The Biggest Diplomacy Game Ever (Part 4)

[@polarsquid0721]

Aquitaine here! So as far as the final year Finland, Athens, Freiburg, and Marrakech were very focused on caging me in and preventing me from expanding. So for the Spring basically what it came down to was that if I went for Nantes i would be giving up a center in the east. I wouldn't be able to get Strasburg cause Freiburg would hold it till the end of time. Barcelona was a non-option cause Balearas and Granda could cover it. So my only option to get to seven was one of Amsterdam or Utrecht. So I then input my spring moves to get into position to get one of the lowland centers. It is worth noting that the move to Saxony was more of an act of defiance as all of the centers over there were already being covered. Following the spring retreats I am once again being caged in by the aformentioned four. I get given an ultimatum by Utrecht and Oxford that they will be supporting into Utrecht in order to force me to kill Luxembourg. Luxembourg just tells me that they will be holding me in Utrecht. Ultimately I'm concerned I'm being lied to by all of them and decide to just kill Luxembourg as they had been my arch nemsis up to this point (a lot and I mean a lot of our bickering was not mentioned) and I don't want to get forced out of the draw in case they try to pull something with the others in the area. So thats ultimately why I end up going into Amsterdam. It is not mentioned that on the last turn I was meant to bounce with Balearas in Marseille but due to petty nonsense with Cairo they abandon it without telling me. Thus I almost let Freiburg dot me in Dijon but I guarded it securing my place in the draw winning the game. I will say if given the opportunity I would've gone over to kill Meme but the opportunity just unfortunantely never came up cause I had bigger priorities north with coordinating with the GBA and others, getting enough units over there is a pain, and I didn't want to open up my back flanks too much in the south. I was just hoping he would give it too me but he never did which was unfortunate. As far as the Nuremburg stab what pushed me to do it was that they had mentioned that they had only been so cooperative with Luxembourg as they were trying to not get killed by them. They had actually pulled it off pretty well in the intial discussions of carving my territories up. I was worried that a similar situation would develop and that he would like he did with Luxembourg discard the relationship the moment it wasn't needed. Not to mention it made my invasion of the Lowlands much easier so that was the rational there. Also as far as alliances I was pretty much aligned with the GBA until spring of the penultimate year. Which is unfortunate cause we had a really cool alliance name as the Angevin Empire as in my void I was roleplaying as Eleanor of Aquitaine cause it was funny. I stabbed this alliance because last minute Oxford seemingly went AWOL sending weird cues around the centers in BENE which gave me pretext to stab Nuremburg and the GBA allowing me to go more agressive into the lowlands as I had negotiated tons of DMZs down south with Spain and Rome which were constantly violated btw which was annoying. All in all this game was a blast to play with all the people on the server! Thankfully the Duchy of Aquitaine held strong and secured their rightful dominion over France. Also there is currently a holy war going on in the server between the bumbles (heretics) and the fish. If there are any questions about anything that happened in the med or in the endgame though I would be happy to try and provide a somewhat coherent answer as to what was going on.

[@johnysmith942]

Very nice explanation (Freiburg here) So yeah, we were all focusing on caging in Aquitaine. Marrakech, because he wanted Finland to have a chance to win, and didn’t want to see someone solo, me, cause I wanted to make it to the win, and Athens, cause he just did not want to see throws or a solo. There were also containment measures put on me, but it wasn’t as big of a deal, since there wasn’t much I could do to grow past 7scs, or that they could do to stop me from attempting stuff. Also cause Aquitaine was seen as desiring the solo more, since I’d been saying since forever that I didn’t want to solo, mostly because i didn’t like the dubious use of throws as a means to an end, In the last year. Which was basically true. Anyways, that didn’t really matter; cause I didn’t see Vienna supporting me into Rome as an option on the final year, they’d pretty much fully broken off from my uh, lordship over them. So I fully leaned into containing Aquitaine and doing what I could to ensure the win stayed at 7scs. There were a couple stressful moments, like Lux bluffing that he was going to throw, in an effort to save his own skin, but overall it went pretty smoothly. Ggs to everyone, it was a great game, and congrats to Aquitaine, for being a very tough end-game opponent, who could very well have soloed had a couple tiny things gone differently. Fishies Forever!

