Diplomacy zine -- Chapter Three From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com Date: Tue, 19 Sep 1989 00:59:30 +0000 Issue #98 of ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL: Chapter One contains: D-DAY, NAVARONE, BLITZKRIEG, OPERATION OVERLORD, GETTYSBURG, and HMS HOOD And is published by Daybell@aludra.usc.edu/Donald Daybell Chapter Two contains: DRAGONSLAYER, DOUGHBOY, BISMARK, COLD WAR, JACAL, and TRENCHFOOT And is published by Tedward@cs.cornell.edu/Ted Fischer ------------- Chapter Three ------------- Spring '03 of the game TANNENBURG (BNC number 1989HZ) (GM is ebrosius@lucy.wellesley.edu/Eric Brosius) Due Sept 24th. Autumn and Winter '01 of the gunboat game VERDUN (MNC number 1989AZrb32) (GM is sccs6069@iruccibm.bitnet/Michael O'Regan) Not received yet, I'll see why I didn't get a report. Winter '13 of the 1914 variant ENTENTE (MNC number not known) (GM is matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu/Matt Crawford) I finally got orders from everyone. Spring moves will be due a week from Sunday; that's September 24. The English player his having some mail problems. We're checking from both ends and I hope to report a better address for him soon, or that the problem has been fixed. Those Great Powers which took control of a minor country by Political Factors are reminded that the minor remains a separate country with its own units, supply centers and supply point balance. The Great Power writes all orders for the minor beginning immediately. And I remind all players once more about railroads, two-phase fleet moves, the eventual necessity of supply lines and the penalty for losing your capital. I suggest that you get at least a tentative set of orders in early. I may spot odd orders which are due to a misunderstanding of the rules and ask you to correct them. In any case, you may make changes up until the deadline. Matt ENTENTE Winter 1913 Expenditures Austria old balance 10 4 PF Bulgaria - 4 --- new balance 6 England old balance 15 2 PF Portugal - 2 --- new balance 13 France old balance 15 3 PF Belgium - 3 --- new balance 12 Germany old balance 20 6 PF Turkey - 6 --- new balance 14 Russia old balance 15 3 PF Belgium - 3 2 PF Greece - 2 --- new balance 10 Activation Current PF Totals Minor Level AUS ENG FRA GER RUS Belgium 9 - - 5 -* 3 Bulgaria 8 8 - - 2 - Denmark 15 - - - - - Greece 10 - 2 2 - 2 Holland 12 - - - - - Italy 13 -* 5 - 2 - Norway 15 - - - - - Portugal 6 - 6 - - - Rumania 10 2 - - 2 2 Serbia 6 -* 2 2 - 6 Sweden 15 - - - - - Spain 13 - - - - - Turkey 9 - 2 2 14 -* * => The inicated Great Power cannot gain control of the specified minor(s), but may prevent others from doing so. Other actions France PF Serbia -> Russia Germany PF Bulgaria -> Austria Results With Germany's help, Austria now controls Bulgaria. England controls Portugal. Thanks to French influence, Russia has gained control of Serbia. Germany has control of Turkey. Current supply point balances Austria 6 Bulgaria 2 England 13 France 12 Germany 14 Portugal 2 Russia 10 Serbia 2 Turkey 6 Positions (* => retreated) Austria A Vie, Bud F Tri Bulgaria A Bul F --- England A Lvp F Lon, Edi, Eas France A Par, Mar, NAf F Bre Germany A Ber, Mun, Ruh F Kie Portugal A Por F --- Russia A StP, War, Sev F --- Serbia A Ser F --- Turkey A Con, Ank F --- Belgium A Bel Norway A Nwy Denmark A Den Rumania A Rum Greece A Gre Spain A Spa Holland A Hol Sweden A Swe Italy A Ven, Tun; F Nap Spring '01 of the Blind variant Mulhouse (MNC number not known) (GM is barry@freezer.it.udel.edu/Barry T. Fausnaugh) Due date not set, country assignments not known. Spring '01 of the game DAWN PATROL (BNC number not known) (GM is sinhaa@mcmaster.ca/Anand Sinha) Due date not set, country assignments not known. Spring '01 of the game ?? (BNC number not known) (GM is jall@diku.dk/Mogens Jallberg) Due date not set, country assignments not known. GM comments: I would like to thank two more people for becoming scribes! They are: THANK YOU -- THANK YOU -- THANK YOU uunet!microsoft!paulc/Paul Canniff hardlj@druwa.att.com/Larry Hardouin THANK YOU -- THANK YOU -- THANK YOU I am now up to date in reporting my latest gamestarts in chapter three. As you can see this chapter will soon start to overflow. Anyone want to be a guest publisher? If anyone has the ability to design ads for laser ready copy, let me know. I would