Diplomacy Dojo Episode 4: The Sum-of-Squares Episode23 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 0:17  

Okay, so let’s talk about tournament scoring and how sum-of-squares scoring affects strategy, broadly.

Sum of squares scoring is a scoring system where every Supply Center that you capture is worth more than the last one that you captured because it’s an exponential system. So going from six to seven gets you more points than going from five to six.

This affects the strategy because it means the bigger you are, the more there is to be gained by getting another Supply Center. So if you’re a player who’s at one Supply Center or two, you’re not going to get very many points. The difference between one or two or three is so trivial, it’s fractions of a point in most scenarios. At that point, it’s mostly just for the glory of, “Hey, I got a draw, I survived, I made it to the end.” You’re not going to get any points for it. And so you can be a little more strategic about not caring too much about the number of centers that you have.

But if you’re somewhere like at 14 supply centers, the possibility of getting two to three more, even if it doesn’t result in a solo win, can be a massive increase in your score. For example, in the Online Diplomacy Championship back in 2019, I played a bunch of games—I did well, I made it all the way to the finals, which is still on-going as of this moment, and that tournament is still going on—I understood this and chose strategies that I thought would make me likely to be a board topper, and not so much worrying about the strategic outcome of getting a solo win. Because in that tournament, they’re just going to add your points together, and that meant that you just had to do better than a certain number of people to make it to the next round.

So something like getting 60 out of 100 points would be more than enough to clear me to the next round, and you could get 60 points in sum-of-squares scoring with let’s say 16, or 17 supply centers, possibly as few as 14 or 15, depending on how broken up the rest of the board is. So if you’re playing a game where solo wins are treated as qualitatively different, where like, in Carnage scoring, where it gives you a huge number of points, then, or you’re playing a just simple draw-size scoring, you probably want to choose a strategy that makes a solo win possible, even at the risk of losing supply centers or not being able to accumulate a large number of supply centers in the end, because the potential payoff of a solo win is so big. 

Whereas, with sum-of-squares scoring, you could choose a strategy that is unlikely to ever result in a solo win. But if it is very likely to result in 14 or 15 supply centers, that is to say, your domination of one whole section of the board, that strategy is almost as good as solo winning in terms of the number of points you’ll get, and if the risk involved is a lot less, then from a risk benefit analysis, that may be the way to go.

I think that should affect any player’s strategy. And for me in particular, in that tournament, knowing that the matches were seeded, and therefore that most of my opponents would not be very good in the earlier rounds, made me want to employ a much more aggressive style of just, “Eh, I’m just going to grab every center I can. Probably the other players won’t be good enough to rally some kind of defense. I’ll just outplay them if they do,” and I was right. I was right. I didn’t, I didn’t really have to have much in the way of allies.

In the game I kept for my journal, I had one really good ally who I backstabbed about halfway through, maybe even earlier than that. And in the game where I played as France, I never really had any allies. I just kept attacking until the game was over. 

So referring to the game that you talked about, where someone or another on a website has a lot of tournament success by board topping as England, going after Germany early is something that I usually recommend against—In the scoring systems that I play in, where winning is quantitatively a lot better than drawing, or draws are not worth very much because of draw size scoring, let’s say—In those, I really advise against attacking Germany early because it makes it really difficult to get across the defensible stalemate line positions before you’ve gotten really big. So let’s say you’re England and you’re at 12 supply centers because you control, like, Germany, and Scandinavia and whatnot, the other players are going to stop you. They can shut that down easily. You don’t control anything that is defensible behind the stalemate line.

But let’s say you take down France early on, and you only have five or six supply centers, but many of them are really good defensible ones like Portugal and Spain, maybe you have the ability to go for Tunis at a later time… That, strategically, that position is really good, in my opinion, because you maybe have an opportunity as England to go after the other supply centers that are much easier to get, without having seemed so threatening to the other players. And even if they come after you, you’ve already got a few key defensible supply centers early. So it makes sense to me that someone would do well as England by employing the strategy when “well” can be defined as “board topping.”

I think that taking down Germany early is less likely to result in a solo win for England than going after France early. I’m not saying it’s impossible, because you could parlay your destruction of Germany into controlling, let’s say, Warsaw or Moscow or something, these centers that you really need to get if that’s going to be your strategy. But by and large, in a well-played game, I don’t think that’s likely to work. 

The other reason why I am hesitant to go with that strategy is, I’m usually afraid of how France can backstab England when England is going in that direction early. But I’m sure there were particulars in those matches that made the player decide that France was unlikely to do that, and they were right. So I’m not saying that sort of strategy is impossible or something, obviously.