[@phoenixfire940]

Nuremberg here, I'll never forgive you. My heart died that day. What they skipped over in this video (for good reason) was the insane amount of diplomacy I did over the course of an hour to try and save myself.

[@MaxIsEast]

“The Isles are a cursed wasteland of manics, traitors and madmen. They were no place for the sane, and i am glad to be removed. They made me long for death” - Wessex’s last words (these were the strongest last words of the game, they deserved better than our horrible chaos😭)

[@55Trower]

Viking players: > Join game > Do whatever Ezio says the entire game > Get bored since they are basically NPCs > Leave

[@DiploStrats]

But it was going so well for them. I wish they'd stayed. -Ezio

[@jvwilliams]

@@DiploStratsif you are ever in a game with DruiceBox, I will ally the whole game and throw just so I can be in the video for me and my girl to watch 😭 Be on the lookout 💯

[@jvwilliams]

Screen time > dots

[@hankjaffe9542]

@@jvwilliamsthere is a way to get more screen time…

[@justinheinrichs974]

Finland here. Need to shout-out Marrakech because they're too humble to mention it themselves. They had a guaranteed 8, not 7 SC if they took the throw, but they elected not to because they thought it was poor manners. Marrekech deserves all the kudos for almost winning too

[@Driesipops]

This single game feels like something that you could make 9 movies, 5 tv shows and a comic about covering every conflict and arc. It is so incredibly dense.

[@Smallsilk]

Agreed

[@shilohmagic7173]

Freiburg, the hegemon of the wheel, became the entirety of the wheel. how fitting

[@Lorekeeper_GGuy]

So the main thing I think we’ve learned throughout all of this is “Never declare your papacy in a game of Diplomacy.”

[@DiploStrats]

This game was awesome and I want to give another shout-out to the GM team who ran it - thank you Flare, Foggy, Elisha and everyone else who helped with that! Signups for their variant, Imperial Diplomacy, are open now in the ImpDip Hub Server. Check the video description for the invite link!

[@flare2209]

❤

[@seth8395]

i'd love to see a game like this played again, it's so cool to hear about all the little bits and pieces of an entire history. it'd be so cool to see a game like this without an end year, even though the end year was what lead to some of the shenanigans at the end which allowed for the convoy to levant.

[@fratguide9835]

Finland: "I swear if y'all keep talking about throwing, I'm gonna throw to Ezio then Ezio wins & NONE of y'all want that to happen" Bro you have *built* that reputation

[@fratguide9835]

Spoilers: OMG Freiburg ended up conquering the entire wheel.

[@RoyalFusilier]

Just as Monopoly warns us of, uh, monopolies, it's right there in the title folks, Chaos Diplomacy teaches us that "hell is other people". This was so fascinating to watch, I loved the context about the diplomacy, memes, religion, mythology... and how close all of those things are to each other, really. Amazing videos.

[@liongaming0665]

Marrakech/Idrisids (Morocco was the name of our alliance 😊) here! Throughout the game there were some tensions in Morocco, especially after 1646 and the Portugal sub. Rabat was still at the time offering to throw to me which would likely guarantee me 7 centers at least, but out of annoyance, I decided to try to take the win without it. Sadly, my neighbors saw me crippling myself and coalitioned me, cutting me from the tie in the end. However, realizing that I wasn't able to win anymore allowed me to spend the final year of the game organizing two major projects - the world convoy and the tie at 7. I was in charge of the Mediterranean leg of the convoy, and it's still crazy to me that we managed to get that many people working together for it. Up north, a group of us spent hours drafting plans that would guarantee no one could get to 8 to keep things as competitive as possible until the end. This was a very fun way to end such an amazing game and congratulations Freiburg and Aquitaine! Some context on the tie: Freiburg/Austria was guaranteed to get Venice, and Aquitaine/Gaul was guaranteed to be able to take at least one center somewhere (likely in the Netherlands), which put them both on 7 in spring. Therefore, it was essential to block any possible 8th center. Freiburg's containment was fairly simple, because all of their possible centers except for Strasburg and Rome were behind a buffer of non-scs and could be defended with a couple of strategic bounces. There was little we could do to prevent Rome if Vienna decided to throw, but it seemed at the time like that was unlikely thankfully. Aquitaine's containment was much more complicated, especially because it required defending Nantes with only one unit since we didn't want to risk letting someone into the channel and them just killing Ghent. After many hours of tactics and diplo, a set of possible movesets from Freiburg, Oxford, Utrecht, and Luxemburg were found to prevent the chance of an 8th center and ensure the tie. Massive thanks to Flare for hosting such a crazy and awesome game! _Maybe soon we'll find out which religion is better..._ 😉

