Excuse No. 1

By Ernie Melchoir

Originally Appearing in Diplomacy World #2

This doesn’t look like it’s an excuse; in fact, its crucial function is to unmask one of the hobby’s great myths, but with the myth unmasked, the excuse will be obvious.

My story begins with a DipCon a couple of years back. I had just gotten into postal Dippy a month before, and knew three names: John McCallum, John Boardman, and Walt Buchanan. As I got to DipCon, I obviously looked for those three people. Suddenly I saw a huge cunning-looking fellow with a name tag that said “Walt Buchanan.” I exclaimed “That’s Walt Buchanan.”

At this point, he gave me a very funny look. “Very funny” is an understatement. This look was utterly hilarious. In fact, the friends that were with me are still laughing at it/me.

The other day I was thinking about the continued assertions that Walt is not a very humorous person. I find them ridiculous. Anyone who could make a look that funny has to be a very witty person. Thus, Walt is a very witty person.

Now consider: according to Rod Walker, in the last Diplomacy World (and he should know), witty Diplomacy players write press releases that other people find amusing. To be a good press release, the character must be slightly ludicrous yet believable, consistent in his/her character, and appear over many games for readers to follow. Examples are Honj of Boardman, Lucretia of Walker, and Madame Edyth of Birsan. Why has Walt not done this? Why doesn’t he have a character that is ludicrous, profound, silly, and still believable? Why hasn’t Walt written a single series of press releases in his Diplomacy playing career?

I suggest he has. He has created a ludicrous, laughable, and totally believable character whose profundity has livened up more games than I can count. The name of this character is Carol Ann Buchanan ((I am NOT a character!: CA)), and most of the hobby believes she really exists. Not so.

Does anybody really think that Walt is married to someone who spends her whole life criticizing Indiana ((wouldn’t you if you had to live here?!)), spending Walt’s precious money sending out complimentary copies of Diplomacy World to players’ wives, who won’t care any, and at the same time, reversing her policy and typing the zine for him? ((You’d better believe you’d type too if Walt chained you to the wall deep down in the dungeon in front of a typewriter and stood over you with a bullwhip…)) No one, not even a madwoman, would be so self-contradictory! Do you really think any woman, however incompetent, would have any trouble burning all the Graustarks she wanted to? ((My poor Siamese cat is being held hostage in order to guarantee the safety of the stup marvelous Graustarks.)) Ridiculous! Walt has created the most ludicrous, silly and foolish character in all Diplomacy, and half the hobby thinks she types up his zine for him! Face it; there is no Carol Ann Buchanan—Walt is currently dating a girl by the name of Mary Lane. ((He’d better NOT be!))

This great hoax was perpetrated to a much larger degree when Lebanon’s lady plumber happened to be at Walt’s place when Beyerlein got there last summer, but this is irrelevant to this expose. ((That was no lady—that was just is wife…yeah, I know…groan.))

Now for the excuse. This came up (me not being married yet, though I’m marrying Penelope Naughton Dickens in the Pouch shortly) when I asked a girl out for a Friday night one Tuesday. That Thursday, the Dip game started. I was conceded to on Saturday afternoon at 3:30. My excuse? I just told the girl that the group had been praising the Diplomacy Widows Association. “For two days?” she asked.

“Could an adequate praise of that fine group be done in any less time?” I answered.

“No,” she said softly. Then I asked her out for the next weekend. The next weekend was the best date I’ve had in a long time…but it was with another girl.

((I feel it is only fair that I should warn you, Ernie, that for your treachery, deception, and lies, you will soon be several little gifts which I obtained from Box SH here at Diplomacy World…cackle, cackle! CA))

Excuse No. 2

By Dennis Klein

From Diplomacy World #4

Sitting here at my desk staring at my calendar filled with deadlines for PBM Diplomacy games, and after thumbing through the first two copies of Diplomacy World, I decided to give the Great Lagerson Diplomatic Excuse Contest a whirl.

To set a few things straight, I have never come home late from a face-to-face game, so I was never pressed to have an excuse for my tardiness. But knowing my little (size nine shoes) woman as I do, I can unequivocally state that it is not the excuse that keeps the bandages on the shelf and the iodine in the bottle. It is the buttering up you do before you embark on a face-to-face game which counts.

The best way to soft soap the light of your life is not with a dozen flowers or some other outlandish item or event, but by just relieving some of the tension and pressure of her daily routine. Before going off to work, you get up earlier and make breakfast. If you happen to get off early or you have a day off, get down on your hands and knees and scrub the kitchen floor – then make dinner for you and your love. (Or maybe those last two should be reversed). When your little doll asks you to finish the lawn or do other yard work, don’t sleep in your hammock – do it! Then when you’re done, take a bath before nuzzling up to her. As a topper, start and finish all these projects you’ve been saving for a free day. Patch the fence, oil the screen door, and wallpaper the basement. Remember, it is all for your benefit as well as hers.

All these suggestions and more you can do to help your partner in life be a little more thankful for your presence. And if that fateful night should occur, and when you try to sneak in at 3 AM, and she’s sitting there with an expression on her face like Attilla – a cupboard of dishes at hand – remind her of all the nice things you’ve done. You just may save yourself a hospital visit. But if all else fails, and she has a pot in her hand and is ready to make a pitch that would make Sandy Koufax look like a little leaguer, before it’s too late, get down on your knees, clasp your hands together, and resort to that age-old, never-fail (you hope!) standby:

“Aw, c’mon, Mom, I’m not that late!”

Tallyrand Tamed, or Wild Doug’s Sweet Dougie Now

By Marie Cockrell

From Diplomacy World #6

At the time I met Doug Beyerlein at DIPCON 74, I, like many others, assumed that he was the infamous Tallyrand, who once tried (unsuccessfully, thank God) to turn DIPWMACY WORLD into the thinking man's locker room. I was thus taken by surprise when I learned that Doug was an engineer. He did not write his moves with a mechanical pencil, though, and he was nice, a loyal ally, liked almost everything I liked, and gave me funny looks when he thought I wasn't watching, so I concluded that there was hope.

