Diplomacy Dojo Episode 10: Games, The Universe, and Everything36 min read

Intro 0:00  

The Diplomacy dojo is a weekly discussion led by your bored brother about Diplomacy tactics and strategies. Let’s listen in on what our players are discussing this week.

BrotherBored 00:16

 Hey, Kevin, how’s it going?

Kevin 00:18 

Good, how are you?

BrotherBored 0:19  

I’m doing great. I got a lot going on, but playing games, as usual, brings joy to my life. We’re not directly playing a game; of course, we’re just talking about it here in the dojo. So what would you like to talk about today?

Kevin 0:34  

I mean, I think the part of the game that is still somewhat a mystery to me, is recognizing patterns in mid to late games, so early game patterns tend to make a lot of sense. I don’t know that I have really the intuitions to just do the mid to late game well, so I think it might be helpful to recognize some patterns, and then be able to, you know, at least have a heuristic structure for how to approach it.

BrotherBored 1:03  

Okay, that sounds good. Are there other topics that come to mind?

Kevin 1:08  

Yeah, I suppose how to recognize a certain way of playing and the other players, you know, how the other player, what kind of player they are, and then again, kind of having some heuristic structures to recognize patterns within those kinds of players.

BrotherBored 01:31 

 Okay, that makes sense. Is there more?

Kevin 01:34 

I guess the final thing then, would be how to take those patterns and distil them into a sort of concrete predictive, maybe algorithm is the wrong way to put it, but how to take those things and make them into a concrete prediction on what you think a player is going to do.

BrotherBored 1:55  

These are incredibly insightful questions; show that you’ve been playing Diplomacy for quite a while to be thinking about it. And I think that your idea for how to go through them in order makes sense to me, so I think we should take the topics in the order that you presented them. Let’s start with this first question about recognizing patterns in mid to late games. At the beginning of the Diplomacy match, usually, you’re trying to figure out which players are friendly to you and which players are hostile, and see if you can have any effect on that. If your situation is not a good one, how can you influence players to change? And if your situation is a good one, how can you make sure players play consistently with it? That’s usually what’s going on in the early game, but then in the mid-game, there is a transition. And I’ll define the mid game as the point in which several powers have expanded and become much stronger than others; some other powers have been either eliminated or weakened to the point where they’re no longer viable, they’re no longer viable as a strong power. So let’s say your mid-game could be that there are three equally strong, huge powers or there could be five, but at least some of the players are getting taken out. I have played some games where what I’m describing is the early game has gone on until 1907, 1909. Because the players figured out their allies early on, nobody was duped, and the players all locked horns, and no one was able to get a good tactical advantage, nobody really expanded significantly, and the game became long and grinding. That’s not common, but it is possible. So the early game is not defined by the amount of time that has passed in the match, in my opinion, but by the political structure. So in the mid-game transition, the players who have, who are faced with elimination are looking for some way to either desperately get into the draw, where can I hide, what is the most defensible location on the map that’s available to me, or possibly to start throwing the match, because they got nothing better to do or they hope that that will help them, maybe make it on a stalemate line position somewhere. 

And players who are strong are looking for how they’re going to continue towards an ultimate end game, and there are two that they’re thinking about one is can I solo win? And multiple players could think this, it could be two or three players even think, “Yeah, a solo win is still possible for me”, or they think, “Well, I got,  I’m not one of the players that are going to get eliminated, but of several players or one player, so much stronger than me that I am not really playing for a solo win here, I’m just trying to make sure that I get in the draw, and they’re playing a certain way. So you’re looking to assess what of these approaches the other players are thinking. Let’s say that there’s an England Germany alliance in the early game, and we have transitioned out of an early game because France and Russia have been crushed. Maybe they’ve got one or two units left each, but they’re crushed, and so now England and Germany must each make a decision. Am I going to try to play this alliance out a little further, or is it time to backstab my ally? Because neither England nor Germany stands a realistic chance of winning without fully conquering the other. If they are thinking, “Hey, I’m never going to get a better opportunity”. If one of them thinks that they’re never going to get a better opportunity to backstab and they do it, well, then the other one is sort of forced, okay, well, that now we’re fighting. We finished our early enemies, and now we’re fighting, but if they both decide not to fight, and then they could continue on a little further. Maybe England gets into Tunis, or Germany gets into Venice or something kind of interesting. That can happen, or it’s possible that one of the distant powers like let’s say Turkey, or Austria, or Italy, has gotten so much stronger, that that power would solo win probably if either England or Germany betrayed each other, and so the players decide not to fight, and I think that that is what is going on.

