Diplomacy is a complicated game. Now, there's an understatement! However, when learning how to play it, there is one source which can't be ignored: the creator of the game, Allan B Calhamer.
| https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/ |
There is, arguably, no reason to discuss Calhamer's article On the Play of Postal Diplomacy (first published in Graustark, Oct 1966). Almost as strongly, his article Introduction to Diplomacy (first published in Modern Board Games, 1975, by Games and Puzzles Publications), may be more than a little unnecessary (except to the absolute newby). However, these two articles mention aspects of Diplomacy that frustrate some players - being deceitful. As such, it is worth mentioning what Calhamer wrote in them on this subject.
Two Philosophies
There are two philosophies that are the same in the way they affect play in Diplomacy, in that they have the same objective, effectively. I usually lump them together for this reason, but I will present them separately here because they are different in reasoning. Both were mentioned in previous posts.
Carebearism
I usually avoid the term 'Carebear' as it is somewhat derogatory to my mind. However, as this group of players seem to have claimed ownership of the term, with a degree of pride...
A Carebear is a player who chooses to play a game of Diplomacy to maintain an alliance, to look after his ally. This is because he likes this way of playing. He enjoys this way of playing and will often use the defence that there is a degree of skill in maintaining an alliance.
I've previously said that I wouldn't disagree with the skill needed. I will also say here that I wouldn't argue that enjoyment is a reason to play any game. What I would say is that games have rules and that if you don't want to play to those rules, then you can't claim that you're playing the game.
The outcome of a successful game for a Carebear is a draw. His objective is, after all, to maintain an alliance above all else. This, for him, is the challenge, not winning outright. Many Carebears will say that they will play to win if they can't 'win' by drawing the game but, in reality, this is more likely to result in mulish behaviour, perhaps becoming a Kingmaker - playing to help another player win - because an ally has betrayed the alliance the Carebear was maintaining.
Drawmongery
A 'Drawmonger' is slightly different to a Carebear, in that her aim is not so much about enjoyment but about the metagame. The objective, of course, is the same: to maintain an alliance (which is why I often lump these two together).
Drawmongers, however, play the same way as a Carebear because they want to achieve a draw as good result. They will point to skill rather than enjoyment, usually. It is a more hard-headed approach to the game.
The idea is either that they want to establish themselves as reliable players, that: "If you ally with me, you'll get a result from the game - a decent draw." A Drawmonger will aim to achieve a 2-way draw or a 3-way draw, usually.
Alternatively, it is to achieve a decent result with regards to the scoring system being used. In many systems, a 2-way or 3-way draw is often a decent result. The idea is that a solo is unlikely - which it should be - so a 'good' draw, with few players, is going to score fairly well.
The Draw as a 'Win'
The similarity between Carebears and Drawmongers is that the game they are in should end in a draw. Whether that's because the Carebear enjoys the challenge of maintaining a game-long alliance, or because the Drawmonger wants to play to objectives beyond the game - the metagame - doesn't really matter, other than the way other players deal with these players.
Often you will hear Carebears/Drawmongers talking about 'winning' a game where they have achieved a draw. This isn't just the kind of language used by these players; others may also say they achieved a win when what they mean is that they did better than they ought to have done.
There is a difference between achieving a result which is the best you could hope for, and winning. A win in Diplomacy is clearly defined: controlling 18+ SCs. Not achieving this result isn't a win. You may have achieved the best you could - in many situations surviving and drawing is a great result! But it isn't a win. It may feel like a win - but you didn't win.
If, however, your objective is to draw, then you have achieved your objective. Perhaps you didn't want as many people in the draw as you came out of the game with, but you still drew.
And here is the problem: achieving the draw isn't the objective.
In part 3 of this series I discussed the article Objectives other than Winning in which Calhamer describes the draw as a "secondary objective". The obvious understanding of this is that entering a game your objective is to win but that during the game this may not be a realistic objective any longer. In that situation, a draw may become the best you can obtain from the game, faced with the alternative of losing.
Given this, drawing the game is a lesser outcome, a lesser objective, to winning. Equating drawing with winning is ridiculous, and it often comes from the idea that, well, "I didn't lose." No, you didn't - but you didn't win, either!
