Origins
World Dip Con started off as an idea mooted by Simon Billeness in the US zine House of Lords as an idea that Britain could host a DipCon. This idea was quickly crushed as the idea of the North American Championships "crossing the pond" proved to be anathema to the majority of the contributors to HoL. However, the idea didn't go away as many people expressed an interest in attending a convention in the United Kingdom. From there, the next suggestion was World Dip Con and Manorcon (the largest UK Diplomacy convention) agreed to test the water with a World Dip Con in 1988. There seemed to be little objection - so Manorcon 88 became World Dip Con.

This convention was very well publicized (thanks to Larry Peery, the then editor of Diplomacy World and Simon Billeness) and attracted over 300 gamers mainly from the United Kingdom but with attenders from Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, the United States, Canada and Australia. The Diplomacy tournament was held over two rounds and had 188 players and was won by Phil Day from the United Kingdom.

People enjoyed it so much that a decision was taken to rotate World Dip Con around the world and then when it returned to ManorCon in 1994 a meeting would be held to decide its future.

Therefore in 1990, World Dip Con II was held in conjunction with DixieCon in Chapel Hill, NC. David Hood and his team did a marvelous job and players came from all over the world (including a dozen from the U.K.) to compete in what has been one of the biggest DipCons for some years. A couple of us even enjoyed it so much that we returned to DixieCon in 1992. This was followed by another WDC in 1992 in Canberra, Australia - because of the distances the attendance wasn't so wide-ranging but players still came from Europe and North America to compete for the title of World Champion.

The Charter
Over the years, there was a general recognition that World Dip Con had to be put on a more regular footing with some form of 'Charter' like the charter that governs DipCon. The reason for this was the emergence of the European Tournament hobbies in France, Sweden, Italy and Austria which had become interested in holding a World Dip Con. If World Dip Con was to become truly international and not just an Anglophone convention, then the European hobbies had to be accommodated.

This provoked a debate in postal Diplomacy zines and at conventions world wide. While there was plenty of talk, little seemed to be done save to generally agree that World Dip Con should become annual rather than biannual (and even then there were dissenters).

It had been agreed that decisions on World Dip Con's future would be made when World Dip Con returned to ManorCon in 1994. Therefore, in order to aid this discussion - I as ManorCon's chairman (and therefore the chairman of World Dip Con) took a unilateral decision to attempt to aid the process along.

The idea being that we wanted to go to a World Dip Con to play games, to meet international contacts and to make new friends rather than to argue how we should argue about the future.

So, I stopped arguing with people about World Dip Con, put my opinions on the back burner and produced a draft charter with collusion from Pete Gaughan who sent me a copy of the Dip Con Charter. The DipCon charter proved to be the basis of over 80% of the original draft and I really don't know how I would have managed without it.

The point was, in the main, not to reflect my opinions in the charter but to produce a document that could be used as a framework for others to build on with their ideas. Sadly, there wasn't much forthcoming comment on the Charter.

Some people made suggestions to remove contradictions and failures of procedure from the charter, others helped me tighten up the Zone descriptions and others suggested some constructive additions. Unfortunately, there were others who just complained and did not offer any alternative suggestion for their criticism.

However, towards the end of 1993 I produced the charter for submission to a meeting at World Dip Con, along with rules for that meeting and a number of other documents. These were distributed to over twenty people in twelve different countries - hopefully people will send in amendments to the charter to be voted on at World Dip Con. But the Charter is not the be all and end all of World Dip Con.

World Dip Con IV
The next World Dip Con will be hosted by ManorCon 12 at Birmingham University, England between the 21st and the 25th of July 1994. This is a residential site based around a modern University dormitory and we have accommodation available at reasonable prices, the dormitory (Lake Hall) has full catering facilities and a bar and ample free car parking.

Birmingham is one of the most accessible towns in the United Kingdom with good rail and road connections from most U.K. airports, as well as its own International Airport (mainly used for European flights). The city makes an excellent base for exploring the local attractions.

Manorcon is a popular convention which has been run for twelve years at Birmingham University, the committee have a great deal of experience in running and planning such events and several of the committee ran the first World Dip Con. ManorCon attendances have latterly been in the 300's on several occasions making it one of the biggest amateur-run board gaming conventions in the world.

The main aim of a World Diplomacy tournament must be to find out who is the Diplomacy champion of the World and so this year's World Dip Con obviously has to have a large Diplomacy tournament so that people can battle against each other for this coveted title.

The tournament will have five rounds, one on the Thursday evening, two on the Friday (morning and evening), one on the Saturday and one on the Sunday. In order to qualify for a shot at the World Championship, you will have to play in two rounds. The Saturday round is a team round where teams of seven compete against each other.

Apart from that there will be plenty of other board gaming, ManorCon has always had a tradition of being a multi-games tournament. The Diplomacy is the main thing but we will also have tournaments for Railway Rivals (run by David Watts, designer of the game), United (by Alan Parr, the designer of the game), Acquire, 1830, Outposts, Kingmaker, Croquet and Speed Circuit as well as the extremely popular ManorCon Sunday Bridge Pairs.

And if you don't want to play any of those, just bring your favorite games along and I'm sure that it won't take too long to find people for a game.

