From: jfurr@nyx.cs.du.edu (Joel Furr)
Subject: Re: The relative merits of NMR
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Date: Fri, 8 Jan 93 09:24:25 GMT

In article <1993Jan8.074856.13955@muddcs.claremont.edu> irilyth@fenris.claremont.edu (Josh Smith) writes:
>One of the reasons I like Diplomacy so much, though, is that the random
>elements are minimized. I think someone else suggested earlier that NMR
>added more randomness to the game, and I tend to agree: one of my allies
>going CD at a crucial juncture without warning (and I would imagine NMR
>disappearances are usually not anticipated) can completely screw over an
>otherwise sound plan. Catastrophe strikes, without warning, and without any
>chance for me to do anything about it.
>
>When my ally gets abandoned and taken over, it's true (as I think Joel
>mentioned) that there's no guarantee that his replacement will be interested
>in continuing our alliance. However, I at least have the chance to negotiate
>with the new player, and if he seems intractable, I can rethink my relations
>with the other players. It's disruptive, certainly, but no more so than an
>NMR: someone going CD is effectively equivalent to the player being replaced
>by someone who refuses to negotiate or make any alliances. Either way, the
>old alliance is in danger, but I'd much rather have at least a chance at
>persuading the new "player" to help me out.

And someone going CD in an NMR game is equivalent to, you guessed it,
civil disorder.  Like what happened in Russia in 1917.  That's why they
call it "civil disorder."  CD doesn't mean that the units of the affected
country vanish into thin air.  They hold.  This may not have all that much
of a difference.  If someone spots the CD country sitting there in an NMR
game, they can always come in and take it over.  Perhaps only one "wasted"
turn will have taken place.

Let me give another case: someone's down to one army.  In a supply center,
true.  They give up and quit.  The other players wait 10 days for them to
go CD, then ask people to take over.  People eye the army and decline. 
I'm playing an army in 'light' on the Washington judge and hey, there's
NOT a lot I can do with it.  Which is more realistic?  People waiting 10
days to two weeks for the army to go CD, or the army just holding?  Makes
darn poor sense for 35 units to grind to a stop because that Russian army
holed up in Berlin isn't issuing orders.

Finally, I don't see how NMR is "more random" than bringing in an entirely
new player for a country.  NMR is not random at all.  Once someone
vanishes, an eventuality with exactly the same probability in NMR and
noNMR games, the results are exactly predictable under NMR.  Under noNMR,
who KNOWS what will happen?  You might get some latter-day Hitler who
ignores reality and orders his units around the board with no sense of
what plans had gone before.  You might get someone who hates the French
and, even though his "former self" had been allied with them, suddenly
turns on them.  I've not had a whole lot of faith counting on replacement
players to uphold the agreements made by players they replaced.  The
effect of replacement players is very random.

I had rather a country go CD and just hold and perhaps then get a
replacement player and perhaps NOT get a replacement player and go on
holding than watch all the players in the game sitting there losing
interest days or weeks after the grace ended.  I don't play Diplomacy for
the mindless tedium.  I play it for the strategy, and dealing with a
neighbor whose armies suddenly stop aggressive behavior and just hold
their positions is just another form of strategy.

          (__)                                           
          (oo)                                                     Joel Furr
   /-------\/                                     jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu
  / |     ||                                            Blacksburg, Virginia
 *  ||----||                                                             USA
    ^^    ^^

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