which is the dominant form at the moment) except in the case where someone is all-in with more than one opponent. In that case the optimal thing is for all opponents to call so that there are more hands available to knock out the all-in player, and everyone does that.

The players are cooperating already in the implicit agreement that they aren't going to play as random number generators. A bet needs to communicate some information at least some of the time in order for there to be a game. After that, the game could be about devising new and clever ways to share information (cooperating) with some players but not with others though betting conventions or somesuch, like a player works with his partner in bridge. The goal would be to work together with a subset of the table to fleece the remaining players. But that doesn't happen - either its considered "cheating" if planned out ahead of time or, even if it's spontaneous, there's always incentive to fuck over your teammates by communicating according to the convention until that one juicy pot when you lie and take everything for yourself.

Poker is an example of a game where cooperation is possible (and necessary to get the game started) but the incentives built in to the game corrode trust between the players. Again, a player wins only because, over many hands, the other players assign meaning to his bets - cooperation is possible. But no cooperative scheme is stable because only one player can win each individual hand.

Why is there an implicit agreement that they're not going to play as random number generators a form of cooperation within the game? It is a form of cooperation outside the game, the very act of agreeing to play the game itself. You are not agreeing to anything inside the game. In fact this agreement isn't even required, I can play poker as an RNG if I want. And in some situations I'd argue that it'd be more optimal to play randomly than not.

A bet communicates information, but it's not a form of cooperation. If I make a large bet, I'm telling you that I either have a strong hand and I'm daring you to follow me and lose your money, or I'm pretending to have a strong hand and hoping you'll give up and give me the money that's already been waged. That's communication, but it's not mutually beneficial to any degree and thus it's not cooperation.

What incentive do I have to cooperate with you to fleece other players, and how exactly would that work anyway? If you communicate to me that you have a strong hand and I consider such communication reliable, then the optimal thing for me to do is to fold. If I call, I might draw other players to call as well, but how is that beneficial to me in any way even if you return the favor later? It'll just be zero sum at best for me, and I open myself to betrayal. (Edit: This assumes that the probability of others calling depends on the varying number of other players participating in the pot (in addition to other factors such as hand strength obviously). If everyone always calls if there is at least one caller then this strategy would work.)

[Kuro]

This is a question I've always wondered about NAPs and breaking them: Why not just make it a rule that NAPs are binding in the game rules for your game? If you want to make it specific to avoid weaseling, just say a NAP of X turns is treated as in-game enforced peace. (AKA you cannot wardec)

[Qgqqqqq]

Firstly, why?
Secondly, its been done, in pbem 30 something, (I think 35), and I believe that nobody was satisfied with the result.

[Kuro]

Firstly, why?
Secondly, its been done, in pbem 30 something, (I think 35), and I believe that nobody was satisfied with the result.

Oh, was it? I didn't even look at that PBEM, so I wouldn't know. (Though a sample size of one game is quite small...)

(And because if people keep getting upset that they get broken, then just make them unbreakable.)