CaptainMeme's recent activity
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme Link ParentThis is the first time I've seen someone else talking about this game! I played through it and it's a really tough experience to describe, but I think you've done so better than I could. I was...This is the first time I've seen someone else talking about this game! I played through it and it's a really tough experience to describe, but I think you've done so better than I could. I was initially a bit worried that all the puzzles would be very simple and they'd gone quantity over quality, but that turned out not to be the case at all.
Things I liked about the game:
- The tile puzzles in particular had really great variety, and ramped up in difficulty at a nice pace. There were also scattered puzzles that had much higher difficulties that you could attempt much earlier if you wanted to.
- I think the way the game introduces mechanics with chains of puzzles works very well. I don't think there was ever a jump where I felt like I hadn't been prepared for a puzzle, which is a bit different to my experience with the Witness!
- The exploration I was a bit dubious, but two things I really enjoy about it are that you can stumble across plenty of puzzles on your way to another location (and choose whether to attempt them or not), and that you can fly to islands you technically haven't unlocked yet to attempt things early if you want to - the game calls you out on it but allows you to keep going, and I really love that.
- There's a certain type of puzzle in the endgame (orbs that you unlock with riddles attached) that were some of the most satisfying solves I've ever done in a puzzle game. A lot of them are tough but really, really clever and figuring them out makes you feel like a beast.
My problems with the game:
- As you mention, the story really just shouldn't exist. I usually read dialogue in games but this felt incredibly disjointed and meandering with no real purpose, so I ended up skipping a good amount of it.
- The game has performance issues - particularly in tile puzzles, which is really odd because they should be the easiest thing to render. My PC was really struggling with the game even on medium settings on a 3060ti.
- The multiplayer just... doesn't impact anything. It's so weird to make it a live service and not have any puzzles that require interacting with another player at all.
- XP grinding makes no sense for a game like this, and I hate that the puzzles on the mainland reset to allow for it. I'd much prefer what I've done to stay done, I'm glad the islands at least work that way.
- The fractal puzzles are just annoying and don't seem to work half the time; it feels like you can get an exact match and it won't accept it. It's doubly annoying because they're also one of the puzzle types that hints don't work on.
- Lastly, those riddle puzzles I mentioned earlier - some of them are the absolute best things in the game, and others are... not. I ended up following a walkthrough for a good half of them after getting frustrated enough with them to give up. I think my opinion on these are that the good ones give you relatively decent information on where in the world to be looking, whereas there are quite a few that require scouring the entire world looking for something that's been vaguely described to you and are all relatively easy to miss.
Overall it was very much a mixed bag. I'd still definitely recommend it to a puzzle fan, but probably with the caveat of not shying away from using a walkthrough for some of the riddle puzzles if they do want to experience the endgame content.
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Comment on In the AI era, is translation already dead? in ~humanities.languages
CaptainMeme Link ParentI remember re-reading the Asterix and Obelix comics and being incredibly impressed by the translation. It's not really something you think about as a child reading it, but the amount of language...I remember re-reading the Asterix and Obelix comics and being incredibly impressed by the translation. It's not really something you think about as a child reading it, but the amount of language jokes in it is amazing - presumably almost all of them had to be entirely reworked from the original. I really can't see AI sticking the landing with things like that anytime soon.
It's not entirely the same as your example but it hits the same notes I think - translation is partially recreating the work, but also partially adapting the work, and in fiction specifically translators have to work hard to hit that balance.
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Comment on 12 Word Searches: a printable puzzle book in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme Link ParentThe main thing I've done along these lines before are Puzzle Hunts, although they're generally designed for teams instead of individuals and are over a specified timeframe. The MIT Mystery Hunt is...The main thing I've done along these lines before are Puzzle Hunts, although they're generally designed for teams instead of individuals and are over a specified timeframe. The MIT Mystery Hunt is coming up on the 12th Jan - I usually find the first round puzzles of that to be doable and fun, they get a bit too difficult for me beyond that :D
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Comment on 12 Word Searches: a printable puzzle book in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme LinkThank you for linking this! It's the type of thing I really enjoy even though I'm not the best at it :D Have been working on it on and off throughout the day, am at the very last puzzle now.Thank you for linking this! It's the type of thing I really enjoy even though I'm not the best at it :D Have been working on it on and off throughout the day, am at the very last puzzle now.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
CaptainMeme Link ParentI had (probably) the same Mirror's Edge retrospective pop up, and had been tempted to get it and give it a go, but from this and a couple of other posts I've seen about it I'm going to pass, I...I had (probably) the same Mirror's Edge retrospective pop up, and had been tempted to get it and give it a go, but from this and a couple of other posts I've seen about it I'm going to pass, I think.