There was. Two months later I was being asked to come out to California for a visit, and three months later I was being asked to be co-custodian of the Boardperson Numbers, The latter I took to be a marriage proposal (and I hope Doug concurs with me on this).

As far as Doug and I know, we are the only couple that has met through Diplomacy and has subsequently decided to marry. If there are any single women reading this, I can't honestly recommend wargaming as a way to meet eligible men. It is so terribly difficult to be sweet and cute while threatening to blast a country off the map. When I started postal play, I was sure that the men in my games would resent me. Or if not, wouldn't they suppose that a female wargamer would be a big, mean bruiser, a veritable Brunnhilde? Happily, they didn't. Some of them were even rather intrigued by the whole idea. Doug was one of these.

Doug swept me off my feet with real style. Did he wine and dine me, plying me with liquor while playing Rachmaninoff on the stereo? Did we leap in slow motion through buttercup fields with the glow of the soft-focus sunset matching The Glow In Our Hearts? No, we took bike rides, played tennis, and took hikes over innumerable ridges and through an elevation gain and loss of 2,000 feet, sweating and panting and aching the while. And is it possible to love someone who puts you through all that physical hardship, alternately calls you a tough cookie and a soggy banana, expects you to stay awake during his slide shows, and commands you to produce more Diplomacy wins for the greater glory of the Beyerlein name? Well, yes.

You Only Dud Twice

By Rod Walker

From Diplomacy World #8

The only important thing in postal Diplomacy is the press. I don’t know what the poor people who have to play the game FTF do. Without press releases, the game is unspeakably dull… an occasional stab will liven things up, but after a while, it doesn’t make much difference whether you do or you don't. At that point, I always suicide against all of my neighbors simultaneously and go out to the kitchen for some cold pizza.

In postal Diplomacy, it is otherwise. The game exists merely as an excuse to write press (and perhaps as a background for it). The deadline is when the Gamemaster wants the press so he can type it up. Negotiations are for the purpose of coordinating releases. Rating systems and organizations exist entirely to give us targets for topical and satirical releases. Strategy and tactics articles are written only to give us ideas for interesting things to do on the playing board so we can write press about them.

Some time ago I began a column in Diplomacy World about press, but it short-circuited because lack of reader response indicated that I was taking the wrong tack. What we really need is an example; something topical, satirical, relevant, and all of the other virtues I’ve already talked about. Thus, without further ado, we present:

You Only Dud Twice

Secret Agent Roddie Dudright, Code Name 0-0-Dud, slid into Secret Superspy Headquarters. He always thought it a bit demeaning to have the secret entrance disguised as a demonstrator in a slide, see-saw, and jungle gym specialty shop, but he never argued with the judgement of his Leader, the ominous “Big D.”

Dusting off the wood shavings which filled the box at the bottom of the slide, 0-0-Dud opened the door to Big D's office a crack and threw his hat in. This act was followed by a burst of sub-machine gun fire. He threw open the door to see smoking fragments of his hat wafting downward to the floor. Big D’s Secretary Margaret Gummygammy (affectionately known to all the agents as "Mad Meg"), was smilingly putting a smoking weapon back into her umbrella stand, "Come In, Mr. Dudright," she said toothsomely.

"Big D" entered the reception room from behind a huge arras hanging on the wall. "Don’t dawdle, O-O-Dud, She's shot down the last 50 hats you've thrown in, so you needn't be surprised by now…" They went into the office behind the arras and sat down. "Your unique talents are required on this case, O-O-Dud; it is one the Home Office is particularly interested in having nailed down. The Special Effects Office will furnish you with a case file and the usual array of secret weapons, and then you’re off to Santa Pasta.”

"Where's that? What for?”

"Inquisitive lad. Well, Santa Pasta is a feudal republic lying on the borders of France, Italy, and Switzerland. It is about 10 miles long and 3 miles wide. The capital is Spumoni, which lies near the headwaters of the Vermicelli River. The current Doge is Gualthero Buccanini.

“You are being sent to foil the sinister plans of the local Spectre agent, Johann Bashud. During the war he ran the Dudburg Concentration Camp, which was entirely composed of Polack POWs. They all escaped within 2 weeks. During a subsequent assignment as Official Yes-Man to Goering, he found out what was going on at Buchenwald, and spent the rest of the war trying to get an assignment. At the end he tried to escape to Sweden, but went the wrong direction and wound up in Switzerland. In 1947 he set up a gun-running operation to the Arabs and ferried arms to Haifa for a year and a half before he found out who actually owned that port. He then set up a gingerbread hut outside of Nazareth, but the local kids kept eating the walls without ever once accepting an invitation to jump in his ovens. He is now the chief Spectre operative in Santa Pasta…and assignment not in line with his ambitions, but certainly with his abilities.”

"So what are his sinister plans?”

“Big D” drummed his fingers on his desk. “We’re not sure. Some mysterious things are going on there. Our local operative, Lenda Lizzard, will brief you when you arrive.”

“Lenda Lizzard? Isn’t she the one who got out on the firing range and…?”

"Yes, O-O-Dud, she is the only one of our agents who managed to miss her target, the broad side of a barn, more times than you did. At the moment, she is disguised as an exotic dancer, Samantha and Her Sexy Snakes. She's working at the Mosey Inn, which is near the new Westworld Amusement Park. Now get going: you don't want to miss your plane; Dogpatch Airlines only flies this route once a month!"

TO BE CONTINUED. Chapter II:

SSSSsssaSSSsssssssssssssssssss…..