like to create a full page ad that will be run in Paper Mayhem. All donations for this ad should be sent to Eric Klien, 1 Sinai Circle B10, Chelmsford, MA 01824. Let me know if you want the donations to be anonyomous. If anyone would like to GM the remaining turns of a twenty player Diplomacy game, let me know. The game is now down to 7 players and you would start GMing September 27th. My rough draft for my ST:TNG script is completed. Would anyone like to read it and comment on it? Matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu/Matt Crawford, only person who is GMing two games in my zine, was still able to find time to use the Calhamer scoring method to rank games that have ended in this zine. (Yes, Mr. Calhamer invented the game Diplomacy!) Here is what Matt had to say: Here are all those games you sent with the Calhamer-style score appended in the margin. There's no preovision for replacement players (or at least he didn't tell me of any) so I just gave the points to the plast player who played at least 2 years and gave all previous players a zero. If there were subsequent players who didn't play two years, they were not counted as having played. ((Eric's Note -- Mr. Calhamer, how do you think replacement players should be scored?)) A list of players with total points and total games is at the end. 1988HG - ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL (Eric Klien) 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 -------------------------- A: 2 0 Charles K. Hughes (elim W'02) 0 E: 4 3 1 0 John Almberg (elim W'04) 0 F: 5 7 8 10 9 7 8 8 6 Raymond W. Setzer (surv W'09) 11 G: 5 6 6 6 7 7 8 7 5 John E. Murray (surv W'09) 10 I: 4 5 3 2 1 0 Roger Mahrling (elim W'06) 0 R: 7 7 9 8 9 11 9 11 13 Dan Kindsvater (DRAW W'09) 25 T: 5 6 7 8 8 9 9 8 10 Tom Rick Oshea (DRAW W'09) 15 1988HH - ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL (Eric Klien) 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 ----------------------- A: 5 7 7 8 9 10 10 9 Tom Rick Oshea (DRAW S'09) 15 E: 4 5 5 6 10 10 10 12 Michael Hill (DRAW S'09) 24 F: 5 5 5 6 6 7 7 6 Roger Mahrling (DRAW S'09) 12 G: 4 2 2 2 1 0 Charles K. Hughes (elim W'06) 0 I: 5 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 Raymond W. Setzer (DRAW S'09) 13 R: 6 6 7 4 0 Mark D. Wardell (elim W'05) 0 T: 4 3 2 2 2 0 Peter Szymonik (drop S'02) 0 James A Aurand (elim W'06) 0 1989H - ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL (Eric Klien) 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 ----------------------------- A: 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 Charles K Hughes (elim W'09) 0 E: 5 6 7 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 John E. Murray (surv S'11) 12 F: 5 5 7 8 8 7 7 7 6 4 Dr. James A Aurand (surv S'11) 9 G: 5 6 7 7 9 10 11 10*11+13 Tilo O'Levante (drop S'06) 0 Frank Poduska (DRAW S'11) 25 I: 4 4 3 1 1 0 Bruce Eric Bowers (elim W'06) 0 R: 6 5 1 0 Colin C Merritt (drop F'04) 0 Lars Boye (elim F'04) T: 4 6 8 9 7 8 7 8 9 10 Roger Mahrling (res F'05) 0 Doug Ingram (DRAW S'11) 15 1989AV - ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL (Steve Adams) Country 1 2 3 4 5 6 --------------------------- AUSTRIA 4 3 3 3 1 0 Jeff Okamoto (elim W'06) 0 ENGLAND 4 6 6 7 9 11 Jim L. Washburn (DRAW S'07) 16 FRANCE 5 5 5 5 4 1 Jeff Wilson (surv S'07) 3 GERMANY 5 6 7 7 11 13 Ron Lay (DRAW S'07) 25 ITALY 4 5 5 5 3 1 Jon Bennett (surv S'07) 3 RUSSIA 5 5 4 2 0 David Wood (elim W'05) 0 TURKEY 4 4 4 5 6 8 John H. Lawitzke (DRAW S'07) 13 1989AB - ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL (Mark Wardell) Country 1 2 3 4 5 ------------------------ ENGLAND 4 5 4 3 1 Robert Henderson (drop S'02) 0 Eric S. Raymond (lost F'03) 0 Steve Adams (surv W'05) 3 GERMANY 5 6 6 6 3 Lewis Butler (surv W'05) 8 RUSSIA 6 5 6 4 2 Pete Glen Berger (drop S'02) 0 Elliott Klienrock (surv W'05) 6 TURKEY 4 5 4 4 4 Donald Daybell (surv W'05) 9 AUSTRIA 3 1 0 Mike Williams (elim W'03) 0 ITALY 4 6 7 9 *13 Edward Fischer (DRAW W'05) 25 FRANCE 6 6 7 8 11 Keith Mortensen (DRAW W'05) 16 1989AA - ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL (Eric Klien) Country 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 --------------------------------- ENGLAND: 4 5 7 6 5 4 4 2 Bruce Bowers (surv W'08) 0 GERMANY: 6 7 8*11 13 15 16*18 Raymond Setzer (WON W'08) 30 RUSSIA: 6 4 1 0 Steve Adams (elim