I wouldn't argue that achieving a draw may feel like a win in some situations, but it can equally feel like a loss: you were the game leader, perhaps even on 17 SCs, but you couldn't reach the magic 18. In this case, a draw feels like a loss.
Perfidy
You will also come across players who tell you they don't betray others but who, nevertheless, play to win. Crap. There may be some rare and unusual games where a player can achieve a victory without breaking an alliance, but without betraying any player's trust? Crap.
Diplomacy isn't a game for liars, but it involves lying or deceit. As England you may not have promised France you wouldn't attack her, but you did. You will have taken advantage of France's trust to launch a successful attack, possibly without ever actually saying you wouldn't. Not lying, per se, but deceitful.
If you out-and-out lie in Diplomacy you will lose any vestige of trust you might have, so it isn't a game for liars. However, if you accept that you will need to deceive the other players and occasionally have to lie (although you may dress it up as reasonable) you're on the right track. If you're a Carebear/Drawmonger you'll be curling up at the thought, Carebears because they enjoy the challenge of honesty, Drawmongers because they enjoy the appearance of honesty.
Any experienced player will tell you to aim for honesty, or to aim to hide your intentions, as much as possible - maybe even to be honest enough to say: "Look, I will be doing this because it's the right thing for me." In other words, either accept deceit or use honesty to your advantage.
If you read On the Play of Postal Diplomacy you'll read a partial description of a type of game which has all but died out - postal Diplomacy, also know as Play-by-Mail or PBM. The interesting aspect is that it describes how to deceive in Dip, which can be summarised as working towards your plan, while not telling anyone the plan as a whole.
It would be fair to point out that this game wasn't very successful for Calhamer. On the other hand, it is equally fair to point out that there were forces beyond his control in the game, such as the dropping of the game by a player (a very modern day phenomenon, especially on websites) and the fact that two of the players were husband and wife.
(Interestingly, the aspect that this husband and wife team would today - potentially - be cheating by playing as a team [meta-gaming] is not mentioned. This is from the early days of the Hobby, however, and the effective player-base was small, certainly compared to that of websites. It wouldn't be surprising to find such combinations in games.)
Despite the fact the Calhamer sought alliances, and his initial goal was to establish a 4-way alliance between himself (Germany), Italy, Russia and Austria-Hungary, he obviously doesn't hesitate to stab Russia in an attempt to defend his eastern border before moving against France in an game end gambit. Although this was ultimately unsuccessful, ascribed to the "Family Compact" created by Russia and Austria being controlled by the married couple, it demonstrates how Calhamer's idea about the game should be played. Fluid alliances.
In Introduction to Diplomacy Calhamer states a little more clearly the way deceit can be used. He starts by discussing the 'Early Opening' (Calhamer identified 4 stages to play: the Early Opening - the grabbing of neutral SCs; the Late Opening - until a power is eliminated; the Middle Game - when a player becomes established as the most likely to win; and the Late Game - when the leader attempts to win and others to prevent it.)
In the Early Opening, Calhamer says: "A player usually does not try to trick another player, or drive him into a hard bargain." In the early part of a game, there often isn't a need to be anything more than honest and cautious, so is there a need for deceit? Not with serious negotiations.
However there are, on websites, a lot of less experienced players who seem to want to discuss long-term alliances from the start, and - as in any format - the Carebears and Drawmongers who aim for this type of alliance anyway. With the inexperienced players, you'll find that they desperately want you to ally with them against her - a third power that you probably both border.
However, it is also true that agreeing to something, even something you have no intention of doing, is a good way to keep your options open. If your first moves will show that you have no intention of actually following through with the agreement, then a successful player will come up with a 'good' reason why he wants to defer the plan. Self-preservation is something to which all players can relate!
The point is, no matter what philosophy you have in a game, you will betray somebody. That being said, I did once come across a player who seemed to think that announcing his betrayal was a good idea and it didn't really count as betrayal!