Stabbing is an Evil Thing

By Rick Loomis

From Diplomacy World #16

You are all undoubtedly aware that there are two noisy sides to the question of backstabbing in Diplomacy: One group feels that “stabbing” is “Evil” and that all alliances should be forever; the other group feels that the first group is “ruining the hobby,” that “stabbing” is a very important part of the game, and that anyone who doesn’t stab is some kind of party-pooper.

I was going to make some kind of middle-ground comments about how both points of view are part of the game, and so forth, when a Diplomacy variant occurred to me! So actually, instead of another dull “Stab vs. Non-Stab” article, this is a description of still another variant. I’m not going to give it a name until the end, as that would give away the punch line.

In this variant, all agreements and alliances are written down, signed by both parties, and turned in to the moderator. Let’s say that Walter feels that Len has stabbed him. The moderator announces in the magazine the next turn that a stab has been claimed, and prints Walter’s side of the story. The following turn, Len sends his side of the story to the moderator, and it is printed. The turn after that, Walter gets a chance to answer Len’s arguments, and the turn after that, Len gets one more chance. Then all seven players (including any who were eliminated previously) vote on whether or not Len has stabbed Walter. If the majority votes that Len has indeed stabbed Walter, then on the next turn, the moderator prints in large letters in the magazine: “Len is an Evil Person.” Of course, this has no effect whatsoever on the game! I call this variant “United Nations Diplomacy.” Or maybe we ought to make that “League of Nations Diplomacy.”

FUGUE

By "PARIAH"

From Diplomacy World #18

I was easily the world’s worst Diplomacy player. My strategic concepts are untenable, my diplomatic maneuvering is a laugh, and my tactical play is completely underwhelming. I’ve never finished above five place (England and France dropped out early in that one) and I’ve never seen the Spring of 1905. My most infamous loss occurred when playing Austria (I somehow managed to find six other people who had never heard of me). Through my perfidious, but inane, diplomatic overtures, I found myself attacked by four neighbors and threatened by two others in the Spring of ‘02. I was homeless by autumn. (A 60,000 word expose of my nauseating tactics is soon to be published.)

Well, fleets and armies had always been a great bother to me (all those silly rules about coastlines and canals and air movement were certainly unclear), but I quickly learned to play without them. Oddly enough, my enemies were now almost non-existent, and I suspected some diabolical treachery. Nonetheless, I quickly submitted my Spring 1903 orders:

TOTAL COLLAPSE IS IMMINENT. THE PEOPLE FACE THEIR DARKEST HOUR AS TINY FINLAND STRAINS TO STEM THE INVADING RED ARMY (oops, wrong war), AS AUSTRIA-HUNGARY STRAINS TO STEM THE INVADING WHITE, YELLOW AND GREEN (AND POSSIBLY BLACK) ARMIES. THE SUICIDE OF FRANZ JOSEF HAS TOUCHED OFF RIOTING IN OUR GLORIOUS CAPITAL, AND THE STREETS ARE RUNNING WITH BLOOD. THE LAST OF THE ROYAL FAMILY HAVE BEEN SAFELY WITHDRAWN TO A SMALL, UNKNOWN ISLAND IN THE TYRRHENIAN SEA. WE STAND ALONE AMONG THE FREE POWERS, PROUD, STRONG AND BLOODY. IN THEIR HOUR OF NEED, OUR COUNTRYMEN HAVE BEEN ABANDONED AND FORSAKEN BY THEIR WEAK-WILLED NEIGHBORS, WHO HAVE FAILED HER IN EVERY WAY. THE ROYAL FAMILY LEAVES YOU WITH THESE WORDS:

“We have asked for guns, and we have gotten sympathy,
We have asked for bullets, and we have got apathy.
We have asked for men, and we have got stabbed.”

Orders, Austria-Hungary, Spring 1903:
Detachment in Elba supports Detachment in Elba

I must modestly admit that my spring move was an unqualified success. All my objectives were achieved and not one person had even attempted a stab (a new personal record). Spurred on by this heady victory, I began a subversive campaign aimed at undermining any relations between the other powers. (By the way, I had finally given up issuing movement and combat orders — much too easy to misconstrue, as well as often being used against me.) Using a recent reception for the royal family of Hapsburgs, currently summering in Elba, I launched my new plan using overheard remarks and comments:

“My dear, how stunning! Your sister’s clothes are so becoming!”
“You see, if he had just held back the 4th Brigade for only two hours, the enemy right would never have…”
“Italy? Those turkeys are always hungry.”
“The first time our eyes met across a crowded room, my heart…”
“Did you hear how Franz really did it? Well, he took this long, sharpened stake…”
“Yes, we pretty well have Germany sucked in right now. He completely trusts…”
“The army in Bohemia is no threat. It’s the night life in Bohemia that is the real problem.”
“My pulse quickened, I became speechless, as your radiant…”
“Say, isn’t that the French ambassador? Whatever could he be talking about to the Russian envoy?”
“Huh?”
“No, no. You still don’t understand. Just two hours, and then the enemy right…”
“Delenda est Constantinople.”
“Your eyes so bright, your lips so full, are matched only by…”
“Puhutekko suomea?”
“Oops, sorry about that. Wasn’t a new shirt, I hope.”
“Your lips so full, you…what? You’re kidding! Well, excuse me, I must be off… let’s see, you said your cousin was the one with the sequins and long gloves, right?”
“Look, I’ll draw it on a napkin. The 4th Brigade is the gravy stain. Now, only two hours…”

Again I had astounding success. The various leaders came groveling at my doorstep, pleading for me to release my source of information. But I stood firm, a veritable rock of Gibraltar resisting those who were mere grains of sand washing at my shore.