From what I saw in the retrospective, I think Neon White does everything Mirror's Edge was trying to do around being a movement-based game, and does it much better. Would highly recommend that instead if you're looking for that kind of game.
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Comment on The longest game of Diplomacy ever in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme LinkJust went through and fixed a bunch of links that I assumed would work, but don't anymore. Guess that's a lesson in not just copy/pasting a 7 year old article! They should all be working now. I've...Just went through and fixed a bunch of links that I assumed would work, but don't anymore. Guess that's a lesson in not just copy/pasting a 7 year old article! They should all be working now.
I've also got a new quote to add to the ones at the bottom about Diplomacy:
"It's just hell, Diplomacy, in a wonderful way." - Matt Lees, Shut Up and Sit Down
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The longest game of Diplomacy ever
This is an article I wrote on boardgames subreddit seven years ago, about a tournament game of Diplomacy which had lasted more than 3 years and was still ongoing at the time. It eventually ended...
This is an article I wrote on boardgames subreddit seven years ago, about a tournament game of Diplomacy which had lasted more than 3 years and was still ongoing at the time. It eventually ended in a draw with Italy leading, in Feb 2016, after 3 years and 7 months of play. I'm reposting it here because I'm quite proud of the article (and I want to move it away from Reddit) and because imo it still holds up as one of the greatest events in the history of Diplomacy and a very interesting event in niche internet history.
tl;dr - Seven players (less now that some have been eliminated) have been playing a game that simulates the First World War in a Tournament. They've been playing it so long that the First World War is now continuing on into the 21st Century. The game has been out for 57 years and this has never happened in a recorded game before.
If you are not familiar with Diplomacy, it's a war game based around negotiation where 7 players each play one Great Power in the First World War, attempting to gain control of Europe by taking key provinces known as Supply Centers. It's very similar to A Game of Thrones - The Board Game except that you can (usually) talk in private with other players and all players must submit orders for a phase before any are revealed, meaning that you don't know if your 'ally' will backstab you that phase or not until you've already set your orders. Other players can support your units into provinces, so negotiation is key to victory.
Everyone who knows about Diplomacy knows that it takes a ridiculously long time to play. In a face-to-face (FTF) tournament strict deadlines of 15 minutes per phase are set, and games are played from 1901 to 1908, meaning 4 hours for a game. In casual settings, where the timers aren't observed so harshly, a game of the same number of phases can take 8 hours.
Because of how difficult Diplomacy can be to start in real life, there are a lot of active communities for playing it online. In online play, phases are usually set to process every 2 days, and you only need to dedicate an hour or so a day to it. Because of this, the set end date (1908) used in most FTF games isn't needed, and the game can be played to the win condition stated in the rulebook - one great power controlling 18 Supply Centers - which isn't used much in FTF because it takes far too long to achieve. This in turn means that games can last months.
There's also the possibility of an 'eternal game' since there is no set end date. Usually, this is due to stalemates - there can be positions where no player can push any further forward, and no player can back off because another player can win as a result. These games are declared drawn, since no victory is possible.
However, there's a small possibility of a game that would go on forever while going back and forth, back and forth - one power gaining centers then being pushed back by the others, and then another, and so on, without the game being stalemated. In practice, this sort of thing rarely happens - going by statistics from webDiplomacy last year, out of ~43000 games completed, only 17 had legitimately passed 1930, and none of those had reached the year 1940.
The longest recorded completed game comes from another site and reached 1964 -note, I originally had a link to this game but it appears to now be dead. However, one non-completed game on webDiplomacy completely blows it out of the water.
The 2012 webDiplomacy World Cup Final has one game still ongoing, long after all the others have been completed. This game has just reached the year 2000! That is absolutely insane - if this had been a FTF game at a tournament, the participants would have been playing for just over two days straight. Since it's online, they have been playing for three and a half years.
