Diplomacy game openings! From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com Date: Sun, 09 Feb 1992 19:31:50 +0000 A variant idea is at the end of this message. --------------------------------------------- If you are responding to the following, let me know what conference you saw it in. ***************************************************************************** I need GMS for regular, gunboat and no press warp gunboat Diplomacy. I need players for 1914, Ultimate Shambles, Blind Diplomacy, and Youngstown Diplomacy. I also need Warp Diplomacy and regular Diplomacy standbys NOW! (If you think you've volunteered but haven't been used, contact me again. In fact, if you volunteered to standby for non regular games, now would be a good time to remind me of this.) I need a standby GM for a Youngstown game. ***************************************************************************** I need people who would like to standby in weird variants. In particular, the following games could use standbys: LOEB9 RULES (9 players) Spain and Scandinavia are added as extra players. GREAT BRITAIN RULES (7 players) Britain starts with 6 SC's but all armies! 1898 RULES (7 players) Regular map. Each player starts with only his capital. YOUNGSTOWN RULES (10 players) Extended map including Asia and Africa. ELEVEN PLAYER RULES (11 players) An 11 player game with extra countries. SLOW WARP (7 players) Regular game with turns every three days. WIN91 (7 players) Regular game with players who have either won or have been in 2-way draws ==================================================================== Remember to give me your home phone number, work phone number, fax phone number, home address, and list all seven countries in order of preference when you sign up for my waiting list. Also include a list of your e-mail addresses. ==================================================================== I am organizing games #158+ of Diplomacy, I am currently looking for GMs (for regular and variant games in both my electronic and postal zines), GM standbys, player standbys, scribes, and players. If you would like to help out in a bureaucratic position, let me know. I have plenty of paper shuffling jobs that need to be filled! Also if your game ever has problems, PLEASE CONTACT ME! Also let me know if there are any mistakes in this game opening message. If you don't own Diplomacy, you can buy it at your local hobby store or from Avalon Hill directly. Avalon Hill's prices are $25.00 for the game, or $10.00 for the mapboard, $5.00 for the rules, $2.00 for the basic rules sheet, $5.00 for the game pieces, and $3.00 for a set of 7 conference maps. They also sell a Gamer's Guide to Diplomacy which I think is great for $8 + $3.00 shipping. Their phone numbers are 1-800-999-3222 and (301) 254-5300. Address is 4517 Harford Road, Baltimore, MD 21214. Postage and handling is $4.00/$5.00 for U.S, $8.00/$10.00 for Canada and $12.00/$15.00 for anywhere else with the first number being for orders $10.01 to $25.00 and the other number being for orders from $25.01 to $35.00. Also, there is a neat IBM compatible Diplomacy program named Judge. To get it send $30.00 US/Canadian to Les Casey, 33 Nestrow Dr., Nepean, Ontario, K2G 4M2, Canada. Judge is fantastic for GMing! Other programs of similar quality are avaiable for free: "Diplomacy Adjudicator" by Ken Lowe (jdr@u.washington.edu) is a program which accepts Diplomacy orders in a file or my electronic mail and computes and mails the results. A very sophisticated program. Is written in C. "Diplomat Interface" by Danny Loeb (loeb@geocub.greco-prog.fr) is a program in LCS design for the Diplomacy Programming Project moves are entered in Suntools or X windows or by other computer programs, and the results are returned in the same way. Is written in LCS and is designed for use by automatic diplomacy playing programs. ** Please indicate whether you have any preference in regards to participating in a regular diplomacy game where the GM is assisted