Diplomacy zine -- Rule book change featured From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com Date: Thu, 04 May 1989 00:33:26 +0000 Issue #59 of ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL: Spring '05 of the game PANZER (BNC number 1989H) Orders not due until next Sunday. Here's some press anyway: _________________ The Daily Ottoman ________________ "But I cannot stand zis place!" So said the former German chancellor (known only as Tilo) who is now being held under house arrest at the palace of the enlightened Henry "Hank" Arrah. Tilo was captured by the Fourth Fleet currently in the Black Sea and is being formally charged with Fishing Without a License, Resisting Arrest, and Various Other Bad Things. Tilo was caught as he was sailing in his private fishing boat off the coast of Sevastopol while one of the battleships in the Turkish Fleet, the "Gasping Gazelle" was performing routine maneuvers in the area. Rumor has it that a power struggle within the German High Command has produced a new, stronger leader, but no announcement has come from Germany as yet regarding any alter-ation in foreign policy toward the Ottoman Empire. In other news, the Turkish Second Fleet in the Aegean has again vowed revenge on the French naval unit stationed in the Ionian Sea. "They have shuffleboard on their ships and play within our very sight!" said one sailor. -------- Addendum -------- Sources in Sevastopol on Tuesday spread rumors that the new head of the German Republic was seen having a Turkey sandwich with our beloved Emperor on the shores of the Black Sea. There has been no official word from the palace lately, but Emperor Arrah's spokeswoman, Adrian Attik, told reporters, "I don't know what sort of trouble is being stirred up in Sevastopol; all I'm worried about is getting those 7,532 bars of soap to our sailors of the Third Fleet in Greece, who want to fire them over to the French ships upwind." Summer '02 of the game MAELSTROM (BNC number 1989AA) GM Notes: Austria retreats SER-ALB. Press: None. Here's some fake press: Germany: I have finished Metroid! France: I have finished Legacy of Zelda! Italy: I have finished Contra! Russia: I still haven't beat Mike Tyson! Turkey: I am still looking for the Legacy of Zelda II! England: Pro-Am and Ice Hockey are pretty good games. Austria: Is it possible that the GM of this game is addicted to a Nintendo machine? Spring '03 of the game RED STORM (BNC number 1989AB) (GM is MaryFW@cup.portal.com) Orders not due until next Sunday. Winter '02 of the game PEARL HARBOR (BNC number not known) (GM is Adams@multiflow.com/Steve Adams) Being sent directly to players, one guy was late probably due to Sunday's mixup. Winter '01 of D-DAY (BNC number not known) (GM is MaryFW@Cup.portal.com) Winter 1901 Results for D-Day --------------------------- Retreats: None Builds: England: F Edi Germany: F Ber, F Kie Russia: F Sev, A War Turkey: F Ank Austria: none Italy: A Ven France: F Mar, A Par GM Notes: It was noticed this evening that the French player was very late in Emailing his builds to me. He is now on probation with Germany. Spring '01 of NAVARONE (BNC number not known) (GM is Pwoodruf@orion.cf.uci.edu) Orders due Sunday the 6th at 10 PM EASTERN time. GM comments: I am interested in increasing our amount of players. IF ANYONE CAN HELP ME PLACE CLASSIFIED ADS IN THEIR UNIVERSITY NEWSPAPER, LET ME KNOW. Note that I lost a lot of people on Sunday, probably because of finals pressure, so now would be a great time to recruit some more people! Also remember that I do run postal games, this is especially important if you may lose Usenet access and don't want to switch over to Portal access. Davisje@crdgw2.crd.ge.com has given me the necessary information to advertise in the Albany Student Press, the Prometean, and The Polytechnic. Thanks Jon! I am also now using a mailing list to directly mail this zine to all players, let me know if you are not getting it directly! Matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu, pwoodruf@orion.cf.uci.edu, and ricochet@cup.portal.com pointed out that there are two different answers to last week's quiz. It depends on which version of the rulebook that you are using. I was quoting from the lastest edition, here's what the older editions said: "XII.5. A CONVOYED ATTACK DOES NOT PROTECT THE CONVOYING FLEETS. If a convoyed army attacks a fleet which is supporting a fleet which is attacking one of the convoying fleets, that support is not cut." This implies that it's just the fleet convoying the attack in question which is not protected by the attack. So all moves would have failed using this rule. Note that my rulebook is over seven years old, so this rule has been changed for quite a while. Taken from the Gamer's Guide: SOME OTHER LITTLE TRICKS OF THE TRADE Situations will arise where technicalities of the Rules can be used to advantage. A few of these are discussed in the following paragraphs. It should be emphasized that tactical niceties of these sorts are no substitute for sound play of the game throughout, but they sometimes help in squeaky situations. 