During the mid-game mind-sets of most players, can I backstab my early major ally? Are they going to backstab me? What are the pros and cons? What are the risks and benefits? How realistic are my solo win prospects compared to other powers? So the reason why the number of players entering, the number of viable powers entering and can be different is let’s say, in the early game, Turkey destroyed Italy, Austria, and Russia, and has like 10 supply centers, and they’re all debilitated, and neither France, nor Germany, nor England overpowered each other, and Russia has some kind of presence in the north, the mid-game maybe some kind of alliance of four powers fiddling with each other, trying to figure out, “Hey, can we eliminate anybody? Do we need to stop turkey from so low winning”? It’s quite a jumble, whereas, maybe the same situation is going on in the south, but France and Germany have completely locked down. They’ve taken out England, Russia’s out of the North. In that situation, France and Germany might be juggling, am I going to win? Is my ally going to win? Is turkey going to win?  I don’t know. And it makes it a lot harder to figure it out. I mean, it’s I’m sorry, it’s a different analysis. 

Another way of describing the transition into a mid-game is that, either one, an alliance, or a power has taken over one side of the map. So the patterns to look for in terms of getting a little more precise, is whether the players are deciding to consolidate power on their side of the map, or they’re going to let that go and try to cross over onto the others, and that means that they’re trying to solo and probably. There are some players who will do that because they’re just that loyal. Like, they just, I’m not going to backstab my ally, so I’m just going to see what happens over there. That’s possible, but usually, it’s because they’re trying to get these more valuable centers. 

In Diplomacy, the more distant the Supply Center is from your starting point, the more valuable it is to you because of how difficult it will be to get in the end game. So that’s what I look for when I feel like okay, what’s happening in the mid-game, some enemies become friends, some friends become enemies, that sort of thing. 

Once a player is openly going for the solo win, I say the endgame has begun, because now we’re going to find out, alright, are they going to win, or are they going to be stopped? Sometimes, like a solo win attempt is stopped in such a way that it generates a board game state that’s, again, more like a mid-game situation, where okay, not only do we stop this solo win, we actually penetrated their line quite a bit. This player is no longer a solar win threat, they’re just a middle-sized power, actually, now this other guy is the biggest power and so the game can continue on. 

And in a well-played game of Diplomacy, that actually might happen two or three times that someone attempts to solo win, it stopped, the game can go back to a mid-game sort of state and continues from there.

Kevin 8:55  

But it’s almost the end game is only the end game in retrospect that there might be crisis moments that aren’t necessarily endgame states, but they become game states when one of the two outcomes of an end game state happens.

BrotherBored 9:10  

I think that is fair to say. I think that we do need the bias of hindsight to understand if it really was an end game state or not; because at the moment, it depends on the player’s perceptions. In a press Diplomacy game, you will be discussing these things, and there are players who will just disagree about what is the status of the game; is there still a lot of life left in the match, or this one that’s about to end? And of course, there’s going to be some propaganda incorporated into that about whether they would like the game to end because they don’t see it going well for them, the longer it continues. 

And in a gunboat game, even then, it can be clear that the players don’t necessarily have the same perceptions, where one player is reacting like this guy’s going to go for a solo win. I’ll throw this in there, it is possible to generate an end-game state by deliberately powering up one player. If they accept this grant of power, then you may create that situation. This is something that I do; I call this strategy sometimes of deliberately, suicide, some of your supply centers to make one power much stronger than the others. Take yourself hostage. It’s a simple thing; you’re trying to communicate either with your moves or in a press game in combination with your move.

Form a stalemate line that runs through these supply centers that I have. I’m giving up all the rest of them to this one player, and you either defend me or vote draw, or you will lose because there’s nothing. If you don’t defend me, the centers are going to go to the winner. That can be really effective, that a game that seems like it’s just kind of Oh, you know, long grinding mid-game. Nah, I don’t see that going well, I’m accelerating us to endgame right now.

