Diplomacy Zine -- EP #165 Chapter Five From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com Date: Tue, 15 May 1990 00:19:13 +0000 Issue #165 of ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL: ************************************************************************** "They find grief a noble sentiment. Sometimes I envy them." "You were organically conceived and born. You had the capacity at one time. You knew what it was like. Why did you give it up?" "To fit in," Olmy said. ************************************************************************** Chapter One contains: BLITZKRIEG, OPERATION OVERLORD, GETTYSBURG, and HMS HOOD And is published by daybell@aludra.usc.edu/Donald Daybell Chapter Two contains: DRAGONSLAYER, BISMARK, COLD WAR, JACAL, MANHATTAN, VERSAILLES, and DRESDEN 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: FIRE WHEN READY, DREADNOUGHT, HOHENZOLLERN, HUGO, JUGGERNAUGHT And is published by lord_zar@ucrmath.ucr.edu/Wayne Wallace ------------- Chapter Five ------------- Spring '06 of the game BUSHIDO (BNC number 1989IN) (GM is jall@diku.dk/Mogens Jallberg) Due May 8th Spring '05 of the game TOKUGAWA (BNC number 1989IS) (GM is rc0o@andrew.cmu.edu/Bob Cochran) Due May 11 Endgame statements of the gunboat game VERDUN (MNC number 1989AZrb32) (GM is eric_s_klien@cup.portal.com/Eric Klien) I'll put them all in next issue. Summer '04 of the classic game RED STORM RISING (MNC number 1990Fcb05) (GM is 74270.2276@compuserve.com/Bob Aube) Due May 3rd Spring 1917 of the game COMRADES IN ARMS (MNC number 1990Ird24) (GM is att!druwa!hardlj or hardlj@druwa.att.com/Larry Hardouin) Due May 16th. Spring '03 of the game OZARK (BNC number 1990P) (GM is elf@walt.cc.utexas.edu/Jon Gibson) Not Received. Summer '03 of the game NICKEL (MNC number 1990Ird24) (Blind game, GM is waste@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu/David McCrumb) Received. Winter '02 of the game GROUND ZERO (BNC number not known) (GM is Harry.Protoolis@UK.Sun.COM/Harry Protoolis) Due ASAP. Spring '01 of the game DEADLY DAGGERS (BNC number not known) (GM is demon@eve.wright.edu/Brett Kottman) Eric, I'm having trouble with email again. We got one address in England to work correctly (Mark Lorrimer-Roberts) which is mlr@pyschology.nott.ac.uk however, the address for Phil Honeybone, which used to work, no longer does. His email address is pjrh%ukc.ac.uk@earn-relay.ac.uk (or something close to that). His mail and Mark's mail get enveloped together and both make it to the UK. Mark said that my mail was getting hung up at his machines gateway, and this may now be happening to my mail that goes to Phil. Can you have one of you email wizards take a look at this? I'm mailling from a VAX with the return address of demon@wsu.bitnet. Here are the addresses I'm using: Phil: IN%"pjrh%ukc.ac.uk@earn-relay.ac.uk" Mark: IN%"mlr@Psychology.nott.ac.uk" This is for the game Deadly Daggers, which is on hold until we get this cleared up. Brett Kottmann demon@wsu.bitnet Spring '01 of the game YALTA (BNC number not known) (GM is copeland@mssun2.msi.cornell.edu/Scott Copeland)) Deadline not set yet. Spring '01 of the game ?? (BNC number not known) (GM is gfink@clover.ucdavis.edu/George Fink) Deadline not set yet. I am having e-mail problems with the GM, all players should send anything they get from the GM to me. Summer '01 of the game YORKTOWN (BNC number not known) (GM is gfj@attunix.att.com/Garry Johnson) Nothing happened. Spring '01 of the ULTIMATE SHAMBLES GAME ?? (MNC number not known) (GM is malhomme@enst.enst.fr/Michel Malhomme) Publisher comments: Quote from From p. 263 of Eon by Greg Bear. I need some standbys and some scribes. If anyone wants to type in some new articles, I would love to send them to you! From Excelsior #34: THE TOP TEN SIGNS THAT YOU'VE PICKED THE WRONG ALLY 1. Asks you to mail him a photo. 2. Frequent letter column contributor -- defends the existence of the Easter Bunny. 3. Reserves the right to NMR "strategically". 4. Has a "good working relationship" with all of your neighbors. 5. Sends Christmas gifts which arrive just after you get the news that you've been stabbed. 6. His units "protect" your home centers. 7. His letters always arrive "postage due". 8. Tries to build units in your home centers to avoid having to play two short. 9. Has trouble getting your address right. 