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Post 27 Apr 2011, 3:16 pm

Background
Imagine a standard Diplomacy map. All neutral supply centres have a unit in them. All great powers are awarded Influence Points per supply centre under their control.


Allocating Influence Points
Great Powers can allocate influence points to the neutral centres. Having the most points allocated to a territory gives the Great Power control over the unit located therein for a game year.

HOWEVER, influence points can be allocated to:
1. Increase your relations with the neutral country
2. Decrease another Great Power's relations with the neutral country.


Example
England France Germany
Belgium +10 +5 0
-3 (France)
-3 (Germany)
TOTAL: 4 5

Let's say that England allocated 10 influence points to Beligum. France allocated 5 to Beligum.
Germany deducted 3 points from England's total and France deducted 3 points as well.

Thus, the total allocation of points: France stands at 5 while England at 4. So France gets to command the unit in Belgium.

Now, how would I set up an Excel Spreadsheet which presents this information in a neat fashion?
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Post 04 May 2011, 2:12 pm

intermeresting
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Post 05 May 2011, 6:00 am

hurts my brain, is it possibly more an exercise in math and guesswork and not so much strategy?
but again, my brain hurts thinking about it so I'm probably more than a bit in the dark still.
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Post 09 May 2011, 3:06 am

so france had 8 points, gave 5 to increase relations and 3 to decrease england's! at the beginning yes its gonna be guesswork but isnt this part of hte game afterall?

maybe ask someone in Microsoft :P
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Post 10 May 2011, 12:34 pm

Well, I can't think of a pretty way to do it, really, with 12 neutrals to track, and seven powers with seven options for each neutral. But it can be done, I guess. When I'm doing something in Excel, I tend to just dive in and use trial and error to get what I want.

For this, I might use a table for the Powers, with two lines per power. The first being the IP spend in each neutral and which Power it was to affect, and the second being the number of points for that power based on the spend by that power and the others.

Then a table for each neutral, showing the totals for each power.

It would be fiddly, mind.
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Post 11 May 2011, 4:56 pm

countries Belgium france engladn germany austria Total
Belgium
france 5 0 0 0 0 5
england 10 3 0 3 0 4
germany 0 0 0 0 0 0
austria 0 0 0 0 0 0

With my noob knowledge of excel I managed to create this.
Its not neat but I hope we can make some progress
:)
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Post 12 May 2011, 4:15 am

how do i upload a pic? ouf!
idea.jpg
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Post 12 May 2011, 4:37 am

found it hihihi
idea3.jpg
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Post 12 May 2011, 4:38 am

.couldnt upload with more colours as there is a limit..oh well u get the idea

im sure someone can come up with a better design but that will need more tweaking with excel
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Post 14 May 2011, 3:14 pm

Yea. I think I may just drop this idea because it is too complicated to implement and to play.
I was thinking of applying it to a world map (Snake IV's Gobble Earth where are there over 30 neutral territories and such. In which case the tables would be ridiculous. Ok, back to the drawing board.
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Post 15 May 2011, 6:58 am

the thing is that neutrals will be eliminated very soon, but yes we can just play test it without IP and see if the neutral idea slows the game a bid
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Post 30 Jun 2011, 6:45 pm

If you were doing this mechanic why wouldn't you just use the system that each nuetral gets a unit and the highest bidder controls the unit for the turn. I've seen it in other variants before, and its a good one.
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Post 04 Jul 2011, 11:31 am

Hmm, from a mathematical point of view, what you are talking about would be pretty easy to implement in fortran. Basically, you want to define a four dimensional number (lets say f). Then, f(1,1,1) would be the points that power 1 (say England) gives to neutral power 1 (say Portugal). the final one would be to denote what country he is giving the points to (or taking the points away from). Then, you would have f(1,1,2) be the points that England is giving Portugal against France (where france is two). So f(2,1,1) would be the points that france is giving to Portugal against England, etc.

Then, you would need a for loop and a few if loops. It should be programmable though, give me a few days and I'll see what I can produce.

If you were doing this mechanic why wouldn't you just use the system that each nuetral gets a unit and the highest bidder controls the unit for the turn. I've seen it in other variants before, and its a good one.


