The Biggest Game of All Time9 min read

“Want to see how a pro thinks? Read it.” – Jason Regnier, Diplomacy World #114 (Winter 2018)

“[U]nquestionably the highest-caliber contribution to gunboat strategy and thinking in site history, and possibly on the entirety of the Internet. It is without equal in anything I’ve read about the variant.” – President Eden

“The way you walk through your decision process is impeccably thorough. This will be a great resource for anyone who enjoys the hobby.” – Tom Bombadil

“Great document and very insightful – really puts you in the mind of a top-tier player[.]” – Magnetic24

“[T]he depth of this account is incredible and a great resource for anyone wanting to learn to play as any country and not just Germany” – SkiingCougar

“Well written, cogent, with good, detailed analysis and to top it off, very entertaining. I was rooting for you to solo.” – David E. Cohen

“That journal belongs in the category of webDip’s best reads.” – bo_sox48

“[M]any years ago I tried to write a 50,000-word novel in a month. I barely managed to reach 25,000. This guy just casually writes 80k for us!” – Claesar

“Thank you [. . .] for the incredible effort you put in your journal.” – Mercy

Introduction: What was the “Biggest Game of All Time”?

The “Biggest Game of All Time” was a gunboat Diplomacy match played on webDiplomacy.net from September 4, 2017 to November 19, 2017 (76 days). WebDiplomacy’s record of match can be found here. 

The match was played between some of the best players on the website. These players bet 4,500 points, which, for webDiplomacy, was the biggest bet ever made at that time (hence, “Biggest Game”). Although most players would not consider these points to be a definitive measure of skill at the game, it is worth mentioning that only about 50 players on the website had a point purse big enough to make a 4,500 point bet (the starting amount for a new account is 100 points).

I participated in this match as the player swordsman3003. I started keeping a journal about the match as soon as it started. The rest of this post and my other posts about the match are the journal I kept during the game. Although I later proofread the journal for errors, I have not altered any of the substance (I have placed any post-game commentary in footnotes). In other words, the journal was recorded in real time and faithfully describes what I was thinking each turn of the game.

The journal is a turn-by-turn analysis of every single thing I considered for the match. By the end, I had recorded more than 80,000 words. My insights range from my general opinions on the strategic quirks of all 7 powers to my efforts to read meaning into the tiniest signals sent by my rivals.

Since its initial publication, my journal has been described by experienced Diplomacy players as one of the greatest writings ever produced on the subject of gunboat Diplomacy (to be fair, very little has ever been published on the subject). Some people have even written me to say that they improved their skill at gunboat Diplomacy by applying the methods I explained in this journal. If you are familiar with gunboat Diplomacy and want to improve, then you have found an excellent resource.

Enjoy!

My Experience with Diplomacy

I started playing Diplomacy probably 7 or 8 years ago. I was in college when a friend introduced me to the tabletop game. As someone who had grown up playing board games like Risk and Axis & Allies, as well as numerous RTS video games, I was intrigued by the simplicity of Diplomacy as well as the explicit political aspect of the game. I later bought my own copy and played a few times with my friends and family.

Although I played other games often with my group, I just could not get enough players interested in Diplomacy. Even though I rarely played, I often read old articles from the days of magazine Diplomacy (now posted online) and was always entertained and impressed by the ideas and style of these writers. I maintained my interest in the game despite rarely playing.

Maybe after a year or so of that, I started playing online at webDiplomacy. I had great experiences playing the game on webDiplomacy and have made friends with some of the players. Something I especially like about webDiplomacy is how the other website members have taught me so much about the game – not just by demonstrating their skill through clever plays that I could later copy, but also taking time to explain what I could have done differently or how I could improve as a player (even when I felt bad about losing and was not exactly gracious). I had so many fun experiences and really felt myself improving as a player.

For maybe about 4 years, my life became too busy to play many games and I stopped participating on WebDiplomacy. But about 1 year ago, I reached a point in my life where I felt I could making online Diplomacy a hobby of mine, or even my main hobby. I started joining games again (many games; sometimes over 20 at once) and, to my great surprise, I was apparently even better at the game than I was before my long break. I made solo wins in some of the first games I joined, so I started trying to get into higher level games, where I still played well and got good results. As the year went on, I started focusing more on gunboat games due to the smaller time commitment per game.

Take my assessment as you will, but here is my opinion on why I returned to Diplomacy as such a strong player and rose up the ranks this past year: I am now a mature, experienced, working professional. I think important personality traits for success at Diplomacy include patience, mercy, and empathy. I think that the challenges of my professional career – and just getting through life as an adult – caused me to become a more thoughtful, kinder person with a stronger ability to understand the thinking of people who are different from me. To be sure, there are times to play Diplomacy ruthlessly, to take revenge, backstab your best ally, and so on – but as a younger man, I think I overvalued the sociopathic strategies that dominate the public perception of how Diplomacy is played. That kind of strategy is, indeed, very powerful – but only if the other players do not realize what you are doing until it is too late for them.

In addition, I think I have improved a lot in the past year in terms of my creative, strategic approaches to the game. I have seen other players make so many strange and impressive choices that I became much more open-minded about what can realistically be accomplished during a game of Diplomacy.

I am excited to be invited to “The Biggest Game of All Time.” It has been 1 year since I reignited my interest in online Diplomacy, and I think my ability has greatly increased over the past year. I am ready to test my skill. Should I be defeated, perhaps I will learn about the limits of my abilities and find out some ideas on how to improve. Should I do well, then perhaps I should think of myself as truly a great Gunboat Diplomacy player and consider new ways of pushing myself (other websites, face-to-face tournaments, etc.).

The Purpose and Process of this Journal

As I mentioned earlier, I believe that I have benefited immensely from the writings of other Diplomacy players, from the old magazine articles that I still read to the post-game assessments from my rivals. Not only do I think I have learned how to become a better player from these writings, but I also simply enjoy them for entertainment value. As far as I know, nobody gets paid for these contributions; they are acts of charity. I have decided to “pay it forward” – I intend to reciprocate the charity of these other Diplomacy players who gave up their valuable time to teach me about this wonderful game. This is my thank you to everyone and anyone who has enriched the Diplomacy community with their insights and contributions. My life has been improved by your generosity, and I will demonstrate my sincere appreciation by writing this journal for the current generation of Diplomacy players.

I will write a turn-by-turn journal of everything that comes into my mind as I play through “The Biggest Game of All Time.” I intend to write this journal in real time, initially without the benefit of hindsight that normally comes with a post-game analysis. My hope here is that a real-time journal will make this document especially educational. It’s much harder to know what’s important when you’re in the middle of the game! Once the game is over, I intend to go back and footnote the journal with the benefit of hindsight, adding in some post-game commentary.^[1]Like this! Should I complete this journal, this document will, to my knowledge, be the most thorough assessment of a particular game of Diplomacy that has ever been written.^[2]Now that this document is complete, I feel confident that this is the most thorough narrative of a particular match of Diplomacy. This journal is enormous (more than 80,00 words), and contains some interesting asides about Diplomacy play in general. Good gravy though – this is only a gunboat … Continue reading

Nobody on webDiplomacy knows I am writing this journal. I intend to publish this document once the game is over. I hope everyone on webDiplomacy, and any future Diplomacy players who read this, enjoys this journal and learns something from me (as I have from past players).

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