It can affect how other powers might want to play as well, especially when you’re considering whether a tournament has turn limits. If the tournament has turn limits, especially if these turn limits are kind of tight, as you said in the game you played it was 1907, then you really don’t have to think that hard about whether the positions you’re getting are defensible long term, because the game is going to be called before your defenses are going to be broken down. So even though, let’s say, you know, going after—let’s say you’re Turkey, and going after Russia early is normally, like I say, not necessarily the best strategy because you will overextend yourself and those positions may not be defensible. Ultimately, someone else may profit from Russia’s destruction if you play that way. That’s an intuition that I have. 

So in a game with a tight turn limit, I may not be so worried about that, because it would take… The reason why I’m worried about other players taking my gains away from me, let’s say England, or Germany or something, is that I’m imagining, you know, six years from now, they’re going to be in a different strategic situation, and they’re going to come to pluck these centers from me, but if the match is going to be over well before that could happen, then I analyze it differently. 

In a game with unlimited turns, you can play for really far-sighted strategic goals. Like just not really attacking anybody, and waiting for the other players to hate each other so much, that they will just help you! That’s a perfectly good strategy, time tested strategy of just playing a really slow, long game of being nice to players until they all hate each other, and in the end, you can parlay that into a win. That’s not going to be available in a game that lasts only seven years, or 10 years or whatever, that strategy is not around.

I have conversations with many players who come from… Their experiences are with term limits. They play mostly in tournaments, maybe even particularly face-to-face tournaments, and there’s a lot of games with turn limits. And when they talk to me about how Diplomacy is played, or what countries can be allies, or all these other things, their assessment of how the game works, and what is viable and what not is so different from mine. And I don’t think it’s, “Hmm, you know, this is a judgment call. How strong really is the juggernaut alliance? Maybe it’s not as strong as you think.” I don’t mean these subtle things, I mean, really different ways of looking at the game.

I have to provide the context. They don’t supply me with the context of saying, “Well, I mostly play in a face to face tournaments with really tight turn limits or other tournaments with really tight turn limits, and so that affects my assessment of the game.” They speak as though the way that they have experienced the game and what they’ve learned from it is the game itself, and that confuses me. I’m not saying it’s wrong, per se, but that leaves me confused where I think, “What are you talking about? I mean, I’ve played Diplomacy for 10 years, and that doesn’t make sense to me at all.” But almost all of that time that I’ve played, virtually all of it actually, has been with games without turn limits or very, very high turn limits, so my experiences are different.

Music Break Due to Lost Audio 9:57

Oh yes, I think an England-Russia Alliance is possibly the most undervalued and under-appreciated neighbor alliance in the whole game. If you manage to secure this alliance at the beginning of the match, there’s a set of opening moves you can do that’s absolutely devastating to Germany. You get a bunch of captures right away with both England and Russia and move their pieces out of position to fight each other afterward. So it allows the players get—both powers to get a bunch of pieces, and then demilitarizes the space between them so that most of those pieces, or nearly all of them, can be used elsewhere, resulting in England and Russia having a really high level of power by the end of, even, 1902.

I am trying to remember the precise trick, it’s that Russia convinces Germany to bounce in Sweden, which is counterintuitive, and then moves to the Baltic Sea instead of Sweden. And England, knowing that this is going to happen, convoys their starting army to Denmark. And so, the following turn, Germany has captured Sweden, but it’s uselessly stranded, and then there’s an existential threat to Germany’s home centers right off the bat, because there’s an English army in Denmark, and a Russian fleet in Baltic Sea, and Germany doesn’t necessarily have a good way of dealing with that. 

If Russia has somehow secured the South from an invasion, this can be incredibly strong, because it means Russia can move Moscow to St. Petersburg on the opening move and capture Norway, knowing that England is going to let them have it. So then Russia’s got an army in Norway that shuts down the German fleet in Sweden. They can make a supported attack. That army is no threat to Germany, because it’s just an army, so Russia can do something like support Norway to Sweden, or whatever. I mean, just man—Wow, boom, devastating opening. And afterwards it leaves England with the ability to actually fight France alone, which is normally my concern about attacking Germany first, as I talk about. It’s that, England commits so many resources to securing, to locking down the gains England made in the east, that leaves open the opportunity for France to attack. But if this is pulled off right, this happens so quickly, and England gets so many builds, and also doesn’t have to spend resources defending what England has captured, that England can take on France and win.

The danger here, or the big risk is mostly… The bigger risk is to Russia, because Russia really, to pull this off in its ideal form, has to somehow defend the south with just two units at the beginning of the game. Which is possible, but it’s not… It’s tricky. 