Added to that we will have a number of added attractions such as several small games manufacturers bringing along their games for sale (at discounted prices), then there will be the Second Hand Games stall on the Friday and Saturday. The World Dip Con Charter debate on the Saturday night and a special Hobby Auction of memorabilia. There will be some other special events too, but they are still in the process of planning.

As of the 1st of January, over 50 people had already registered to attend.

Future World Dip Cons
One of the things that must be decided at World Dip Con is where the next World Dip Con will be. At the moment, due to the charter being open for amendment, this is confused - when the amendment deadline has passed, then it will we will be able to say with more certainty what areas may be eligible.

Note: World Dip Con Charter documents are available from Iain Bowen by writing to him at 5 Wigginton Terrace, York. YO3 7JD. United Kingdom. enclosing US$1 or for free by emailing him at alaric@manorcon.demon.co.uk

For further information on attending World Dip Con IV in the UK this year either write to Richard Walkderine at 6 Honeybourne Way, Wickwar, Wotton-under-Edge, Glos. GL12 8PF. United Kingdom or send an email requesting information to wdc@manorcon.demon.co.uk.

For further information on the Diplomacy tournament at World Dip Con IV write to Peter Sullivan, 55 Brunton Street, Darlington, County Durham, DL1 5NN United Kingdom or email him at: peter@manorcon.demon.co.uk

Well, I was about to go to my first Dip Con held in conjunction with a big gaming convention. Dip Con 27 was held in early August at Avalon Hill's game convention Avaloncon in Hunt Valley, Maryland, just north of Baltimore. I had been to Avaloncon for several years, particularly since the demise of Atlanticon, which used to be held in Baltimore.

It has become customary for several of the Carolina Amateur Diplomats to make the trip to Maryland for a Dip tournament in my van, so that games can be played in the back of the van on the way up and back. (Indeed, last year the van went and I did not...) This year's "VanCon" was as fun as usual, and I didn't even have to drive back (given my complete lack of sleep on Saturday night, Bob Odear and others "suggested" that they drive the van instead of me.)

We ended up taking two vehicles, with Steve and Helen Nicewarner going in their car while Bob Odear, Tom Kobrin, David Harshbarger and Greg Fairbanks going with me in the Van. We played 1830 and Outpost on the way up, both of which I won from the wheel. (Strangely, I have never lost any game where I was playing while driving.) Since we didn't get in until about 2:00 am Wednesday night, we did no further gaming until Thursday morning. On the way back Sunday night, we added Steve Koehler and Ken Mathias to our trip and played more Outpost. Indeed, we never did play our traditional game of Origins of WWII on the way back - a poorly balanced game, but easy to play in the car.

The Diplomacy was not going to begin until Friday night, so that left Thursday for other stuff. Not surprisingly, Bob and I immediately got into a pickup 1830 game in preparation for the 1830 tourney to begin that night. I believe we played some Outpost that afternoon also with some of Tom Kobrin's friends, Bob Sohn and Chuck Krueger, with whom we always game whenever at Avaloncon. (Outpost has become somewhat of a staple with CADs over the past year, but I am not sure it will have the lasting appeal that 1830, Titan and Dip have had.)

Thursday night and Friday day all seem to be a 1830/Outpost blur, although I think I may have actually seen some other games somewhere during that time period. I did purchase for $5 a neat SPI game about the Russo-Japanese War, which is something I wanted to learn more about.

Anyway, on to Dip Con. Jim Yerkey and Bill Thompson were essentially in charge of things as they usually are at AvalonCon's regular Dip event. Their scoring system essentially forces you to try for a 3-way at the least, which is good given the time limits that were in place. However, there is just no way to really fix the problems that time limits impose on the game of Diplomacy. Many, many games just cannot be played in seven hours or less.

This fact reared its ugly head in each of the three games I played. In each, stabs (or lack thereof) were unduly influenced by the time limit. Of course, one could argue that there is always a time limit to any FTF game, i.e. the maximum amount of time everyone is willing to play. However, I think you see my point.

At any rate, I want to take nothing away from Jim and Bill. Time limits were not their idea. I write this report a little too late to remember all the ins and outs of the three games I played, but the most depressing fact remains unforgotten - I was Hammered in the last two rounds and got the Hammered Award to show for it.

The last round was particularly painful. I was on the board with several people whose Diplomacy skills were, let us say, extremely poor. The only problem was that I was Austria, and the only one who knew what was going on much was Carl Willner, playing Turkey. I felt I had to ally with him because I couldn't count on any other ally ordering units correctly. (And Austria can't just take on Turkey alone in the beginning of the game.)

At any rate, I continually hoped for a chance to stab Carl, but never got one - thanks to him and to England, who surprisingly was able to slow our advance somewhat. I then let down my guard, it being close to the time limit at all, and I was smashed like a bug by Carl. Which was proper, given that I had not defended myself well. This was played on Sunday - I really wish I had slept some Saturday night...

Some highlights for me included meeting Don Williams (and driving him in the van to get some fried chicken), seeing Steve Cooley again after a couple of years, and renewing friendships with many Dippers who usually play at the events on the East Coast. I was frankly chagrined at the lack of "Hobby People" in general at the Dipcon, but that is somewhat a function of there being a lot less people in the hobby than there was a few years ago. I was impressed with the play of the Genie players I played with, both here and at PrezCon in Charlottesville back in February.