10. Writes more press than letters. The following is the latest MetaDiplomat without the games: ********************** * THE METADIPLOMAT * * Issue #15 * * May 3, 1990 * ********************** ...is indeed still published by: Jeff McKee, at his new home: ******************************* 481 Westbrook St. * DEADLINES: * Apt. 105G * GUNBOAT : FRI. MAY 25th * South Portland ME 04106-1939 * REG & PUB: SAT. JUNE 16th * (207) 761-0246 ******************************* Note that the abbreviation for Maine is ME, not MA or MN or some of the other clever state abbreviations some of my idiot friends have been putting on my envelopes! Subscriptions now cost $7.50 for 12 issues, or 75 cents per single issue, for regular issues. Interim Gunboat reports cost you either 1) what they cost me, or 2) 75 cents, whichever is lower. Remember, normally each regular issue will have an interim issue between deadlines carrying only results of the Gunboat games. That's right, I've been warning you for quite some time now, and the price has finally gone up! No game openings at present. Stay tuned when one of the RRGTs end! *************************** METADIPLOMAT NEWS FLASH *************************** In case you didn't notice, the interim Gunboat issue sort of, uh, well, disappeared. It never existed, in fact. These poor Gunboat players have been waiting since March 14th for their results, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time getting this out! ********************************** STANDBY LIST LOST IN THE MOVE! ********************************** The standby list contains NO names. That's because I lost it. It was on my bulletin board, but the things on my bulletin board got taken down to get packed, and I don't have any idea where it is. So, I've done my best to guess at a couple of standbys for this issue, and I NEED YOUR HELP to get my standby list back up to a size even the MetaDiplomat can live with. If you plan on continuing to receive Meta, and have any interest in playing, please volunteer for the standby list for any or all of Regular Dip, Gunboat, or Tournaments (Triple Gunboat and RRGTs). You'll notice a Meta rarity (why, Meta is a rarity these days, no?): NMRs. Only two of them, but I finally got tired of tracking people down after two phone calls, I decided to draw the line. **************** MAINE UPDATE **************** Portland, Maine, isn't half as bad as I thought it was! I finally have a ridiculously expensive apartment (to me, $515 a month is ridiculous) with ridiculous electric bills (I'm sorry, but nuclear power does not cost anything near 9 cents per kilowatt-hour!) and ridiculous traffic lights (OK, I've waited long enough for all these ghostmobiles to go through this intersection, may I now please have a green light?). I've run more red lights (deliberately) in the last month than in the rest of my life put together! But I know that doesn't say how Portland isn't half as bad as I said it was. A nice day in Maine can't be beat. Now, if there were just *more* of them! I'm out of time, and in a rush, so there'll be more of the Maine Update in future issues of The MetaDiplomat. ********************* THE LETTER COLUMN ********************* From Kathy Caruso: If you want a good interview, go after "Big" Jim Green--he's got a terrific sense of humor. Or how about Susan--she must do something else besides knock PBMers! Seriously, I bet she'd be interesting to read about. We could see how the other half lives. (( Kathy, like I said before, you'd better watch your mailbox.... OK, if you want interviews, I'll see who I can corral for next issue! )) From Randy Davis: ((After a talk with Melanie Winters and Beverly Norton on the telephone--I understand that Beverly is no longer at the Davis/Winters household and so she is accountable for her own actions)) How'd you like the talk with the ladies, they were itchin' for the MtD? Shore 'nuff Meta showed up Monday, though we borrowed it from Chris Rousseau Sat. night as my daughter babysat their son (Thanks, Chris)! Thanx for the print in MtD, I often say something when I send in orders and didn't really expect to get printed ((like this, perhaps)) but hey, I enjoy it! How come none of your games have Boardman numbers? I don't really care, just curious. P.S. Portland sounds like a nice place, a big change foryou in Kansas. Hope the move goes well! (( My Regular Dip games do have Boardman Numbers. Most of the Gunboat games have both sets of Miller Numbers, but I don't print them in the reports. In fact, I'm not sure where the Miller numbers are at this point. Funny after I raised such a stink about Miller number custodians in my early issues, I really don't give a flying handshake about the situation now, As long as the issue isn't causing bloody fights across the hobby. That's what I don't like. I'll send my reports to three or more MNCs if need be.)) From Cathy Ozog: Maine's a beautiful state. You'll have to try to see some of it. I've only been there twice. Once I flew into Boston and drove into Maine and once I flew into Portland, a tiny airport too! And I was lost!! Actually, the guy who was picking me up couldn't find me, but it turned out in the end. Good luck to you!! (( If I haven't satisfied your appetite for Maine Info, stick around and I'll get more of it in future