Re: Diplomacy anyone?

From: nick@sunburn.waterloo.edu (Nick Fitzpatrick)

Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1992 15:58:20 +0000

In article <1992Jul18.081146.5859@darkstar.com> jp@darkstar.com writes:
>Can anyone here direct me to a pbEm Diplomacy (the Avalon Hill boardgame)
>forum? I used to play it via snail mail back in high-school, but fell out
>of it in college. Now I'm thinking I'd like to play by e-mail, but I don't
>know how to find the right people.
>
Well I tried answering this by E-mail, however it bounced, so:

The answer is, read this:

AN INTERNET GUIDE TO THE GAME OF DIPLOMACY  Version 3.0  Jul 1992
By Nicholas Fitzpatrick (nick@sunburn.waterloo.edu)

Contents

THE DIPLOMACY ADJUDICATORS
*              Washington, USA
	       Denmark
	       Durban, South Africa
   Setting up one's own judge
ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL
*DIPL-L
HALL OF FAME
*USENET
FTP SITES
	       Washington, USA
	       Berlin, Germany
*              Marburg, Germany
VARIANTS
HOW TO GET POSTSCRIPT MAPS
*DIPLOMACY AT CIX              (NEW SECTION!!!)

* indicates alterations since last edition
| in text shows changes

THE DIPLOMACY ADJUDICATORS
--------------------------
The Diplomacy adjudicators are computer programs that moderate,
and assist in the moderation of Diplomacy games.  All moderated
games on the judges are eligible for inclusion in Electronic Protocol.

Washington, USA
---------------
The primary judge is judge@u.washington.edu, it is kept by Ken Lowe
(jdr@u.washington.edu).

To register with the judge send the command
    help
in the body of a mail message (not the subject) to judge@u.washington.edu
and follow the registration instructions that arrive in the mail.

For a list of ongoing games, and openings, send the command
    list
to the judge.

To join the next available standard moderated game, send the command
    signon ? password
to the judge (after registering).

The judge presently supports the following variants; Standard, Youngstown,
Loeb9, Chaos, 1898, Crowded, Machiavelli, Britain and Pure.  Press and
no-press gunboat versions of all these games are available.

|Ken is presently working on the A/F module for the Deluge variant, and
|is considering adding Blind and Youngstown XII.  (Though he reports the
|work is slow, and he is planning a vacation)
|
|In July 1992, 69 standard games, 22 Youngstown games and 17
|other games were in progress.  There were 713 players registered
|with the judge@u.washington.edu.
|
|Judge Status in Washington
|--------------------------
|                    May 23  Jun 20  Jul 16
|Registered Players     ~650    ~675    713
|Standard Games          ~70     ~70     69
|Youngstown Games        ~20      20     30
|Other Games               ?      17     17
|
|Notes: Players are registered even if inactive.
|       There are other non-listed games ongoing (at least 5)
|
Denmark
-------
Recently another judge was opened in Denmark.  The software for this judge
is the same as that at the University of Washington.  This judge is still
in its infancy, only has 10 registered players, and presently runs 1 game
of the Ultimate Shambles variant (shambles).  This judge can be communicated
in exactly the same manner as the one in Washington.  Its address is
    judge@diku.dk
It is not recommended starting ones own games at this judge, instead
contact the keeper, Lars Henrik Mathiesen (thorinn@diku.dk).  Lars has
indicated that he might be prepared to add other variants here.

Durban, South Africa
--------------------
A full fledged judge has also appeared in Durban, South Africa.  The
address is
	       judge@shrike.und.ac.za
It is presently running one moderated game and is maintained by
Russell Vincent (Vincent@cc.und.ac.za)

Setting up one's own judge
--------------------------
It is fairly simple to install your own judge.  The source code is
available (in C) from the Washington FTP site (see below).  The instructions
are explained in detail in a README file.

ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL
-------------------
This is an electronic magazine devoted to Diplomacy.  The main editor
is Eric Klien, (Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com).  This 'zine is divided into
8 chapters, each covers certain games.  Eric personally publishes chapter 8,
which is distributed through rec.games.* on Usenet, and through DIPL-L.
Eric also keeps a waiting list for players, and substitutes, for all sorts
of obscure variants!

The games from the two judges are published in Chapter 2, by Daniel Loeb
(loeb@geocub.greco-prog.fr).  This is also distributed through Usenet, and
DIPL-L.

