2007 World Diplomacy Championship Tournament Rules

WDC XVII – DipCon XV –WDC XVII – DipCon XV – WDC XVII – DipCon XV

Except where otherwise modified by these tournament rules, the official rules of game play are those published with 1999 English language Hasbro Games version of Diplomacy. Copies of this edition of the rules may be borrowed from the Tournament Director upon request. Questions or clarifications regarding these rules should be directed to the tournament director, by whose sole discretion both these tournament rules and Hasbro’s Diplomacy rules shall be interpreted.

Tournament Structure

Rounds

Six rounds of play are scheduled. (See attached schedule for details.) One round Thursday evening, two rounds each of Friday and Saturday, and one round Sunday morning. Players are under no obligation to play in any particular number of rounds, and should feel free to play in as few as one or in as many as all six. However, certain awards and prizes – including that of overall tournament winner – may be restricted to players who play a minimum number of games.

Prizes

Awards will include the following:

Tournament Champion will go to the winner of the top board.
Second through Seventh places will go to the six players, not counting the Tournament Champion, who have the highest scores after the final round
Best Country Awards will go to the players with the individual best performances with each of the seven powers.
Team Championship will go to the team with the largest cumulative point total at the end of the final round.
Other prizes to be disclosed during the awards ceremony

Top Board

One of the games in the Sunday morning round will be the designated “Top Board”. The 7 players with the highest scores after the first 5 rounds will be invited to play on the top board. If an invited player does not wish to play on the top board, they may ask to be returned to the general pool, and their spot will be offered to the 8^th ranked player, and so forth.

If a player plays in only two of the first 5 rounds, his score will be adjusted as if he played in a third game and was eliminated. Likewise if a player plays in only one of the first five rounds, his score will be adjusted as though he played in, and was eliminated in, two additional games.

First prize in the tournament and title of 2007 World Diplomacy Champion will be awarded to the player who scores the largest number of points on the top board. In the case of a tie on the top board, the tie will be broken in favor of the player who had the larger number of points going in to the final round.

Other Events

Team Tournament

As is traditional at both World and North American DipCon’s, a Diplomacy Team Tournament will be run simultaneously with the rest of the tournament.

Teams will consist of 3 players, and the team tournament will include all rounds of play. A team’s final score is simply the sum total of the scores of their three players. The team with the highest score wins.

Players on the same team will not be permitted to play on the same board at any time. If two team members ever find that they have been assigned to the same board, they should bring this matter to the Tournament Director’s attention immediately, and the TD will alter the board assignments to correct the problem. In the event that multiple team members qualify to play on the Top Board, such teams shall first be given the option of having enough team members give up their spots on top board so that only one remains. If multiple team members wish to all play on the top board, then those team members’ scores after round 5 shall be used to calculate final team standings, rather than their scores after round 6.

Chaos Game

A single of game of Chaos Diplomacy will be run over the course of the weekend simultaneously to the 6 regular rounds of Diplomacy. Players are welcome and encouraged to play in the chaos game simultaneously to their other games, as the time commitment to this additional game is relatively small, and the game is intended as a fun diversion rather than a serious competition. This game will not count as part of the overall tournament, and will not affect a player’s tournament score, though separate prizes may be awarded based on the chaos game.

The Chaos game will be run according to the same rules as any other game, except that there shall be no clock, and deadlines will occur at specified times of day, rather than a certain number of minutes after the previous turn. Deadlines will be about every 2 hours, during regular tournament hours, all weekend. The exact schedule will be posted near the board. Players will have until 20 minutes after the previous posted movement deadline to turn in retreats and adjustments. However, players are welcome to submit conditional retreats and builds as part of their movement orders if they so choose. Likewise, players are permitted to submit orders for future turns early if they expect to be away from the board for an extended period of time. Each player will be given a special order pad, and is required to submit orders by tearing pages out of that pad and putting them in the order box prior to the deadline. The Chaos game will be adjudicated by the TD, or his designee.

As enforcing rules regarding when players may negotiate would be impossible, players are free to speak to whomever they wish, whenever they wish, regarding the Chaos game, including players not in the game. (It is Chaos after all!) Active crossgaming (i.e. making an agreement with another player that you will take certain actions in multiple games.) is still considered illegal.

The game schedule, the list of players currently participating in the game, and other information including house rules specific to the chaos game will be posted near to the board.

Board Play

Tournament Scoring

Players gain and lose points over the course of the tournament based on the scoring system explained in detail at the end of this document (Appendix A).