by an automatic adjudicating program. Your moves would then have to be written in a certain format, but your results would come out quicker and be more accurate. For more information, send the message HELP to judge@u.washington.edu. ** REGULAR Diplomacy game waiting list: jrawles@leland.stanford.edu/Jody Rawles rmk@fusion.ph.utexas.edu/Rodney Kinney (after Feb 19) Anders.Dessmark@dna.lth.se/Anders Dessmark kucera@cs.ucdavis.edu/George W. Kucera set1@cec1.wustl.edu/Scott Edward Topper Citation_-_Insurance@cup.portal.com/Doug Waidhofer rgd3729@tamsun.tamu.edu/Greg Dilworth celovine@COLBY.EDU/Chris Lovine j$m@fccj.bitnet/Eddie Brown hrs000@atl.cecafi.unam.mx/Hector Augusto Sosa Rojas 70262.3404@CompuServe.COM/Andrew Appel WORK Diplomacy game waiting list: tomh@tellabs.com/Tom Huber This is a regular diplomacy game for people in the U.S. who have access to Usenet from their work place. BORN Diplomacy game waiting list: sadun@math.utexas.edu/Lorenzo Sadun (Italy) genesch@envnet2.gsfc.nasa.gov/Gene Schwartzman (Russia) This is a regular diplomacy game where you play the country you were born in or where your parents were born. CHAOS Diplomacy game waiting list: None. Every supply center is played by a different player (and builds are not restricted to "home" centers). We need 34 players! To get rules, send GET INFO.CHAOS to judge@u.washington.edu. The ongoing Chaos games need standbys. To be a standby, contact both me and jdr@u.washington.edu/Ken Lowe. REGULAR French Diplomacy waiting list: barry@intercon.com/Barry T. Fausnaugh (cf) daniel@hparc.eurocontrol.fr/Daniel Hannigan (cf) jba@ai.mit.edu/Jonathan Amsterdam (cf) west@geocub.greco-prog.fr/Tom West (cf) toocool@.diku.dk/Peter Lau Hansen (cf) This is a game where all negotiations and press announcments are done in French. Let me know if you are also willing to do variants in the French language. REGULAR Dutch Diplomacy waiting list: louis@mbfys.kun.nl/Louis Lenders (cf) daniel@cs.kun.nl/Daniel Tuijnman (cf) muts@fys.ruu.nl/Peter Mutsaers (cf) andre@duteina.tudelft.nl/Andre Verweij (and will GM the next Dutch game) (cf) This is a game where all negotiations and press announcments are done in Dutch. REGULAR German Diplomacy waiting list: dotzek@ds0lilog.BITNET/Karl Dotzek (cf) hottenro@informatik.tu-muenchen.de/Bertrand Hottenroth This is a game where all negotiations and press announcments are done in German. REGULAR Latin Diplomacy waiting list: mccarthy@jezebel.wustl.edu/John McCarthy arc@mundoe.maths.mu.OZ.AU/Andrew Conway This is a game where all negotiations and press announcments are done in Latin. ELEVEN Player variant waiting list: randy@ms.uky.edu/Randy Appleton stamos@suna0.cs.uiuc.edu/Bill Stamos To get the rules send the command GET INFO.CROWDED to judge@u.washington.edu. 1898 waiting list: None. The difference is that the game starts in Winter 1898 with each country having one unit. Each country must capture its other home centers before it can build in them. 1914 waiting list: * SIGN UP -- THIS FIVE PLAYER GAME IS ABOUT TO GET OFF THE GROUND * cubranic@usmcp6.bitnet/Davor Cubranic (cf) BUMP@jhuvms.hcf.jhu.edu/Jon Rothstein (observer) paulg@frith.egr.msu.edu/Greg Paul (cf) (or will GM) stamos@suna0.cs.uiuc.edu/Bill Stamos jmike@mathworks.com/J. Michael Hammond (cf) randy@ms.uky.edu/Randy Appleton (cf) haha@vipunen.hut.fi/Harri Haanpaa (Observer) The 1914 variant of Diplomacy is based on an article in The General. (The General is published by the manufacturer of Diplomacy to give you an idea of how good this variant must be!) This game is much more realistic than regular Diplomacy, you even can get bombers starting in Winter 1917. ROUND-ROBIN GUNBOAT waiting list: 2, need 5 more. This is where you play in 7 different no press gunboat games, playing as a different country in each game. GUNBOAT waiting list: 10 people. I have sent a message to these people, the first 7 who respond get in. If anyone else sends me mail before the game is filled they can also get in. In this variant, you don't know