And so it went, my position of power becoming greater with every turn, while my enemies slowly eroded and suffered; but not always in silence. At long last the Great Day arrived: the final standings of our game. I eagerly tore open the envelope from the gamesmaster. But after quickly scanning the brief report, I fell back, aghast. I was listed seventh! (Not an unusual result for me, but this game had been different!) Despite my vehement and frequent protests, the results were allowed to stand (something about control of supply centers — another silly rule that I could never fathom). Knowing I had badly outplayed my opponents, I have decided to lodge my lawful complaints with the Institute for Diplomatic Studies, the board of Directors for DIPLOMACY WORLD, and a nefarious Sicilian firm which shall remain nameless. I am confident that the game results would be overturned, my protest upheld, and justice meted out to the guilty. Sic semper tyrannis.

THE NOVICE CORNER

How to find a postal Diplomacy game

By Conrad von Metzke

From Diplomacy World #18

(transcribed by Marvelous Melinda Holley)

You’re reading DIPLOMACY WORLD; it follows, therefore, that you must have some sort of an interest in playing Diplomacy by mail. If you are already so playing, you don’t really need to read this column (although you may if you wish); if not, why not? If it’s because you’ve had some trouble finding an open game, or haven’t quite figured out how to go looking for that game, then you’ve come to the right page.

Let’s begin by a concession: The “NEED A GAME” column which appears in every issue of DW is, at best, a stopgap. The way this magazine is produced, there is just no way to keep the listing really current; by the time you see the list, some of the information may be as much as two months old. “NEED A GAME” is the best we can really do, and it’s better than nothing; but it sure ain’t God’s gift to Diplomacy players.

It is, however, a place to start. What you’re looking for may vary according to personal taste, but at the very least you want (probably) a game that will start fairly quickly after you join, at a rational price, run by a reliable gamesmaster. You may also want certain frills (a game magazine with a lot of interesting reading material, or very quick deadlines, or several games available in the same place at once, etc.). Whatever you want, the only way to find it is to settle down at your typewriter and start looking.

Probably the most important qualification you’ll want in a gamesmaster is reliability. How to tell who is reliable and who isn’t? I am afraid, dear friends, that we have just run into the biggest single difficulty which postal Diplomacy has to offer: It is, no matter how seriously one may take it, a hobby. As with any other hobby, the participants — players and publishers alike — may tire of it, or find other priorities intruding, and have to give the game up. Ergo, if you enter a postal Diplomacy game, you run a measurable chance of finding your game “orphaned,” i.e., abandoned by its gamesmaster in midstream.

You’d think that the length of time a person has been publishing regularly would be a good measuring stick of reliability, but it’s a less valid criteria than you’d imagine. For instance, it’s odd but true that if a gamesmaster is brand new, starting on his first new issues, he is much more likely to stick around for the end of a game than if he has been publishing regularly for, say 12-15 months. That’s because the interest span of a given publisher seems to hover somewhere around a year and a half; after that, which means after roughly two dozen issues, the thrill of a new hobby has worn off and the dull drudgery of printing another issue every damned third Saturday has set in. Almost nobody folds after two or three issues; almost nobody last more than two years. Thus the first game or two a publisher begins have a good chance; after that, prayer may be beneficial.

This looks a little bleak, eh? But let’s be honest up front. If you play postal Diplomacy, you are bound to have some disappointments, chiefly the abandonment of games from time to time. Most such orphans are picked up, usually quite rapidly, by other publishers, and are then carried to completion. There may be a little confusion surrounding the transfer, and a brief hiatus during which all you can do is champ at the bit, but in all likelihood your game still stagger to its finish one way or the other. So it really isn’t reasonable, if you enjoy postal Diplomacy play at all, to shy away from entering games merely because gamesmasters have a way of vanishing into the sunset; you must simply make the best judgments you can about where to play, and take your lumps when delivered.

And in partial mitigation of the strength of my earlier argument, it must be reminded that not all gamesmasters are unreliable; most will make a sincere effort to keep games going even if the starting publication folds, and in addition there are many, many VERY reliable publishers floating round. In the “NEED A GAME” lists we indicate the length of time a person has been regularly printing issues. This indicator, as I’ve indicated, is hardly infallible. But when you see the name John Boardman topping the list, followed by the numerical indication that he has been reliably publishing his magazine for sixteen years — which is, to put it mildly, phenomenal — then you know the man is going to see your game through unless he gets run over by a truck. Anything over two years is generally safe. (Not always, but generally.) Anything quite new is worth looking into. In between, get a sample issue; if it seems reasonably mature in style and efficient in approach (don’t ask how to tell what “mature” and “efficient” mean here; you’ll know; if the issue is sloppy, filled with childish silliness and badly organized, uses the English language abominably, and precedes each game report with a list of errors being corrected from the previous issue, you have a loser), what the hell, take a shot at it.

A word about game fees. Postage and supplies costing what they do these days, a fair fee for a game seems to be about $8-$11. That’s all-inclusive. Do not compute any refundable deposits in that total. If the magazine does not operate on the flat-rate system, but (for example) charges a small flat rate plus a subscription, then figure that the average postal game lasts ten game years, or thirty published issues. If a magazine asks for a fee of $2 plus a sub at 5 issues for a dollar, you can count on paying $8 for your game.

Warnings have been issued from time to time about how you ought to avoid the apparent fee bargains. I say that’s silly. Normally, money is not a critical point in a publisher’s decision to continue or fold; nobody in this game makes a profit, and (unless he’s on welfare and supporting four children) nobody loses his shirt. If a guy wants to charge a total of fifty cents per game, let him! On the other hand, let’s be rational about this; we are talking about a hobby here, so steer clear of large investments of money. In my view, any game fee about twelve dollars, barring special circumstances, is an outrage. In addition, I strongly recommend against posting a “refundable deposit” in excess of five dollars; after all, a deposit is only refundable when it’s refunded, right? There will be many who disagree with this discussion, and the detractors will not all be those who charge lots of money per game. I concede, there are different views. You’ll just have to set your own maximum limits; I’ve given you mine.

