Diplomacy Zine -- Chapter Four EP #134 From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com Date: Sun, 28 Jan 1990 06:34:52 +0000 Issue #134 of ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL: Chapter One contains: NAVARONE, 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, and VERSAILLES And is published by tedward@cs.cornell.edu/Ted Fischer Chapter Three contains: TANNENBURG, ENTENTE, MULHOUSE, and DAWN PATROL And is published by xcbe12a@ucrmath.ucr.edu/Wayne Wallace (I am working on publishing the chapters that dragon@agora.hf.intel.com /Bill Wheeler created. He has them but can't transmit.) ------------- Chapter Four ------------- Spring '05 of the game RATATOSK (BNC number 1989IJ) (GM is jall@diku.dk/Mogens Jallberg) Delayed due to Winter vacations. Spring '05 of the game BUSHIDO (BNC number 1989IN) (GM is ronin@cory.berkeley.edu/Sam Parazette) Due Jan 20 Summer '04 of the game HUGO (BNC number 1989IO) (GM is willis@trwind.ind.trw.com/Willis Marti) France retreats A MAR-GAS Russia disbands A DEN Fall '03 of the game JUGGERNAUGHT (BNC number 1989IR) (GM is rdesper@eagle.wesleyan.edu/Rick Desper) Due Jan 28 Fall '03 of the game TOKUGAWA (BNC number 1989IS) (GM is joseph_harold_thomas@cup.portal.com/Joseph Thomas) Delayed because a player was on vacation Summer '03 of the game PETAIN (BNC number 1989IT) (GM is ssmith@ms.uky.edu/Scott Smith) PETAIN -- SUMMER 1903 RETREATS: French A Bel retreats to Bur. ----- UNIT POSITIONS: Austria: A Gre Mun Rom Ven F Adr Ion England: A F Edi Liv Lon France: A Bur Mar Wal F Ech Iri Germany: A Hol Pie Ruh F Bel Nth Italy: A Apu Nap F Tys Russia: A Ank Arm Swe F Bla Con Nao Nwg Nwy Rum Turkey: A F Aeg ----- DEADLINE: Fall 1903 moves are due Saturday 27 January. Summer '03 of the game DUNKIRK (BNC number 1989KN) (GM is sjzwange@phoenix.princeton.edu/Steven Jacob Zwanger) Due Jan 24 Summer '03 of the gunboat game VERDUN (MNC 1989AZrb32) (GM is eric_s_klien@cup.portal.com/Eric Klien) Germany army Sweden retreats to Denmark. Russian fleet Rumania was annhilated. Summer '01 of the game BERLIN (BNC number 1989KQ) (GM is cwekx@htikub5.bitnet/Constantijn Wekx) Nothing happened. Spring '01 of the game BIG WILLIE (MNC number not known) (Blind game, GM is okamoto@hp-ses.hp.com/Jeff Okamoto) Due Jan 19 Spring '01 of the game FIRE WHEN READY (BNC number 1990B) (GM is rlg@ai.mit.edu/Bob Givan) Not due yet. Spring '01 of the game DREADNOUGHT (BNC number not known) (GM is rbk@aiai.edinburgh.ac.uk/Richard Kirby) DREADNOUGHT SPRING 1901 =========== =========== GM - rbk%aiai.ed.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk England ------- F Edi - NWS F Lon - NTS A Lvp - Edi Germany ------- A Mun - Ruh F Kie - HEL A Ber - Kie Russia ------ F Sev Holds A War - Gal <failed> A Mos - Stp F Stp - GOB Turkey ------ F Ank - BLA A Con - Bul A Smy - Con Austria-Hungary --------------- F Tri - Alb A Vie - Gal <failed> A Bud - Ser Italy ----- A Ven - Tri A Rom - Tus F Nap - TYS France ------ F Bre - ECH A Par - Pic A Mar - Spa ===================================================================== Retreats -------- NONE ===================================================================== Dreadnought Summer 1901 Unit Positions England (Scardamaglia) F NWS F NTS A Edi Germany (Hallen) F HEL A Kie A Ruh Russia (Pease) F Sev F GOB A Stp A War Turkey (Cochran) F BLA A Bul A Con Austria (Mullins) F Alb A Vie A Ser Italy (Nelson) F TYS A Tri A Tus France (Belle) F ECH A Pic A Spa ==================================================================== Press ----- Dateline: Zurich, Switzerland. Today, Italy, in a terse communique, announced that it has declared war on Austria-Hungary. No other information was available at press time and no officials in the Italian foreign ministry would comment upon this decision. ----- DEADLINE -------- The deadline for the Fall 1901 moves will be SUNDAY 28th January 1990 at 10pm EST (although since this is 2 or 3 am in the UK, I will accept orders up until 7.30 GMT). Richard. Publisher comments: The following article was writen by Danny Loeb, loeb@frunip11.bitnet, whose address will be loeb@geocub.greco-prog.fr starting Jan 28. If you want to be in a Musical game, send me e-mail!!! Musical Diplomacy by Danny Loeb Everyone says Diplomacy has no element of luck. But is this really true? In fact, countries are assigned at random at the beginning of the game. Even if preference grids are involved, an element of luck is present. The purpose of the article is to propose a variant of diplomacy in which chance plays no part. This variant is a combination of standard diplomacy (or any other variant) with the children's party game Musical Chairs. There are 8 players (in addition to the GM). At any point during the game each player is considered to be seated or standing. All players start the game by standing before Spring 1901. Each seated player is responsible for a country (at most one player per country at a time) while the standing players have no countries. The seated players must continue to write orders for their country every turn they remain seated. (If they don't, then they must be replaced by people not in the game.) The orders are as usual except that during the Spring and Fall, units may not only support each other, convoy, move, or hold, but they may also support their government or another government. A unit may only be ordered to do one thing at a