Diplomacy Zine -- EP #190 Chapter Seven From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com Date: Tue, 14 Aug 1990 03:15:03 +0000 Issue #190 of ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL: ************************************************************************ Tom Silverman, chairman, Tommy Boy Records: When I was a kid, I remember saying, "I can do what I want, it's a free country. If you don't like it, you can move to Russia." Now if you want to be able to say what you want to say, you might HAVE to move to Russia. ************************************************************************ Chapter One contains: BLITZKRIEG, GETTYSBURG, RED STORM RISING, and PASSCHENDAELE And is published by daybell@aludra.usc.edu/Donald Daybell Chapter Two contains: DRAGONSLAYER, JACAL, MANHATTAN, VERSAILLES, DRESDEN, and KHAN And is published by tedward@cs.cornell.edu/Ted Fischer Chapter Three contains: MULHOUSE, DAWN PATROL, SNIKKEL-2, BERLIN, SNIKKEL-1, EL ALAMEIN, SQUALANE, UNGAWE, CAPTAIN CAVEMAN And is published by cwekx@htikub5.bitnet/Constantijn Wekx Chapter Four contains: NICKEL, OZARK, DEADLY DAGGERS, YORKTOWN, MONTREUIL-SUR-MER Chapter Five contains: ARCHANGEL, BORDEL, ERIS, MASADA, and YALTA And is published by bmers58!dgibbs@bnrgate/David Gibbs Chapter Six contains: TOKUGAWA, BERLIN WALL, HIROSHIMA, GENGHIS KHAN, SEA LION, VIOLENT PEACE And is published by sinhaa@mcmaster.ca/Anand Sinha ----------- Chapter Seven ----------- Spring '04 of the game GROUND ZERO (EP #47) (GM is Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com/Eric Klien Spring 1904 Ground Zero Results ------------------------------- THE LITTLE GUYS CONTINUE TO HAVE TROUBLES! I got orders from both Austrias. Brian Jacobs will stay Austria for now since I believe that he just had e-mail problems. If he is replaced in the future, Dave Peak gets his position. Germany is still on vacation and won't be back until August 5th. I will post results as soon as I get orders from him, so tentative deadline is August 5th. But get those orders in early! #47 GROUND ZERO (GM is Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com) England: sadun@acf9.nyu.edu/Lorenzo Sadun France: Brett Kottman (demon@wsu.bitnet or demon@eve.wright.edu) Germany: Truls Arnegaard (trulsarn@ifi.uio.no) Russia: Steve S. Ozdemir (ofoz@ihlpb.att.com) Turkey: willis@trwind.ind.trw.com/Willis Marti Austria: is Brian Jacobs (aok@mentor.cc.purdue.edu) maybe Austrian one day is att!bellcore!pyuxd!dxp/Dave Peak Italy: Sean Fitts (sean@mercury.sybase.com) THE LITTLE GUYS CAN'T MOVE THEIR UNITS! AUS: F Adriatic Sea - Apulia <F Aegean Sea - Smyrna> A Budapest S A Vienna H <A Constantinople S F Aegean Sea - Smyrna>[att] A Greece - Bulgaria A Naples S A Rome H A Rome S A Trieste - Venice A Trieste - Venice A Vienna S A Budapest H ENG: <F Irish Sea - Mid-Atlantic Ocean> FRA: A Belgium H F London - English Channel A Picardy S A Belgium H A Piedmont - Marseilles <F Tunis - Western Med> F Tyrrhenian Sea - Gulf of Lyon F Wales - London <F Western Med - Mid-Atlantic Ocean> GER: A Edinburgh S A Holland - Yorkshire F Heligoland Bight S F North Sea H A Holland - Yorkshire A Kiel - Holland A Munich S A Kiel - Holland (Just moral support) F North Sea C A Holland - Yorkshire RUS: F Armenia S F Sevastopol - Black Sea A Livonia H (suppresses protests) F Norway S F North Sea H F Norwegian Sea - North Atlantic A Rumania S A Ukraine H F Sevastopol - Black Sea A Ukraine S A Rumania H TUR: <F Ankara - Constantinople> <A Smyrna S F Ankara - Constantinople>[att] Press: Bild Zeitung --- 1904, Any and all reports ov ze death of ze emperor is falze! Ve have ze piktures! Emperor Frans alive! Frens-German colonies place ov blis! Emigrate u to! Fall '01 of the game HELM'S DEEP (EP #57) (GM is eric_s_klien@cup.portal.com/Eric Klien) ITALY SAYS HI TO FRANCE! #57 HELM'S DEEP (GM is eric_s_klien@cup.portal.com/Eric Klien) Germany: CONNELLY@uinpla.npl.uiuc.edu/Jim Connelly Italy: fnd@beach.cis.ufl.edu/Frank Di Vincenzo France: uunet!bnrgate!bmers1!dgibbs/David Gibbs Russia: sean@mercury.sybase.com/Sean Fitts England: sinhaa@mcmaster.ca/Anand Sinha Turkey: steveb@cs.utexas.edu/Steve Benz Austria: aok@mentor.cc.purdue.edu/Brian Jacobs AUS: F Albania - Greece <A Budapest - Rumania> A Serbia S F Albania - Greece ENG: F North Sea C A Yorkshire - Belgium F Norwegian Sea - Norway A Yorkshire - Belgium FRA: F Mid-Atlantic Ocean - Portugal <A Picardy - Belgium> A Spain H GER: <F Denmark - Sweden> A Kiel - Holland A Ruhr S A Yorkshire - Belgium ITA: A Apulia - Tunis F Ionian Sea C A Apulia - Tunis A Venice - Piedmont RUS: F Black Sea S A Galicia - Rumania A Galicia - Rumania <F Gulf of Bothnia - Sweden> A Ukraine S A Galicia - Rumania TUR: A Ankara - Constantinople <A Bulgaria S A Ukraine - Rumania>[nso] F Constantinople - Aegean Sea Position Report Fall 1901 Game HEL AUS: A BUD F GRE A SER = 3 ENG: A BEL F NOR F NTS = 3 FRA: A PIC F POR A SPA = 3 GER: F DEN A HOL A RUH = 3 ITA: F ION A PIE A TUN = 3 RUS: F BLA F GOB A RUM A UKR = 4 TUR: F AEG A BUL A CON = 3 Supply Center Report Fall 1901 Game HEL AUS: BUD GRE SER TRI VIE = 5( 3) ++ ENG: BEL EDI LON LVP NOR = 5( 3) ++ FRA: BRE MAR PAR POR SPA = 5( 3) ++ GER: BER DEN HOL KIE MUN = 5( 3) ++ ITA: NAP ROM TUN VEN = 4( 3) + RUS: MOS RUM SEV STP WAR = 5( 4) + TUR: ANK BUL CON SMY = 4( 3) + Send adjustments ASAP. Tommorrow would be a good target. Press: Oslo: Thousands cheered as the English navigated the fjords and landed in Norway today, to give us protection from Russia. As President Hagar the Horrible put it "The Russian bear, with its paw poised to strike is a constant irritant in the sides of all peace-loving nations such as ours. The