There was a parallel tournament run on Saturday by Colonial Diplomacy guru Tom Pasko, and a Gunboat event Saturday night that were both well attended, but I played in neither. Apparently the Saturday CoDip final was a frustrating game in that CoDip is just too slow, but I am getting that secondhand. Perhaps Tom Pasko would like to comment?

There was a lot of pickup gaming going on throughout the weekend, as there usually is at AvalonCon. I learned a spades-like game from Steve Cooley called Wizard that was pretty good. I also played some Rail Baron and Eurorails on Saturday night with fun people like Ken Rothstein (who may join the Hickcon fraternity in October, for god's sake.) I talked David Harshbarger into conceding the Eurorails game so I could go to bed at about 2:00, then he talks me into playing 1830 instead. We finished that at 7:00 am, which was just enough time to let me shower and make the 8:00am Dip round. Will someone please remind me not to do that next year?

The Hobby Meeting on Saturday evening was full of vim, as usual. I presided because Jim Yerkey was still busy trying to win the CoDip final. In between eating my fried chicken wings (which, with hot sauce, were really good after a hard day getting stabbed by Lauren Cain, a Genie player), I presided over the selection of Columbus, Ohio as next year's DipCon site from a field of, uh, one contender. This will be the site for the 1996 Origins, with Bruce Reiff, Steve Cooley and Dan Mathias tapped to actually be the DipCon committee. There was also some meaningless debate from some quarters about World DipCon and so forth, but it all ended relatively quickly. I believe that World DipCon is supposed to be held in North America next year, so I believe it likely that the Columbus DipCon will also host World DipCon, as Chapel Hill did in 1990.

All in all, a fun event, even though Bob Odear and Greg Fairbanks did make me eat sushi for the first time. A list of important results is around this article somewhere. Suffice it to say that we had 73 players total, which is a little smaller than last year's DipCon in Chapel Hill, but not by much. Given the waning numbers in our hobby, I thought we had a nice mixture of players. The hobby awards were also announced, with the Miller Award for service going to Andy York, the Koning Award for playing to Bruce Reiff, the Holley Award for participation to Doug Kent, and the Walker writing award going to Ken Walker.

Let's all get behind Bruce and company for next year's event. I don't think DipCon has been in Ohio since the early Youngstown events in the 60's, so it is probably about time. The interesting thing is that there is currently no large Dip tourney in the Midwest at all, or at least not one that is widely publicized, so maybe this DipCon can get things moving up there again.

The Diplomacy tournament you drove all night to get to is just beginning. In the noisy hall, players are getting their game assignments, crowding in around the tables and anxiously waiting to begin play.

One of the players at your table puts seven armies from the seven Great Powers in the top of a Diplomacy box, raises it above your head and shakes the box top vigorously. You reach up over the edge of the box and pick one of the wooden blocks blindly, clenching it in your fist. You bring hand your hand to eye level and slowly peel back your fingers. The block is green! Italy! You're doomed.

And if its red, you probably don't feel so good either. Why? Because the game of Diplomacy is unbalanced. Years of play have demonstrated that Italy, on average, does less well then the other powers. There are rare geniuses like Kathy from New York, who can work miracles with those little green blocks. But there is no doubt that, other things being equal, Italy is the hardest power to win or draw with.

In tournament play, the rankings are usually France and England at the top with Turkey close behind, Germany and Russia in the middle, Austria next, and last and certainly least is Italy. Interestingly enough, the ranks shift in postal play. Depending on the rating system, France, England and Russia are usually on top, Germany and Turkey are in the middle, Austria is close, and Italy is nowhere.

Russia's greater success at postal play is because it is easier to maintain two alliances (which is essential for Russia) in postal play than it is in tournaments. And equally significant is that postal games are played to conclusion while most tournaments are time limited and provide for adjudication. Thus Russia cannot duplicate its record as the Power that wins the most at postal play because it cannot force the tournament game to conclusion. England and France usually don't win as much as Russia in postal play, but they do better sharing in draws and avoiding elimination.

Despite this glaring imbalance, every Tournament has rated an Italian win the same as an English win. And considering that most tournaments usually consist of three games, a player drawing green, red and white is at a grave disadvantage to a player who draws dark blue, light blue and yellow. A two game Tournament is even worse as the chances of unequal country assignments are even greater. A new tournament scoring system is needed.

A second issue arising from tournaments is whether points are only given for wins and draws or should center count play a part. One common system gives fractional scores for center count only as a tie breaker, while another common one gives everyone their center count and then awards 60 points to the winner or divides 60 points among those who draw.

Furthermore, where tournament games are limited by time, they frequently are not DIAS, but if the players can't agree, the rules provide for an adjudicated draw such as an alliance with more than 20 centers or a large alliance across the stalemate line or proof that a particular alliance could not be stopped. This always assumes that the dominant alliance will stick together all the way to a draw, but as experience shows a lot can happen on the road to victory.

Therefore, center count should play some part as a reward to players who are cut out of the draw by the time limit and thus lose any chance of breaking the dominant alliance. But the maximum center count score should be limited to 18 to discourage a player with a lock on a win delaying the end of the game while he roots around for more centers or, by collusion with one of the other players, grabs five or six centers on the last move, both of which I have seen happen.