DIPL-L
------
DIPL-L is a listserv mailing list hosted at mitvma.mit.edu (mitvma.bitnet).
It is moderated by Nicholas Fitzpatrick (nick@sunburn.waterloo.edu).  This
relatively low volume mailing list is designed to be a forum for discussion
of the game of Diplomacy, the judges, and for distribution of
Electronic Protocol.  To add your name to the mailing list, send the command
     subscribe dipl-l John Smith
where John Smith is your name to:
     listserv@mitvma.mit.edu  (listserv@mitvma.bitnet).

|DIPL-L is gatewayed to Usenet as the newsgroup
|bit.listserv.dipl-l   If you don't recieve it, complain to your sys-admin.
|
A collection of old letters from DIPL-L is available from Marburg by FTP.
|(see below).  The files are dipl9203.Z, dipl9204.Z, dipl9205.Z and dipl9206.Z
|

HALL OF FAME
------------
The hall of fame is also kept by Nicholas Fitzpatrick
(nick@sunburn.waterloo.edu).  It is still under-development, and currently
contains results of standard, 1898 and Youngstown games
completed on the Washington judge up to June 1992.  It will eventually
be expanded to other variants, to EP games and to some really old judge
games from 1988-1990. It is available by request from Nicholas Fitzpatrick
(nick@sunburn.waterloo.edu), from anonymous FTP from the Diplomacy FTP
site in Marburg Germany (see below).

USENET
------
There is some discussion of Diplomacy in the Usenet groups rec.games.pbm
(pbm=play by mail) and rec.games.board.  I try to encourage people to
use rec.games.pbm, as there is less traffic.  Occasionally people also use
rec.games.misc.   (Anybody want to start a rec.games.diplomacy?)

|There is also the group bit.listserv.dipl-l  This groups is a full Usenet
|group, and relays messages to and from DIPL-L.  (see above)
|

FTP SITES
---------
Certain material is available by anonymous FTP from various Diplomacy
archives around the world.

Washington, USA
---------------
There are a few files kept in the machine
	       milton.u.washington.edu
in the public/misc sub-directory.  Here is a list of them.

-rw-r--r--       245789 May 16 05:15 dip.tar.Z       Source code for judge
-rw-r--r--       128294 Apr 16  1991 dipmap.ps       Postscript map
-rw-r--r--       134502 Apr 16  1991 loeb9.ps        Loeb9 postscript map
-rw-r--r--        23454 Sep  6  1991 machiavelli.ps  Machiavelli ps map
-rw-r--r--       124883 Nov 20  1991 youngstown.ps   Youngstown ps map

Berlin, Germany
---------------
There is an ftp site in Berlin.  The machine is
	       FTP.FU-berlin.DE   (130.133.4.50)
This machine is a little slow, so it is a good idea to know exactly what
you want!  Here is an index of what was available in June 1992 (courtesy
of Heiko Schlichting):

/pub/misc/diplomacy/:
drwxr-sr-x   2 ftp        512 Mai 14 01:29 classic/
drwxr-sr-x   2 ftp        512 Mai 14 01:30 dipl-l/
drwxr-sr-x   2 ftp        512 Jun 13 23:06 general/
drwxr-sr-x   2 ftp        512 Jun 10 06:50 hall-of-fame/
drwxr-sr-x   2 ftp        512 Jun 13 23:08 loeb9/
drwxr-sr-x   2 ftp        512 Jun 13 23:08 machiavelli/
drwxr-sr-x   2 ftp        512 Jun 13 23:16 other-variants/
drwxr-sr-x   2 ftp        512 Jun 13 22:53 source/
drwxr-sr-x   2 ftp        512 Jun 13 23:18 youngstown/

/pub/misc/diplomacy/classic:
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2172 Apr 24  1991 map.ascii.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2501 Mai 22  1991 map.info.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      34076 Mai 22  1991 map.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2291 Apr  7  1991 rules.classic.Z

/pub/misc/diplomacy/dipl-l:
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       6789 Apr 24  1991 convoys.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       8557 Apr 24  1991 dipcon.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2513 Apr 24  1991 email-dip.intr.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       1919 Apr 24  1991 example.game.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      12176 Apr 24  1991 france.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       5662 Apr 24  1991 germany.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2741 Apr 24  1991 greek.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2034 Apr 24  1991 mediterranean.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       3100 Apr 24  1991 musical.dip.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2140 Apr 24  1991 stab-stab.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       4850 Apr 24  1991 stalemates.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp        639 Apr 24  1991 top.ten.lies.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2951 Apr 24  1991 winning.dip.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      22767 Apr 24  1991 zine_list.Z

/pub/misc/diplomacy/general:
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2176 Jun 13 23:06 changes.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       4211 Jun 13 23:06 deadline.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       1301 Jun 13 23:06 form.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       5504 Jun 13 23:06 index.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       4471 Jun 13 23:06 info.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       4364 Jun 13 23:06 master.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       3242 Jun 13 23:06 press.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2291 Jun 13 23:06 rules-changes.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      16010 Jun 13 23:06 rules.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       2750 Jun 13 23:06 syntax.Z

/pub/misc/diplomacy/hall-of-fame:
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      19809 Jun 10 06:52 hall-of-fame-2.Z

/pub/misc/diplomacy/loeb9:
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       1510 Jun 13 22:59 info.loeb9.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      35505 Mai 22  1991 loeb9.ps.Z