“Well, gee whiz, thanks a lot, Conrad,” you are now muttering, “You’ve spent all this time giving vague pointers on the pitfalls of unreliable publishers, and how to avoid or live with them; but we still are entered into a game!” AHA!, I reply, that’s because you’ve been wasting your time reading this article. What you really ought to be doing is going out after a game in which to play. Go ahead and finish this article now, if you like; but after that, put the rest of the issue aside for a while and get to work.

In the early days of the hobby, when there were few players and fewer magazines, each publisher would supply lists of “new blood” — new players who had been contacted — and all the other publishers would then send sample issues. Those days are gone. Now, if you want a game, you gotta find it yourself; with rare exceptions, nobody is going to come looking for you. So turn to the list in the back of this magazine, entitled “NEED A GAME”, and plan your strategy.

Ideally, you should write to every name on the list, requesting a sample copy of each publication. (It is polite to enclose return postpaid envelopes, or two or three loose stamps, or thirty cents cash, or some such.) You will get replies from many of them. If some do not reply, you might do the favor of letting DW know about it, as such publishers have no place in our listings.

The key, of course, is to write to as many potential gamesmasters as possible. The comments I see most often generally indicate that the would-be player merely picks one or two names off our listings, writes to them, and gets discouraged if there is no instant action. It doesn’t always work that way; you must simply be widespread in your attentions. And you should also peruse the sample issues you receive for additional names; sometimes publishers who are not on our lists are nevertheless advertised by someone else’s journal.

A few final pointers: Remember that a gamesmaster can not begin his game until seven are signed for it. If you’re the first to apply, you may have to wait a while (I’ve seen it take as long as six months, though this is quite unusual). Under no circumstances should you send any money to a gamesmaster until the game is actually announced as underway; if a publisher insists on payment far in advance, there’s something fishy. And if you aren’t willing to wait for any great length of time to get the game going, you should mention the fact when you first apply, to be fair all around. If there’s a doubt in your mind as to the possible delay in starting, ask the gamesmaster for information (how many are signed, how long since the game opening was first announced, how many “possible” players have been solicited but have not yet replied); you can then make reasonable judgments on the future. If six are signed up, the game won’t normally take much longer to begin. On the other hand, if four are signed up but the game has been publicly open for four months, you may have quite a wait. This sort of informational decision is awfully vague, but at least you have some data where before you had none. If a publisher chooses not to answer your enquiries, look elsewhere.

Always request a sample copy of the person’s publication before agreeing to play in a game, and particularly before sending money for anything (except the price of the sample, of course). This is one hobby where you simply do not buy sight-unseen. If you don’t like what you see, you are under no obligation to proceed. If you enter a game and then decide you don’t like what you see, you’ve created problems; that isn’t friendly; don’t do it.

Finally, be patient!

So much for the article; now for an idea. The editor of DIPLOMACY WORLD thinks that a good many of the problems of player-finding-game-finding-player might be alleviated if some sort of clearing-house was set up. This is not a complicated scheme; it’s merely the extension of the “NEED A GAME” list into a continuing service.

It would go as follows: Any person who has any interest in a game could write to DW so stating. His name would then be entered on a list which would be available to any publisher who wanted it (cost: a stamped envelope). In addition, the potential player (for a stamped envelope) would be sent a list of all publishers who are known to have openings. In both cases, dates would be indicated so that the recipients could know the currency of the listings; names would be automatically dropped from the publisher list after three months, and from the player list after two months, unless renewed.

This service would, of course, replace the “NEED A GAME” list, which would then be dropped from the magazine and replaced by a mere reference to the service. This service is NOT in operation now. First, I wish to hear from publishers; would you be interested and willing to participate? It can’t work if publishers aren’t involved on a steady basis (remember, if we put this system to use, we will no longer be culling magazines to prepare lists on our own; it’ll all be up to you). Right this minute, before you forget, drop me a postcard (P.O. Box 626, San Diego, CA 92112) and say “yessir” or “no way”. (North America only, please.) If interest is strong enough, we’ll be open for business as of next issue.

FUGUE

by “Pariah”

From Diplomacy World #19

(Transcribed by Marvelous Melinda Holley)

“Oh, to be in England, now that April’s there…” Certainly England is one of the more enjoyable countries to start off with in a game of Diplomacy. Lots of water to protect you (mostly free from those nasty Frogs – the Krauts are generally on your side, and they were historically) and a perfect balance of fleets and armies to keep the dogs at bay. Why, as John Bull, I’ve lasted as long as ’03 and ’04 (and even once to Spring ’05, but there were extenuating circumstances – everybody, the Gamesmaster and myself included, had forgotten that I still controlled Serbia).

Much analysis has been done concerning proper British play in the opening years. (Fortunately, I rarely have to concern myself with middle- and end-game.) These articles, however, have been concerned with such nebulous and vague matters as Germany’s dining habits, does Russia remember that I stabbed him for the past fourteen consecutive games?, and other intangibles. Obviously some serious, precise mathematical dissection is required. I have spent the last twelve years of my waking life perfecting a mathematical formula that will yield the optimum move for any given country. This momentous finding I will now share with you:

					M    n.F(x)   @ ex.(sr)-1+(2.F
			1        R                          z-2r)
			

M1 (where 1 varies from 1 to 3) is the combination of the potential values for each of your starting pieces. N is the number of opponents who have shown definite animosity toward you prior to Spring ’01 (generally I find this number to be around 6, but an N-value of 7 is not uncommon). F(x), or f(x) if you will, is simply the area, in spare hectares, of all adjoining regions to your home country; ex is obvious as is sq-1. Z requires more explanation, while r is nothing more than the distance from your capital to the exact center of the board.

This concise, accurate formula can be applied to any country; when we use it for England, the subject of our discussion, the result comes out to – oh, yes, I forgot to divide the entire function by p (or was it q? – no matter, p is good enough). Anyway, the result is 4.29, certainly an astounding figure. I would have expected no more than 3.96, or possibly even 3.57, but My God, 4.29! Truly incredible. From this value, the translation into the Spring opening move is superficial.