Why did he announce it? Perhaps he truly thought that it meant he was playing honestly: "If I tell everyone I'm going to attack a former ally, I'm going to be accepted as being truthful." Anyone with a brain for Diplomacy, though, would see it for what it was - an announcement of opportunity. He made his announcements when he had lulled an ally into a position where he couldn't be stopped from betraying her. Good play - excellent play, in fact - but announcing it simply brought the attention of the other players to his style of play. Rather than making them take note of his honesty, it focused attention on the fact that he couldn't be trusted!
If you believe you're not betraying a player by not falsely committing to an alliance only to break that alliance, but rather honestly not committing to it, then you're fooling yourself. Self-preservation will mean that you find a way to placate another player while avoiding the alliance, so also avoiding being attacked by her. You're betrayal is by putting the player off-guard to your attack. Perhaps, practically, not an outright lie, but still deceitful.
Betrayal is part of the game that can't be ignored. Even Carebears and Drawmongers accept this. They will eventually stick to an alliance but, in order to give them a good chance of being in the draw, they will deceitfully avoid possible alliances and agreements with others.
But the real reason to be prepared to betray another player is to achieve the objective of the game: to win.
Let's be clear on this: there is a primary objective to playing Diplomacy - to win. A 'win' isn't a good draw; a win is owning 18+ SCs. You may be able to achieve this without breaking a game-long alliance, probably because the ally was a Carebear or a Drawmonger who thought her position was safe!
If you play to draw, you're abandoning the reason for playing the game. There is a difference in finding yourself in a position where the only practical outcome for you, in this game with these circumstances, is to force a draw, and a game-ending alliance is the way to achieve this. This may also prove to be a game-long alliance. But entering a game looking to establish a game-long alliance from the outset, and to maintain that alliance, isn't Diplomacy.
Calhamer does describe how an apparently game-long alliance may work to help the win.
In the Early Opening, Calhamer says: "A player usually does not try to trick another player, or drive him into a hard bargain." In the early part of a game, there often isn't a need to be anything more than honest and cautious, so is there a need for deceit? Not with serious negotiations.
However there are, on websites, a lot of less experienced players who seem to want to discuss long-term alliances from the start, and - as in any format - the Carebears and Drawmongers who aim for this type of alliance anyway. With the inexperienced players, you'll find that they desperately want you to ally with them against her - a third power that you probably both border.
Do you want such an alliance? Not if you're playing the game to do well. Why not? Because you want to keep your options open. At this point in the game, unless you've played others in the game before, or unless you've learned all you need to know about the players through research (and you probably won't have), you won't really know who is your best choice of initial ally.
You have objectives. These will, as Calhamer says, be to get hold of some neutral SCs and, potentially, the odd SC held by a neighbour. In other words, you'll have a plan which will be somewhere between neutral expansion and aggressiveness. Do you want to tell someone that you're going after them? Only if you want to prepare them!
So there is some deceit in the early game, relating more to hiding your intentions rather than being an out-and-out liar. And you need to feel your way into the game; committing to something at this stage is either stupid or negative; negative in that you are playing for a draw, rather than aiming to win.
Calhamer goes on to say:
A player can test unknown opponents by inserting a small flaw in every offer of alliance. If the opponent does not mention this flaw, he may be regarded as inexperienced, and hence vulnerable to attack.Personally, I don't think this is always the case. What you may find is that the opponent deliberately ignores the 'error', either because it isn't necessarily good diplomacy to mention it, or because she - perhaps mistakenly - believes you're the inexperienced one and she wants to play on the error. Calhamer is thinking of experienced players when he gives this advice, playing against usually experienced players.
Why Betray?
Some players agree with everyone, especially during the diplomacy period before the first move, even though the agreements may be conflicting. As they write their orders, they decide which of the agreements to keep, and which to violate. In effect, they are reckoning that a ‘stab’ against another player in the first play of the game is not as damaging to them as diplomatic isolation or severely narrowed opportunities would be.This isn't, of course, true of all players, as Calhamer accepts. A respectable "Well, no I don't want to do that because..." may often be heard. And if you're playing an experienced player it will likely be accepted. After all, it shows a degree of honesty.