issues! )) From Jack Garrett: You asked me what I thought of English style rules. So... When I read in my sample issue of the Metadiplomat (#1, I think) ((yep, the only issue I've ever sent out unsolicited)) that English style was being used, I admit I hesitated to commit to a game. Having become accustomed to American style rules, I wasn't certain if I wanted to try something new. Then I remembered that I had felt thesame about even playing postal Diplomacy at all. Trying at least one game seemed the only logical thing to do. And since then I find myself wishing that all of my games of Dip were using English style rules. I have also, on several occasions, found myself writing up builds or retreats for games that don't use English style. The major advantages of English style are that the games always progress faster and that a player always knows where _all_ of the units are located. With American style rules, a season separation can really slow down a game. And if no season separation occurs, a player can go bonkers trying to figure out all of the options for conditional orders. English style rules allow a player to concentrate on the options for just his units. Where to retreat, what to build or remove--but the player doesn't have to guess where the other person might have retreated that pesky army from last turn. Sometimes retreat options could get messy, especially if several units had the option of retreating to the same area. But this is no more of a headache than trying to write conditional orders for an entire move. And no longer does the player who retreats a unit in the Spring turn have a slight advantage over the others as to where that unit will go. With English style, everyone knows if the unit is retreating to Tyrolia or Bohemia or wherever. English style rules do make a player think a bit differently about how to write orders. But it is a change that brings some welcome rewards. I'm glad I gave them an opportunity. By a strange twist of fate, I have been able to acqurie a second piece of the "one, true cross." Guard this relic with your life! It is priceless beyond compare! (( There's a flat toothpick taped to the paper just below this paragraph! )) ((Jack, I'm glad you see things my way <grin>! I couldn't put it much better, in fact, you brought up a facet I hadn't thought of, that the emphasis is on the player's own units rather than those of other players'. ((Actually, the piece of cross you sent me is probably something once taken out of Maine, boxed, shipped to your local supermarket, and now on it's final pilgrimage home!)) From Paul Milewski: Your comment on page 10 of issue 11 that you use a modified version of Steve Wilcox's Dragon's Tooth Rating System for your CIS local games caught my eye. I dug up the 1980 article by Steve McLendon on the "DragonsTeeth Rating System" [That is not a typo: he made it one word with the first T capitalized.] that appeared in _Diplomacy World_ Issue 26. As described in that article, a winner received 34 points plus one point per center (up to 18); participants in a draw received 34 points divided by the number of players in the draw, to which was added one point per center; survivors recieved only the one point per center. Players eliminated (including drops) were penalized according to the order in which eliminated: -8 if first eliminated, -6 if the second, -4 if the third, and -2 if the fourth. The penalty could be avoided in the case of player resignation only under specified conditions. Except in the case of a standby who took over the position in 1901 and who subsequently wins or draws, the DTRS did not rate standbies. McLendon made the following comment: I belive that one cannot, with any accuracy, rate a standby player against a starting player. The game situations for the two are completely different. Compare this to Eric Brosius' discussion of a "reasonable" game rating system based on a Calhamer point count: 1 point for a win, 1/2 point for a 2-way draw, and so on. Be the rating system relatively complicated or simple, it attempts to express how well a starting player did. The player with the higher numerical rating did better than the player with the lower rating. As certain outcomes are more desirable than others, sharing in a two-way draw being more desirable than sharing in a three-way draw, and so forth, the rating system attempts to assign numerical values to the various outcomes proportional to their relative desirability. Lewis Pulsipher's article in _Diplomacy World_ issue 37 (Spring 1984) discussed a 1974-75 two-step survey of his to determine the hobby consensus regarding the relative value of various outcomes. Whether the value judgment is that of one person or of a hundred, a rating system either explicitly incorporates the relative values placed by the designer on the various outcomes