who the other people are and can only communicate through press. To get the rules send the command GET INFO.GUNBOAT to judge@u.washington.edu. NO PRESS GUNBOAT waiting list: 8 people. Need a GM! In this variant, you don't know who the other players are and you can't even communicate to them through press. I obviously could use a GM for this game! NO PRESS GUNBOAT WARP waiting list: 4 people. None of these people have been confirmed yet. You should remind me that you want to be in this game if you haven't heard from me. NO PRESS GUNBOAT WITH NO RESTRICTIONS waiting list: 5 creatures, need 2 more. In this variant, players are not restricted to the human race. BLIND DIPLOMACY waiting list: * I need a GM for this game! * paulg@frith.egr.msu.edu/Greg Paul (in Jan (cf)) tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu/Tom Tedrick stamos@suna0.cs.uiuc.edu/Bill Stamos pinky@vipunen.hut.fi/Tomi Kaartama cheng@milton.u.washington.edu/Cheng Chi Ku (cf) In this variant, the locations of all pieces are secret. You discover the locations of enemy pieces when you attack them or are attacked by them. You also discover the location of enemy pieces by spying. Each country begins with 2 spies, in any home centers. You lose a spy if you lose your capital, and both spies if you lose all your home centers. Spies that are destroyed are replaced each year in any home territory provided that you have enough home centers to support them. Each spy may: move, hold, or counter espionage. Spies themselves are completely invisible -- they may move through any space regardless of the presence of other units. Spies are never dislogded, and can only be destroyed by counter espionage. A spy performing conter espionage kills all enemy spies in the area. If two spies both CE the same area, both die. If a spy survives, it provides complete information on the unit occupying the area and its actions in the just completed turn. WARP BLIND DIPLOMACY waiting list: akuo@scam.berkeley.edu/Augie Kuo dm8sstaf@miamiu.bitnet/Douglas M. MacFarlane murphy@dg-rtp.dg.com/John Murphy This is blind Diplomacy with one or two day turns. CLASSIC DIPLOMACY waiting list: rnlee@sdcc6.ucsd.edu/Roderick Lee In this game we follow the original rulebook and board from the 1958 edition of Diplomacy. In this game you actually place armies on top of fleets to convoy them (at the rate of one unit per turn) and have neat places such as Mesopotamia and Persia. My favorite change is that Switzerland is a neutral supply center! WARP DIPLOMACY waiting list: None. (I may have one opening in a brand new game, so send me e-mail if you'd like to get in it ASAP.) Turns will be either every day or every other day, majority vote. SLOW WARP DIPLOMACY waiting list: turner@alessia.dei.unipd.it/Andrea Viscovich (cf) jrb@tahoe.unr.edu/John R Becker (cf) germain@asylum.utah.edu/Jim de St. Germain (cf) Turns will be every three days WIN92 waiting list: wcollins@eniac.seas.upenn.edu/Walter J. Collins, III gary@chema.ucsd.edu/Gary Samad jmodonne@owucomcn.bitnet/Jason M. O'Donnell keithm@mips.com/Keith Mortensen This is a regular Diplomacy game for people who have won previous e-mail games or have participated in 2-way draws. There will be just one game next year, with the cream of the crop. ULTIMATE SHAMBLES waiting list: * I need a GM for this game! * cheng@milton.u.washington.edu/Cheng Chi Ku (cf) mckibbim@grin1.bitnet/Michael A McKibbin (cf) roger@nuacc.bitnet/Roger Safian (cf) swb@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/Steve Buffum (cf) stamos@suna0.cs.uiuc.edu/Bill Stamos ccm007@deneb.ucdavis.edu or jvbanagan@ucdavis.edu/John Banagan (cf) greg@cpsc.ucalgary.ca/Greg James (cf) I am currently making sure all players are interested as I think I have a GM for this game. There is a good chance I'll be short a player, so now is a very good time to sign up for Ultimate Shambles! In this variant, everyone gets 4 supply centers randomly assigned in the first turn, and then gets 3 builds the following turn. The game