The board scoring system is one of a type of scoring system generally referred to as a “Divide and Conquer” system. Variations of this system have been used at various tournaments including ManorCon in Birmingham, England, WAC Con in Seattle, and at the 2006 World Championships in Berlin. This system divides up the points available on a given board between the 7 participants.

Scores of a player’s games throughout the tournament are then aggregated based on a tournament scoring system generally referred to as an “Ante System”. In such a system, players’ scores from their games are not merely added together (as is done in most tournaments), but instead during each round players ante a portion of their current point pool into “the pot”, and it is that pot which the players are playing for during the game. This system has numerous advantages over a traditional system where scores are merely added together. The most important advantage is that this method minimizes the significance of the number of rounds a player plays. This method means that players who play less than all 6 rounds are at less of a disadvantage in their chance to place highly in the overall standings than players who play in all 6.

Details of this system are found at the end of the rules in Appendix “A”.

Board Assignments (“Board Draw”)

Players will be assigned to boards, and assigned the power that they will play, by the tournament director during the “Board Call” period prior to the start of each round.

Players are not permitted to trade powers with other players on their board or swap places with a player on another board. Players must play the countries and boards they are assigned. If exceptional circumstances arise that a player believes necessitate a change to the board assignments, these concerns should be brought to the TD prior to the start of the round.

Numerous factors shall be taken into account when assigning boards, including minimizing the number of times players play the same opponents, and minimizing the number of times players play the same powers. Given the number of rounds being played, players are not guaranteed that they will not be asked to play the same powers or same opponents more than once, but reasonable efforts will be made to minimize the issue. Effort will also be taken to ensure that certain pairings of players such as couples and blood relatives will not be required to play each other, as this often has a disruptive effect on the game. If players are aware of other pairings of players that, for what ever reason, should not be assigned the same board, they should bring the issue to the TD’s attention prior to board call. The TD will generally not honor requests to change board assignments after boards have been announced, except under extraordinary circumstances.

Game Timing

The game begins when the TD instructs players to begin, and the clock starts.

Unless a board receives instructions to the contrary, play on all boards will be regulated by a central timer. The timer will be visible on multiple screens throughout the play area, and the time remaining in the current turn will be announced audibly over a speaker system at various intervals during the turn. When time expires for a given turn, the clock for the next turn will start immediately. The default timing is as follows:

	1901	1902-1905	1906+
Spring Turn	17 minutes	17 minutes	15 minutes
Fall Turn	17 minutes	15 minutes	13 minutes

Discounting meal breaks or other clock stoppages, this schedule should allow a board to complete through 1910 in approximately 5 hours. (Note: This is just an example, and does not mean that games must stop by 1910.)

Players are expected to write their orders for the turn before the timer expires. No writing is permitted after the clock has expired. Players should make a reasonable attempt to have their orders in the order box before the clock expires. If a player is still holding their orders after the clock expires, they are permitted to immediately put their orders in the box without penalty, but may not continue to hold their orders and may not make any changes to them.

Once the clock has expired and orders are in the box, players should immediately adjudicate the turn, and move on to the next turn. If all players have their orders completed early, and all players agree to do so, a board may be adjudicated early. In this case players are permitted to begin the next turn.

Order Writing and Format

A legal and unambiguous order should always be executed. Any order that can have multiple, reasonable meanings is considered invalid. Any order that is unambiguous and also illegal is considered invalid (e.g. Fleet Nap -> Tun)

Players may submit orders either by writing out the full names of the provinces containing their units, or by using reasonable abbreviations. Abbreviations used appendix B of these rules are always considered valid. Likewise, any abbreviations used on the board currently being played on are always considered valid for that game. Other obvious abbreviations shall also be acceptable, as long as the complete order can have only one reasonable meaning.

If you want your order to be executed correctly, please make an effort to be clear. Likewise if you want your order to be ruled as illegal, make sure the order is unambiguously illegal.

Units for which no order is submitted (NMR for No Move Received) as well as units given an invalid order shall be treated as though they received Hold orders. Such units may receive support orders as normal. If a unit that NMRed is dislodged, it may retreat as normal.

It is only necessary to specify “Fleet” or “Army” in an order in the case of build orders in coastal provinces. If a player fails to specify “Fleet” or “Army” for a coastal build, that build shall be consider waived. On any other occasion, if a player specifies “fleet” or “army” that designation shall be considered superfluous, and shall not be considered when determining the validity of the order.