/pub/misc/diplomacy/machiavelli:
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       1366 Jun 13 22:59 info.machiavelli.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      11253 Jun 13 22:51 machiavelli.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      14174 Jun 13 22:59 rules.machiavelli.Z

/pub/misc/diplomacy/other-variants:
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp        481 Jun 13 22:59 info.1898.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp        459 Jun 13 22:59 info.britain.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp        934 Jun 13 22:59 info.chaos.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp        550 Jun 13 22:59 info.crowded.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp        724 Jun 13 22:59 info.gunboat.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp        450 Jun 13 22:59 info.pure.Z

/pub/misc/diplomacy/source:
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp     245789 Jun 13 22:51 diplomacy-adjudicator.tar.Z

/pub/misc/diplomacy/youngstown:
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       3145 Jun 13 23:19 info.youngstown.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp       5842 Jun 13 23:19 map.young.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp        596 Jun 13 23:19 report.young.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      52113 Jun 13 23:19 youngstown-DINA4-1PAGE.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      52050 Jun 13 23:19 youngstown-DINA4.ps.Z
-rw-r--r--   1 ftp      51922 Jun 13 23:19 youngstown.ps.Z

Marburg, Germany
----------------
The address is
	       sg1507.chemie.uni-marburg.de   (137.248.151.12).
All material is in the pub/incoming/Ep-Chapter sub-directory.  Presently
all the old copies of Electronic-Protocol are there.  (in either files
called turnXXX, XXX, or diplo.XXX ;where XXX is the issue number).  Issues
100 and 280 are missing!  Most of these are UNIX compressed (a .Z extension).
There is also a file called biblio.Z which contains the EP index from
issue 1 to 10?.

Also in the archive is a copy of the hall of fame (called hallfame) and a
collection of old letters from DIPL-L called dipl9203.Z dipl9204.Z
|dipl9205.Z and dipl9206.Z.
|

VARIANTS
--------
Mark Nelson <amt5man@ECUSUN.LEEDS.AC.UK> is the god of variants, and is
the best person to ask questions.  There are variant banks around the
world.

If you live in North American and you want to find out more about
diplomacy variants then you should write to:

Lee Kendter Jnr, 376A Willowbrook Drive, Jeffersonville, PA 19403, USA

Lee is North American Variant Bank Custodian and can answer your
questions + supply copy of rules/maps for cost.  You can also order
a copy of the NAVB catalogue from him.  This lists some 1200 or so
dip variants.

Mark can answer questions on many of these if you want to ask before
buying them (his own variant collection is about 600 strong). Many dip
variants are not particularly interesting or playable...

HOW TO GET POSTSCRIPT MAPS
--------------------------
There are two methods.  There are files with a .ps extension available by
anonymous FTP to milton.u.washington.edu in the public/misc subdirectory.
(see above)  These files are laser ready, so just send it to your favourite
post-script printer.  (The youngstown map defaults to printing on 4 pages,
but if you read the comment lines at the top of the file, you will be able
to see how to easily alter it to print on 1 (or 2).

If you cannot FTP, you should be able to get it from a judge
(judge.u.washington.edu
 judge@diku.dk
 judge@shrike.und.ac.za) by sending the command
get youngstown.ps
The file will come back in the mail, so you would have to trim it down to the
%!
at the beginning of the Postscript stuff.

|DIPLOMACY AT CIX
|----------------
|CIX is the primary commercial server in the UK, with the national
|branch of the more expensive Compuserve running it a close second.
|There are far fewer hobby users of servers in the UK, because phone
|charges are far more expensive than the North America, with even
|local calls attracting abusive rates. This means a much lower
|density of players, which is why CIX will only have a couple of
|games or so running in the Diplomacy conference.  These games are
|moderated by hand.  At the time of writing (July 1992), the tenth
|game (known locally as 7thgame) is running.  Anyone joining CIX should
|watch diplomacy/general for announcements of gamestarts.
|
|CIX's internet email links are not particularly good, which is why
|Cixen rarely get involved in inter-server email diplomacy. I do not
|mind a stab failing because the victim out-thought me; I do object
|when the ally does his bit, the victim listens and goes the other
|way, and CIX loses contact with the rest of the world for a week.
|
|No effort is made to formalise results of games, mainly because
|players seem to know each other, happily misguiding allies when
|they're not editing UK computer magazines.  There has been some effort
|to formalise the results and send them off to the great diplomacy
|statistics collection, but this was abandoned when it was realised
|that it involved work.
|
|(Courtesy of Dylan Harris)
|
------------------------
I will try to post this to usenet and DIPL-L on a semi-regular basis, please
feel free to send me corrections and additions.

|Thanks to Mark Nelson, Heiko Schlichting and Dylan Harris for some of
|the information contained here.

Nicholas Fitzpatrick                      nick@sunburn.waterloo.edu
					  nick@sunburn.uwaterloo.ca

References

Diplomacy anyone?
uu0276!jp (Jim Petersen)
Sat, 18 Jul 1992 08:11:46 +0000