W'04) 0 TURKEY: 4 5 7 9 11 10 11 12 Mark Wardell (surv W'08) 0 AUSTRIA: 3 1 0 Lewis Butler (elim W'03) 0 ITALY: 4 6 6 3 2 2 1 1 Tim Moore (drop W'05) 0 Ron Lay (surv W'08) 0 FRANCE: 5 5 5 5 3 3 2 1 Kevin Sweet (surv W'08) 0 Steve Adams 3 / 2 John Almberg 0 / 1 James A Aurand 9 / 2 Jon Bennett 3 / 1 Pete Glen Berger 0 / 1 Bruce Eric Bowers 0 / 2 Lars Boye 0 / 0 Lewis Butler 8 / 2 Donald Daybell 9 / 1 Edward Fischer 25 / 1 Robert Henderson 0 / 1 Michael Hill 24 / 1 Charles K. Hughes 0 / 3 Doug Ingram 15 / 1 Dan Kindsvater 25 / 1 Elliott Klienrock 6 / 1 John H. Lawitzke 13 / 1 Ron Lay 25 / 2 Roger Mahrling 12 / 3 Colin C Merritt 0 / 1 Tim Moore 0 / 1 Keith Mortensen 16 / 1 John E. Murray 22 / 2 Jeff Okamoto 0 / 1 Tilo O'Levante 0 / 1 Tom Rick Oshea 30 / 1 Frank Poduska 25 / 1 Eric S. Raymond 0 / 1 Raymond W. Setzer 54 / 3 Kevin Sweet 0 / 1 Peter Szymonik 0 / 1 Mark D. Wardell 0 / 2 Jim L. Washburn 16 / 1 Mike Williams 0 / 1 Jeff Wilson 3 / 1 David Wood 0 / 1 And here is the rest of the latest issue of BTDT: Thoughts on Speeding Up PBM Empire Builder - Eric Brosius I'd like to elaborate on my suggestion for speeding up Empire Builder and British Rails. When you suggested that these games are better suited to FTF games than PBM ones, I immediately reacted negatively. I'm always frustrated when I play these things FTF because some of the things I'd like to do, count mileposts, examine the rest of the deck, and consider my options carefully - just take too long to be reasonable. Perhaps after hundreds of FTF games these things become instinctive, but I jumped at the chance to play in a game where I'd have all the time I needed. Of course, as you point out, these games take forever PBM, especially in a zine with the schedule of Perelandra. I'm patient, and can always sign up for other games to play while waiting for my BR results. But the real problems is not just the number of turns, but the number of turns a player must wait for a move, then order "move 12 to San Francisco." This doesn't feel like a move at all, since you had no real decisions to make. In a well designed PBM game each player has the chance to make significant decisions each turn (that is, mailing). Could we call the "the First Law of PBM Game Design?" Looking at it from this point of view, we see that PBM DIplomacy uses combined seasons to prevent any player from being stuck making no decisions at a Winter, Summer, or Autumn deadline. With combined seasons every mailing contains a Spring or Fall turn - one in which each player has decisions to make. For the most part decisions in EB arise when cards are drawn, except in the initial building phase. Thus, if we can see before round 4 is played that no cards will be drawn, we can combine rounds 4 & 5 and the resulting conditional orders should be within any player's ability to write. I made such a proposal to Pete Gaughan for the BR game "Gramarye," and I cannot see that it was a burden to anyone. The simplest step to speeding up EB, then, is to add the following (Houserule A): "Whenever the TM suspects that no cards will be drawn on the upcoming round, he may request moves from the players for two rounds. The 2 rounds will be played in succession using the orders submitted unless 1) a card is in fact drawn in the first round, or (optionally) 2) two or more players request a separation." This rule is a good one, I think, and should not harm anyone. Unfortunately it will not be used very often. This is because although any given player draws a card only every so often, the chance that none of the eight players will draw a card is quite small. As a result, each turn has a few players drawing cards and planning strategies while the others just move their trains and wish the game would go faster. After thinking though the above, I said to myself (in a contemplative sort of way) "wouldn't it be nice if we could synchronize the game so all the players had their exciting turns (the ones on which they draw cards) on the same rounds and all had their boring turns on the same rounds. If this happened we could apply Houserule A more frequently and the game would really pick up speed. Even better, players would get new cards with every mailing, leading to a greater level of interest." Suddenly, inspiration struck! If we refused to give out new cards except on certain chosen rounds, the