[@MaxIsEast]

Ireland here! that game was super fun!! Defending the north isles against a reign of vikings and then configuring an attack on luxembourg was super awesome! If its any condolences for the pain caused by the GBA’s chaos to Ezio’s plans. His viking alliance was supremely good at keeping us down while it could and was a really tough fight that idek if we “won”, because when it did stop attacking us we had barely anytime to coordinate left. was super fun and well played all around!! from my pov it was a tough defensive war all game, right up till the last year where an opening finally became clear

[@DiploStrats]

Congrats on reversing history and making Britain Irish at the end there! And I was very happy with the pain you all caused to Ezio :P And wanted to say as well, your videos were some of the best highlights from the game - thank you for making them!

[@MaxIsEast]

@@DiploStratsofc!! to answer ur question on what people reacted to my outfits. it was a lot of blank looks. and then the two people actually in that shot asked me while shooting “is it okay if we’re in it” and i have a clip of us all laughing about the outfit. was a good stretch out of the comfort zone for a silly joke, where turns out some strangers enjoyed the joke too :’)

[@wolfizee6516]

damnit, I thought I bribed Flare 20€ to misorder the TYS attack 😠 Cairo must've outbid me

[@statsy150]

It may just be because Ezio is my POV, but what the hell man you deserved better 😭

[@DiploStrats]

I'll play better next time! -Ezio

[@DerVarg]

Uh, I love Asterix! Basically the only comics I've ever read lol Really positively surprised to have it (indirectly) mentioned :D

[@32flavoursnthensome]

At least Cardinal Hoojelyfrustraetede got to be in the feast at the end

[@RisingChaosWriting]

Honestly kind of a shame that everyone was talking about Ezio like that. He handled it really well, but it sounds like a case of like, parasocial familiarity making people think they can take a joke farther than they should. So I'd like to say that you're a chill guy Ezio. A ruthless and efficient player, but you seem cool and trustworthy and if you get the win in a game you deserve it.

[@DiploStrats]

I'm glad your takeaway from this is that I'm trustworthy :). Thanks for the nice comment. -Ezio

[@Xaintrix]

God this series was so good thank you for the many hours of entertainment. It will be really interesting to rewatch from the beginning again knowing what I do now.

[@NoName-cp4ct]