Kevin 10:48  

 I have experienced certainly, that there are some powers that are even a more tenuous position as far as this decision. Maybe particularly where a point you need to defend is far enough away from your home centers or from other important defensive centers, that you have to make a full move in that direction to really defend it well.

BrotherBored 11:15  

Okay, let me see if I can give an example that fits in with what you’re talking about. Let’s say that there is a Turkish player who is really strong and threatening to solo win. This Turkish player controls most of the East, including Berlin, and has crossed the stalemate line and controls Berlin. So you are France and you perceive, we need to put Tunis behind a stalemate line to offset the loss of Berlin so that way, Turkey will be constrained to only 17 supply centers. Even if they control all of Italy, Austria, and southern Russia, plus Berlin, we’ve subtracted Tunis, so they’ll be stuck at 17, I have to do this. 

To still make Tunis that’s going to require me to line up units in North Africa, Tunis, Western Mediterranean Sea, Spain, Marseilles; I played a week game, I only got five units. That’s pretty much everything. I have to send everything that I have to go and fortify Tunis right now. Maybe there’s alone Italian unit in Tunis that Okay, okay, I will help this player get into the draw because they’ve got a position there that I need to defend with them. You have to make that decision, and what’s the English player going to do? Do they understand this, that this is it, that this is now our never, either we fortify Tunis and stop the solo win.  Yeah, Turkey hasn’t finished off Italy, and Austria still has Vienna or something, but that’s all going down. That’s not going to hold up forever. We got to get Tunis while we still have this chance. So you move everything out of the way in England goes oh, I guess I just get your supply centers, thanks, that’s thanks. Anyway, is that the kind of situation you’re talking about?

Kevin 12:50  

Yeah, and it seems like the powers that are on that sort of no man’s land have that happen far more frequently than others. You’re exposing yourself in order to strengthen that border, necessarily, you know, if you have a certain sort of parity of units with people you’re battling against.

BrotherBored 13:09  

 Well, in that situation, it’s tough. In gunboat Diplomacy, you just depend on the other player, understanding what you’re trying to do, and my advice is to just make the right moves. If the other player is the reason why you lose, and that’s why you lost, but you were going to lose anyway if you didn’t make the stalemate line, as you knew you needed to do. 

In press Diplomacy, you can explain to them what you’re trying to do. Even then they don’t, you know, they don’t necessarily have to believe you or agree. There are other motives that are going in there as well. That may be if you’re done playing the match, and you think I’ll ever get as a draw, then you’re more likely to jump on board that this is the endgame, time to stop the soloist mentality. And if you think I’m doing pretty good, you know, that guy could start a solo and attempt, mess it up, and then I get to solo win or something, and maybe you’d rather see them go a little further. So there can be a lot of different things taking place that cause players to disagree, because they disagree strategically. They have different goals in mind at the game, not just that they perceive the tactics differently, although that’s there as well.

Kevin 14:24  

You could branch out in another direction, because I was thinking as you were talking that my estimation of the strengths of each country would factor greatly into the value, let’s say of those countries ceasing being allies and attacking each other. There’s the, what are the possible things that I could entice to happen between these players, but then also what is the most likely thing to happen if I was successful? Can I make anything out of that? You might find that there’s not really a desirable thing that you could entice to happen. And I’ve often found myself, I suppose in those sorts of situations where maybe I see what’s most likely to happen but I don’t necessarily see a way to bend that to my advantage. You know, I’ve been trying to think, is that a failure of mine in the early game? You know, do I need to pay more attention to trying to arrive at a mid-game state where there are desirable options available to me? If you’re not playing with an eye to the mid-game, you’re leaving out a lot of what is essential in the early game. You may be in a strong position, but by not paying attention to the other players’ position you may very well, it may be a Pyrrhic victory, in essence.

BrotherBored 15:48  

Yeah, I think that’s right. I think that in a well-played game of Diplomacy, all your moves are chosen with the entire board in mind, in that an inexperienced player is just looking to figure out where their next Supply Center will come from. And in fairness to them, that’s better than nothing, that oftentimes when players have just started playing Diplomacy, they’re like, “What do I do”? I’ll say, “Well, pick a supply center that you think you might be able to get and try to get it”. It’s a very simplistic style, but eventually, you know, those training wheels got to come off, because there’s a lot more to the game than just picking a Supply Center and going for it.