However, it is also true that agreeing to something, even something you have no intention of doing, is a good way to keep your options open. If your first moves will show that you have no intention of actually following through with the agreement, then a successful player will come up with a 'good' reason why he wants to defer the plan. Self-preservation is something to which all players can relate!
The point is, no matter what philosophy you have in a game, you will betray somebody. That being said, I did once come across a player who seemed to think that announcing his betrayal was a good idea and it didn't really count as betrayal!
Why did he announce it? Perhaps he truly thought that it meant he was playing honestly: "If I tell everyone I'm going to attack a former ally, I'm going to be accepted as being truthful." Anyone with a brain for Diplomacy, though, would see it for what it was - an announcement of opportunity. He made his announcements when he had lulled an ally into a position where he couldn't be stopped from betraying her. Good play - excellent play, in fact - but announcing it simply brought the attention of the other players to his style of play. Rather than making them take note of his honesty, it focused attention on the fact that he couldn't be trusted!
If you believe you're not betraying a player by not falsely committing to an alliance only to break that alliance, but rather honestly not committing to it, then you're fooling yourself. Self-preservation will mean that you find a way to placate another player while avoiding the alliance, so also avoiding being attacked by her. You're betrayal is by putting the player off-guard to your attack. Perhaps, practically, not an outright lie, but still deceitful.
Betrayal is part of the game that can't be ignored. Even Carebears and Drawmongers accept this. They will eventually stick to an alliance but, in order to give them a good chance of being in the draw, they will deceitfully avoid possible alliances and agreements with others.
But the real reason to be prepared to betray another player is to achieve the objective of the game: to win.
Let's be clear on this: there is a primary objective to playing Diplomacy - to win. A 'win' isn't a good draw; a win is owning 18+ SCs. You may be able to achieve this without breaking a game-long alliance, probably because the ally was a Carebear or a Drawmonger who thought her position was safe!
If you play to draw, you're abandoning the reason for playing the game. There is a difference in finding yourself in a position where the only practical outcome for you, in this game with these circumstances, is to force a draw, and a game-ending alliance is the way to achieve this. This may also prove to be a game-long alliance. But entering a game looking to establish a game-long alliance from the outset, and to maintain that alliance, isn't Diplomacy.
Calhamer does describe how an apparently game-long alliance may work to help the win.
[Two large powers] may agree in advance to stage a two-way draw with 17 supply centres each; or they may agree to limit themselves to a specified 17 centres each, the first to achieve these centres to spill over into the other’s sphere at that time and win, or they may arrange spheres of 15 centres or so between them, with the remaining four as a ‘free fire zone’.What he's saying is that an apparent game-long alliance may actually have the aim of securing a win. It is used as a set-up, giving players the chance of a final betrayal. This is probably only truly effective if you play to win and are allied with a player who is playing to draw, or - possibly - where both players hope to take advantage of the situation.
Lessons
Calhamer discusses the philosophy of Carebears and Drawmongers but doesn't really give them much credence. In his discussion of the middle game, he mentions that there are two types of players, what he calls "alliance" players and "balance of power" players. Alliance players are Carebears and Drawmongers, playing to achieve a draw; balance of power players are, he says, more practical. It makes interesting reading on its own.
From Introduction to Diplomacy alone we can't say that playing to achieve an alliance is definitely against the design of the game. Calhamer doesn't belittle this philosophy of play. Then again, he also discusses the "strong second" and "survivalist" ideas in the piece, and doesn't belittle these, yet we know what his feelings about those ideas were from a previous post in this series and his article Objectives other than Winning.
What Calhamer is doing in Introduction to Diplomacy is describing the game, and the way it might be played. To understand why alliance play is not a part of Diplomacy we need to take other articles - again, discussed in other posts - as a whole.
Diplomacy is designed to include deception and betrayal. I would argue (as does Calhamer) this makes the game more enjoyable, although it should also be clear that not everyone would agree! However, the fact that it is part of the way it ought to be played, it was designed to be played, can't be denied.
Heathley Baines (Nibbler)
Editor
The Series "How to Play Diplomacy"
Part 1: "Introduction"
Part 2: "Origins"
Part 3: "Corrections"
Part 4: "Deceptions and Betrayals"
Comments
Post a Comment