proceeds normally from there. If you consider having your units spread all over the place normal. This game requires much more Diplomacy than normal since everyone is your neighbor! DISBAND VARIANT waiting list: stamos@suna0.cs.uiuc.edu/Bill Stamos pl436000@brownvm.bitnet/Jamie Dreier fqoj@cornella.bitnet/Roger Jagoda tedrick@ernie.berkeley.edu/Tom Tedrick In this game you can voluntarily disband units. YOUNGSTOWN waiting list: stuart_s@ocf.berkeley.edu/Steven Stuart (cf) starkey@netcom.com/Sean Starkey (cf) llewelpj@newton.ccs.tuns.ca/Peter John Llewellyn (cf) I have a bunch more people that I'm about to confirm, NOW IS THE TIME TO SIGN UP FOR YOUNGSTOWN! Youngstown is a 10 player game on a map that includes the countries of Japan, China, and India and double the number of provinces and supply centers. For rules, send GET INFO.YOUNGSTOWN and GET MAP.YOUNGSTOWN or GET YOUNGSTOWN.PS to judge@u.washington.edu. Other Variants -------------- Judge@u.washington.edu also has the following info: Great Britain variant - GET INFO.BRITIAN 9 player variant - GET INFO.LOEB9 and GET LOEB9.PS Machiavelli - GET INFO.MACHIAVELLI Pure - GET INFO.PURE Grey and Black press - GET PRESS ******************************************************************** POSITIONS ******************************************************************** Player standby list ------------------- loeb@geocub.greco-prog.fr/Daniel E. Loeb (1 or 2 unit positions or WIN91) paulg@frith.egr.msu.edu/Greg Paul (ultimate shambles) sun!uunet.uu.net!tnc!m0103/David Breeding (blind, reg, no warp copeland@mssun3.msi.cornell.edu/Scott Copeland (reg) arc@mundoe.maths.mu.OZ.AU/Andrew Conway (French) dotzek@ds0lilog.BITNET/Karl Dotzek (German) GM standby list --------------- pl436000@brownvm.bitnet/Jamie Dreier (For Judge games only) loeb@geocub.greco-prog.fr/Daniel E. Loeb (For Judge games only) durrell@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu/Bryant Durrell (Prefers Judge games) A standby takes over a game that has lost its GM. If I run out of GMs, I will also use standby GMs to start games. Scribes ------- cmmjr@flight-sim.gatech.edu/Cliff McKeithan loeb@nestor.greco-prog.fr/Daniel Loeb (Diplomacy articles only) A scribe types articles so I can reprint them in this zine. I will supply xeroxes. Let me know how many pages you wish to type. Let's keep my wrists brace-free! E-mail Wizards -------------- swb@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/Steve Buffum andre@hern.stonemarche.org/Andre' Wood eisen@cs.jhu.edu or eisen@jhuvms.bitnet/Hal J Eisen wcw27974@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu/Bill Wendling An e-mail wizard helps people with e-mail problems. If you can't get mail to someone, contact an e-mail wizard. Chapter Checkers ---------------- norrish@st1.vuw.ac.nz/Michael Norrish (Chapter One) A chapter checker helps makes sure that a chapter is running smoothly. I.e. that it is being published and that the games in it are also being published. Having some chapter checkers is critical for this zine's long term health. For the record, Michael has been my first competent chapter checker. Three cheers for Michael! Cheer! Cheer! Cheer! Guest Publishers ---------------- uunet!cti1!rlister or rlister@cti.com/Russ Lister (Chapter One) loeb@geocub.greco-prog.fr/Daniel E. Loeb (Chapter Two) mad-2@kub.nl/Constantijn Wekx (Chapter Three) vacant (Chapter Four) vacant (Chapter Five) barry@brahms.udel.edu/Barry Fausnaugh (Chapter Six) vacant (Chapter Seven) A guest publisher takes the results of about 5 games and publishes them in a chapter, twice a week. I NEED another guest publisher! This is my most important position. Archivers --------- jlitvin@swtec1.intel.com/John Litvin judge@u.washington.edu - Receive summaries of games by asking for SUMMARY <name-of-game> An archiver stores on disk one or more chapters of the zine. This very important position will allow me to recreate records of games in case their GMs abandon them. You may also ask for past issues from an archiver. REMEMBER