arrival of the English proves her willingness to defend all small nations of the world." London: Prime Minister Anand Sinha held a brief press conference today. "Our Empire shall go on forever. The sun never sets on the Empire. We shall, with our German cousins, remove any imperialistic forces that dare to colonise Europe". He firmly stated that this was not directed at anyone, and that the rumours of re-joining Greater and Lesser Britain, as they were in the days of King Arthur, were totally baseless. Camelot: The lake stirs. Excalibur is seen. Magic returns. Roma: The Chief of the Papal Navy, Maximus Pompousness, denied rumours that Pope Franceso I was mentally unstable. "No, we are not going to France! Non nous n'allons pas en France", was his statement. When questioned about his use of French, his reply was, "Errr...Ummm...", and a French-Italian Dictionary fell out of his pocket. Paris: The glorious first French fleet set sail for the soon to be build Suez Canal, with scheduled stops in Spain, Rome, and Constantinople. Passengers should have boarded in Brest, but any straglers can travel with the army to be built in Marseilles in the Winter. Brussels: THE ENGLISH ARRIVE!! LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT FRENCH FRY!! An English troop of Fish'n'Chip eaters landed in Belgium looking for the perfet chip. "A perfect chip, ah we English dream of finding the perfect chip. It should be cut from the finest potatoes, be cut properly, not too thick, not too thin, and fried to a crisp, firm exterior, yet a cool and potatoey interior", was the official statement from the English Spokesman. Belgium, the birthplace of the French Fry is a likely spot to find the chip. The Weekly World News, Vatican Edition. (Buy it or be Excommunicated.) FIRST ARMY GOES ON CAMPING EXPEDITION The Holy Italian First Army stationed out of Venice took the local chapter of the Vatican Boy Scouts out on a camping trip in the vineyards of Piedmont early yesterday. The troopers and boys participated in many events, such as target shooting at croissants and French Dwarf tossing. A spokesman for the Scouts said, "We are very thankful that the First Army would take time out of their busy schedule defending our borders to entertain the youth of our great nation. I am confused, however, as to why they brought their heavy artillery with them." AND NOW, A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: Italy -> France: I would prefer peace. I'm sure that you will, too. From our illustrious Editor: Pope Franjesco I of Helm's Deep, #57, ressurected! Ottoman Star/Tribune -------------------- New Ambassador to Italy Appointed Shiek Abdul the Expendible was appointed the new Turkish Ambassador to Italy today in a gala celebration on the shores of the Aegean. Shiek Abdul seemed confident in his mission, when asked how he would persuade the Italians not to execute the Lepanto opening, the new Ambassador replied, "Lepanto? What's that?" Shah Decrees Bathing Law Shah Hassan, in an effort to quell whatever it is that seems to have so offended the rest of the eastern powers, formally signed into law the National Bathing Ordinance. Citizens are now required to bath at least once a week -- "whether you need it or not!" The Shah himself is exempt from the ordinance until the Russian fleet vacates the Royal Bathtub. From David: Sorry for not getting to talk to people this update, but things have been chaotic at this end. I missed the turn results, so I didn't realize they had gotten to me. I only just got this out in time for the deadline. Second note: sorry about the late orders, but a path that I have been using to get mail to Eric for a couple of months now just stopped working, I just received mail telling me that my mail to Eric is queued by uunet trying to reach portal. (Does anyone know if the connectivity changed?) I am trying alternate paths with this. Winter '01 of the game HELM'S DEEP (EP #57) (GM is eric_s_klien@cup.portal.com/Eric Klien) IRAQ INVADES KUWAIT! #57 HELM'S DEEP (GM is eric_s_klien@cup.portal.com/Eric Klien) Germany: CONNELLY@uinpla.npl.uiuc.edu/Jim Connelly Italy: fnd@beach.cis.ufl.edu/Frank Di Vincenzo France: uunet!bnrgate!bmers1!dgibbs/David Gibbs Russia: sean@mercury.sybase.com/Sean Fitts England: sinhaa@mcmaster.ca/Anand Sinha Turkey: steveb@cs.utexas.edu/Steve Benz Austria: {att,decwrl,rutgers,uunet,etc}!bellcore!pyuxd!dxp or att!bcr!pyuxd!dxp/Dave Peak France builds F Bre, A Par England builds F Lon, F Lvp Russia builds A War Germany builds A Ber, A Mun Italy builds F Nap Turkey builds F Ank Austria builds A Vie, F Tri GM Notes: Argh! This Brian Jacobs doesn't seem to understand the meaning of a deadline! I have replaced him with Dave Peak. I already have orders from two of you. Try to get Spring '02 orders in by Wednesday. Actual deadline is when Dave Peak is able to get enough negotiating done to send in orders. Note to Dave Gibbs: Turns out I had your orders on file, after all. Whoops! Press: London: An old, grey-bearded man appeared out of thin air in Buckingham Palace today, calling himself "Merlin, The King's Prophet". He then proclaimed that Queen Victoria was not the rightful queen of England, but it was actually someone known as "Arthur", who would keep England clear of invaders. The spokesman for the Queen dismissed the man as insane and his speech bordered on treason. Moscow: Tsar Nicky condemned the German action in Scandanavia as "an act of War". We shall remove the German scudge from the face of the earth. Fall '02 of the game BERLIN WALL (EP #58) (GM is leszczyn@cpsin.cps.msu.edu/Jon Leszczynski) Here it is, not too late and nearly on time! And now here is the