1. THE UNWANTED SUPPORT. It sometimes happens that a player has more space to cover than he has units to cover them. The self- standoff is frequently used then. However, if the enemy supports one of the units involved in moving, the result can be disastrous. Consider this typical Fall 1901 position between Austria and Russia: AUSTRIA, A Ser and A vie; RUSSIA, A GAL. Austria must cover Budapest and Vienna while retaining the army in Serbia in order to gain that center. His normal order is A Vie-Bud and A Ser-Bud for the self- standoff. However, if Russia orders A Gal S AUSTRIAN A Ser-Bud, that move will take place and Austria loses the build. A similar Fall 1901 situation can occur between France, Germany, and Italy (the last two allied against the first). FRANCE has A Bur and A Spa; GERMANY, A Mun; ITALY, A Pie. If France tries to cover all the bases with A Bur-Mar and A Spa-Mar, Italy has an interesting choices. She can support A Spa-Mar, in which case France loses a build. Or she can support A Bur-Mar while Germany orders A Mun-Bur, in which case the French position is in serious trouble. 2. THE INDIRECT SUPPORT. A Unit ordered to move can't be supported in place. This is incovenient if it is stood off and at the same time attacked with support. How can its position be defended? The answer is often a supported attack on that space from the rear. Your support attack will fail if your front-line unit fails to move, but will stand off an enemy attack which has equal support. Consider this position, where France and Germany are allied against Austria and Italy: AUSTRIA: A Boh, A Tyr FRANCE: F Lyo, A Mar GERMANY: A Mun, A Ber, A Ruh ITALY: A Pie France wishes to disloge A Pie, and wants Germany to order A Mun-Tyr to cut the possible support. But what if Austria attacks Munich with support instead? Germany's solution: A Mun-Tyr, A Ruh-Mun, A Ber SA Ruh-Mun. France's attack will succeed, and Germany's position at Munich will be held, regardless of what Austria and Italy do. (It should be noted that the result would be the same if the unit in Ruh were French, although then Germany would prefer to order A Ber- Mun with France's support. However, if France had A Bur and A Ruh, and used them for a supported attack on Munich, the German army would be dislodged unless Austria also attacked Munich with equall support.) 3. RAPID RETREAT HOME. It sometimes happens that a player will need to build a unit at home but can't gain a supply center that year. This usually means that he is under attack from an unexpected direction. As an example, suppose that France has eliminated England and Germany, in alliance with Russia, and is now attacking Italy. Suddenly Russia builds F StP(nc) and A War. The following Spring, Russia begins to move westword in force. Even if France can patch things up with Italy -- likely since Russia is a threat to them both -- she still needs more units in the north, and fast. She might be able to arrange for Italy to disloge one or two of her southern fleets in the Fall. She may then refuse to retreat the dislodged units(s) [see Rule XI.2]. Assuming that she has lost no centers, she could then rebuild at home (say, F Bre and A Par) to meet the Tsar's threat. 4. THE OFFENSIVE RETREAT. Very rarely, the opportunity will arise to attack by retreating. Here is an example first noted by Eric Verheidan in 1973. Germany and Italy are allied against France and the position is: FRANCE: A Gas, A Mar, A Spa GERMANY: A Mun, A Ruh ITALY: A Bur, F Lyo, A Pie France must lose a center if the allies order: GERMANY: A Ruh-Bur, A Mun S A Ruh-Bur ITALY: A Bur-Mar, F Lyo and A Pie S A Bur-Mar If France does not support Marseilles, it falls. If France orders A Marh H, A Gas and A Spa S A Mar, then the Italian A Bur is dislodged and may retreat to Paris! 5. THE PHONEY STAB. There are times when you and your ally will wish to make the opposition believe you are at war. This could be accomplished by an attack and counterattack that result in a standoff, or an attack and counterattack that result in an exchange of centers, or an attack in which one ally takes a center from the other but does not actually harm his position. There are three typical occasions where this technique can be used. First, in the opening two allies may attack each other in order to lull the suspicions of their intended victim. Russia and Turkey often engage in a prearranged stand-off in the Black Sea for that purpose. See also Italy's opening #4 in Section III: here the order A Ven-Tri is followed by a move to Serbia or Albania, and the intent is to bring an additional army in against Turkey. The initial order could be played up as a stab to set Turkey up, too. (Of course, Austria takes a big risk that it really will turn out to be a stab.) The second situation may occur in the midgame, where two allies have eliminated a third player. They intend to remain allied and need a little time to get into