Now most scoring systems give the same total points for a win as a draw - for example, 60 points for a win, 30 points each for a two way draw, 20 points each for a three way draw and so forth. But the objective of Diplomacy is to win, and only secondarily to draw. Therefore the greatest bonus points should be given for winning and the total points should gradually scale down from there as the number in a draw increases. A scoring system should reward winning and shortening the draw.

So enough explanation already. Here's the recommended system. Every player receives his center count (but not more than 18) plus bonus points for a win or draw as follows:

• Win = 100 points
• 2 Way draw = 48 points each, for a total of 96 points.
• 3 Way draw = 31 points each, for a total of 93 points.
• 4 Way draw = 22 points each, for a total of 88 points.
• 5 Way draw = 17 points each, for a total of 85 points.
• 6 Way draw = 13 points each, for a total of 78 points.
• 7 Way draw = 7 points for players who can't eliminate anybody.

Finally, these scores are adjusted for country played as follows:

• Italy = + 2 points
• Austria = + 1
• Russia = 0
• Germany = 0
• Turkey = -1
• England = -2
• France = -2

Now many people probably won't think that this is a sufficient bonus for being green, but the 4 point swing from Italy to France and England should be significant in system where the average score will be around 17 points per player.

Here are some examples:

		  Center    Bonus     Country   Total
		  Points    Points    Adjust.
		  19 c. win by T  18  + 100     - 1  = 117
		  10 c. 2-way I   10  + 48 + 2  = 56
		  7 c. E surv.     7  + 0  - 2  = 5
		  F elimination    0  + 0  - 2  = -2
			  

So there you have it, and may the best power (and not just the best country) win.

The summer has come and gone with several cons. Myself I choose this year to go to EDC4/Arcon in Oslo, a good choice to learn things for the upcoming WorldDipCon in Sweden 28-30 March 1997. The 12 hours trip from home to Oslo by foot (!), buss and car was uneventful (well, my travelling chaps did not like my driving...) for the Swedish part but one of the things one does notice directly when crossing the borders is that the roads of Norway is lousy: not especially wide and very winding. The 100 km from the border to Oslo took quite a long time. Oslo also have road toll, something that has not (yet) reached Stockholm. That Norway is expensive we all knew but I think Joel Gronberg got a shock when he bought a can of Cola and paid 17 NOK (that is almost 3 US$) for it! This was extreme, but we were more careful after that.

So after 10 hours I had reached the convention site. As usual when you do arrive the night before a con there was the usual chaos, but not more than at any other con. After locating Johannes Berg (BNF [= Big Name Fan, in every sense of the word] in the Norwegian SF hobby and convention general) we were directed to our sleeping room in a nearby (10 minutes walking distance) school. The foreigners was placed in VIP rooms and we Swedes ended up in the same room as the 6 Finns. We all more or less hit the sack directly to save ourselves to the next morning.

DAY 1

The convention took place on the Oslo University site where two of the buildings was used, a main building hosting most of the tournaments, shops, movie viewing etc, and 200 meters from this in a separate building. We located this building and met up with some of the other con-goers. A couple of the French players had already arrived but the rest would arrive to the second round, which also the only Britt (Bob Kendrick) did. The Swedes was (not surprisingly) the largest foreign continent with 11 attenders so we divided us into three teams with Bob put into the 3rd team. (Each "national" team consisted of 4 players, with max 3 teams per country.)

The actual playing locale for the EDC tournament was in the cellar of the latter building mentioned above. It was some kind of student organization pub serving soft drinks and beer. One thing I did not like was that smoking was allowed in this locale. Fortunately the air condition was good enough and/or the smokers few so that this was bearable, but it reminded me of those days when smoking was allowed at the bridge clubs in Sweden. In Sweden smoking is never allowed indoors at conventions and at WDC in Sweden 1997 it will definitely not be allowed.

The tournament was played in 2 rounds Friday, 2 rounds Saturday and a final round during Sunday. For the individual tournament you were allowed to play up to three rounds of the first four. The seven best would be picked to play at the top table during Sunday, but everyone was allowed to play in the last round with a small chance of going into the top seven (although 1st place was going to be decided by the top table). The team tournament was each players single best result during the Friday and Saturday. The scoring used was inspired by the standard system used in France where placement is more important than size (although size is not unimportant), a system I like and which will be used at WDC in Sweden 1977.

After the first two rounds Inge Kjol had already taken a sure grip of the tournament with an 18 center win (the only one during the convention) and another win. As Inge also played in the team Norway 1 it looked hard for any other team to beat Norway.

DAY 2

During Friday we had had breakfast at one of the Universities canteens that was open but during Saturday we visited an open nearby shop and bought the necessities. The first two round had had around 6 tables and the other round had about this number giving a total 27 tables. In total 68 players from 8 countries played during these three days.

One player that had popped up before the 4th round was Francois Rivasseau, more or less just to hold the EDA (European Diplomacy Association) meeting. The meeting took place after the 4th round. Things that were discussed at the meeting was Ethics, Eurodipcon 5 and 6, standardized rules and procedures.

Ethics: A statement of what EDA regard as unethical play was taken. The question about money prices at tournament was discussed and the point of the WDC 7 organizers to not want to risk bribes or accusations of this received no support at all. Still, as in most question EDA won't interfere in the decisions of individual EDC conventions.