NEW and REVISED addition!! Aus-Hun ---------- F Ion S Ita F Gre -> Aeg <A Serbia Sup Bud -> Rum> <A Budapest -> Rumania> <A Ukraine -> Sevastapol> England ------- <A Swe S F NthS -> Nor> must retreat F NtS -> Nor F NrwgS -> Clyde F Lon -> EngCh France ------ F Brest -> Picardy A Picardy -> Paris <F Marseilles H> must retreat A Spain -> Portugal F Wales -> Liverpool Germany ------- A Bur S ITA A Pie-Mar A Ruh-Hol A Bel H F Bal-Swe F Den-NtS Italy ----- A Rom -> Tun F Tyr C A Rom -> Tun A Pie -> Mar F Gre -> Aeg Russia ------ F GOB S Ger F BAL-SWE <F SEV S Tur A RUM> A StP -> MOS A WAR S A StP -> MOS. Turkey ------ A Rum H <A Bul -> Ser> <F Aeg -> Gre> must retreat <F Con -> Bul> Unit Positions -------------- Aus-Hun F Ion A Bud A Ser A Ukr England F Cly F ECh F Nor France F Liv F ? F Pic A Par A Por Germany F NtS F Swe A Bel A Hol A Bur +2 Italy F Tyr F Aeg A Mar A Tun +2 Russia F GOB F Sev A Mos A War Turkey F Con F ? A Bul A Rum +1 Supply Centers -------------- Aus-Hun Bud Tri Vie Ser England Edi Lon Nor France Bre Par Liv Por Spa Germany Ber Kie Mun Bel Den Hol Swe Italy Nap Rom Ven Gre Mar Tun Russia Mos Sev StP War Turkey Ank Con Smy Bul Rum Supply Count -------------- 00 01 02 AH 3 4 4 Eng 3 4 3 Fra 3 5 5 Ger 3 5 7 Ita 3 4 6 Rus 4 4 4 Tur 3 4 5 Okay Winter 02 (e.g. builds) is due by Wednesday midnight. Then we will try to have Spring 02 due by Wednesday, August 8th. Things are back to flowing relatively smoothly. Oh by the way, when you are supporting a neighbor, be sure to state that in your support. (like F Syr S Ger F Aeg -> EMe) ----------------------------- Because disbands occurs during the retreat phase, you can volutarily disband retreating units to build new ones at home in the same season. L-ski Winter '02 of the game BERLIN WALL (EP #58) (GM is leszczyn@cpsin.cps.msu.edu/Jon Leszczynski) England retreats A Swe -> Den France retreats F Marseilles -> Gulf of Lyon Germany builds F Kiel Italy Builds F Nap A Ven Turkey retreats F Aeg -> EMe builds F Smy Unit Positions -------------- Aus-Hun F Ion A Bud A Ser A Ukr England F Cly F ECh F Nor A Den France F Liv F GoL F Pic A Par A Por Germany F Kie F NtS F Swe A Bel A Hol A Bur Italy F Nap F Tyr F Aeg A Mar A Tun A Ven Russia F GOB F Sev A Mos A War Turkey F Con F EMe F Smy A Bul A Rum Supply Centers -------------- Aus-Hun Bud Tri Vie Ser England Edi Lon Nor Den France Bre Par Liv Por Spa Germany Ber Kie Mun Bel Hol Swe Italy Nap Rom Ven Gre Mar Tun Russia Mos Sev StP War Turkey Ank Con Smy Bul Rum Supply Count -------------- 00 01 02 AH 3 4 4 Eng 3 4 4 Fra 3 5 5 Ger 3 5 6 Ita 3 4 6 Rus 4 4 4 Tur 3 4 5 Spring 03 is due on Thursday at Midnight. This will give me Friday to "remind" those players who forget or are having trouble. L-ski Winter '02 of the game MONTREUIL-SUR-MER (EP #59) (GM is brapp@vax1.udel.edu/Brian Rapp) ********************************** * MONTREUIL-SUR-MER, Winter 1902 * ********************************** ((( Builds/Disbands ))) Austria: Build army in Vienna England: Build army in London and fleet in Liverpool France: (none) Germany: Build army in Munich Italy: (none) Russia: Disband fleets in Black Sea and Gulf of Bothnia Turkey: Build army in Constantinople ((( Unit Positions ))) Austria: A: Tri, Bud, Ser, Vie F: England: A: StP, Lon F: Nwy, Swe, NtS, Lvp France: A: Mar, Gas F: NAf, WMe, GoL Germany: A: War, Sil, Hol, Bel, Mun F: Den, Bal Italy: A: Ven, Tyl F: Tun, TyS, Gre Russia: A: Mos, Gal F: Sev Turkey: A: Ank, Con F: Aeg, Bul(sc) ((( Ownership of Supply Centers ))) Austria: Tri, Vie, Bud, Ser England: Lon, Lvp, Edi, Nwy, Swe, StP France: Par, Bre, Mar, Por, Spa Germany: Ber, Kie, Mun, Bel, Hol, Den, War Italy: Ven, Rom, Nap, Tun, Gre Russia: Mos, Rum, Sev Turkey: Ank, Con, Smy, Bul ((( Scoreboard ))) | 00 | 01 | 02 | ------------------------- Austria | 3 | 4 | 4 | England | 3 | 4 | 6 | France | 3 | 5 | 5 | Germany | 3 | 6 | 7 | Italy | 3 | 5 | 5 | Russia | 4 | 5 | 3 | Turkey | 3 | 4 | 4 | ------------------------- Winter '02 of the warp game GENGHIS KHAN (EP #63) (GM is 74270.2276@compuserve.com/Bob Aube) ------------------------------------------- Game #63 - Genghis Kahn - Fall 1902 GM: Bob Aube/74270.2276@compuserve.com ------------------------------------------- Austria: Augie Kuo/akuo@scam.berkeley.edu England: Thom Burnett/V117GV8R@ubvmsc.cc.buffalo.edu France : Larry Hardouin/att!druwa!hardlj or hardlj@druwa.att.com Germany: Douglas M. MacFarlane/dm8sstaf@miamiu.bitnet Italy : John Murphy/murphy@dg-rtp.dg.com Russia : Tim Krekoski/krek@mcmaster.ca Turkey : Ziad Munson/muns@midway.uchicago.edu Winter 1902 Results: England builds A Edi Italy builds F Rom, A Ven Russia removes A Fin ------------------------------------------- Game #63 - Genghis Kahn - Spring 1903 GM: Bob Aube/74270.2276@compuserve.com ------------------------------------------- -----> England sets sights on St. Pete! -----> France hones in on Tunis! Austria: Augie Kuo/akuo@scam.berkeley.edu England: Thom Burnett/V117GV8R@ubvmsc.cc.buffalo.edu France : Larry Hardouin/att!druwa!hardlj or hardlj@druwa.att.com Germany: Douglas M. MacFarlane/dm8sstaf@miamiu.bitnet Italy : John Murphy/murphy@dg-rtp.dg.com Russia : Tim Krekoski/krek@mcmaster.ca Turkey : Ziad Munson/muns@midway.uchicago.edu Spring 1903 Results: Austria: A Gal S A Rum-Bud; A Bul-Ser; A Rum-Bud; <F Alb-Tri> England: A Swe-Fin; A Edi-Nwy; F Nwy-Nrg; F Bar S A Edi-Nwy; F Nth C A Edi-Nwy France : <F Lyo-Tyn>; A Spa-Naf; F Wes C A Spa-Naf; <A Mar-Pie>; A Par-Bur Germany: A Ruh-Mun; A Sil S A Pru; A Pru S A Den-Lvn; F Bal C A Den-Lvn; F Kie-Ber; <A Den-Lvn> Italy : <F Eas-Ion>; F Ion-Tyn; F Rom S F Ion-Tyn; <A Ven-Pie>; <A Vie-Bud>; A Tri H Russia : <F Ank-Con>; A Stp S F