This is a good mechanic, but in this case, say you had France and England against Germany, both France and England could give half the points that Germany does against Germany, so that one of them would gain control (would you also be able to give points for another country actually?), wheras with your mechanic Germany would get it. Gives it a bit more of a diplomatic shine.
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Post 04 Jul 2011, 12:20 pm

program Diplomancy
implicit none

integer,dimension(:,:,:,:), allocatable::f
integer:: powers,neutrals,help,test
character:: Pos
integer::a,b,c,d
integer,dimension(2)::k
integer,dimension(:,:), allocatable::g


write(*,*) "*******************************************************"
write(*,*) "Power 1= England"
write(*,*) "Power 2 = France"
write(*,*) "*******************************************************"
write(*,*)
write(*,*) "How many powers do you have?(in integer form)"
read(*,*) powers

write(*,*) "How many neutrals do you have (in integer form)?"
read(*,*) neutrals
test=0

do while (test==0)
write(*,*) "Can powers give infleunce points to help other countries (Y OR N)?"
read(*,*) Pos
if (Pos .eq. 'Y') then
help=2
test=1
else
if (Pos .eq. 'N') then
help=1
test=1
else
write(*,*) "Please answer with either 'Y' for 'Y'es or 'N' for 'N'o."
end if
end if
end do

allocate(f(powers,neutrals,help,powers))
allocate(g(powers,neutrals))

if (help .eq. 2) then

do a=1,powers
do b=1,neutrals
do c=1,powers
write(*,"(A,I3,A,I3,A,I3)") "Please insert (in integer form) the number of points power ",a," wishes to spend in aid of power ", c, " for neutral",b
read(*,*) f(a,b,1,c)
write(*,"(A,I3,A,I3,A,I3)") "Please insert (in integer form) the number of points that power ",a," wishes to spend against power ",c, " for neutral", b
read(*,*) f(a,b,2,c)
end do
end do
end do
g=0
do a=1,powers
do d=1,neutrals
do b=1,powers
g(a,d)=g(a,d)+f(b,d,1,a)-f(b,d,2,a)
end do
end do
end do

do a=1,neutrals
k(1)=g(1,a)
k(2)=1
do b=1,powers
if (g(b,a)>k(1)) then
k(1)=g(b,a)
k(2)=b
end if
end do
write(*,"(A,I5,A,I5,A,I5,A)") "Power ",k(2), " gains control of neutral ",a," with ",k(1)," points."
end do
else
if (help==1) then
do a=1,powers
do b=1,neutrals
do c=1,powers
write(*,"(A,I3,A,I3,A,I3)") "Please insert (in integer form) the number of points power ",a," wishes to spend in aid/against power ", c, " for neutral",b
read(*,*) f(a,b,1,c)
end do
end do
end do
g=0

do a=1,powers
do d=1,neutrals
do b=1,powers
g(a,d)=g(a,d)-f(b,d,1,a)
end do
g(a,d)=g(a,d)+(2*f(b,d,1,d))
end do
end do

do a=1,neutrals
k(1)=g(1,a)
k(2)=1
do b=1,powers
if (g(b,a)>k(1)) then
k(1)=g(b,a)
k(2)=b
end if
end do
write(*,"(A,I5,A,I5,A,I5,A)") "Power ",k(2), " gains control of neutral ",a," with ",k(1)," points."
end do
end if
end if

end program Diplomancy


Here is a quick Fortran program that will calculate which power gains control of which neutral (the reason I say quick is that you have to decide beforehand what countries equate to each number (i.e. France =1, England=2,etc. , the same with what number equates to each neutral (i.e Portugal=1, Spain=2, etc.)

I have stuck right at the topp two lines which print off
Power 1=England
Power 2=France


if you want to stick a header to remind yourself, then just copy and paste those two lines, and change the numbers to 3,4,ect. and the names to Turkey, etc. YOu can do the same thing with the neutrals, just change the "Power" to "Neutra" (Programmers will already know what I mean, and hopefully this will be clear enough to non-programmers).

I will continure working on this in my spare time, but that should be enough to run a game if anyone would be interested?
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Post 01 Aug 2011, 6:26 pm

This sounds a little like the system Baron Powell and Jeff Kase created with their Ambition and Empire variant. This variant takes place in 1763 at the end of the 7 years war. There are 10 major powers and every minor has an army or fleet on it. Each major power earns 1 diplomacy point per sc own to a max of 3DP.

The DP are used to influence the minor neutral army/fleets. Those minor units may never leave the hex but can be used to support other units whether it is to hold, support a major power's force hold/attack or another minor to hold, i.e. France puts 2 dp into Belgium H or Austria puts 2 DP into A Ser support A Bud to Rum.