			F Edi - Cly
			F Lon - Yor
			A Lvp - Wal
			

While the implications of such a move are staggering, I should perhaps explain some of the subtleties involved for the less skillful of my readers. While A Lvp-Wal might be construed as threatening to the French player, you can point out that the two fleet moves are favorable to him. The element of surprise can also be a very powerful tool. When playing this opening face-to-face, the entire table is often reduced to a stunned silence. At other times, some players have been overcome by tears (carefully disguised by peals of laughter to prevent their real fears from showing). However, the true impact of this opening move is not revealed until the Fall of ’01, when the following move is indicated.

			F Cly – Lvp
			F Yor – Edi
			A Wal – Lon
			

The English play has come full circle. Not only are all supply centers adequately protected, the single army unit is stationed in London, erasing forever the perennial problem of what to do with your army in Liverpool. While others have been madly scrambling about for loose supply centers, you alone have kept your house in order, while at the same time have offended no one (well, I once irritated France to the point of apoplexy when I accidentally knocked his only bottle of Mouton-Rothschild ’59 over Gascony, Spain, Portugal, and a good portion of his tweeds, but that’s just a chance you’ll have to take). After establishing a powerful position as demonstrated, the remainder of the game is but a matter of technique.

The one pitfall of this innovative opening is that it precludes one of my personal favorites: F Edi-Yor, F Lon-Yor, A Lvp-Yor, affectionately known as “Yorkshire Pudding.” While this does have much of the element of surprise, it is sadly lacking in subtlety. However, against weaker or invalided opponents, it can be utilized with effect.

Armed with the above analysis, I have no doubt that your place in the final standings of future games will change dramatically. For that, you can gratefully thank

- PARIAH

The Rulebook’s Forgotten Sentence

By Mark Berch

From Diplomacy World #20

(Transcribed by Marvelous Melinda Holley)

Let me begin with a few basics:

1. My perspective is that of a player, not a gamesmaster.
2. The purpose of playing is to have fun, to enjoy a good game.
3. The purpose of the Rulebook is to facilitate #2, rather than just provide traps for the unwary.
4. The same should apply to any adaptation of the Rulebook to postal play.

There is a sentence in the Rulebook which, if gamesmasters would only use it, would promote the above goals and produce a superior game. “A badly written order, which nevertheless can only have one meaning, must be followed.” Note the verb: “must”. Let’s look at how this can be applied to four of the most common types of badly-written orders.

No. 1. PLAYER FAILS TO STATE NATIONALITY OF FOREIGN UNIT HE IS SUPPORTING. This, S’01: A Ven S A Mun-Tyo. Most gamesmasters would disallow this. However, contrary to popular belief, there is no requirement in the Rulebook that this nationality be stated; its requirement is the creation of postal GMs. The Rulebook is extremely specific on what is required for a valid support: “To order a support, it is necessary to write the location of the supporting piece, the word ‘supports’ or its equivalent, and both the location and destination of the piece receiving support.” (Rule IX, 1) Note that it does not state, “location, destination, and ownership if foreign.” IT is true that Italy does not have Army Munich, in the above example, but the order does not state that he does. Further, the “badly written” rule covers this nicely; it can only have one meaning, because there is only one army Munich.

No. 2. PLAYER FAILS TO STATE COAST UNIT IS LEAVING FROM. Thus, F Stp-Bot. There is again no requirement that this cannot be stated. Rule XII, 7 begins: “In each set of orders, the space each unit is in is written first, followed by its order.” Note that it says “space,” which is defined (VI, 1) as “province or body of water.” That definition was included to foil the Coastal Crawl, by indicating that “space” includes the entire province. Further, the Rulebook carefully sets forth two circumstances where the coast must be specified (where a fleet enters a two-coasted province and either is possible, and when building fleets in StP) but this circumstance isn’t one of them. Finally, the “badly written” rule can be applied, as there is only one fleet in StP.

No. 3. PLAYER MISSTATES THE COAST UNIT IS LEAVING FROM. Thus, F Spa(sc)-Mid where the player has F Spa(nc). This situation is more complex, as a portion of the order is incorrect. However, disallowing the move seems an extremely serious penalty for giving some wrong (coastal) information that wasn’t required, but is provided as a favor to the gamesmaster, the other players, and the general quality of the game. An analogous situation would be disallowing “F Hollind-Nth”. (GM: Sorry, but you don’t have any fleet Hollind. PLAYER: I only added the extra letters at the end to help you avoid confusion with my F Hel. They weren’t required by the Rulebook. Your action serves as a disincentive to my being more fully explicit in the future.)

Again, the “badly written” rule can be invoked, as there is only one unit in Spain, and it “occupies the entire province.” (VII, 2b)

No. 4. PLAYER MISLABELS AN ARMY FOR A FLEET, OR VICE VERSA. This is probably the most common error in writing orders; e.g. A Tri-Alb. The entire situation closely resembles #3, in that the labeling of a unit F or A is not required. “Tri-Alb” complies with the Rulebook, which requires only that the list the space each unit is in.” Further, there is nothing sacred about those particular abbreviations. You could have A for ‘Armada’ and F for ‘Footsoldier’. Or you could use just U for all units. True, these are not the Rulebook abbreviations. But then again, the Rulebook’s sample game has ‘Norw.’ For Norway and ‘Norw. Sea’ for the Norwegian Sea. When was the last time you saw those in a Diplomacy magazine?