to include your e-mail address in any messages sent to an archiver. GM waiting list --------------- niekd@cs.kun.nl/Niek van Diepen (Dutch) wsbusr1@urc.tue.nl/Boudewijn Wayer (Dutch) loeb@nestor.greco-prog.fr/Daniel Loeb (French and WIN92) claudius@leland.stanford.edu/Nelson Lu (Latin) Greg_Pearson@ub.cc.umich.edu/Greg Pearson (Eleven Player Ultimate Shambles) pl436000@brownvm.bitnet/Jamie Dreier (no press round-robin gunboat) thorinn@diku.dk/Lars Henrik Mathiesen (blind or shambles) starkey@netcom.com/Sean Starkey (blind) *-*-*-* SPECIAL NOTICES *-*-*-* To get an updated list of the (non-unlisted) games on the JUDGE, send the message "LIST" to JUDGE@U.WASHINGTON.EDU Here's a variant idea from prb@chinet.chi.il.us/Paul Botts BATTLE FLEETS AND ARMY CORPS Standard map, standard rules, except for the following: Two like units can enter the same space, and move together, by being combined into a Battle Fleet or an Army Corps. An army and a fleet cannot be combined (and hence can never be in the same space together). To create a BF or AC, a player must successfully move the two units into a single space. The two units moving in cannot provide support for each other's move, so it takes only one enemy unit trying to move into the same space to prevent the moves and the combining. In order to overcome such a move by an enemy unit, *each* unit of the proposed BF/AC must have its own *separate* support from another friendly unit(s). This means in practice that it is virtually impossible to create a BF/AC in an active battle zone; they almost always must be created well behind one's lines, and then moved up. A Battle Fleet (BF) or Army Corps (AC), once created, moves and can support as one unit, but with the power of two units. It cannot split its strength with separate moves (that is, the two units making up a BF/AC cannot be ordered to move to different spaces), with the exception noted below. Nor can one unit be ordered to move while the other is ordered to support. The two units *can* be ordered to provide support to different spaces. It takes three units to dislodge a BF/AC, but it takes only one attacking unit to cut *all* support being provided by a BF/AC. A BF/AC *can*, if dislodged, be ordered to retreat to separate spaces; this breaks up the BF/AC. The other ways to break up a BF/AC are to disband one or both units under normal disband rules, or *successfully* move the two units to different spaces from a home supply center. Only if the BF/AC is in a home supply center can it be ordered to move to different spaces, and if neither of the moves is successful then the BF/AC is not broken up. A BF/AC, when moving, follows the same special rules (such as for spaces with two coasts) as a single unit. Units from different nations can be combined into a BF/AC. Both nations must specify in their orders that the attempted move into a single space is for the purposes of forming a BF/AC, and both must specify which nation will control the resulting BF/AC if the combining move succeeds. Once that control is given to one player, it cannot be taken away; only he can order the two units to move apart from only his home supply center. Any supply centers the BF/AC takes belong to the player who is in control of it (the Allied Commander of the BF/AC). The player who surrendered his unit to the BF/AC can break the BF/AC only by disbanding the unit he contributed, or by retreating it to a *different* space than the one that the other unit of the BF/AC is ordered to retreat to. If both the Allied Commander and the contributing player order the BF/AC units to retreat to the same space, the Allied Commander retains full control, even if the other player intended to break up the BF/AC. A player who has contributed a unit to a BF/AC which he does *not* control can attack and dislodge that BF/AC, notwithstanding the "no self-dislodgement" rule in regular Diplomacy. --------------------------------- So, what do you think? Paul Botts prb@chinet.chi.il.us Referenced By Up