Lvn; <F Lvn S A War-Pru[att]>; <A War-Pru>; <A Ukr-War> Turkey : A Con-Smy; <F Aeg-Con>; <F Gre-Ion> Units by Owner - Spring 1903: Austria (4): F Alb; A Ser; A Gal; A Bud England (5): A Fin; F Nth; F Bar; F Nrg; A Nwy France (5): F Lyo; A Mar; A Naf; A Bur; F Wes Germany (6): A Mun; F Bal; A Den; A Pru; A Sil; F Ber Italy (6): A Vie; F Eas; A Tri; F Tyn; F Rom; A Ven Russia (5): F Lvn; A Stp; A Ukr; F Ank; A War Turkey (3): F Gre; A Smy; F Aeg Centers by Owner - Spring 1903: Austria has 4: Bud Ser Bul Rum England has 5: Edi Lon Lpl Nwy Swe France has 5: Bre Mar Par Spa Por Germany has 6: Ber Kie Mun Bel Den Hol Italy has 6: Nap Rom Ven Tun Tri Vie Russia has 5: Mos Sev Stp War Ank Turkey has 3: Con Smy Gre ------------ Deadline ------------ Because there are no retreats, we can skip the Summer '03 turn. The Fall '03 deadline will be Friday, Aug. 3. Spring '01 of the blind game SEA LION (EP #64) (GM is jdshaw@sun.udel.edu/John D Shaw) Received. Summer '01 of the blind game SEA LION (EP #64) (GM is jdshaw@sun.udel.edu/John D Shaw) Received. Fall '01 of the blind game SEA LION (EP #64) (GM is jdshaw@sun.udel.edu/John D Shaw) Received. Spring '01 of the game VIOLENT PEACE (EP #66) (GM is mike@x.co.uk/Mike Moore) Not due yet. Winter '00 of the game BRUSILOV OFFENSIVE (EP #68) (GM is fnd@beach.cis.ufl.edu/Frank Di Vincenzo) Blind game. The Who's Who in Europe for Brusilov Offensive, #68. Austria: Kenneth Zarda. (Do you really need the addresses?) England: Steve S. Ozdemir. France: Your friend and mine, Brian Jacobs. (Don't replace him, yet. I'll wait) Germany: Constantijn Wekx. Italy: Thomas Klaus. Russia: John D. Shaw. Turkey: Anand Sinhaa. And now, The First Installment of Brusilov Offensive: Winter Press for Brusilov Offensive, #68, Winter '00. Vienna (AP) In an astounding move, today, the Austrian and German Kaisers put there differences behind them and announced an end to their feuding! This long standing feud was started in 1892 with a whoopee cushion on the Austrian Kaiser's throne, and quickly escallated to the point that in 1898 Kaiser Kenneth planted four men in Kaiser Constantijn's entourage, who proceded to dump 4000 imported French pastries into the Royal chambers in Vienna. Astoundingly, that very room was used for the announcement today. The French ambassador had no comment, except to say "I'm very worried about the future of the French pastry industry." Constantinople: A new Sultan has been crowned in Constantinople today. The former Sultan, Ali Haji Baba Dali, in his last will and testament requested that his dog-trainer, Anand Sinha, be crowned as the New Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Bringer of the One True Faith to the world. Sultan Anand Sinha was shocked, but pleased at the announcement. In his first press announcement, he stated, "We shall show the Christian (spit) dogs how to fight. That Pope guy. Who does he think he is? Those Christian (spit) dogs will not be able to stand up to my curs." Berlin: Germany's new Kaiser, C. Wekx, was seen in the Dutch city of Amsterdam, checking out the reports of his spies there. Apparently, a number of Dutch girls have been sent to the Kaiser's domain back in Berlin. Along with a number of Dutch boys. New York: The Russian Czar must have had his tongue surgically removed, since he has refused to answer any of the Turkish correspondance. Or maybe, the Czar has imperialistic designs on the South. Spring '01 of the game BRUSILOV OFFENSIVE (EP #68) (GM is fnd@beach.cis.ufl.edu/Frank Di Vincenzo) Blind game. Constantinople: Sultan Anand Sinha, Bringer of the One True Faith to the uncivilised nations of the world, wanted to assure King Kenneth of the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungry that the Islamic purge of Christianity (spit) would not move through Austria-Hungry. "The Russian (spit) Tsar (spit) has refused to answer my curtesy calls. The Russian (spit) pussy-cats will be torn apart by our dogs. As a gesture of goodwill towards Austria, the Sultan dispached one of his finest harems to Vienna. ----- Berlin: The Turkish Sultan, in a move aimed to get the trust of the German Kaiser, sent a harem of young girls to Kaiser Konstantijn's palace in Berlin. The harem arrived 2 weeks ago, and the Kaiser has not been seen since. The Kaiser's page has been seen running to and from the local drug store, buying crates of condoms. ----- Venice: With cries of "Kill the Hapbourgs! Maim the Huns!" the Italian army prepared itself for an invasion of Austria-Hungry. President Garibaldi's only reply to accusations from Austria were "Who me? No, I will attack France, or maybe Turkey or maybe you, or maybe England, or maybe Germany, or maybe you or maybe Mars or maybe you. We have not made up our minds yet". ----- Austria: The king in a sarcastic mode asked the press while running to catch a cab, "Italy got creamed in the last war, why would they want to pick a another fight? I really don't want Rome that badly." The king laughed and caught his cab. ----- THE VATICAN HERALD FOR SPRING '01 (Why me, Oh Lord?) GOD FEARED DEAD FOR BRIEF PERIOD Vatican(UPI). Priests and Church officials were in an uproar last week when the mailer daemon servants of the holy order informed them that God had died. Quoted one Archbishop, "Oh woe is the Earth, the end is nigh! The evil beach has doomed us all!" When it was found out that God was, in fact, alive, the Archbishop began to gripe about crummy disk drive systems. God was unavailable for comment. ----- Fall orders due this Friday (10.August) by Midnight. Builds due as soon as possible afterwards. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Publisher comments: Quote is from August 9, 1990 Rolling Stone. I moved quite a few games into chapter four plus started a new chapter six, this will enable me to concentrate more on letters and articles! By the way, we are about to set some records in amount of games and players, I added 24 players to my mailing list today! My standby list is a little low though. Here are letters from our friends: m.i.nelson@gdr.bath.ac.uk/Mark Nelson: I noticed that in the games that you are running you didn't print the email addresses of the various players concerned. Any reason why not? I would have thought that it would just make it easier for the players to do so, rather than `making' them have to search through their own files to get the relevant pieces of information. Another little point is about the games run by the outside GMs in the other chapters. Now you give the game names, but do not specify if the games are regular dip/gunboat/1914 etc Have you ever considered providing this information after the game name? Then should anybody be particulalrly interested in a particularly type of game then they would be able to see if a game was running in EP and track it down. ((I have started listing e-mail addresses in the games that I run. It is a good idea. Also, I specify the type of games in the chapter that I run. As to a listing of the types of games that are running, checking my games opening message is the best way to go.)) Dear Eric, I found John Barlow's article to be very interesting. Of course I am not a `computer-person', not even really a `computer-user` and so the content was relative new. I guess old--timers will find the basic ideas behind the discussion old-hat. It is only in the new past that specific laws on computering and hacking have come into force in the UK. And although there is a special section of the Police Force (a branch in Scotland Yard I think) that deals specifically with such crimes, it is far too small to cope with the ever increasing complexity of such crime. Lookin into the past, it seems that every technological change that has helped buisiness'prosper has also helped criminals in one way or another. The setting up of major road systems may have helped to set up nationwide companies transporting goods from where they were produced to where the maket was, but they also helped criminals get away from the scene of the crime at a faster pace! Nowdays we are seeing companies using e-mail to send documents from head office `downstream' (amongst other uses). Of these other uses perhapes the most important (and frightening) is the storage of basic information in electronic format. From a companys view point this makes buisness much easier. It's easier to access information, it's easier to produce facts and figures. Unfortunately a new `crime' can also be committed, stealing\ manipulation of data. When all this data was on card-systems it was not possible to alter somebodys personal file, or `steal' it for industrial espionage. (well it was just possible, but not on the wide-scale that it is becoming today.) In the UK the Police want to\are (not too sure what stage this has reached) put all criminal data onto electronic format. Obviously this has tremendous potential in crime-prevention and catching criminals. Then again, how secure is their system? The effects of someone breaking into such a system are worrying, to saythe least! And so, people like Optik & Acid Phreak serve some use in showing how insecure such systems are, and how much security needs to be improved. My gut feeling is that since given time any safe can be broken into and the contents stolen (it just requires a master plan concocted by a master criminal)then any security system willbe breakable . And as I have already commented, the worrying thing is that the person who breaks into electronic security systems will be much more powerful in terms of potential harm than the oldfashioned safe-breaker. The concluding comments show that goverments have yet to comprehend the problem of hacking. From the comments made by John it seems that their actions consisted mainly og hacking into systems, criminal intent seems to be missing. Instead of acting as if to prosecute them, they should have been offered Goverment posts on a `five year plan to explore new systems, to discover how easy it is to get in and then to tighten them up'. We need such people acting on `our' side! Cheers, MARK ((The e-mail case is simply a case of the newer the medium the fewer the rights, TV and Radio are censored, and e-mail publications can be destroyed. For the crime that the one person was accused of, a simple look on the BBS as to what he had posted was all that needed to be done, destroying several BBSes, confiscating 40 computers and destroying 5.4 million pages of information was highly unnecessary and extremely barbaric. By the way, the individual was just acquitted, turns out his document was public information not anything classified.)) More from m.i.nelson@gdr.bath.ac.uk/Mark Nelson: One of my hobby positions is head of the DIPLOMACY ARTICLE ARCHIVES SERVICE. THis was set up in 1988 to act as a source for articleson diplomacy and the hobby in much the same way as Variant Banks act as a source for variant rules. THe number of articles in my collection has gradually increased. The last catalogue (over a year ago) listed around 400 articles. Since then I have copiedout around 600 extra articles and I still haven't finished digging articles out of old zines. At the moment the vast bulk of the articles and the catalogue are not available via e-mail. If anybody is interested they can order a copy of the catalogue (cost $2) through the INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTION EXCHANGE. Similiarly they may order articles, but they would have to cover postage costs. When I move onto Leeds in September one of my objectives is to update the catalogue by putting into an electronic format. The point of this, is to say that I had to design a classification system to class articles under,otherways it would be far to difficult for punters to find articles of interest! Articles about specific countries come under the classification C, thy are then divided into seven types depending upon which country is the main country in the article. They are then numbered in sequence of filing. For instance CA25 is the 25th article in my collection on how to play Austria. There are numerous other classifications. RAT for articles on RATING. STL for articles on STALEMATES. TAC for articles on TACTICS.SB for articles on STANDBYS, the list goeson and on! Daniel Loeb suggests that your archivers classify all the dippy artucles that have featured in previous issues of EP. Since dippy articles will probably be of interest to new readers, why not move all dippy articles into a special dippyarticles file? Then you could access all the dippy articles published in EP without having to look through all the back issues? It is difficult to comment on why EP didn't do too well in the RS POLL: becuase we do not yet have all the data. However, the answer seems to be in the PREFERENCE matrix (score 2.something). This is hardly suprising, since I understand that most ofyour readers are primarily e-mail players and do not play\see snail mail zines. Certainly EP would be a great place to play dip given its fast deadlines. The only thing you could do about this would be to persuade your readers to start subbing to `normal' zines. I couldn't agree with the comment that the zines that did better were the `homey' ones, a look at the figures will show that the zines that did better then EP were not lavished with an undue number of tens, of course the person who make this comment is right in one sense. The zines thatr beat EP were all probably more fanish then EP. More from m.i.nelson@gdr.bath.ac.uk/Mark Nelson: Here is the result of Operation Sun Devil, documented in recent issues of EP: From July 28, 1990 Boston Globe: "HACKER" CHARGES DROPPED The federal government dropped charges against a 20-year-old college student in a case that raised questions about the severity of a Secret Service crackdown on computer "hackers." Craig Neidorf had been indicted for publishing in his electronic newsletter a document stolen from a telephone company computer by a member of the Legion of Doom, a loose-knit group of hackers. A spokeswoman for the US Attorney in Chicago said felony counts of wire fraud and transporting stolen documents over state lines were dismissed after "information obtained during the trial indicated a substantial change in circumstances". Eric's note: The reason the charges were dropped is that the document was public information available via an 800 number from the same company and was not considered secret in any way. The case against Craig was the main reason for Operation Sun Devil which involved 150 agents in 14 cities. Many BBSes were knocked out, 40 computers were seized, 23,000 disks were seized, and a total of 5.4 million pages of info was taken. The government unleashed a plague of data death upon its victims. The crime of almost all the people who lost their computers was simply they had logged onto a BBS. Even the person who reported seeing the document had his computer and other electronic items taken from him. More from m.i.nelson@gdr.bath.ac.uk/Mark Nelson: Dear Eric, In EP 186 you ran an article in GERMANY which mentioned Peggy Gemignani. Peggy was a female player who was active from (Ithink) the late sixties until the end of the 70's. In any case she was certainly active in the 1970s. Peggy was probable the most incompetent player to play dip, and remaining playing dip. Her exploits are legendary and Rod Walker once wrote an article for an early DIPLOMACY WORLD explaining some of her infamous doings. TO have Peggy as a neighbour ment an easy ride! MARK From ebrosius@lucy.wellesey.edu/Eric Brosius (runs RP poll): Actually, the average vote for a zine this year was about 6.6, while the average GM vote was about 7.2. This may be higher than some readers were expecting, but it is also quite a bit less than the "8 or 9" that someone quoted in a recent EP. I might add that it is a Poll tradition *not* to tell people what their voting standards should be, nor what criteria they should use to rank zines. Some voters consider 5 to be average -- a 7 from such a voter is a compliment. Other voters give almost all high votes, so that a 7 is damning with faint praise. The preference matrix was introduced, in a large part, to reduce the effect of this sort of variation. Perhaps the biggest reason EP did so poorly in the Poll is that the overwhelming majority of the people who voted for it did not vote for any other zines (properly enough, since they read no other zines) and thus have no effect on the pref matrix. This means EP's pref score is determined by just a few people, i.e., those who also vote for a number of other zines. This makes EP's rating extremely volatile. It could just as easily have been an extremely high rating if the few people who voted for EP and a bunch of other zines had given it good votes. One reason I supply complete statistics on the Poll is to allow you to notice these and related facts about voting patterns. This makes you a better judge of when the Poll is giving you accurate information and when it isn't. More from