In dealing with this type of error in Game 1970BB, John Boardman, postal Diplomacy’s most experienced GM, wrote the following in GRAUSTARK 256: “The Rulebook is designed for over-the-board play, and minor fluffs as a result of haste are accepted in accordance with the badly written order rule. While speed is a factor in postal play too, it is the result of time to negotiate, not the minutes it takes to write orders. Consequently, it is my policy to virtually ignore the badly written order rule in postal games, especially when an experienced player commits the error.” I must confess that the logic of this position is lost on me. Boardman’s theory that the rule exists just to cover errors of haste strikes me as pure speculation. If it’s a ‘minor fluff’ in over-the-board play, then it’s a ‘minor fluff’ in postal play, because it’s the same error. Boardman does state that “if the quoted rule is interpreted liberally” then the move succeeds. There is some precedent for this. In DIPLOPHOBIA 60, Don Miller, another very experienced GM, allowed F Ven-Tri in Spring 1901.

Several points need to be emphasized strongly here. First, GMs unquestionably have the right to disallow all of the above moves. This has been firmly established in hobby tradition and will not be overturned simply by the likes of me writing an article. I am questioning the wisdom of the rulings, not their legality. Second, players should give all that superfluous information (coasts, etc.) even if not required by the GM, as it makes for less work and fewer errors. Third, some might argue that these additional requirements will introduce another small item of skill into the game, giving the edge to the more careful players. If this logic were accepted, GMs could throw in deliberate misadjudications, to give small advantage to those skilled at spotting them. To me, success at Diplomacy should be a test of diplomatic, strategic, and tactical skills; other considerations, like penmanship, should be minimized. The best game has no inadvertent errors, no missed moves, no misadjudications. Fourth, the use of these “unwritten” rules must surely function as a barrier to face-to-face players who are just entering the postal hobby. They are likely to be bewildered or discouraged when they are suddenly harshly penalized for not providing information they had no way of knowing was required. Finally, some errors are deliberate, as with players who wish a move to fail but don’t want to reveal their intentions. The imaginative player will be able to think of options, such as “F Tri-Gre” or “F Alb-Gre”.

Fine, fine, you say, but what can I, a lowly player, do? First off, always triple-check your orders. Next, write your GM (but not after the fact of error; that’s too late). Suggest to him changes in GMing policy, outlining your reasons. Most GMs like to receive mail, and if they are interested in pursuing the subject, will print your letter to stimulate further discussion. Last, there is actually a ’zine whose house rules would allow the players’ moves in the preceding four cases to proceed: FOL SI FIE (Randolph Smyth, 249 First Ave., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1S 2G5 – subs $10/$3.). Indeed, Smyth’s house rules are designed to allow the maximum in player freedom to maneuver. Thus, he allows code words, join orders, temporary substitutes, etc. In player votes, your vote will be kept secret – unless you ask for it to be revealed. Randolph has recently had a long series of sample rulings so that readers will have a solid feel for how the GM runs his games. The ’zine has recently passed its 100th issue, a real testament to likeability. But you didn’t think this article would end with a plug, did you?

Going Allan Calhamer One Better

By Dave White

Originally Appearing in Diplomacy World #25

Certainly, all of you have heard of Murphy’s Laws; either all, or parts of them. As a quick refresher, here they are:

1. If anything can go wrong, it will.
2. Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.
3. Everything takes longer than you expect.
4. If there is a possibility of several things going wrong, the one that will go wrong first is the one that will cause the most damage.
5. Left to themselves, things will go from bad to worse.
6. If you play with something long enough, you will surely break it.
7. If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

With very little effort, I’m sure that everyone reading this can think of a situation in a game to which most, if not all of these, could be applied.

In just a couple of paragraphs everything you could ever want to know about the additional rules and laws of Diplomacy is covered, right? Not so, Boardman breath! Here are a few of my own, specifically directed to Diplomacy and the wargaming hobby:

Inverse Law of Supply and Demand

A country’s success in an ftf game is inversely proportional to the number of pieces in the box.

First Law of PBM

If all else fails, blame it on the Post Office.

First Law of FTF

If all else fails, cheat.

White’s Laws on Pets and Wargames

1. All pets will mess up a wargame if given the opportunity.
2. Pets will always eat or destroy the most important piece.
3. Pets will never mess up a game in which you are losing.

NMR Law (Allies)

The probability of an ally NMRing is directly proportional to the amount of aid he has promised you.

NMR Law (Enemies)

Enemies never NMR unless you don’t attack them.

Trustworthiness Law

The trustworthiness of an opponent is inversely proportional to the actual amount of trust you have in him.

Reputation Law

The quality of your reputation is inversely proportional to the length of time it took to acquire it.

Press Laws

1. If they take offense, claim it was misprinted.
2. If you write a good piece of press, use it often.
3. If someone else writes a good piece of press, steal it and claim it as your own.

Pittsburgh Steelers Law

Everybody is entitled to get lucky now and then.

Houston Oiler Law

Everybody is entitled to get unlucky now and then.

Hobby Dictum

If Rod Walker and John Boardman agree on something, it must be true.

Conrad von Metzke Law

Old pubbers never die, they just fold away.

Ron Kelly Law

The need for standby positions expands so as to fill the number of standby positions he has volunteered for.

Deadline Law

No deadline is perfect; it’s either too short or too long.

Law of Negotiations

The amount of time available for negotiation is inversely proportional to the importance of the negotiations.

Law of Orphans

1. No one will pick up your orphan until you have entered another game to replace it.
2. The probability of any game being orphaned is directly proportional to how you are doing in that game.

Law of Pubbing Errors

All errors in your position will be calculated to put you in the worst position; errors in somebody else’s position will improve their position.

White’s Houserules

1. The GM is always right.
2. In cases where the GM is wrong, consult rule #1.

Stabbing Theory

Opponents are always prepared for your attacks.

Theory of Being Stabbed

They always catch you off your guard.

Russian Player’s Motto

An apparent advantage is apparently not an advantage.

Distribution Law

You never have enough of your right kind of units at the right place.
Corollary: You never have enough of the right kind of units at the right place at the right time.

Observation By a 3-Center Turkey

The way my luck is going, I’ll probably survive.