EDC5 & 6:

• Belgium will host EDC 5 in the French-speaking part during early March 1997.
• EDC 6 will most likely be held in Helsinki, Finland sometime August 1998.

The only real controversy was the question about languages. The majority of the meeting felt that the rule used at Arcon should be changed. The rule states: "Only English should be spoken at the Diplomacy tables. For actual diplomacy any language can be used." The meeting felt this should change to: "When speaking at the Diplomacy tables you should only use a language everyone can understand." Francois even stated that French is one of the two official languages of EDA, and that he took the suggestion as a personal insult! Hopefully they have cooled down and will see the rationale behind it.

The results after round 4 meant that Norway 1 won the team tournament followed by Sweden 3 and France 1. The top 7 players were asked if they wanted to play at the top table tomorrow but only Daniel Megitt (as he realized he could not win) and Sigurd Eskeland (as he wanted to play Magic instead) declined. Inge Kjol decided to skip the Magic to instead insure that he would keep his lead (he had taken a third win).

DAY 3

Sunday in Oslo is not a good idea if you want to have breakfast. No stores open, not even 7-11. So my breakfast consisted of a Mars bar...

The final table was won by Inge Kjol, making him the outstanding winner.

The top 10:

• 1. Inge Kjol, Norway
• 2. Sigurd Eskeland, Norway
• 3. Henrik Andersson, Sweden
• 4. Joel Gronberg, Sweden
• 5. Tomas Larsson, Sweden
• 6. Fredrik Orlyng, Norway
• 7. Bob Kendrick, England
• 8. Xavier Blanchot, France
• 9. Bjorn Tore Sund, Norway
• 10. Daniel Megitt, Sweden

Best tactician:

• 1. Sigurd Eskeland
• 2. Inge Kjol
• 3. Joel Gronberg

Best negotiator:

• 1. Xavier Blanchot
• 2. Joel Gronberg
• 3. Henrik Andersson

Best by country:

• Austria: Inge Kjol
• England: Thibault Constans, France
• France: Inge Kjol
• Germany: Henrik Andersson
• Italy: Niklas Hjalmarsson, Sweden
• Russia: Christian Dreyer, Sweden
• Turkey: Sigurd Eskeland

Census Diplomacy

After the ceremonies some of the players sat down to play a variant invented by Jens Persson (one of the Swedes) during EDC 4, inspired by the census rule of Civilization. It is a form of Gunboat where no negotiations is allowed. The basic rule is that the one with most number of supply centers move first! If several players have equal number they write down their moves, otherwise you may do your orders directly at the table. This was quite a success but as it will be hardly impossible to get 18 centers it is best to play this to a set year or time limit. Russia is slightly disadvantaged by starting with one more. The simplest modification to this is to let everyone move simultaneously during 1901 and let the census rule come in effect first during 1902.

The trip back was about as long and winding as the trip there although we even managed to see some football (soccer) from the EuroCup final during a food stop in Sweden. Luckily my vacation had started with this con so I had time to rest the next day...

My opinion of EDC 4/Arcon is that is was a good convention with quite a good field of players. Borger Borgersen and the others did a good work. I especially liked the idea with badges with flags for each table so you could easily identify who played what, something that sometimes can be hard. The same flags appeared on the excellent order sheets. The negotiation time (10 minutes every round) was a bit short but the players got used to it. The locale was good (besides the smoking detail) but would have been a problem with a few tables more.

GothCon is the only convention in Sweden which regularly hosts a Diplomacy tournament. This year we weren’t expecting very many players as the Swedish hobby has been silent for a while. On the first day 14 players showed up, a fair number considering the circumstances. Among the more well-known players were Tage Bengtsson, Tommy Larsson and Geoff Bache. The first round hosted no surprises as Tage and Geoff topped their tables. Interestingly they both played Russia (collecting 16 and 14 Supply Centers each, respectively).

The games finished fairly early thanks to use of the DipTimer program and reasonable deadlines. Afterwards we were able to socialize and play a few other games, such as Memoir’44, Puerto Rico and Roborally. We also tried out a new variant of Diplomacy that I invented a couple of years ago. It was meant to be played by two players only, but since I found no reason it couldn’t be played with more players we decided to try it. Actually, we were 8 players when the game started (a few dropped out as we went on since they had other appointments to attend to).

The concept of the variant is that you draw a random power to play before the game starts. This power is secret. For each turn every player randomly draws another power to write orders for. The objective is of course to have your secret power win the game. The exact details of the variant are the topic of another article. Anyway, play testing showed that a lower number of players are optimal, say 2-4, maybe 5.

Day two started out by the return of a well-known stabber Björn Westling, who decided to play at least two rounds. Also, this round there were two tables even though Geoff and a few others decided to sit out and do something else. Tage Bengtsson again topped his table, this time with a great score of 16 as Austria. The draw for me was the most difficult I could imagine, being sided as Russia against Westling as Turkey and three times Swedish champion Larsson as Austria. Thanks to a good start I managed to solo on 20 SCs already in 1906, the most dominant solo I’ve ever had against this level of opposition. That was the third major victory for Russia in four tables, and on the fourth table, the one where Tage won as Austria – Russia finished second with 13 SC. Russia was having a great tournament!

