The Longest Game of Diplomacy Ever Played | 1941 - 1950 

Y'know, I think I'll show him this comment right after we're done with the series and he thinks he's free :D

I might bump Russia up a bit based on what I've heard from press and the players, but otherwise, this ranking looks solid to me! I think everyone who sees this game agrees that England was the true winner :D

8) The players in the other games of the tournament finals, the results of which led to a situation where only very specific endings to this game would lead to Italy's team not winning (and especially influenced Russia's determination to solo). Also, absolutely agree that England was the real winner here. Playing the long game by not playing the long game!

Great to hear - thanks for watching!

My favourite part of this scoring system is that, assuming that a solo victory doesn't immediately disqualify the other players, this would bring a whole new kind of throwing: Assisted euthanasia. When it becomes clear that holding off a solo isn't viable, players with already low tournament scores start gobbling up the SCs of the player(s) they want to win.

Oh man. Y'know, I actually think this is still a better system than PPSC. The draw score is reasonable and it heavily incentivises stopping a solo, far more than any current system does! Obviously it does lead to a weird endgame if players start believing they can't stop the solo, but there's also a (valid) argument that the second largest power in the endgame is the most responsible for setting up the defence and uniting the rest of the board, so the greater punishment makes sense.

@@DiploStrats I shall go back to the lab and create an even worse scoring system for next episode. Maybe by the end of the series we'll create the objectively worst Diplomacy scoring system.

Actually, scratch the next week bit, just had a massive brain shower thought inspired by Ezio's 17-16-1 draw vs the WebDip AIs: Weakest Link Difference-Loser Size Scoring. Victories are handled the same way as in the previous concept (+34 for winner, -1 per SC for losers) In draws 34 points are split evenly between all living players (favouring players with less SCs when handing out any remainder. If SC ties prevent an event split, the process is repeated until no points remain or a tie for smallest country causes an infinite loop, in which case whatever points are left are simply "burnt"). From these point totals, we substract the absolute value of the difference between the amount of SCs each player had at the end of the game and the amount of SCs the smallest surviving player had to get the final score. Example scenario: France 10 SCs Russia 10 SCs Austria 8 SCs Germany 5 SC Italy 1 SC England 0 SCs Turkey 0 SCs 34 points are split evenly between the 5 living players: Each gets 6 points. The remaining 4 points are then handed out one by one starting with the smallest player. Due to the tie between France and Russia, Italy gets two extra points instead of one. We then get the following scores: France 6 points Russia 6 points Austria 7 points Germany 7 points Italy 8 points. The following formula is applied to get the final scores: x-|(y-z)| where x is a player's current points, y is their SCs and z is the SCs of the smallest player This would resolve to: France = 6-|(10-1)| = 6-9 = -3 points Russia = 6-|(10-1)| = 6-9 = -3 points Austria = 7-|(8-1)| = 7-7 = 0 points Germany = 7-|(5-1)| = 7-4 = 3 points Italy = 8-|(1-1)| = 8-0 = 8 points England & Turkey = 0 points (didn't live to draw) This system heavily punishes going for a solo but failing (either to another solo or a draw), disencourages throw/revenge play (since small players win the most in draws) and encourages cutting small players before draws (one less player to split points with before the SC-based reduction), to some degree justifying small players getting the most points in a draw. I just hope this pushes the "You can't play for a solo AND play for good draw results, and since solos are so rare players are encouraged to use draw strats just to be safe" element present in draw-size scoring so hard that this is somehow worse than points per SC.

@@AnglosArentHuman Okay, I think you win with this one. This sounds horrendous and I'm not sure where I'd even start strategy-wise with it :D I guess the optimal play is just to carebear it up and go with an equal three-way every time. I love the idea that, in a situation where a small player can't be cut for fear of a solo, the larger powers would all be going 'hey, please take some SCs off us so we don't lose as much' and the small power is just like 'nope ima stay here on just Spain and Portugal, screw all y'all'. Would be especially good in time limited games where the larger powers have to figure out if they'll be able to cut the player by the end of the game, or whether they'll manage to hang on on 1 SC just long enough to make everyone else lose an absolute ton of points.

What a nightmare! Reminds me of Oceania, Eastasia and Eurasia in 1984: "After the middle of the present century, . . . [e]ach of the three powers which now divide the world is in fact unconquerable . . ."

@@JECE also the 4chan story about the nuclear hellscape in civ II or III with only three nations left in endless war.

I'm a PPSC loyalist myself. Thanks for writing this!

I think we ignored centers that started neutral, because they got taken in 1901 - but if you ignore the initial switch then that's probably true! But might not be true for all that much longer :D

There was the period when Germany went full Pirate, at which point I believe Holland was French. I haven’t checked though.