Lux: As was discussed previously, this game with so many cheery long-lasting mega alliances severely dulled my killer instincts. But with Nuremberg, after the move in Saxony, I was just about done. I offered to Nuremberg on the previous phase, "Hey, the wheel is kind of back, do you want me to get you to 2 by killing Wilno?" Nuremberg responded: "Hey, I've got a super secret sneaky plan that will gain you a dot, just hold in Hesse, trust me." I looked at the map, and was: "Is your secret plan going to Saxony and me attacking the Vikings? **I won't be doing that, sorry.** Let's go kill Wilno (coincidentally, a Viking hater) instead". But Nuremberg didn't want to do that, because they worked with Wilno previously. Fine. We worked with Nur before too. Just don't go to Hesse, that would be really mean. And then he goes to Hesse. Nuremberg wanted to be a nomad, apparently. I should have killed him then and there. He passed a safe opportunity to double to do this insanely threatening move with me, without any previous discussion. This is the top of unreliability. But I felt for him, because he really was just really bored, or so I thought. He was marching up and down, left and right, with the net result of zero. Why not let him have some fun? And look, here's an open Wilno's dot, a Viking's enemy dot. I left the Vikings apparently, and was even fighting against them apparently. And now I'm killing a Viking's enemy. Curious. Sparing Nur was the most consequential mistake for me, because it lead to another, even bigger mistake. I was so done with Aquitaine. It was an ally that does everything against your interest at every step, the worst kind of ally - an enemy. And I was too afraid and indecisive to call him out on his bullshit earlier. But after the Paris stab, with the Wheel reforged and victorious, now was the time to do what the HRE is ought to be doing from the beginning: to conquer France. So I went to my old crew of Strasburg, Freiburg, and Nuremberg (and also Rome) and I plainly asked them: "Hey guys. I want to give back to the community. How about I help you all to gain more dots by attacking Aquitaine?" The response was an emphatic "Yes, let's do it!" from all. But then it started to look like I might be getting coalitioned, and suddenly Freiburg started considering alternative options (of stabbing me), Nur suddenly didn't want to attack Aq for his safety's sake (even though we could have mustered a clear superiority against Aq, so the only one in danger was me really, and the Strasburg, dear Strasburg, a memeing friend, allowed himself to be bullied into a move that was utterly ruining to me. I'm skipping a lot, it was a complete dumpster fire, which I desperately tried to put off. Multiple bad calls on my part, brilliant stab (or more like a push) from Stock, but, no, I was really mad at Aquitaine for ruining my cozy position and I jumped back to working with the Vikings at the first opportunity.

[@edgeman1135]

So glad I smashed that subscribe button and hit that bell to see this video this early.

[@lielos1964]

This game ended with a mere 34 players - a normal playgroup of Chaos Diplomacy!

[@objectsupr9970]

I just binged the whole thing in the last 46~ hours help

[@walkingsophie]

Hi Madrid here, regarding Portugal and meme, I didn't ask for support into Porto because I knew that would never happen. I thought about supporting you in but rejected it because I knew Marra would support hold Lisbon. Later on, the reason I didn't take the convoy was because Marra could have rotated to canary basin and cape verde basin (wow that space is relevant) to kill it and the fishes yearn for the seas, not islands.

[@MrFireBlaze]

Wily Ezio using the chaos game to help try and reset his reputation a bit for stabbing, I see your game

[@DiploStrats]

o.O

[@an0n065]

Oxfiles 4: First of all thank you to everyone who read all of these, all the players, the GM team which made it possible (Flare, Foggy, and everyone else), and Meme and Ezio for these incredible recaps. I loved playing in this game and loved being able to relive my decisions and think about what I could do differently. Yay I killed Lux ✅ Yay I killed London ✅ Just to be clear though, and defend my British honour, my main objective in the year we killed London was to win. Thats why I suddenly declared Ghent was mine and tried keeping it, I was hoping to grab all of the Lowlands and also get London, I didnt particularly care if London or Lux survived as long as Ireland was happy enough to maybe throw to me the last few provinces I needed. Thus in the last minute chaos when I realized I wouldnt be getting the provinces I wanted, I agreed to help Ireland. Unfortunately I definitely misplayed going for the win, in this rewatch it is much clearer than it was to me in the moment that aquitaine was a really brilliant player doing whatever tactics needed to maximize their dots. I thought they were more of an alliance player like the previous Bordeux, and so trusted them too much. If I could do it again I maybe would have tried supporting Nur into Ghent myself and trying to bounce them out somehow. In the moment I thought the GBA would be enough to bounce Aq back, but London backed out at the last moment (because they probably would have died either way, so why help me when they could try to help themselves) After that my end game was in practice just listening to whatever Mara and other tacticians said was necessary to get Aq and Fried to tie. I did do a bit of messing with Aquitaine, plotted to kill Lux, and gave Ireland get funny borders, but like many players was a bit checked out at that point, especially as I wasnt on the world convoy line. Still amazing to see how the game turned out, and glad I managed to live in Utrecht on the last turn with the original Utrecht's support Congrats again to Aquitaine and Friedberg, y'all killed it! But also GGs to everyone, it was so much fun :)

[@MaxIsEast]

GG

[@Commieboo]

Kinda sad all the anti-rabbit propaganda didn't make it into the video :p but it's been a wonderful journey thanks alot for documenting this amazing game like this 🙏

[@polarsquid0721]

Omg the propaganda posters were a delight to see. Truly a bright spot in the hell that was ELM hall...