m.i.nelson@gdr.bath.ac.uk/Mark Nelson: I have just finished producing a report on the 1990 ManorCon Variant Tournament. DOn't know if it of interest to your readers, but if it is I will mail it to you. (It does contain the rules to one snappy variant that I designed.) Can you ask if any of your readers see NORTHERN FLAME? If they do then they will be playing in an all--readership games and I'd be interested in swoping my information for theirs. (I thought you got it, but I quick look at the mailing list shows that your name doesn't appear.) More from m.i.nelson@gdr.bath.ac.uk/Mark Nelson: As promised here is the loc on EP 187. (BtW it would be usefull if you could tell me when my locs arrive so that I can then delete them from my files, I keep them until you acknowledge incase that they don't reach you.) Something which I hadn't considered before, but which is blindingly obvious is the effect of holidays on e-mail games. Simply that whilst it is possible to continue playing if you go on a long vaccation in snail mail games (provided you have a permenant mailing address) it is much more difficult to do the same for e-mail games! But then, since e-mail games move so fast the players shouldn't mind too long a holdover. But what do you do, when people take a week-long holiday? Or even two--week holidays? In snailmail games this poses no problems since if an adjutication arrives during ones absence, there will stillbe time to mail in orders and do some diplomacy before the next deadline. For the faster e-mail games, you could have ended up missing two or three deadlines! Do you appoint SBs for holiday seekers, or hold the game over or what? ((We hold the game for up to two week periods.)) As a player I hate the prospect of someone else taking over my position, even if it is going to be on a temporary basis. Do you not trade with EVERYTHING? It came out recently with a whole batch of numbers. I feel, that you are a little hasty in switching to EP numbers. Why not print MN/BN details when you eventually receive them, after all this isn't a case of the custodians ignoring you...more a part of their own in-built lazyness in getting the details out. I think you should whatever details you have, and morn like hell about poor service! ((The MNC and BNC are a good 25 numbers behind on me, I am extremely unimpressed with their pace of releasing numbers.)) More from m.i.nelson@gdr.bath.ac.uk/Mark Nelson: The article on blackjack was great! I am not a gambling man, but what interests me about the game is the mathematics of it. (Also being a Bridge player, I am used to `counting';suprisingly, or not, a large number of dip players are Bridge players and they should therefore be even better BJ players than original supposed!). Incidentally, some of the leading west-cost Mathematicians who did important work on the now-popular fied of Chaos and Nonlinear systems took time of during their PhD's to try and crack the casinos. They applied modern mathematical ideas in game theory and statistical analysis totry and devise strategies which would create optimum odds. They weredoing reasonable well, and were `expelled' from several casinos. A book was published on their activites, The Eudemonic Pie which I have not read. Looking back at the place where I remembered reading all this, it seems thattheir game was poker and although they had some interesting ideas they didn't actually make the `big' breakthrough. Of course the thing to remember about the Runestone Pollis that you are not competing against the same market. Let me explain. The primary purpose of the Runestone Poll is to point novices towards reasonablish zines. Certainly when I was a novice I used the UK Zine Poll as an indicator of good zines that were worth looking at. I always looked down the list of the top ten zines, and if there was a zine appearing there which I did not already see or had not seen previously then I would seriously consider sending of a trial sub. EP is not competing in such a market for players/readers since a prerequiste to get EP is access to e-mail, a facility which the majority of dipdomdoes not yet have. Those that do get access, will try to see EP since it is one of only a few zines that run E-mail games that gets publicity in dip zines. (Off hand I can only think of two other e--mail dip zines,one of which is avery small affair mentioned in the latest ZR). Mentioning the ZR, is it possible to contact Tom Nash via e-mail? It would save me mailing him massive locs! So the Runeston Poll is very irrelevant for your zine. It is not really possible to compare the better snail mail zines and EP. I suspect that I would have given EP something around the 7-8 mark if I had votted for it, it provides a ood service for players but to me fanishness is a more important consideration. And it seems that this attitude is shared by many of the votters, since (as commentedin this issue) well-run wharehouse zines do not do as well as perhapes they should whereas slower moving zines with a reduiced emphasis on playing the game domuch better. And in recent years the top zines have all been zines notted for their correspondence/letters (Northern Flame, Fiat Bellium, Costagunna, Europa Express, Praxis). Perhapes the last 'players zine' to win was VOICE OF DOOM (1981?), and that zine was noted more for its vast letters and articles content. the suspected mark lew's comments on average votes are interesting. I suspect that the average mark given to a zine is a functionof the number of zines thatthe votter sees. The more zines you see, the lower you average mark. The only thing missing from the article on BJ, was the mundane details on what order