Guaroz -
To begin, your insistence on talking about “Diplomacy Religion” is annoying at best, and insulting at worst. The fact that you continue to use loaded terms to describe legitimate concerns, and consider that someone who wants to play according to the original intent of the game a “religious believer” is insulting and does not contribute to GENUINE discussion on the topic. The fact that you also claim that anyone who feels this way views writings as “sacred” is not only insulting, but hypocritical considering you yourself have used quotes from writings from the past to justify your position. Let me ask you this Guaroz: if I want to play baseball and want to play it according to its original intent (which is to WIN), does that make me a follower of “baseball religion”? Or does it just mean I like to play baseball? What would a “baseball atheist” be? Someone who views it as acceptable to play for statistics like hits instead of wins?
Anyways, moving on, your quote here: “I’m ok with any playstyle, ergo I’m ok with the way you want to play your games, any the reasons behind your choice might be.” begs the question: If I decided that all I wanted to accomplish in every game was attack England as France, with no thought to winning, or drawing, or even surviving, or dip points, or HoF points, do you still view that as a “proper” way of playing the game? Even though it goes against everything the game’s objectives say?
If you say no, that’s not proper, then you’re directly contradicting yourself as clearly you believe in some sort of proper behavior that has to follow some sort of guideline.
If you DO say that’s proper, then I’ll move on and present you with another scenario: Let’s pretend it’s the World Cup, and you’re in the Round Robin round. You are a weak team, paired with 2 of the best in the world and another weak team. By sheer luck you’ve beaten the 2 good teams (let’s say they scored own-goals and lost because of it), and the other games were split. After 2 games, you have 4
, and everyone else has 2 (1 win, 1 loss). During your final game (against the bad team), you find out that the 2 good teams tied (and thus have 3
each). Would it be acceptable for your team to lose “on purpose” by not trying very hard and allowing easy goals in order to knock out the 2 best teams from the World Cup?
Again, if you say no, why not? You could always claim injury, or fatigue, or sickness, or any other bunch of reasons why your team played poorly. Or heck, you could even argue that it’s in your best interest to see those two teams knocked out.
If you say it IS acceptable, then why is it that when this happens, people are punished? For example, take Badminton in the 2012 Olympics, where members of 3 teams were disqualified for throwing games in order to receive better pairings in the future. They were charged with “not using one’s best efforts to win a match” and “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport.”.
And now I’ll explain why this situation is applicable to ours. Guaroz, you (and others) claim that the invention of the internet and playing of Diplomacy has changed the game. Likewise, the invention of the World Cup has changed soccer (football). If you argue that due to the play of Diplomacy online, that we can change the CORE objective of the game (to win), then surely you can argue that due to playing soccer in the World Cup (or in any “league” format), we can change the CORE objective of soccer (to win the game). After all, the World Cup format has changed soccer’s objective more than online Dip has changed Diplomacy’s. At least one can make a coherent argument that throwing a game in the World Cup could potentially help you in the future (by knocking out better opponents). Playing online does not make that same sort of change in Diplomacy. All it does is change the medium through which people interact. It does not fundamentally change the game.
As for this statement by you: “So what before 1974? For 15 years they played the game in a wrong way? Why Mr. Calhmer felt the need to write it? Why did he wait so long? Was there a who or a what that convinced him to write it? Perhaps anything new? Was there a new issue and someone asked him his opinion? Was he paid for it?”, I would answer like this:
For 15 years, people generally played correctly. However, with the rise of popularity, people began to play for “ratings” instead of to win. Mr. Calhamer viewed this as incorrect and as such, wrote a statement explaining this. What is strongly implied in his writing is what I posted at the start of this thread. Everytime he mentions a secondary objective (like strong-second), he follows it up with a reason why it’s not right (in strong-second’s case, it’s because we assume that the solo-er goes on to conquer all of Europe, thus killing the strong-second-er as well). Perhaps it’s a language barrier, but his writing is definitely NOT an endorsement of “anything goes as long as it’s not specifically against the rules”. To confirm this, simply read the first 2 sentences again.
“The long argument among the fans between what has been called the "Win Only" school and the "Strong Second" school, is really an argument over what the player’s objectives should be in cases in which he has little or no hope of winning, or in which he is playing to win but wishes to keep a second objective in reserve. The "Win Only" school believes that the secondary objective should be to draw the game; the "Strong Second" believes in rating performances other than wins and draws.”
Notice that key part where he says “in cases in which he has little or no hope of winning”? That right there shows you that the PRIME objective is to win, and only when winning is a distant hope, should we even CONSIDER other objectives. If that’s not clear, you need reading comprehension.