time. Example: A LON S GOV F MAO S RUSSIAN GOV The standing players do nothing during the adjustment and retreat phases. However, every spring and fall they must attempt to control a country (if not they are in civil disorder and must be replaced by people not in the game). If they want to control a country currently played by no one, he submits the name of the country and orders for is units. These orders are accepted if he is the only standing player to submit orders for that country. He is then consider to be sitting and will control that country until he loses control to another player. If the standing player wants to control a country occupied by a sitting player, then he simply writes this wish as his orders. (He doesn't submit orders for the units since the sitting player's orders will be used that turn regardless of whether the attempt is successful.) If more than one standing player try for the same country then they all fail and remain standing. In the case of only one attempt for a certain country, we compute the number of supports for the governments of ALL countries. Note that supports for a government can be CUT just like any support. The attempt to takeover a country is successful if and only if the number of supports for its government is the smallest (or tied for smallest) among all the countries on the board. (A country is considered to be no longer on the board after it has been eliminated - see below). If the attempt fails, the standing and sitting player continue as before. If the attempt succeeds, then the standing player sits down as the ruler of that country, and the sitting player must stand up since he no longer has a country. A standing player must attempt to take over one and only one country each turn. A country is considered eliminated when after the Autumn retreats of any year, it has no units and no HOME supply centers. When this happnens, we say that the music has stopped. The player or players who have been eliminated must now stand up, and all of the players who were standing at that time are thrown out of the game. A player wins if after the Autumn retreats he is sitting in charge of a country with 18 supply centers. If a draw is agreed to then it must be agreed to by all current players standing AND sitting! STRATEGY Early Game - It is important to get a country as soon as possible even if it is not a good one since you can get a better one later. Find out where the other players will sit, and sit elsewhere. Begin negotiating even before you sit down. Mid Game - If you are still standing, find a place to sit! You are in danger of bein eliminated. If you are sitting, then you should try to get the standing players to displace you neighbors who are troubling you. Encourage the standing player to try for that space while simultaneously cutting his governmental supports. Make sure your government is well supported unless you are too small to be worth trying for. Support your government with the units that are protecting you from backstabs that way your units are doing double duty. End Game - If you are about to die, commit suicide. That way you could take over a more powerful position and get revenge. If you are about to win, support your government VERY well. It is possible to lose the game during the year you take your 18th supply center if you forgot about adequately supporting your government. If you are allied against a power about to win, make attacks on all of his units so that he can not support his government while simultaneously supporting your government and if necessary the government of your weaker allies. ---------- Any comments on these rules would be appreicated. Yours Danny Scribed by as365156@yuorion.bitnet, code name Video Dienstag Take from Victoria (Published in Australia) Article by John Cain The Trip: Robert Wessels, Frank Meerbach and I drove across to Adelaide on Thursday night, to allow ourselves time to recover before the tournament began on Saturday. Unfortunately the LP Gas on Robert's car packed up just beforehand, leaving us paying twice times as much for petrol in Robert's thirsty VS (Holden Commodore). Still, it is a good car to drive; and the 750 km Melbourne - Adelaide trip is a breeze -- a flat and well-maintained road, with freeways on approaches to Melbourne and Adelaide. Sadly, in a knee-jerk reaction a surge in the road-toll, the Victorian government had reduced the speed limit on rural freeways from 110 km/h to 100 km/h only a couple of weeks beforehand (as if we don't already have some of the toughest road laws in the world). Despite this, with a little speeding the drive can easily be done in 7 1/2 hours (say 10 km/h over the limit). It was interesting to note that all the trucks vigorously sat on 100 km/h (the state limit). Seems like the Victoria Police are continuing to maintain their reputation as the toughest in Australia. We arrived in James Vickers' yuppie paradise in Goodwood (just south of the center of Adelaide) at about 2:30 a.m. on Friday morning -- James was still up, catching up on some work. While I'm here, I must thank James very much for his great kindness in putting the three of us up for the weekend -- he's such a gentleman you hardly realize he is a Tasmanian. (Sorry.) Friday morning was spent sleeping in and recovering from the drive; in the afternoon we went to see "Batman" at the local cinema. (Not a bad movie, but