players play. I presume that all players take one card at a time fromthe dealer, and thatthe dealer only goes when all players have either stuck or gone over. From loeb@rita.laas.fr/Daniel Loeb: There is a famous problem in game theory called the Prisoner's Dilemna. Two players A and B each have two possible strategies 1 and 2. If both chose strategy A, then they each receive $3. This is the result in which the highest total payoff is achieved, since if one picks 1 and the other 2, then the one who chose 2 earns $5 while the other loses $2. Finally, if they both chose 2 then no money is earned or lost. The paradox is that although (1,1) is the best combined strategy, it is in the interest of each player to switch to 2. For this reason, 1 is called the cooperative strategy, and 2 is the greedy strategy. When the game is played once, the strategy is clear. Stab the other player's back and chose 2. When the game is played repeatedly, that is not so clear. After all, if I pick 2, then the other player might try to get his revenge the next time and pick 2 as well. Eventually, we will both be saying 2 all the time, and no money will be earned. In order to test various strategies, I wrote the following program in Standard ML. ------------------------------------------- (* Repeated Prisoner's dilemna *) (* True = keep agreement, false = cheat *) val rounds = ref 100; fun payoff true true = (3,3) | payoff true false = (~2,5) | payoff false true = (5,~2) | payoff false false = (0,0); infix plusv; fun op plusv ((a,b),(c,d)) = (a+c,b+d); fun continue _ _ _ _ 0 = (0,0) | continue strategy1 strategy2 h1 h2 lft = let val r1 = strategy1 h2 val r2 = strategy2 h1 in (payoff r1 r2) plusv (continue strategy1 strategy2 (r1::h1) (r2::h2)) (lft-1) end; fun connect strategy1 strategy2 = continue strategy1 strategy2 nil nil (!rounds); ---------------------------------- The program connect takes as input two strategies, and outputs the result of having them play against each other 100 times. A strategy is a program which comes up with a move given the complete history of moves made by the opponent. Here are some sample strategies: ---------------------------------- (* examples *) (* TIT FOR TAT *) fun t4tnice (false::h) = false (* Do onto others what they did to you *) | t4tnice _ = true; (* Start with a TRUE *) fun t4tmean (true::h) = true (* same except start with a FALSE *) | t4tmean _ = false; (* TIT TIT FOR TAT *) fun tt4tnice (false::h) = false (* Do onto others two times | tt4tnice (true::false::h) = false (* what they did to you *) | tt4tnice _ = true; (* start true *) fun tt4tmean (true::true::h) = true (* same except start false *) | tt4tmean _ = false; fun rand _ = (0 = (random 2)); (* not so random *) fun n _ = true; (* always be nice *) fun m __ = false; (* alwasy be mean *) -------------------------------- Here are the results when these 7 strategies played against each other: OPPONENT m n t4tnice t4tmean tt4tn tt4tm rand m 0 -200 -2 0 -2 0 -100 n 500 300 300 302 300 304 400 t4tnice 5 300 300 150 300 5 155 t4tmean 0 295 150 0 3 0 150 tt4tnice 5 300 300 3 300 5 -90 tt4tmean 0 290 -2 0 -2 0 -100 rand 250 50 148 150 246 250 100 ---- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- TOTAL = 760 1335 1194 605 1145 564 515 In order to do some more indepth testing, PLEASE send me your strategies. If you know SML, write them in the form of a program. Otherwise, I will translate them into SML for you. PLEASE tell me if you would like to receive the results from further testing. More from loeb@rita.laas.fr/Daniel Loeb: Here is an interesting bridge hand that I honestly dealt out a few weeks ago. Note that if you play one hand per day, then on the average you must wait 162 years for a 10-card suit in your hand. S AJT865 H AK652 D 32 S K973 C - S Q2 H 983 H JT7 D 9854 D AKQJT76 C 94 S 4 C 5 H Q4 D - C AKQJT87632 Since the hand was so interesting and the bidding was rather weird, we decided to bid the hand two times before playing it. Following is the bidding with commentary: Bidding East South West North 4d(1) 5c(2) 5d(3) 5h(4) 6d(5) 7c(6) all pass(7) (1) A mistake since this is to strong a hand to preempt. (2) With 10 tricks this is a good bet, but of course not a sure thing if my partner is completely bankrupt. (3) Furthering the "preempt". (4) A strong hand proposes another color. 5s is avoided in order to save bidding room. (5) A real preempt given the strength indicated by the oppponents. (6) This is a wild guess, but with a "strong" partner I can hope we have all 13 tricks. Given the opponents bidding, partner is likely to have little wasted strength in diamonds. (7) The opponents can't be sure of anything so they pass. The only danger is that North might not accept the trump suit. Rebidding East South West North 1d x (1) pass 2d(2) 4d(3) 4nt(4) 5d(5) 5h(6) 6d(7) 7c(8) all pass (1) Jump shifts are weak, so all game forcing sequences start with a double. (2) Indicates maximum values and usually a diamond control. (3) Preemptive. (4) Blackwood, since Notrump "can not" be natural here. (5) Preemptive. (6) D0P1. Indicates 2 aces (outside of diamonds). (7) Preemptive. (8) 12 tricks are guaranteed, so the slam is not far. Any comments on how you would have bid this hand? Have you been dealt any similar wild hands? The play of the hand is not very interesting. 13 tricks are in the bag. ****************************************************************************** To join in the fun, send your name, home address, home and work phone numbers, and country preferences to Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com. ****************************************************************************** Up