After pizza and beer, the third round started off on Saturday afternoon. This time Russia felt a reversal of fortunes, facing tougher opposition and being eliminated on both tables. 1999 champion Tobias Bende won on his table as Italy with 12 SC’s while the second table ended in a three-way split at 7 SC’s between the central powers Italy, Germany and Austria (Tage Bengtsson, Samuel Karlsson and Björn Andersson). Note Tage’s strong qualification with 2 wins and a 3-way shared in his three rounds.

The scoring system used was C-diplo. Your Total Score equals your top two-and-a-half scores plus double your score from the top board, with places 1 through 3 reserved for the top three players on the top board.

We knew well beforehand that a few of the qualified players were unable to participate in the top board, but finally we managed to get 7 players to fill the board – the last player to the final was actually ranked 13th after 3 rounds.

The top board faced a strong vanilla pact between England and Germany who swept the west side of the board and forced well into Russia before England executed the stab that had to come. So, the game became a slug fest with England and Turkey racing speedily for the win. Austria and France were eliminated rather quickly which left Italy, Germany and Russia to fight for the third place in the end game. This led to an unusually high score for the top 2 and a remarkably low score for third place. Geoff Bache won (England, 15) before Tommy Larsson (Turkey, 13) and Marcus Björkander (Germany, 3).

All in all, there were 24 players participating. A handful of them were beginners being introduced to the game. One of them, Samuel Karlsson, deserves special mention here as he managed to take a share of a 3-way on his first (and only) game of Diplomacy. Well done Samuel! Full scores, statistics and opening moves are available at http://www.europdip.eu.

Games were awarded as prizes for the top three players in an informal ceremony after the last round. First prize, a copy of Louis XIV, was awarded to Geoff and a short introduction to this excellent game was the finale for my second GothCon.

It was decided that the Swedish NDC is to be played in Borås, November 2nd – 4th. This will also be the Swedish step of the European grand prix. Tournament director is Tage Bengtsson. Probably this will be the only other Diplomacy tournament in Sweden this year. GothCon will as usual be back next Easter – perhaps with some foreign attendance?

Run for the Border
I’ve been attending quite a few World DipCons in recent years. This is a situation I’ve been able to pull off thanks to two different stints as a postdoc at a European research institute: first in Heidelberg fresh out of grad school, and then more recently in London. With a point of departure in Europe, it was easy for me to attend WDCs in Namur in 1999 and in Berlin in 2006, in addition to all the American WDCs over that period (and the 2004 WDC in Birmingham). When Vancouver won the bid for WDC XVII I was pleased, not only because I know the organizers and felt they would do a good job, but also because I have family and friends in Seattle, and I could combine a gaming vacation with a visit with people I had not seen in a long time.

So, come August 9, Stephen Weingarten - a Dipper from Portland, Oregon - picked me up at my aunt’s house in Tacoma. We made the run for the border, and after getting Taco Bell, headed up to Vancouver. After a few hours of driving, including a delay of about a half hour at the border, we arrived at the site.

WDC was held at the campus of the University of British Columbia, with rooms reserved at the Gage Towers complex, and gaming taking place at the Campus Center. The rooms were a good deal: for $39/night, I got a single room with a shared kitchen and bathroom area. I wasn’t planning to cook, so this was more than enough for me.

Round 1
For me, the fun of an event like WDC is seeing familiar faces and old friends, reliving past games and laughing about the past. Then there’s the competition. But it’s the mix of personalities that really makes the game for me. I have played a lot of other games and have found that, even when the game is fun - like Puerto Rico or Carcassonne - I prefer playing it with Dippers who bring their own flair to the competition.

My first-round game featured a lovely board assignment: Austria-Hungary on a board with Edi Birsan as Russia. I thought Edi would cause me problems, but my main problems came from the other side, as Len Tenant argued that the only way for Italy to grow was in Austria. Now, at this point I am sure that I don’t have to say much more about the game. About the only really distinguishing bit in the game, which featured the gradual abandonment of any idea of Austrian autonomy, was my incursion into the Ionian Sea during a Spring move, which gave me access to an undefended SC in Naples. So over the course of the game I took Naples, then Rome, and then finally Venice from Len, while Edi raced to an enormous SC count. It was a weird feeling, trying to make sure Tom Kobrin (France) and France-May Martel (Turkey) didn’t cough up a first-round solo. Ultimately, I think Edi could have soloed this board, but since it was only the first round, he didn’t make a big push to try to do so.

About an hour after we finished, Mike Hall soloed as Russia. As quickly as that, Edi lost any hold he had on Best Russia.

The State of the Hobby
As I’ve said, this was my eighth WDC. I think this gives me a bit of historical perspective on the ebbs and flows of participation in the hobby from different areas. I started playing Dip in college in the late 80s, but the hobby really grew during the 90s thanks to the Internet. Ken Lowe’s Judge program made it easy for thousands of people to play games with other Internet players from all corners of the Earth. In the mid-90s, I started doing more face-to-face gaming. I think there was a growth in the FTF hobby in the late 90s and early 00s as many online players started enjoying the human interaction of live gaming. At the time, there were booming hobbies in England, Sweden, France, Australia (and New Zealand) and parts of the US including the DC area, the Pacific Northwest, and North Carolina. My first WDC was in Chapel Hill in 1998. That was the year Chris Martin took home the top prize. I finished 11th that year, and have not finished so high since!