[@else-2]

Wild that in a game this big Ezio's uncomfortable partnership with one other person effectively split the whole board in half

[@Tuetonicknight]

This series has been amazing! Definitely would love to see another one.

[@brutusthebear9050]

So this isn't related to the game really, but I wanted to say that y'all have become some of my favorite KZbinrs period. I am currently working on a project with a lot of overlap with Diplomacy. I'm unsure when I'd be at the stage to release the alpha version of the game, much less the beta, but when it does get to that point would y'all be interested in a [paid] sponsorship to promote it? I think a lot of your viewership (and y'all yourselves) would enjoy it. Obviously more details can be given when I'm closer to release, I just wanted to ask if there would be any interest whatsoever.

[@DiploStrats]

Hey, really happy to hear that! With regard to your project - paid sponsorships aren't a thing I'd want to take at the moment, but I'm very open to trying games and potentially putting them on the channel if they feel like they'd work well for a (non-sponsored) video. The game would need to have some negotiation/social element in order for that to be the case, I think, since that's the general theme of the channel. Feel free to shoot me an email at [e-mail] if you want to talk about it further!

[@brutusthebear9050]

@DiploStrats I'll definitely same your email and send further information when I have the game a little further along. I will say that the social/negotiation element is a core aspect of this project.

[@douglashudson4706]

Wow, out already, haven't finished part 3 yet!

[@Somebody73852]

Gothenburg sub here. I came in choosing the retreat haha

[@Lorekeeper_GGuy]

Dang, I only just finished part 3. Thought it’d be a few days until part 4 came out

[@an0n065]

Ezio, one additional thought from my perspective in Oxford; I have to wonder if part of the reason the Vikings suffered so much with subs is because of the tactics dictatorship you had. This game was so much effort, I know I considered subbing out a few times. Yet I at least knew that because of the GBA chaos, my mistakes were my own. I think because the minor viking players weren't handling their moves they became less invested, and new players wanted to have fun not just follow orders. I could be wrong, but thats a potential downside of the way the vikings work; losing chaotically is a lot more interesting then winning following someone elses orders (The GBA motto 😂)

[@an0n065]

Just got to the end of the video; and yeah it does still suck what happened to you and the vikings, sorry if I played a role in getting you tilted. Thank you for making these videos in spite of that, I (and I'm sure many other people who were chirpping at you) really appreciate it. Also, for the record I really admire your play style and hope to be able to play like that one day

[@justinheinrichs974]

I can see why an outsider might think that but it definitely wasn't the case. Me (Finland), Ark, Prussia, and Utrecht were all Vikings that thrived because we took initiative and communicated our desires. There was plenty of room within the Vikings to play individual games and we tried to encourage that so hard.

[@MaxIsEast]

very interesting point :O

[@TheH3LLP3R]

​@justinheinrichs974 your not wrong. But everyone you listed had unique position. Ark was always threatening a balance of power stab (at least early). Ezio, wanted to work with you not just because you are good but he was also worried about stabs so keeping you happy by giving some movement concessions took priority. Prussia, as stated by Ezio, basically controlled themselves. Yes they had the vikings backing but ezio wasn't telling Prussia what moves to make or negotiate for him. And Utrecht again was unique, not an original viking member and only joined to stay alive and have the prospect of killing lux one day. The sub message there being hey, if im not allowed to go kill lux at some point I'll go take dots from viking members or start working with the commonwealth for other dots. So for the other players like trondeim or spits or Oslo who literally didn't do much but type in Ezio's moves, the game gets boring quick and why bother trying to follow any negotiations when you have no say