It is only necessary to specify coasts in the case of a fleet build order in St. Petersburg, or in the case of a fleet moving from Portugal to Spain, from the Mid Atlantic to Spain, or from Constantinople to Bulgaria. In these cases if a coast is not specified, then the order is considered invalid. On all other occasions, if a coast is specified, it is considered superfluous, and shall not be considered when determining the validity of the order. It is never necessary to specify a coast for a support order. Any coast that is specified in a support order is disregarded and will not be considered when determining the validity of the order. (i.e. if Portugal moves to Spain south coast, and Gascony orders “Gascony support Portugal to Spain north coast” the support is considered valid.)

Adjudication.

As is normal, players are expected to adjudicate moves themselves. Players may take turns reading orders and adjudicating, may designate a single player to do so every turn, or make whatever other arrangements the players agree to. Questions or conflicts that arise during adjudication or otherwise shall be resolved by the tournament director or his designee. Any player has the right to request a ruling by the tournament director if he or she feels that a mistake has been made in adjudication, or that some other aspect of game play is not being conducted according to these rules. Where possible, players are encouraged to ask the Tournament Director or other tournament official for clarifications of rules prior to conflicts arising.

Game conclusion.

The game ends when one player owns 18 centers at the end of a fall turn. Additionally, the game may end at any time if all of the surviving players agree by secret vote to stop playing and to score the game based on the supply center count at the end of the last fall turn. Only players who still control one or more supply centers may participate in the decision to end the game.

If a player wants to stop playing, he or she may publicly propose to end the game. If any other player wishes to, they may publicly veto the suggestion to end the game. In this case, the game continues and no secret vote is taken. If no player chooses to publicly veto the proposal to end the game, then the tournament director should be immediately summoned. The Tournament Director (or his designee) will then conduct a secret vote by whatever method they deem appropriate. If all players vote unanimously to end the game, then the game is immediately concluded. If any player votes to continue the game, then the game shall continue.

The game may also end if the Tournament Director declares a time draw. During the Five preliminary rounds, there shall be no pre-set time limit on game play and baring exceptional circumstances, the TD will not call a Time Draw. Games continue until the players involved agree to end the game, or one player achieves an 18 center victory. During the final round on Sunday, the Tournament Director may impose a time limit on the length of games. This will be done in order to ensure that players can get to the Vancouver and Seattle airports for Sunday flights and so forth. The TD will inform the players of the nature time limit prior to the start of play on Sunday. During rounds 1, 3 and 5, although the TD will attempt to avoid calling a time draw, the TD will require boards that run beyond the building closing time to be moved from the Student Union Building to the dorms.

Appendix A – Scoring System

Very Short Explanation (No math)

In any “Divide and Conquer” system, in order to get the best score possible, try to two things: End the game with as many centers as possible (Conquer), and try to make sure the centers you don’t own are distributed as evenly among the other players as possible (Divide). Basically, if you can’t solo, come as close to soloing as you can. Failing that, don’t let anyone beat you by more than you have to. It’s better to lose by a little than to lose by a lot.

Short Explanation (Very little math)

There are two separate things going on with the scoring system for this tournament that are good to know about. The first is the scoring system for the individual boards, which is called a “divide and conquer” system. The second is the way your scores form the individual boards are aggregated, which is done by use of an “ante” system.

The board scoring system is relatively easy to understand. This part if the system gives you what is called your “Raw Score”. If you solo a game, your Raw Score will be 100, and everyone else on the board will get zero. The rest of the time, the formulas in the long explanation are used to calculate it.

All you really need to know though, is get as many centers as you can, and be bigger than the guy behind you by as much as possible by making sure the centers you don’t have are spread among the other players as evenly as possible. Additionally, no matter what position you are in, if you can secure that position by more centers that’s a good thing. If you’re trying to decide whether or not to do something, a good thing to ask yourself is “Will this get me more centers than it gives anyone else?” Eliminating a small power is great if you are the guy getting most of the centers. If your ally is getting most of the spoils, then you may hurt your score. (For example, you’re probably better off topping the board 10 to 7 than winning 11 to 10.) At the same time it is very important not to let anyone else get too much bigger than you. Ending the game in second or third place with 8 centers is a pretty good score if the leader has 9 or 10. Bit if the leader has 16, he will score 5 times more points than you, making your 8 centers a fairly weak score.