The Big Friday
I woke in plenty of time for round 2. Got a nice power assignment: France. Former World Champion Rob Stephenson is England. Rob’s opening negotiations are fascinating. He says he’ll be friendly but anybody who crosses him will inspire a furious vengeance. I don’t know quite what to make of this, but when Germany and Russia cannot get their negotiations in order, they start fighting. So I team up with Rob, go south, and invade Italy with little difficulty. I’m topping the board when the game is called. So far I have one good result and one bad one.

After an uneventful break, which included watching the last moments of Yann Clouet’s solo as Germany, we got our third round assignments. At this point I’m starting to run low on gas and am not looking forward to playing my second game of the day. So I get Italy, my least favorite country. I get Dave Maletsky, a solid player in Turkey, and a 12-year old kid in Austria. And then there’s a Western triple. When the kid demands that I leave Venice empty in 1901, I’m just baffled. The whole game is a disaster for more reasons than I want to go into. So after three rounds, I have a board top, a 1-SC survival, and an elimination.

Newbies in the Diplomacy Community
My third-round game raises the question of who should be playing Diplomacy in tournaments, especially major tournaments. I am all in favor of bringing new blood into the hobby. And I think that any tournament should have possibilities for playing for anybody who wants to, regardless of their experience level. But I think that it is undesirable to allow complete newbies to play in what is ostensibly the World Championship.

The nature of Diplomacy, in particular, requires a minimal level of competence from all players. Yes, influencing, convincing, and dominating weaker players are key aspects of Diplomacy skill, and it is completely legitimate to want to keep an “open” nature to Diplomacy tournaments. But even at open golf tournaments, they don’t let people walk in off the street that have never played golf before.

I don’t think that the play of Narek in my third-round game was decisive to my result. Given a Western triple hitting me from the West, and Dave Maletsky in Turkey, my Italy was likely to be in trouble regardless of who was playing Austria. But it is something I didn’t want to have to deal with at that point.

There are many different reasons people play Diplomacy. I prefer playing with more experienced players who have interesting ideas about the possible lines of play. I don’t find it very interesting to hone the skill of openly manipulating complete newcomers. I’m not saying I’ve never done it, but it’s an aspect of the game that does not appeal to me. The ability to play mental games with the uninitiated is not something that I want to spend my time optimizing.

Anyway, having said all that, I enjoyed my drinks Friday night with Michael Pinder, the German on my board who was eventually betrayed by England and France.

Saturday on the Big Board
In each round at Vancouver, the organizers selected one of the boards to be featured on the “big board”, which included a large running SC count for everybody to follow. I woke up Saturday in a foul mood and told Matt Shields that I really didn’t want to play, but would play if I was needed to fill a board. It turned out that I was needed, so I played. Happily, I got a seat at the big board.

It was a nice board with a lot of people I knew well. I landed Austria, Dan Lester was Turkey, Ike Porter was Austria, Yann Clouet was Italy, Adam Silverman was France, Jack Twilley was Germany and Todd Lawson was England. Todd was the only player there whom I had never played with before, though it had been a long time since I had played in Boston with Jack. Ike was looking for a fun game, so we opened with a RAT triple.

The motivations in this game were simple: since Adam had soloed in the third round, he and Yann were going to be targets. The result of the opening negotiations were an A/T going after I and a E/G going after F. A problem with this thinking was that, as Russia, I had no target. I did what I considered to be an innocuous opening, moving to Ukr, Bot, Bla, and Lvn. The last move really upset Germany and England for reasons I still don’t quite get.

So, we had probably the worst-disguised RAT in history. In 1902, E & G pulled away from France and started to harass me in the North, having been warned by Yann and Adam that a major RAT would sweep the board otherwise.

But the EG vs. R took a strange turn. On a move where Germany was trying to outflank me by moving to Galicia, Austria moved his armies to Venice and Tyrolia. The net effect was to leave Budapest completely undefended. In addition, Ike had left Serbia undefended, with the idea of trusting Dan not to make a 1-dot stab. The combination was disastrous for Ike, and led to a 3-power feeding frenzy in the Balkans. At this point, F & G were turning on England, and I faced a choice. Either I could turn on Turkey, and probably work with Italy against him, or I could turn on Germany. I felt the former path led to more growth for Russia, so I sailed into the Black Sea and took Serbia.

Then we had a lunch break. Dan Lester spent the entire break pleading his case to Jack and myself, and I have to say this weakened my resolve. So, after a bit of mucking around after the break, I pushed the idea of a draw, even though it was probably premature. Part of my thinking was that I could pursue one of two strategies that could tip the balance between Dan and Yann as to which of the two made the top board. With two bad results already, I didn’t think my odds of making the top board were very good. I didn’t like the idea that my decision about how to play the remainder of the game would not be enough to get me into the top board, but might be a deciding factor as to whether Yann or Dan made the top board. (Indeed, after ending when we did, both Yann and Dan made the top board, as well as Adam.)