[@justinheinrichs974]

@@TheH3LLP3R Also to be fair, there was a bit more to the alliance than Ezio being a dictator. Technically Trond had equal power over tactics as Ezio as well and that was only one part to the alliance success. This video is (obviously) very Ezio centric but he definitely didn't just have control over the alliance lol. We had a couple diplomats who were working double time to get Viking friends and destabilizing other regions so we always had options to grow. We had strategists who actually organized who we attacked and where we could grow from. There were other roles like organizer and auditor that contributed but you get the point. One of the reasons Ezio got stabbed to swiss cheese at the end was because the other Vikings who focused on the other areas within the alliance were in a better position at a macro strategy level. I'd argue him being on tactics made it harder for him to set himself up endgame because he had no power outside that. There were many subs all throughout the board who didn't have time to keep up. It felt more impactful when it was a Viking because their subs were later in the game, and the Viking inactivates lasted longer before that because the alliance held them together (they would have subbed earlier like the others otherwise I think)

[@Sock-qv9wr]

Such a fun series. Would definitly like to join if anything similar were to happen. Thank you to those who participated.

[@arsray7285]

I randomly skipped the video to the part with nantles unit tapping lol

[@DiploStrats]

A highlight for sure!

[@ArdourXL]

Cant wait to watch this tonight!

[@janwiggers2233]

1:36:25 Nuremberg was right. It was really funny lmao

[@FairyyyFeyyyy]

Yooo wait i caught this quickly

[@sovietblobfish]

i've gone back and looked at tangiers' anti rabat/madrid propaganda, and damn its fire really high effort stuff for a chaos game

[@audiosurfarchive]

Ah man, here I was gonna keep on riffing on Cap and Ezio.. but it's been a shite day and I finally get to rest in my own bed with my wife and our 6 month old void-cat. Thank you for the good times lads; now don't mind me if I end up asleep though..

[@TheMan83554]

So, between me and Gothenburg, I had said that with the instability towards the end of the phase I got really nervous and felt that I had to stab. This was not *untrue*, last minute i switched otders to hold Brandenburg from The Sound incase Ezio accepted the support from Gdansk, but i had been considering stabbing Gothenburg for a while and thought this was the time. I could have gotten it too of i had Brandenburg support Bremen to hold.

[@arkavi]

Love the Asterix and Obelix reference

[@audiosurfarchive]

13:17 Yes Cap, there's something I wanted to follow up on. This episode visually looks so much better from you zooming, pitching, motioning with the cursor à la "Blind Ezio Solos Vs. AIs:" even when going back to less complex vids.. just the small amount of motion, focus on map areas as discussion passes back and forth--and if any of the following makes sense: try and have some sort of motion tied to your VO as much as you can without being excessive. Maybe it's just me but A/V sync and matching cadence of important words or discussions could have.. more motion tied to the VO? Small snapzooms for emphasis or sarcasm; slow Ken Burns esque sweeping shots over the area in discussion (especially when Ezio just be yappin forrrrever 😂 jk lad, that's the most insanely complex alliance politics yet seen), fast panning between two areas across the map as you discuss rapid fire diplomatic discussion.

[@audiosurfarchive]