heavily oversold, and I didn't think that much of Michael Keaton.) THE TOURNAMENT: At 9:15 a.m. on Saturday, we rolled up at the Goodwood community centre. Attendance was a vast improvement on past years, with enough players for four boards in the first round. As well as the usual complement of old hacks (myself, Rob, Frank, Andrew, James Vickers, Michael Hopton, Neil Smark, George Smirnow, etc) there was a good turnout of newcomers which was mainly due to the efforts of Greg and Michael I believe. The first round saw me in the same game as Andrew England; in a repeat of our last game together (Sydney) he was Turkey and I was France (once my favourite tournament country). When he informed me that he intended to go for a Steamroller with Russia (Sacha Skawronski) I knew that, to meet this, a strong alliance would be needed at my end of the board. I opted to go with Germany (Alex Smirnow) and we quickly put the knife into England (Paul Smith) while encouraging everyone to "stop the steamroller" -- they held it off quite well. The two alliances inevitably ground up the rest of the board, and with a stalemate looming we agreed to a draw. Andrew and I adjourned to the pub to discuss our trip to World Dipcon. In round two I was Russia; all the players on my board had good results from the first round. Italy (James Vickers) and I agreed to take out Austria (his name slips my mind) and then Turkey (Paul Castle) -- while Paul and I agreed to a steamroller. My preference was for the Italian alliance, but I was keeping an open mind until Austria was carved up. A miraculous Autumn 1902 saw me on eight centres and 1903 was looking grim as the hyenas descended on my carcass -- only Turkey stuck by me. England should have had Sweden, but mistakenly moved in in Spring and out in Autumn; I held onto my eight. No such mistakes in 1904 though, as I lost Berlin (to Italy!), Sweden and St. Petersburg, while picking up Vienna. When it became apparent that England would only stab France if I stabbed Turkey, I stuck the knife into Paul -- and finally managed to start working with James (Italy). At this time, James also fell out with France, and moved into Burgundy. France should had it easily covered, but in the sensation of the tournament (already having one warning against his name) was NMRed (so too was Turkey) for late orders. Paris was undefended and Italy and France never managed to patch things up and resumed their push east. I finished up on eight centres (I think). Round three was do or die. There were several other players who had done as well, or better, than I had in the preliminary rounds. Ho, ho, ho -- myself (Austria) Andrew (England) and Robert Wessels (Turkey) were all in the same game. With Rob already having been eliminated once, I knew he wouldn't push me too hard and could probably be relied upon. Nonetheless, I was concerned about Andrew, whom I believed was almost as well-placed as me going into the final round. (I was right.) With strong encouragement from myself and Italy (Steve Gould) Russia (a beginner) opened A Mos-StP. If he was needed to keep England busy, I would team up with Italy against Turkey. But with the pressure on Norway, Andrew blundered, convoying A Edi with F Nwg and supporting the move with F Nth -- amazingly German F Den cut the support and Russia stood England out of Norway! With that the Austro-Turkish alliance was all go, and we proceeded to take the board apart, cleaning up Russia and chewing into Italy (sorry Steve). I was on ten centres when we agreed to a draw and repaired to the pub to watch the Adelaide Grand Final (Aussie rules). In retrospect, I only needed to finish on five centres to win as all the other front runners did poorly in the final round. The tournament was well organized and run by Ben Groenen and Neil Smark. While I prefer longer rounds, with the tournament not being on a national public holiday, three games in two days is the best compromise to allow interstate attendance. THE SOCIAL SIDE: As usual, SADO made a great break, despite the 1500 km round trip. Unfortunately we couldn't stay for the wine-tasting excursion to the Barossa Valley which had been advertised for the Monday. Nonetheless, Michael Hopton put on a great show -- firstly on the Friday evening at his place, where we all sat around and spread the latest hobby gossip until midnight -- then on Saturday evening about 20 of us had a great time at his (very long- suffering) mother's place. Not only was there a pool table (where I myself and a fellow rank amateur whipped Andrew England and Alan Howard after they had defeated all comers) but there was a great hot tub/spa, in which Andrew, Neil Smark and I spent approximately three hours solving all the world's problems. I just hope that we haven't completely worn out our welcome for next time. If you weren't at SADO this year, you really missed out -- make sure you aren't so foolish next year (I'll be there, for my sixth year in a row, defending my crown). It really is a most enjoyable tournament. Meanwhile, in light of my SADO stabs, anyone want a nice reliable puppet at CanCon? ************************************************************************ I need more scribes! I need more scribes! I need more scribes! I need ************************************************************************ I am enjoying moderating this zine, keep that mail coming! Eric Klien Up