Okay, I would like to, I’m really interested in this second topic that you raised, how to recognize a certain way of playing and the kinds of players? This is a fascinating topic that other Diplomacy, content creators bring up player archetypes and whatnot. This is really helpful, because you’re going to play with strangers, and you have to make some kind of assessment of them. Well, the way that I speak about this is, in Diplomacy, like any competitive game, you want to have a psychological model of the players you’re playing against, in your mind, an entire little fake version of that player’s brain that you are simulating inside your own brain that you can run experiments on. You know, if I move this piece here, what’s going to be the reaction to it? If I say this to them, what will they do? It can be as narrow and tactical as if I attack. I’ll use Diplomacy example, if I’m from England, and I open the channel, what effect is that going to have on these players? What will they, what will be the reaction to it? Each player might have a different reaction, but or can be as personal and psychological. As if I make this person, if I guilt this person, and try to shame them and say how they’ve made a lot of incompetent moves about to be backstabbed, and they’re just a fool, will that cause them to stubbornly continue on the path that I don’t want them to do out of sheer defiance, or will this person go,” Ah, man, ah, shoot, I’m really blowing it here, this guy is pointing it out. I need to change course”, and start doing the thing that you want them to do.

 There’s no skeleton key to other people’s minds. Sometimes when people talk about Diplomacy, they say, “Yeah, yeah, Diplomacy is heuristics, aren’t that great. It works. Unless it doesn’t, it works until it does. You can try this, but then it doesn’t work”. That response to these heuristics is actually a strong man of the position, which is not that quilting players always work; it’s that quilting players may work. And don’t rule that out, it may it will sometimes work and when you use it is, when it will be effective is contextual; you have to appreciate how human beings are motivated, and that human beings aren’t generic. Every single individual person is unique. So Wow, now I really like contradicting what I said, right? Or it seems like it because I said the archetypes are valuable. And so, somewhere between generic archetypes of how you think a human being is, in this specific individual is the topics you’re raising in your question, which is types of people that we can, okay, I can’t get to know this in persons from beginning to end. I can’t peer into their soul and, and know everything about them, but I could say, you know, this guy really reminds me of that fella, Jim, I knew and he, and whenever I told him to think twice he did, and maybe that’ll work here. And sometimes it works, and that depends on your sensibilities. Do you have the ability to recognize similarities in human beings and whatnot, bringing this to something more specific for Diplomacy?

 There are situations where you might want to how can I say, Okay, great, whose worthy? I think this was a good time because I perceive this other player as probably they’re going to continue there.  I need to trust them, but my trust in them is going to be rewarded, that’s what I think. 

The generic, not archetype-based mind would tell you some like, “Well, no, people are greedy”; people are greedy, and this person is going to betray you like, well, you know, some players would other players not, and I know that. I played Diplomacy, players do things that are baffling, I would never have done this, but they did. But the players from the beginning, and then as the match develops, start refining that. So let’s say I’m in a game that’s like, okay, it’s a pickup game, I have no idea who’s in it particular, but there was some barrier to entry, so I know the players have some experience. Well, what do I do? Well, I start messaging them and see about how they talk. Do they talk in a way that shows familiarity with the game? Do they know the jargon? Are they abbreviating countries correctly? Are they talking about the game, like, it’s a role-playing game? Okay, that’s the certain kind of person that I, you know, they keep addressing me as the sultan, okay. That’s how they write, but that tells me something about them, that I can start building into my psychological model, and then as they choose their moves, and so on,  for example, if the player has played in a way that shows trust in other players, they took risks and are not lying, that makes me think, Okay, this is a player who views Diplomacy as a game about trust-building and is probably only going to lie as a last resort or to try to solo win, and they’re willing to extend trust. This is a good player to have as an ally, I start thinking things like this, versus Okay.