or implicitly does so. The Calhamer point count values sharing in a two-way draw half as much as a win, for example. The DTRS described above places different values on the same result, depending on the supply center count. All averaged ratings (those in which the player's point total is divided by the number of games in which he has played) weight his best or worst performance by how often it occurs. Inherent in this is the idea that how well a player will do in the future can be predicted by how he has done in the past. Notice that an average does not disclose consistency. Of two players with the same ratings, one may be more consistent than the other, without the occasional spectacular success but also without the miserable failures. Following Don Williams' letter appearing in _The Metadiplomat_ issue #9 you comment that you are a "draw" player, that you try to end the game as soon as possible with the draw of your choice, and that you have sacrificed many ratings points toward that ideal. What you are saying is that the rating system does not place the same value on the outcome for which you strive as you place on it relative to other outcomes. Whoever designed the rating system does not share your ideal. A scoring system for a tournament such as DIPCON XXII is no different from a rating system for games reported in _Everything_. It is based on someone's assessment of the relative merit of one outcome over another. The usefulness of a player's score for predicting how well he can be expected to do in future tournaments is not given much attention. Going back to the comment of McLendon's about rating a standby player against a starting player, it troubles me that we routinely rate starting players against standbies, so to speak. By that I mean the rating systems favor the starting player who is thrown into a game with people who frequently NMR, drop out, or resign. How many games are won by standbies who defeat starting players? What about the reverse? What about people who play for a draw rather than for a win? In _Diplomacy World_ issue 35 (Fall 1983) Mark Berch reported an interview of Calhamer in which Calhamer said that when the game was designed, no one thought that games would actually be won. "The notion of players settling for second or third was an unexpected (and in his opinion, unwelcome) development." Notice that McLendon's DTRS classified as unrateable any game concluded because of a time limit, despite III. SHORT GAME, and that II. OBJECT OF THE GAME discusses only draws that include all survivors [the DIAS rule being resurrected in the hobby today]. The way the game is played today, the outcome for which players strive, does not conform with the vision of the man who invented the game. We should feel free to measure player success unconstrained by obsession with supply center count or inordinately high values placed on 18- center wins compared to draws. My suggestion is that draws be valued closer to a win than in the past. It is not so much what players say they value as an outcome as the outcome they strive to achieve. Most players seem to value the draw outcome much closer to a win than they say they do, judging from how they behave. I see no reson why the total of all points awarded to the participants in a draw should not be higher than the points that would have been awarded to a single player winning outright. Some consideration should be given to reducing the points awarded, the fewer the number of starters remaining. A good rating system would be a good scoring system for a tournament. To rate is to score. (( Just so you'll know how CIS has modified the DTRS system, it's like: Win = 58 points - 1/2 point per year Draw = 34 points/# in draw + 1 point per center Surv = 1 point per center plus 1/2 point per year Elim = as above. To resign without penalty, I think you must: 1. Have at least three centers; 2. Not have lost any supply centers the previous Fall turn. (( How can we come up with an 'ideal' rating system, with so many different views as to what is a desirable result? To me, the more vanilla, the more simple, the better. But it isn't so much the ratings systems themselves that bug me, but the way the rating system makes players alter the way they play a game, especially in tournaments. I'd like to be able to play a game in a tournament where everyone plays Dip the way they like to play Dip, pursuing their own goals, rather than trying to do well in the tournament. I think the last two years I've proven that you can go to a tournament and play your own style, and basically ignore the scoring system, and still finish well. Plus there's a lot less disappointment (risk) involved when you play Dip to have fun. But of course there are plenty of folks around trying to win the tournament to ruin the fun for the others.)) Up