Casino-Bound
After Round 4, I was thoroughly tired of gaming. I find the usual DipCon schedule of four games in three days to be more than enough, so the idea of playing six games in four days struck me as being too much. So Ike and I took the local bus to downtown Vancouver to play some Texas Hold ‘em.

I’ve become very interested in Poker in recent years, especially in Hold ‘em, which has captured the imagination of gamblers around the world. I’ve enjoyed friendly games a lot, and often have done well at Diplomacy cons, but I’ve never really broken through at casino play. Indeed, casino play can be depressing compared to a nice, friendly house game, since you really meet some extreme personalities at casino tables. Usually there’s a mix of tourists and locals, rubes, pros, and people who think they are better than they actually are, but annoyingly hit a lucky streak at an inconvenient time.

Poker makes for a nice contrast to Diplomacy, since it requires deception, bluffing, and a good deal of reading people, but it has nothing remotely resembling alliance play. But it was not my day for poker. I blew through the money Ike had staked me in less than two hours, while he profited nicely when he flopped a straight on a board with a flush draw that never drew.

My only criticism of the Vancouver experience was that there were no organized outings. I suspect that, had the organizers put together a trip to see downtown, or an excursion into the mountains, it would have been well-attended by gamers who didn’t really want to play six games in four days.

Final Round
The final round started with the announcement of the top board. Six players had soloed, and five of them made the top board: Doug Moore, Yann Clouet, Adam Silverman, Jake Mannix, and Chris Martin were on board, joined by Dan Lester and Tom Kobrin. Mark Zoffel, who was second heading into the final round, decided to pass on the opportunity. As a consolation, I got a board with two former World Champions, Vincent Carry and Nicolas Sahuguet. I landed England and Vincent was Russia. Anna Binder (Germany) bounced me from Belgium in 1901 after having promised it to me, and I started out worried about an F/G.

I decided to work with Vincent in the North, giving him Norway in return for his support into Denmark. The German position became untenable shortly thereafter, as I convinced the French player, Ryan Blaney, to share the Low Countries with me while Vincent hit Anna from the other side. Anna suffered the fate that many Germanys have in Dip of being attacked on all sides. After Germany fell, I was faced with the choice of hitting Ryan, and risking a possible AIR board-sweep, or hitting Vincent, who had been loyal to me from the start. Partly based on the encouragement of David Norman, who was playing Italy, I decided to go after France. This worked out well when Nicolas decided to do his part to counter the reputation French players have for never stabbing each other. He was quite happy to stab Vincent, which led to an endgame where R and I were tangling in the East while David and I broke down the French defences in the West. I ended up topping the board with 10 SCs.

It seems curious to me that the two boards I topped featured former World Champions, and the other board I did reasonably well on featured a lot of strong players. I definitely prefer playing with stronger players, as I find it hard to play with people who do not see the long-term implications of their moves. This is admittedly a weakness in my playing style, but I’m not sure I care enough to try to become a better exploiter of foolish players.

As for the top board, Doug had come in with the tiebreaker of being in first after five rounds. The championship was reserved for whoever topped the top board, even if said person’s total score for the tournament was not highest. Doug also drew France, which is a good power to play on a top board. Yann drew Austria and was apparently smothered right at the start. He was gone before I noticed it. Jake Mannix (Turkey), Tom Kobrin (Italy) and Dan Lester (England) all seemed to be doing well at various points in the game, but as time ran out Doug pulled ahead to the victory.

Congratulations to Doug Moore, the first American World Champion since Chris won WDC in Chapel Hill in 1998.

Coda in Long Island
The following weekend I attended HuskyCon on Long Island, hosted by the Woodrings. I really like the informal atmosphere of this house con, but given that it was only a week after Vancouver, I really was low on enthusiasm for Diplomacy. This gave me time to think about the hobby. Participation in the hobby seems to occur in waves. Every few years there is a bunch of new players who have discovered the game and enjoy playing each other, and then a few years later a bunch of players disappear to family obligations, or just simply reach a point where they feel like they are getting nothing new from the game. I have reached a point where certain kinds of games seem very repetitive to me. When I’m playing a game with a certain group of players who are opening in ways that I’ve seen dozens of times before, I can feel fairly certain I know how the next five years of the game will develop. And if I see a great disparity in the respective skill levels of the players I think will be around after those five years, then I could even prognosticate further in advance. I remember one game where I told everybody in earshot in 1902 that Edi Birsan was probably going to solo a certain game. Several hours later, he did exactly that. (Or rather, since it was Edi, he simply pointed out to the other players that he was going to solo and convinced them to save time and concede the game to him.)

What interests me at this point? Games where each player is trying to win, at least at the start, and people do not get bogged down either in alliances or in stalemate lines. Alliances are intended to be temporary measures to advance each individual player towards the goal of a solo victory. Of course, tournament play can be a completely different animal, especially when the round is due to end after a certain number of game years.

There were a lot of good games at WDC, and for the most part the players I met were trying to do as well as possible. I think that six rounds is a bit too much Diplomacy for me, and hope that future cons will ease away from the recent trend of offering as many rounds as that. (Either that, or they will find a way to ensure players are not penalized for missing a round or two – but this would be a bit of a trick.) In terms of future cons, I am excited at the prospect of seeing Bangor, Maine, host DipCon in 2008, and hope I will be able to attend WDC in Vienna in 2008.