 I’ll give an example of this, this might be an Italian player, who opens Naples to the Ionian Sea, Venice, to Apollo, Rome to Naples, or something like, wow, okay, that’s a very unusual opening. But now I know a lot about you, because very few players would choose that opening. And that’s an opening that shows a high degree of trust in all your neighbors and trying to befriend everybody, and that’s a certain approach and okay, because normally, almost any opening Italy does makes it possible for Austria to take Venice, except that one. Austria would capture Venice if Austria moved to Trieste to Venice, versus an Italy who does something like, “Hey, Austria, I’m going to open Venice to Trieste. I’m not trying to attack you; I just don’t want to take any risks”. Okay, well, this is a player who is grizzled and maybe paranoid, and so on to take it to shoot. That’s a player who you could be trying to get as an ally, already afraid of them from the opening moves, goodness gracious, and you learn a lot. Okay, this, this players got a certain approach. So for me, I look for a combination of how the player is addressing other people, the frequency of their messages, and how down to brass tacks it is, and then the actual movements that they pick, and whether those makes sense or not. To me, what kind of strategy can be implied by how they’re playing, and in this way, refine a mental model of the player. So I don’t rely on the idea of presumed archetypes, much more than let’s say, the first couple of years, and then I’ve whittled that down. 

If I know who’s in the match, I may start trying to pick particular people, as one of my friends said, by in a gunboat game by 1902, I know who you are. We play together, but it’s because you’ve seen them every time they get Austria, they make this opening, and then do this follow-up, every time. I don’t know.

This is, for me,  I’m looking for, most importantly, I’m assessing their competence level. If the player seems to have low competence, that is a player who I don’t want as an ally in the early game, because they will maybe cause us to lose despite my efforts to be their ally. That is an ally who I want in the mid game, because it means that I’ll probably be able to backstab them effectively, and they will probably not backstab me effectively, and this may be who I need is my ally to get to a solo win. They probably won’t understand that I’m about to do it.

And in endgame, if I’m solo winning, would really love to have around the board because they don’t understand how to stop it, and if I’m defending, I wish that I had taken them out of the game earlier, because they don’t know what’s going on, and how to stop the solar win. So in this way, this very utilitarian kind of thing, I’m thinking of what use is this player to me is the more important question than what kind of player they are. Because the player being competent or not competent has maybe, is maybe useful or harmful to me, depending on the context of the game. And I’ve already said there are at least two contexts where I would want a competent ally, a competent player, an ally and two contexts where I’d want an incompetent player as an ally. Understanding that high level players assess the game this way could give you some insight as to how they’re choosing their allies and why alliances shift over time, as the player strategic thoughts change, which allies seem attractive to them. 

I know that there are players who can disguise their competence level, so I look for little clues that might, okay, you know, these players seemed pretty dumb, but then they executed like this really complicated tactical situation, that only makes sense if they really understood what was going on in the game, so okay, this is actually pretty canny player. 

The next thing that I care about is how the player assesses the game strategically. There are players who just like our solo win or bust kind of person. What that means to you, just depend on what’s happening in the game. This is a player who might, for example, strike a deal where you both cross the stalemate line significantly, to both get an opportunity to solo win.This is also a kind of player who may just give up, and stop responding, or entering in thoughtful orders if we’re just fighting for a draw. They may not care anymore, they don’t they don’t view a draw as a valuable outcome. And so okay, well, this aside from their competence level, then there are players who view Diplomacy as a game, like an interpersonal game, and well, you know, if I trust this player, let’s just see how far that can go, you know, what can I do? Can I pull off something that’s really inventive? And then there are players who view the game just as a game, and I would say this is, if I can self described as being this kind of player that like, this is a game and here are the outcomes. What I think I need to do, and get not get these different outcomes.

I’m the kind of player who would get backstabbed and go, “Oh, well”, but now, hey, maybe you should join with me though, even though you just backstab me because I see a way that we could be working together, and not take revenge or something. At the same time, I don’t want players to perceive that about me; because then they won’t be afraid of backstabbing.

In a high-level game of Diplomacy, how players are presenting their behaviors, there are a lot of smoke screens that are involved, where players may feign that they take offense, because they’re trying to project that they’re a maniac, so that you leave them alone. I’ve done that, even though it’s not true. So where I’m going with this is that, just because you have a certain perception of a player, don’t get too attached to it. If they do something that seems inconsistent with how you’ve perceived them, or how they presented themselves, be paranoid, be skeptical and say, you know, this player acted so outraged about getting backstabbed and then supported that players piece, the very next turn, Ah, oh, man, this player might be super good, can manufacture outrage to make a point. But actually, it wasn’t real. Shoot, and then you got to take that into account, like okay, subsequently, the emotions that I’m sensing from this player could be manufactured, oh, boy.