So if you do it right, Russia will end up with Norway and Sweden, I think, but Russia will have no unit in Norway. And you can even convoy the army that’s in Sweden down into the center of the board, like to Berlin or Persia or something. And England will have an army in Denmark that can be moved forward to Kiel potentially. That army is very minimally threatening to Russia, obviously, and then once this has been pulled off, England may have an opportunity to pull out of North Sea to go into, like, Heligoland Bight or just use it elsewhere somehow. And so then the whole area is totally demilitarized, with no easy way for either power to stab the other.

There’s a possibility of either player attacking the other. In my opinion, it’s the good kind, where, “Yeah, even after we’ve done this, depending on which of us plays better, that ally may be able to stab the other and get a solo win,” and I think that’s a desirable trait in an alliance. That’s why I don’t care too much about the England-France Alliance, for example, as England, because I think that you don’t have a good opportunity to backstab France if France does well. Whereas, with this alliance, if Russia does well, Russia will continue to build armies, and won’t be building any fleets in St. Petersburg because they’re not necessary. So that means in the long run, England will have an opportunity to backstab Russia, but vice versa, if Russia has the right movement, Russia could come after you England and I’m starting to build fleets in St. Petersburg now, and now we have a fight.

I think the juggernaut is a really good alliance and for facilitating solo wins for this reason, and not so much because the juggernaut (the Russia-Turkey Alliance) is, it is tactically so powerful, it’s just that that alliance can go on for a really long time. And the one who backstab the other might solo win. I think there’s a similar thing going on with the England-Russia Alliance.

Usually, I would say it’s the English player who has to really initiate this because most English players are trying to get into Scandinavia early and treat Russia as a threat to be fought, and so if you’re Russia, there’s not a whole lot you can do. Like, if the English player considers you a rival or an enemy, then asking them to do, like, a crazy plan is probably not going to work out. But even when you’re England, and you’re trying to persuade the Russian to do this, it’s risky for them too because it means that they’re moving into the Baltic Sea immediately, not bouncing Germany in Sweden as promised, so it’s a big gamble.

From the Russian perspective, if England’s lying to me about this, then I have just stabbed Germany for nothing. So you have to get—a requirement, I suppose, is that both players must be players who are willing to form an alliance at the beginning of the game and do some kind of tricksy play. I’ve done it before, similar things, not this particular opening, I have been Turkey and permitted Russia to take Constantinople in 1901 on purpose, where I took Sevastopol with my army and we gated Russia’s fleet out early, and my army got sent up to the north, and that worked out for us.

I’ve played Key Lepanto as Austria, where I allowed Italy to do all that. If you’ve heard of Key Lepanto, that’s where Italy takes Serbia In 1901. I’ve done those things, and they succeeded. But I don’t do them every day. I have to really feel it, that yes, this is a player who wants to do something really, a stunning opening, and they’re willing to bet a lot on the beginning of the game based on trust. I rarely feel that way about other players, and probably they, I don’t know if they feel that way as often as I do or not. That’s a very challenging negotiation, I guess is what I’m trying to say is, because both players have to detect and believe that the other is the kind of player who’s willing to form an alliance right at the beginning and make crazy moves to effectuate that alliance right out of the gate.

In pickup Diplomacy games, I think you’ll see that a little more often because there are players who are willing to, like, “I don’t know, I’ll just try it out. I’m kind of bored actually of the same openings”.

In a tournament setting, I think you’re going to face a bigger challenge because the players are thinking, “I’m going to win the tournament, I’m nervous, everyone’s lying to me, I want to see what happens. Show me some proof.” And so the alliances are not necessarily apparent until a few turns in, because the players are looking for some proof that their neighbors want to work with them before they’ll commit to anything big. Not saying that crazy openings are unheard of in tournaments, they do happen in tournaments. It’s just that my intuition or my experience tells me that that’s harder to negotiate than in a pickup game.

Let’s see, we’ve got some other tournament-based topics, such as communicating with the 15-minute deadlines. I’ll be honest; I’ve only played live games a few times. I haven’t played them that often, so I don’t think I can count myself as an expert in this regard. But the most basic thing is, it’s like all business, you got to get down to business. Talk about the moves and what you can agree to and things like that, and not spend so much time discussing, like, long term strategy, and why we both love the same type of beer, that kind of stuff that you find in long, drawn-out Press games.

