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Proposed DipCon Scoring System: A Sketch

By Jim Burgess

(From Diplomacy World #60)

Goals of the System:

1. Reward Winning and Taking Risks to Try to Win

2. Penalize the Largest Power in Large Draws for Failing to Play

3. Credit to Small Survivors with Incentives to Keep Playing

Master Scoring System: Don't use averages of any kind, reward people for playing as many games as possible. The total score is the simple sum of game scores from all of the games played. If you must, count only three scores or the three highest scores.

Game Scoring System: Modified 100 Point System (100 points for a win, 50 points for each player in a two way, 33 1/ 3 for each player in a three way, 25 for a four way, 20 for a five way, 16 2/3 for a six way, and 14 2/7 for a seven way ((leave the 2/7 in as a mark of shame...))

Modification 1: Subtract the difference between your supply center count and the count of the smallest member of the draw from the "100 Point System" score to get your score if you are a member of the draw.

Modification 2: Eliminated players get no points, but surviv­als get triple their final supply center count as their score.

Example: England defeats and eliminates France and Ger­many while a Russia/Turkey alliance defeats an Austria/Italy alliance. Italy is eliminated as well (all three eliminated players get a zero score and are properly chastised for abysmal play, especially on a strategic level). Austria teams up with RT to set up a stalemate line at the usual place with the final supply center counts and scores (four way draw):

AUSTRIA: 2 Supply Centers =25 -(2-2) =25 points as a score. ENGLAND: 17 Supply Centers =25 -(17-2) =10 points as a score. RUSSIA: 10 Supply Centers =25 -(10-2) =17 points as a score. TURKEY: 5 Supply Centers =25 -(5­2) =22 points as a score.

What? Unfair you say?? England and Russia have some pretty mighty incentives to do something other than agree to this draw; however, if Austria can make himself or herself absolutely essential to the stalemate line they might have to do so. I argue that Austria is the "winner" if this· can be accomplished and the game will be far better for the attempt

There are other draw possibilities though, let's look at them...here's the three way where Austria agrees to the survival as an alternative to being eliminated:

AUSTRIA: 2x3 =6points as a score. ENGLAND: 33 1/3­ - (17-5) =21 1/3 points as a score. RUSSIA: 33 1/3 -(10-5) = 28 1/3 points as a score. TURKEY: 33 1/3 -(5-5) =33 1/3 points

as a score.

England doesn't like this result too much either. Diplomacy is the way out, isn't it? We all can think of some options or England might just have to veto draws for awhile until the other three powers decide to do something. This is a cut­throat system and makes no apologies for it. It's time to get serious about the idea of a national champion. The two way results illustrate the more likely outcomes of this situation and the idea of this system is that it encourages the big powers to prove their worth (ER two way):

AUSTRIA: 2 x 3 = 6points as a score. ENGLAND: 50- (17-­10) =43 points as a score. RUSSIA: 50 -(10-10) =50 points as a score. TURKEY: 5 x 3 =15 points as a score.

Eliminating Austria and Turkey in this situation helps England's score but not Russia's, so if it is a locked up position where Austria and Turkey are vulnerable to stabs they probably would agree to this draw, but the temptation for Russia to stab them is not SO great that they have no chance to survive. What about the win from this situation? Russia would stab if there was some chance of getting the win over England, since the downside risk is not too large as long as Russia can get all but a couple of the centers. For example, the win is worth 100 points (to whichever power can achieve it), but if Russia can get to 16 centers then England would get the 100 points, but Russia would get 48, only slightly less than the two way result Of course, the incentive to go for the win in this kind of situation would be stronger if England were not so close to victory (a more likely occurrence). I strongly urge that some sort of system like this be used to get around problems that I've observed in other scoring systems. I'd appreciate feedback of any kind.