Comment by na85
12 years ago
Backstabbing is a natural and expected part of the game. Anyone who's played more than once knows that you cannot expect to go through a whole game without being stabbed.
Most of the strategy revolves around predicting when, not if, your ally of convenience will backstab you, and how long you can afford to trust them before you'll need to stab first.
It's nice to see these things popping up. I've used similar web interfaces before and they're great. Diplomacy is best played with the full complement of 7 players, and 7 is an awkward number of people to get together for a game that can last up to 3 hours, but see 1-2 people eliminated in the first hour.
Oh, I know, I don't dispute that, and the name likely makes no difference at all to experienced players, but new players may be less hesitant to stab if the very name of the game seems to condone it.
I mean, if you were to take two different groups and put them both through the Prisoner's Dilemma game, presenting it as "The Cooperation Game" to one and "The Betrayal Game" to the other, wouldn't you expect to see some difference in the outcomes? I'm sure someone has done this before; perhaps someone with better google-fu can dig it up.
Well said.
"up to 3 hours", though? 6 hours is the fastest I've played (limited experience, but still...)
Be careful when backstabbing, it is not a good mid or opening tactic. It can be effectively used less than once per game since it is far more important to be honest and earn the trust of everyone. Information and trust are key, not just control of supply centers because it is very easy to lose your shit if everyone hates/distrusts you. Backstabbing is normally too short sighted, and a stigma can build and effect subsequent games.
Trust is the most important thing. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.
A good backstabbing destroys one person and builds trust in others who would be useful. It shouldn't be solely for yourself unless it is decisive.
And don't worry too much about being hated. Having people obviously out for you makes for easy recruiting of their enemies.
I recently wrote about Diplomacy but after just one game: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/09/09/geopolitics-for-individ.... I probably have more to learn when I play again.
What diplomacy teaches me is to never give up.
In a recent game [0] I played Turkey with two neighbors who conspired against me. 2vs1 is quite a certain death sentence and I was tempted to give up and just let them take me. Then I resisted that and started talking to everybody. Instead of defeat for me the game ended in a draw.
[0] http://www.vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=20506