Kevin 28:33  

So that’s always fascinated me about this game, about all games, but when you’re playing a game, presumably the rules of the game are the extent of what’s permissible, but there’s the additional element of why are people playing the game in the first place. If they’re playing it for reasons that are incompatible with your way of winning that might work for a game but it wouldn’t work in a league or it wouldn’t work in, you know, as a part of a broader context of games. And so that’s been one of the most interesting things about this is that, if you do manipulate people, some people are going to feel abused by that, and some people are going to be amused by the fact that you were able to succeed in the game, using that, and view it just as another strategy that people have in the game. 

I haven’t played press Diplomacy, partly because I think I would invest about five to six times as much time in a game like that as I would in a gunboat game, but I imagine that there is somewhat playing with that line. Either that people have different reasons for playing and might view certain strategies as not just unpleasant, but actually incompatible with the reason they play the game in the first place, that kind of enjoyment of making allies and working out. Although some people do seem to play games, as a way of socializing or as a way of enjoying other people’s company and those people I think will be the most not only susceptible, but probably feel the most offended by those kinds of strategies, because it runs roughshod over their secondary, or maybe even primary reason for playing.

BrotherBored 30:14  

I think that’s a really great insight. There are a certain amount of unwritten rules that come from the social aspect of the game that are beyond the contours of the game itself. A reference Pirates of the Caribbean: And Orland Bloom says to Johnny Depp, those are the actors, he says, “It wasn’t a fair fight when you beat me”, or Johnny Depp playing Jack Sparrow says something like, “There’s only two rules and a fight, what a man can do and what a man can’t do”. And this is an interesting, I love this moment, the characters are having a discussion about what it means to be a pirate, that this character Orlando Blooms, character is supposed to be noble, and chivalrous, and Johnny Depp’s character is supposed to be a pirate. And so they have a different concept of what it means to be in a fight; and learning this insight—that there are only two rules—is how Orlando Bloom’s character is slowly over the course of the story, becoming a pirate, that being a pirate is more than just law breaking, it’s an entire mentality, it’s a whole way of life, and you can approach a game of Diplomacy in a similar way.

I could use the game to find out a lot of personal details about you, and then use that information, your personality and whatnot, to motivate and influence you to play the game in a certain way to my advantage. If you say I’m taking the Jack Sparrow’s approach, and there’s only two rules, “What I can say and what I can’t say”, and I can say this, and so I will. 

In Diplomacy, as a community, there are limits. I mean, the players won’t tolerate cheating, like trying to manipulate a player to do something with stuff that’s outside the game, like bribing a player, or offering to help them out in another context, threats of violence. There are rules about how you can insult people based on like, racism and sexism, that there’s some stuff that like, Listen, at some point, this is just not appropriate for a game. However, the accepted limit of what you can do and Diplomacy and still be conforming to the Code of Conduct is a very different kind of sportsmanship than other games, that’s for sure. It’s a very different kind of sportsmanship because the very nature of the game is asking you to look into this side of yourself, and human nature, and how to interact with people. To put it another way, it’s part of the fun. If that’s not fun for you I understand, and not you specifically, but there aren’t that many games where that’s what you’re trying to do. So like I joined a Diplomacy game, and if a player was to try to really get in my head, and I am resisting these psychic attacks, as I may characterize them, I enjoy that. I think, okay, I’m really learning here. I have gained insight in myself about what kind of psychic attacks I can and can’t resist how I could improve and, wow, maybe I could try that actually, you know, on someone else in the future. But if you’re, you know, conceptualizations that Diplomacy is just like any other board game, and then you may be in for a nasty surprise. I would say goes the other way around, most other board games have this kind of stuff in it where people are real. Well, they get really intense over monopoly. 

And, you know, Settlers of Catan, I think I am attracted to Diplomacy because it’s just accepted in that this is how we’re going to play the game. We’re going to play it you know, by pirate rules, we’re going to say that you can pretty, if it’s not specifically listed here in the code of conduct, something you can’t do, then you can. And this is what you can do what you can’t do, those are the rules, and that’s neat. There are not a lot of opportunities like that out there in the world.