The change to each player’s actual score is calculated using the ante system. Everyone begins the tournament with 100 points. Before each game, each player antes 10% of their current point total into the pot. The Raw Score that each play received above, is simply the percentage of the pot that they take away at the end of the game. If your Raw Score was big, you’ll win back more than your anted, and your actual score will go up. If you’re eliminated, or your Raw Score is too small, you’ll win back less than your ante, and your actual score will go down.

Long Explanation (Lots and lots of math)

Each player begins the tournament with 100 points. Prior to each game, each player antes 10% of their current score into the pot. It is the points in this pot that the players in that game are competing over. Obviously in the first round, all players will ante 10 points (10% of the 100 points they began with) meaning that the pot will contain 70 points. In later round these numbers will differ from board to board.

At the end of the game, a couple of formulas are applied to determine each player’s “Raw Score”. Assuming that the game does not end in a solo, initially calculate [2^(SC/4) ] – 1 for each player and call this value “f(sc)”

Then take f(sc) for each player and divide it by the sum of f(sc) for all seven players and multiply by 100, giving you the percentage that their f(sc) is of the total of all f(sc). This is the player’s “Raw Score”.

For reference, the chart on the right shows f(sc)for each center count. Although these numbers do not represent points, they are a good relative guide of how good one SC count is compared to another within the same game. So while you can’t say how many points 8 SCs is worth till the game ends, it will always be worth 3 times more than having 4 centers, and always 3/7 as much as having 12 centers.

If the game ends in a solo, the winner’s Raw Score is 100, and everyone else’s Raw Score is zero. While it is mathematically possible for a non soloist to get a raw score above 80, the board topper will normally have a raw score of between the high 30s and high 50s.

# centers	f(sc): [2^(SC/4) ] - 1
17	18.02731
16	15.00000
15	12.45434
14	10.31371
13	8.51366
12	7.00000
11	5.72717
10	4.65685
9	3.75683
8	3.00000
7	2.36359
6	1.82843
5	1.37841
4	1.00000
3	0.68179
2	0.41421
1	0.18921
0	0.00000

At the end of the game the pot is divided up between the surviving players based on their Raw Scores. Your Raw Score is simply the percentage of the pot you receive.

Example 1

So to take an example, in the first round each of the 7 powers antes 10 points, creating a pot of 70 points. Suppose the game ends with the following supply center chart: Austria 15, England 10, France 5, Italy 2, Turkey 2, Germany 0, Russia 0. The sum of all 7 f(sc) in this case is 19.31802. (We get this by adding up the appropriate numbers in the chart above.) The raw scores for all 7 players will then be:

Austria = 64.47 (12.45434/19.31802*100)

England = 24.11 (4.65685/19.31802*100)

France = 7.14 (1.37841/19.31802*100)

Italy = 2.14 (0.41421/19.31802*100)

Turkey = 2.14 (0.41421/19.31802*100)

Germany & Russia = 0

Austria then receives 64.47% of the pot. 64.47% of 70 is 45.129. So, he started with 100 points, put 10 points into the pot, and took 45.129 points out of the pot, meaning that his score after round 1 is 135.129. In the next round, he will ante 10% of this new score, or 13.5129 points.

We do the same thing with each of the other 7 players. England took 16.877 back out of the pot, making his new score 106.877. Still up from the 100 he started with. France, who came in third, takes back only 4.998 putting his new score at 94.998. Notice that in this example, Austria won by such a large margin that even the player in third place lost points.

Example 2:

Turkey 10 SC, Russia 9 SC, Italy 8 SC, Germany 7, France 0, England 0, Austria 0.

The total f(sc) for all 7 powers is 13.77727. So the raw scores for all players are:

Turkey = 33.80 (4.65685/13.77727*100)

Russia = 27.27 (3.75683/13.77727*100)

Italy = 21.77 (3.00/13.77727*100)

Germany = 17.16 (2.36359/13.77727*100)

Austria, England & France = 0

So everyone’s new scores after this round will be: Turkey 113.66, Russia 109.089, Italy 105.239, Germany 102.012, and Austria, England, and France are at 90.

A couple things that are different from Example 1 should jump out at you immediately. First off, the power who topped the board in this example got just over half as many points as in Example 1. This is partly because he has 5 centers less, but also because he topped by 1 instead of topping by 5. The second place power in this example actually scored slightly more than the second place power in Example 1, even though he has one less center. This is because he only lost by 1 center, instead of losing by 5. Not also that in this example the third place and even fourth place players gained points in this round, whereas third and fourth lost points in Example 1.

Appendix B – Province abbreviations

A list of acceptable abbreviations