There is a logistical problem working with distant powers. So in games that are shorter, with the shorter time limits, players end up forming their best alliances, by and large, with a neighbor. And you can expect neighbor alliances to dominate the game and even to be played out a long time; because that’s who the players are spending their time talking to. And even if you’re a pretty trustworthy and friendly person in general, if they’ve spent so much time talking to their neighbor, and not really to you, then that can translate into the neighbor alliance lasting a lot—more likely to last, and to last longer, than you would see in a drawn-out Press game where the players have as much opportunity to talk to each other throughout all phases of the game.

I will say this, even in games that go on for weeks or months, there are players who make the mistake of not talking to their distant powers even though they have the time. Even though you have, it doesn’t cost you anything to do it. They spend all their time trying to negotiate with their neighbor, and then they don’t really know, they don’t take advantage of those opportunities. So I think that’s a big consequence of the short time limits is inflates the importance of neighbor alliances, and diminishes the ability to do distant power alliances.

In games with the short time in the turn, the player sometimes, they’re much more likely to make tactical oversights and play more based on the gist of how the board’s looking and whatnot. And so if you’re very quick on your feet tactically, this can be an immense advantage in playing a game with short times.

So there are a lot of diplomacy players who will spend a long time analyzing the board, or they’re talking about it, and they need to have a lot of conversations to realize all the possibilities. All that stuff goes out the window when you’re in this short timeframe. You have to talk to everybody and also make your plans and execute your moves in this short timeframe. So misremembering which provinces connect to which, or how support orders work, and that kind of stuff can be immensely disadvantageous if you make those mistakes. And conversely, if you recognize the possibility of those mistakes in other players and don’t make them yourself, then that can be a big advantage. This means that a lot of players are choosing their moves based on what’s obvious or intuitive, and if you’re able to think of more complicated moves, that’s—especially complicated counter moves—quickly, then that can be quite helpful.

So a challenge in having games with unlimited turn limits is that some players’ games will be over, and they’ll have nothing to do, and some players’ games will be devastatingly long and they’re exhausted, and then they immediately have to start another game. So the term limits are trying—are a system that’s designed to try to even out that time/effort commitment, so that you don’t end up losing just because you’re exhausted or dropping out of the tournament, or similarly, so that you’re not wasting your time just hanging around doing nothing. That attracts a certain kind of person who has the stamina to play diplomacy that long, and so some people get knocked out of the tournament just because they can’t do that much. 

I think that’s why you see a fairly different crop of people, for the most part, in these long-drawn-out tournaments than from what you see the face-to-face, or even virtual face-to-face tournaments that only go on for a weekend. In recent times, of course, there’s been more overlap, because people have learned about video conferencing and whatnot, and they’re applying that.

But even with that in mind, I can at least—I think traditionally, the distinction I think comes from that, in how the time commitment differs so much. So working backwards… If that’s right, if I’m right about that, that it’s about the range of the time commitment, then I understand why turn limits are used in the tournaments. Even though the strategic implications are not to my liking. I understand why they do it because there are people who wouldn’t play otherwise, or even if they played they would have to leave.

Music Break Due to Lost Audio 23:32

There are alliances that I think are so cool, that… I’m never able to get them going, and I don’t understand how other players do this. For example, I have a really high opinion of a Austria-Russia Alliance. I really do. It seems like a very good alliance to me for many reasons. Whenever I’m Austria or Russia, I either find myself thinking this other player’s—I just cannot see myself being this other person’s ally, as interested as I am in Austria-Russia, or they must be thinking something similar, because they don’t work with me.

So maybe I’ll answer your question by saying, I’m really interested in playing an Austria-Russia alliance more often. I’m really interested in it. I want to learn more about how it feels to play that alliance, and I would like more opportunities to play that alliance. I don’t find myself in it very often. So as Austria, I’m intrigued to play that alliance, because I think it gives Austria a big opportunity to clear up centers that are distant—across the stalemate line, is what I’m saying—before going after Russia. And I’m interested in playing that alliance as Russia, because it’s an opportunity for Russia to play as a big naval power in both spheres, potentially; and that’s fascinating to me, and I would like the opportunity to play the game that way just to see how it happens. 

I’ve played so few games where I’m able to get significant naval power as Russia. I have a hard time even imagining what it feels like to be playing the game that way. For that matter, not only have I not had that opportunity, it really occurs in the games that I’m in, for me to even just see it, and I would like to know more about that. 

I think we’re getting to the end of the time I have allocated here. I think this was a pretty fun dojo for me. Cool stuff, maybe we’ll see you next week.

Outro 25:33  

If you enjoyed this episode, remember to subscribe and review the podcast. To learn more from Your Bored Brother, and to participate in the dojo, visit the blog at brotherbored.com, or the patreon at bit.ly/supportybb. Thanks to loyalty freak music for the theme music, “it feels good to be alive too.”