position against their next victim. A phoney war may do the trick. This technique often works for France and Germany after they have eliminated England if they wish to attack Russia next. The "war" can be used to get their northern fleets, in particular, into position for an effective strike north and east. The third situation is the endgame. It often happens here that a major, expanding alliance can be help up or stalemating by another alliance or a large third Power. If there is no military solution to the problem, there may be a diplomatic one. The allies probably have enough extra units behind the lines to engage in a mock war. Each can then apply diplomatic pressure to the opposition to ally with him. If he (they) falls for the bait, the logjam or stalemate may then be broken by a decisive concerted attack by the allies. (It should be observed that the illusion of the mock war is very difficult to maintain. Many times it will fail to convince the enemy. The great challenge is to have a realistic "war" without breaking the unity of the front line. If the front line breaks, the enemy may be able to take advantage of a ruse that was supposed to be his downfall. This trick is at its most dangerous when the opposition is larger than either of the individual allies.) Remember that the "stab" or "war" is an illusion. As such it must seem as real as possible. The illusion must be sustained by appropriate reactions by the allies. They will have to stage convincing emotional reactions: anger, surprise, threats, recriminations, the works. If the illusion does not convince, it will not work. This is one of the most difficult feats to bring off, and, of course, the more it is used, the less it will succeed. Plan well for it and use it sparingly. Taken from Genie LiveWire Vol 2, Issue 2: WHAT IF THE BOSS CATCHES YOU PLAYING AIR WARRIOR? By Dan Gutman Imagine this nightmare... You're at the office, minding your own business, practicing some maneuvers on the company PC. It's lunchtime. Nobody's around. AS you munch a chesseburger, you're barrel rolling your P-51 Mustang, when the office door flies open. It's the president of the company! Nabbed! You were caught red-handed playing a computer game on compnay time. What can you do? What can you say? Is your climb up the ladder of success finished? Is it too late to get to the unemployment office before it closes? Getting nabbed by the boss isn't the end of the world. If you get caught playing games at the office, here are a few sure-fire executive excuses that might save your neck... 1. "But boss, playing computer games makes me a better executive." Playing a simulation game prepeares you for the rigors of day-to-day business operations. Playing an hour of "Adventure" is probably just like your job. You've got to get results with very little help from anybody. 2. "Games help develop logic and problem-solving abilities." Unless you're caught playing something like "Communist Mutants From Space," most computer games require at least some degree of strategy and intellectual reasoning. The skills you learn may be directly transferred to your job in the real world. 3. "Games teach me how to use a computer." Computers are complicated and difficult to understand. The more time you spend with one, the better you'll become with it. Games are also the best way to introduce novices to the computers they'll need to use in their jobs. 4. "Games are relaxing. You don't want me to lose my cool, do you?" Research has proven that playing computer games causes dilation of the pupils, and does not increase heart rate. This indicates that games increase your awareness, but don't increase your stress level. 5. "Playing games helps work off frustration and hostility." Let the boss know how difficult your job is, and prove that computer games are a healthy outlet for your latent aggressive tendencies. Let your eyes glaze over as you do this, as if to imply that you might go berserk any minute if you didn't have this outlet. Keep a pair of scissors in your hand, too. 6. "Look, they make me happy. A happy employee is a productive employee, right?" This one should only be used if you're extremely secure in your job. 7. "Playing games improves my concentration. You want me to concentrate, don't you?" Computer games usually reward the player for paying attention to details, and penalize the player for ignoring them. In this way, they are actually a good training session for real work. 8. "Games stimulate my creative juices. Would you rather have uninspired employees?" If your job doesn't require you to have creative juices, don't use this one. 9. "I'm just checking the graphic capability of the monitor, boss. Looks like this one checks out." Only to be used as a last resort. 10. "Game? What game? This is the new Lotus 1-2-3 upgrade." Only try this one with extremely stupid bosses. Remember, these suggestions are a smokescreen. Don't start believing them yourself! I am enjoying moderating this zine, keep that mail coming! Eric Klien Up