29:10 YT ate my comment, I was trying to say that if you had time you could insert quick reminders or acronyms to reintroduce or reiterate stuff that comes up for the first time that episode as a refresher, especially for stuff less directly involved compared to needing to remind who The Vikings or The (Ghost) Wheel. Especially for vids of this size with many unique, game long faction names and non-standard things brought upvia your Editor Software of choice/necessity. Doesn't need to be, but I know there's a lot of tiny little things for QOL (especially to newer people.. of which there's a lot as of late, y'all growing!) that it might help retain and further deepen peoples knowledge and passion for the game. This is a thing you can take as far or as short as you want, but I reckon just having occasional terminology you throw out, even for standard games, could really help especially newer players or less familiar viewers. Doesn't need to be consistent, could maybe be 30-40 minutes of inserts, especially if you take quick jots down as you record where you'd want some info to pop up for.. even faster. And with proposed filming/editing ideas, these are all for stuff like this; they literally are the least invasive or don't actually require any "real" editing.. if you effectively remove potential edit slickness that is time consuming, by instead thinking of your screen view as a camera on Ken Burns documentary maps. This all also keeps the strong personality focus and just brilliant while hilarious/accessible commentary for longform Diplomacy content that only y'all seem to have. _I rarely get this gassed up to hype/glaze a channel. I REALLY enjoy seeing D🚨S getting it's due views and appreciation.. so if any critique I can give ends up with an even BETTER product quality to potentially make more dumb dumb fans like me this hyped.._ Surely it can work, at the easiest it'd just be recording style changes to make the equivalent of lots of tedious work in a videditor for a big presentation and immersion boost? 👍

[@audiosurfarchive]

Last thing I thought of as the move orders get nutty, you can focus from a particular units perspective or country and make the camera follow the motion of attack or panning around, zooming out and back in for a broader or more specific focus: this is just a more concrete example of "adding motion to the vids in context of broad and specific events as you discuss them"

[@Aarvaagen]

Good reference at the end :)

[@ISplash22]

PART 4 YEAHHHH

[@josobra2974]

Rostock here If you have a question about my position, feel free to ask.

[@FunnyManInAClownWorld]

DEFEND THE BURGERTOWN RAMIERZ 🍔

[@faultofdaedalus2666]

hell yeah alberta mention

[@derrickthewhite1]

Would a randomly determined end date work? As in each winter after a given year there is a 33% chance of ending the game or something? That way people keep playing for keeps at the end, but you don't have to end with a 20 years out world hegemon?

[@DiploStrats]

Yup! Many games/tournaments have a variable end date mechanic for situations like this. It's tougher to manage because the changing end date makes it hard to block a specific amount of time. I don't think I've ever seen the pure % based one each year (but I'm sure it's been done). A more common approach is "this game ends in 1908,1909 or 1910. So you still have some variability, but also a hard end.

[@PattPlays]

So the strongest positions are... france and austria... xD that tracka

[@JohnStrain-eu6eu]

Part 4...and many more?

[@DiploStrats]

This is the finale - but hopefully we'll see another chaos game in future!

[@Nathanael_Forlorn]

It looks like is not spelled umea, but rather umeå. Å is much closer to a long, round "oooo" sounds.

[@jago2503]

Spoilers: Initially distributed-powers league becomes an effective tyranny backed by the threat of force from its ruling state, before suddenly collapsing when the slightest fracture appears? The vikings are just proving my point that chaos diplomacy seems to wind up working remarkably similarly to a lot of real premodern history (see i.e. the delian league) Also, apologies if this is mentioned in the last hour of the video, but did anybody do alliance-scale maps at any point? That is, maps showing the approximate territories held by alliances rather than individuals?

[@bstahl52]

I have a question, would you ever commentate over an amateur game I just GM'd for my friends? It didn't finish per se due to time restraints but thought it could be interesting, and potentially helpful for them to not only receive purely tactical feedback from me but also a stranger. Could also be interesting for you to see how first time and second time players play and think about the game again. It only went to Fall 1905 so I don't think it'd necessarily be too long. If not no worries, just thought it couldn't hurt to ask!

[@DiploStrats]

We've currently got a pretty big backlog of games to review right now (and it's still increasing), so I don't think we'll get around to reviewing this one. That said, feel free to hop on the discord and send me a link to the game! I'll gladly take a look at it and ping my thoughts. -Ezio

[@bstahl52]

@@DiploStrats Outstanding, thank you. I have sent you a message. Look forward to when you get the time to check it out.

[@arthurdaffos1490]

I really dislike the concept of one center start

[@DiploStrats]

It's a radically different feeling from normal diplomacy. It feels more like a survival game. -Ezio

[@unyosalvaje3493]

The finale of my new favorite series!!!