 The closed universe of the board game forces you to actually be interacting. We’re not just writing messages and post them or leaving some graffiti somewhere, the way, I think of posting things on the internet, this is a conversation with a real human being over some stakes. This completely fictionalized, it’s totally artificial, and the stakes are moving little pieces of paper around on a piece of card. And so I like that, that now that we’ve removed all real stakes, there’s no money involved, there’s not an election. It’s just who’s going to get Belgium. Is it going to be England? Is it going to be France? Who’s going to give Belgium, which is a totally manufactured thing, and now we get to employ those powers, the powers of persuasion, the powers perception, influence, and resistance to these things. And in everyday life, those things matter, but there’s not a, when do you get good at that? Where that place? And that they’re out there, and I think Diplomacy is one of them.

Kevin 35:19  

Yeah, that’s a fascinating pedagogical value of having contexts in which you’re able to practice these skills without inflicting the full consequences of them, which would exist in real life. It helps you not only to be able to make use of them inappropriate ways but also to resist their use by people who are behaving inappropriately, which is just as important. There’s a lot of, I know, you’ve talked quite a bit at different points in our lives about the utility of games as an educational thing, maybe a little differently than how people might perceive education, but just that there are aspects of games that train things that you wouldn’t ordinarily be able to practice or train to competence.

BrotherBored 36:12  

Yeah, I appreciate your bringing that up, games, tests skills, and the game can be designed in a way to test a specific skill or some combination of skills. And in this way, you can learn how to develop that skill in a way that in everyday life might otherwise be very difficult. So even though I consider the skill of something as simple as, perceiving that one is being manipulated, just noticing, hmm, you know, I think that person doesn’t have my best interest in mind. They’re trying to get something out of me and I sense this for x y and z a reason, that’s a valuable skill. Pretty much any human being could benefit from being a little bit better at that kind of thing, but when you sit down and practice that, it’s kind of specific, and most of the people, you know, wouldn’t do that kind of thing, and most of the people who wouldn’t do that kind of thing, do you would never admit it. So how do you practice it? You’d say, like, “Okay, well, we’re all going to sit down, and we’re all going to play poker”. Oh, okay, now we’re all playing poker, and suddenly, my friends, and so on who otherwise who really do have my best interest in mind would never do anything detrimental to me, but they will try to beat me at this game. And so that is this one context where they are willing to leave, agreed to play the game, they will do something detrimental to me, they’re going to cause me to lose, and gain win. 

Now, okay, they’re showing this side, these skills that they have, or maybe they don’t have, and they’re going to lose. But they’re showing these skills and oh, okay, now I have to figure out how to counter those skills. And we learn that when the game’s over, you can discuss it, and get better, read up on how to be better at the game, etc., and then, when you’re in real situations, the real life everyday situations, I often say it’s like you’ve come down from a higher league to use the baseball metaphor; because what takes place in a game context is so distilled, it’s so intense. It’s, like, okay, when someone’s trying to bluff me, over, you know, selling me this car, it’s so transparent, because, you know, that’s way harder to do for an average person than to bluff about what your poker hand is. I’ve perceived extremely good, bluffing poker players and perceived that they were bluffing. So if I can do that I can penetrate the lies of, the everyday lives of many people. And I am better or better for it as a person, I think. 

There’s, I could go on, but there are many other things, planning ahead, thinking strategically, how to look for a way to cooperate with somebody else, I could go on and on. And we are past the limit of the time that we allocated to recording the dojo today. So I really appreciate your coming, Kevin. I hope to see you in the future because man, we could probably go on three more hours.

Kevin 39:14  

Yeah, it’s very enjoyable. And your thoughts on this are helpful as always, in all sorts of different areas of life. 

BrotherBored 39:22 

Alright, see you around Kevin.

Outro 39:26  

This episode was made possible by the generous support of people like you. For more information, visit Patreon.com/brotherbored. You can learn more from Your Bored Brother at brotherbored.com. If you enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe, share and review. Thanks to loyalty freak music for the theme music, ‘It feels good to be alive, too.”