Re: The age-old problem of Diplomacy in PBM

From: Centre for Individual Language Learning <cillhelp@tp.ac.sg>

Date: Thu, 10 Jul 1997 00:00:00 +0000

You might want to look at Stellar Crisis.  It's a web-based strategic
turn-based space game. It's also free.  Can be found in several places,
one of which is http://www-wi.uni-regensburg.de:8888/

Jeff
neufeldj@tp.ac.sg

Andy Bodkin wrote:
>
> One of the reasons I had a long gap from PBM of about five years is
> something that I've just experienced again and is to do with diplomacy.
> I wonder if anyone else has any thoughts ?
>
> Basically, whilst I know that diplomacy is an important part of PBM,
> particularly in the wargame/conquest type I enjoy I wish it wasn't
> always the *only* important part and where it is integral it makes a
> game easily spoiled by 'moles' or reluctant team-mates.
>
> For an example, I'll point out my experiences in my first game of MEPBM,
> my apologies to those who hate it and despise the fact it's the only
> game talked about on this list. Now, I know this is a high diplomacy
> game and don't begrudge that, because basically there are two teams and
> a few neutrals - to win you have to talk to your team and the neutrals.
> So, what happened in my game ? I joined as the Witch-King, which is a
> position fairly reliant on neutrals to later discover that one 'crucial'
> neutral to me (Rhudaur for those who know the game) was a school friend
> of three of the opposition. Actually, I got a victory in managing to
> convince him to stay neutral, which is the best I could hope for. As to
> my team, they haven't answered my letters, I prefer to write than phone
> though I realise some would consider that poor diplomacy. My team have
> contacted me only when they wanted money from me (in the game, another
> absurd suggestion for my position) and last turn one of my allies stole
> enough off me to near enough bankrupt me for the next turn.
>
> Whilst I realise this is partly faults with that game, other high
> diplomacy games suffer from the same thing and I got fed up of
> discovering supposed neutrals knew my enemies or allies who wouldn't
> contact me.
>
> It also annoys me slightly, in that no matter what strategic or tactical
> masterstrokes you pull, often convincing near neighbours to help comes
> down to how much you're willing to spend on a phone bill. Even in a game
> like Hyborian War, with supposedly inbuilt diplomaic orders, you will do
> better the more you're willing to spend on contacting others.
>
> Whilst I would agree 'getting to know people' is an important part of
> PBM and I don't want it to disappear, I'd also like to have a game where
> I could do just as well never speaking to another player directly, for
> once. I could play a sports game or RPG, but I don't particularly like
> them, what I want is a medieval wargame with _realistic_ constraints on
> your realms ability to contact others. Imagine, 'sir, our scouts report
> an army moving from 'evil' realm towards us, do you want to intercept ?
> If so, you'll have to order your army now to get there in time.'
>
> 'Hang on a moment, I'll just pick up this strange device called a
> telephone and find out what he plans'. It'd be nice to have to rely on
> 'messengers', carrier pigeons and so on for once. Anyone got any ideas
> of a game which might fit the bill or thoughts at all ?
>

References

The age-old problem of Diplomacy in PBM
Andy Bodkin <andybod@b0dders.demon.co.uk>
Wed, 02 Jul 1997 00:00:00 +0000