other rounds would have to be boring, and we could combine them. Thus, we get Houserule B (for BR): "Rounds 1, 2, and 3 will be played separately as normal." (The First Law holds fine here). "From there on, rounds will be combined in threes; thus rounds 4, 5, and 6 will be played together, then rounds 7, 8, and 9, and so on. Orders for any round may be conditional on the results of any previous round, or even on prior actions in the same round. No separations will be granted. No cards will be dealt until the last round of a group of three, even if a player has no cards left." (Because he has delivered 3 loads or dumped cards). "At the end of a group of 3 rounds, a player will receive enough cards to bring him up to 3." Houserule B is quite simple in concept, and will speed up games by a factor of 3 (after the opening building rounds). Unlike Houserule A it undeniably changes the game, but who cares if the change is for the better? It also assures the better compliance with the First Law, as after 3 turns nearly every player will have delivered some load (in Gramarye 6 out of 7 players made at least one delivery in rounds 4-6). The effect of disasters will be lessened - they can occur only in rounds 2,3,4,7,10,13,16, ... Players dumping cards can do so only every 3 rounds, making it harder to stop a leader, which speeds things up even more. I think a game run under Houserule B would be exciting and fast- moving. It would also require more planning. If run on 3 week deadlines, it should take a little over a year. Anyone interested? -Eric Brosius, 41 Hayward St., Milford MA 01757 The Unchoochoo Game - Ed Wrobel. What is it about choo-choo games? Wherein lies the fascination? Is it the fantasy of role-playing a wealthy and powerful capitalist? Is it the romance of the rails? Is it the generative nature of the games, a welcome relief from the wanton destruction of wargaming? Nah - none of that fancy psychological doo-dah. It's good game systems and attractive chrome. It's the roll of the dice and the flourish of the crayon. It's smashing mountains, laying track, and anticipating the market. It's fun. The Avalon Hill Game Company's "Merchant of Venus" is such a game, no less then choo-choos in space! Well, no, there's no track to be laid to Alpha Centuri, but you can purchase different types of ships (engines), more variety than most games, some bigger and slower, some faster. And different types of "drives," allowing your ship to "warp" over certain spots without expending a dot from your movement dice. Try that on your way to Chicago along the PA! But the basic feel of the game is choo-choo. You roll dice and your little marker chugs around the galaxy, discovering lost races, buying products at wholesale and delivering them at an ungodly mark-up to other planets desperate for mulch wine, finest dust, or impossible furniture. After all, you got expenses, overhead, a lifestyle to maintain. Besides you want to be the first merchant to accumulate 2K and win (1K for a short game and 4K for fanatics). The map is quite attractive, and has some interesting features. Numerous "intersections" can send your ship in an unwanted direction depending on a dice roll. Exploring mysterious asteroids can yield useful, free "relics," telegates allowing instant transport across far reaches of space or expensive blockades. The various races, with distinctive products and needs, are secretly and randomly distributed each game, among the systems printed on the board. Unlike Rail Baron and Empire Builder, you are free to choose destinations and cargo (although races are discriminating in their purchases... you can't sell mulch wine to moslems, for example). There's a solitaire version of the game, and it's also good for 2 or more players. Optional rules introduce weaponry for merchants who like that extra interactive kick. Otherwise, the players compete for products and "demand" chits which boost income from delivery. You can also build factories and spaceports (but such investments may not be lucrative). The game has much to recommend it. There's sufficient variety to keep it fresh. It accommodates almost any number of players. The chrome is fun for sci-fi fans. It doesn't take forever to play. And it's really a choo- choo game in disguise. I am enjoying moderating this zine, keep that mail coming! Eric Klien Up