I have checked with several important members of the Diplomacy community and it is indeed the first game ever to have legitimately done so (not just because some players decided to mess around until it reached that date).
What was/is the 2012 webDiplomacy World Cup?
The World Cup was an event held on webDiplomacy which mimicked the FTF Diplomacy Tournament that goes by the same name. Different countries (or regions, if there were not enough players in a country) would gather a group of players and play in a group of games with teams from 6 other regions, each having one player in each game, and gaining points based on how well they did in each game. The best countries/regions advanced from groups in a knockout style until the Final, which has not yet finished.
Why has it gone on so long?
That's a difficult question to give a straight answer to. It's a combination of several factors:
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These players are insanely good. The teams in question reached the final, and they picked their best participants at the Public Press Variant (which I'll come to next) for this game.
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This game is Public Press Only. That means that any messages anyone sends are received by everyone, which slows the game down a fair amount because players have to position themselves to make completely uncounterable moves if they want to coordinate them with allies, or they have to risk their allies misunderstanding what they are doing and not supporting them correctly.
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Nobody wants to lose or draw. Sounds trivial, right? Everyone wants to win any game they're playing. This one is different, though - every other game in the world cup has finished, so everyone in the game knows how many points all teams have. Every team in this game can still win the overall tournament, but for most of them it is only if they achieve a solo victory. One specific team will win if all players draw, so nobody except that team want this game to end in a draw, and certainly nobody wants anyone else to get a solo.
That said, fatigue is starting to set in and they may draw the game soon just to be done of it. That's only after over 3 years of trying to achieve a solo though.
Do you have a handy graph of how the SC counts of each player have changed throughout the game?
What a coincidence! I just happen to have one right here!
That game is really long. I want to just see the interesting bits.
Again, you're in luck! I happen to have an imgur album here which shows the high points and low points of each great power and explains a little what happened to them. The important provinces (Supply Centers) are marked by white circles with a black dot in them. The provinces and units belonging to each country have an assigned colour as follows:
- Pink, England
- Blue, France
- Brown, Germany
- Green, Italy
- Red, Austria
- Purple, Russia
- Yellow, Turkey
If you do want to look through the game for yourself, you can find the full record here. On webDiplomacy, red arrows represent move orders, yellow arrows represent support move orders, green lines represent support hold orders, and blue lines represent convoys.
Has any Supply Center never changed hands?
No. Every Supply Center on the board has changed hands at least once. Ankara has been taken the least, it's been held by Russia for the 76 years since he took it from its original owner, Turkey, in 1925. Rumania has been taken the most, it's been conquered an astonishing 26 times. Most SCs have been taken around 11 times, but in particularly contested places (like the Balkans and Scandinavia) the average is much higher.
If it's Public Press Only, can I read the messages the players have sent?
Yes! You can find all messages sent in the game here. Use the blue arrows above the messagebox to navigate pages. The chat from each country follows the same colour coding as their provinces and units.
Bear in mind, though, that there are so many messages to look through that they actually crashed the game at one point. The site administrators had to assign more memory to the chat of this particular game to fix it. There's also some profanity in some of the messages, although not many.
Diplomacy sounds interesting. Can I try it?
First off, playing the game in person is a very different experience to playing it online, and one that I find to be much more tense and exciting (although online is good too!). I'd very much recommend you play it in person first. You'll need a copy of the board game (it's available on Amazon) and 6 friends with 4 hours spare.
Obviously that can be a bit difficult to arrange, so you could also look for Diplomacy Face to Face groups in your area - there are quite a few of them around the world. If you want information about them feel free to PM me and I'll try to find out if there are any in your area and get back to you. Also, if you're part of a board gaming group, it's possible that someone there will have a copy so you might be able to play it with them.
If you are interested in the online version, there are many online sites that offer it. I'd recommend webDiplomacy but there are plenty of others if you don't like the interface there.
Is there anything I should know before I play?
Yes, specifically if you're playing in person. I'll let some board game celebrities say it for me:
"Diplomacy wounds run deep, and take forever to heal." - Wil Wheaton
It's not quite as bad as they make out, but it's worth making sure that you don't play it with someone you know will take lies and backstabbing badly. Also - don't play it over several sessions, the paranoia you get when you see other players talking to one another in the breaks can be unbearable.
Congratulations if you've read this far, and I hope others found this Diplomacy game to be as incredible as I did!
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Comment on Any Diplomacy players here? in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme Link ParentThank you! I've got a couple videos which go through press in longer games - The Austria-Turkey Alliance one and Media Wars 1. Unfortunately by their nature they're insanely long - and at the time...Thank you! I've got a couple videos which go through press in longer games - The Austria-Turkey Alliance one and Media Wars 1. Unfortunately by their nature they're insanely long - and at the time I wasn't great at getting to the point, which makes the problem a bit worse. I really need to make another one but they take a lot more work to make than the Blitz ones.
Re: articles it looks like the site I used to use a bunch is no longer functional :( But there are a few I can pick out from elsewhere:
VillageIdiot's Advanced Diplomacy Maneuvers goes through a lot of the tactics top players use that aren't immediately obvious.
Seren Kwok's article on Stalemate Lines is really good for the endgame. These are positions which 'lock' - if you manage to get into one and give the same defensive orderset continuously, you can't lose and can force stronger powers to take a draw instead of a win.
Andrew Goff's Diplomacy Overview is a pretty good resource for overall strategy towards the game - he's the most decorated Diplomacy player in history, so knows what he's talking about, although I should say his recommendations are geared towards nonanonymous play where you have to be more honest with people.
Not an article - this one is a youtube video series - but Legendary Tactics' interviews with various top level Diplomacy players are fantastic. There are some that are a bit too prescriptive imo - ones like the England one are very geared towards a certain strategy that won't work for everyone - but they still all give a great insight into how a top level player thinks about the game. -
Comment on Any Diplomacy players here? in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme Link ParentFor strategy, I feel like half of it is reading articles (there are an absolute ton out there) and half just comes from repeated play. Over at webDiplomacy you can play gunboat (no-press) against...For strategy, I feel like half of it is reading articles (there are an absolute ton out there) and half just comes from repeated play. Over at webDiplomacy you can play gunboat (no-press) against AI, which is useful for improving tactically although it doesn't really match up to talking to people.
I can compile and link some strategy articles if you'd like them
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Comment on Any Diplomacy players here? in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme LinkI love Diplomacy! Have been playing it for over a decade now and I run a small YouTube channel about it called DiploStrats. Absolutely fascinating game - I find myself hating it sometimes and I...I love Diplomacy! Have been playing it for over a decade now and I run a small YouTube channel about it called DiploStrats.
Absolutely fascinating game - I find myself hating it sometimes and I wouldn't recommend it to most of my friends, but it's unlike anything else out there and it's heavily addictive if you like that kind of negotiation.
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Comment on What board games have you played this week (to 12th June)? in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme Link ParentYes, that one is fantastic too!Yes, that one is fantastic too!
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Comment on Mysterious, thoughtful games? A genre I can't define in ~games
CaptainMeme LinkI'm not certain it fits into this category exactly, but The Painscreek Killings is a game I got recommended after I went looking for games similar to Outer Wilds and Obra Dinn - it's a mystery...I'm not certain it fits into this category exactly, but The Painscreek Killings is a game I got recommended after I went looking for games similar to Outer Wilds and Obra Dinn - it's a mystery game where you're a reporter in a completely abandoned town, investigating murders that happened there a long time ago.
It gives you very little direction - you just explore and pick up diaries and suchlike which give you a bit more of an idea on what specifically to check out and what you might be able to do to find out more. The gameplay often involves finding keys to various places, which is a bit less interesting than the way Outer Wilds gates stuff solely with knowledge, but it still works quite well imo. Definitely worth a go if you like that kind of detective/mystery game.
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Comment on What board games have you played this week (to 12th June)? in ~games.tabletop
CaptainMeme LinkI played a ton of Coup back in University and then lost my copy, and only just got a new one five years later. God, playing it again reminded me why it was the all time favourite for us back then....I played a ton of Coup back in University and then lost my copy, and only just got a new one five years later. God, playing it again reminded me why it was the all time favourite for us back then. Nothing feels better than successfully winning a game you were dealt two Contessas in by bluffing throughout :D
Yep, those are the ones! And yes, I'd recommend doing them after unlocking everything else. I started on them a little earlier than that but they are very much endgame content.