Victory Condition Law

The ease in acquiring new centers is inversely proportional to the number of centers you already have.

Alliance Law

A strong ally is an ally; a weak ally is a victim.

And may I add…

Typing Error Law

If there is a word that you continually mistype, it will be the word used most often in the article. (Jerry Jones)

The Model Diplomacy Player

By Scott Marley

From Diplomacy World #28

I am the very model of a player of Diplomacy:

		  My armies like to stay on land, my fleets prefer to roam asea.
		  I know the sections of the board I'm not supposed to travel on,
		  Like Switzerland and Iceland and the hill that's known as Avalon.
		  Then I can take my army Brest and convoy it to Picardy,
		  And make a stronger ally think that I'm his little chickadee;
		  But if I find a way to trap an unsuspecting foreigner,
		  I'll stab him in the back and then buy off the county coroner.
		  Then I can write an order that is strictly unambiguous,
		  And tell you when North Africa and Spain can be contiguous.
		  My fleets, I say again, are much inclined to sail the foam asea,
		  Which makes me quite the model of a player of Diplomacy!
			

On every aspect of the game I've written very wittily,

		  From "How-to-Pick-a-Phoney-Name" to "How-to-Run-From-Italy".
		  I have a special opening I published in FREDONIA
		  That guarantees in Fall oh--two that France will take Livonia.
		  I'm very good at gimmicks, the strategic and the tactical,
		  From hopelessly outrageous down to patently impractical.
		  On stalemate lines I'm just about considered an authority
		  By everyone except an insignificant majority.
		  My papers and my lectures and my speeches to the media
		  Would probably suffice to fill a small encyclopedia.
		  So all of you who aren't in a stupor or a coma see
		  I am the very model of a player of Diplomacy!
			

In fact, when I can tell a lie without complete transparency,

		  When I stop trying “SPRING OH-ONE: St. Petersburg to Barents Sea",
		  When I can play a game and keep a couple of my promises,
		  When I can make a move without consulting what my swami says,
		  When I have learned a little of the art of modern puppetry,
		  When I can stab my closest friend without my ending up a tree,
		  When I stop getting Austria each time that I begin a game,
		  Then maybe in a year or so perhaps I'll even win a game.
		  For my knowledge of the game with all its details and its particles
		  Entirely derives from writing lots and lots of articles:
		  As long as I am published from Savannah to Sonoma, see,
		  I am the very model of a player of Diplomacy!!
			

“With of course a grateful bow in the direction of Sir W. S. Gilbert.”

I’ve Got A Little List

By Scott Marley

From Diplomacy World #30

As someday it might happen I may have to stab a friend

		  I've got a little list--I've got a little list
		  Of players of Diplomacy who bother me no end
		  Who never would be missed! Who never would be missed!
		  The clods who lay their armies on their sides, and then those chaps
		  Who borrow all your pencils and then mark up all your maps,
		  The timid young beginner who is innocent and shy,
		  Who doesn’t break a promise and who never tells a lie,
		  And hasn’t played a parlor game since Granny taught him Whist --
		  They'd none of them be missed! They'd none of them be missed!
			

The fellow who writes articles to popular acclaim,

		  The self-made theorist, I’ve got him on the list!
		  He's much too busy lecturing to ever play the game --
		  He never would be missed! He never would be missed!
		  The D-and-D enthusiast whose attitude is brisk,
		  Who glances at the board and says, "This game's a lot like Risk!”
		  The conflict simulations nut who likes his rules complex
		  And gets confused by games that haven't got a single hex,
		  The girlfriend of the host who says she wants to “co-exist”,
		  They’d none of them be missed!  They'd none of them be missed!
			

That Italy who opens with Lepanto every time,

		  The modern strategist, I’ve got him on the list!
		  The ever-faithful ally who thinks treachery’s a crime,
		  He never would be missed! He never would be missed!
		  The analyst of stalemate lines who never knows a flaw
		  And manages to make each game a seven-player draw,
		  The irritating fellow who, before he makes his play,
		  Must check his little guide to see what Walker has to say,
		  I'll line them up in order and then give the blade a twist,
		  And they never will be missed!  They never will be missed!
			

(Adapted from: The Mikado)

Please Stand By

By Elkin C. O’G. Darrow

From Diplomacy World #31

Normally a Diplomacy game should proceed smoothly from beginning to end. We should expect that at the end of the game the surviving Great Powers are played by the same persons who played them at the beginning. This is not true in most postal games. The real-time length of postal play makes it necessary for many players to resign or drop out. When this happens the Gamesmaster must choose between disrupting the game by leaving the position in civil disorder or finding a new player for the abandoned position. Most Gamesmasters will choose the latter course. This fact creates a great opportunity for beginning players particularly, as well as for those who enjoy playing in many games at once or with interesting positions. In most hobby publications, individuals may enter games-in-progress as “replacement players”.

Most persons presently in postal play know the procedure. A Gamesmaster will maintain a list of “stand-by” players who are willing to assume abandoned positions in ongoing games. If a player fails to submit orders for a given season, a stand-by player is requested to send orders for the next. If the same player again fails to send orders, the stand-bys are used and he becomes the new player for that Great Power. Similarly if a player resigns, a stand-by player is made the new player for that Great Power.

It can be argued that the entrance of a new personality into a game can also be disruptive. He may choose to completely switch his country's foreign policy and attack former allies. It is similarly argued that a position in a game belongs to the original player and that he may do as he chooses with it, including placing it in civil disorder.

Although the right of the original player is acknowledged, we must conclude that once his country is in civil disorder he has lost all interest in it. It is true that if he were not replaced he could later re-enter the game and submit orders for his remaining units. This has actually happened in a few rare instances but in general an abandoned position remains that way until its last unit is eliminated.

If a country in civil disorder has only one or two units, it's not considered disruptive by many Gamesmasters. Some will not replace a defaulting player unless he has a certain minimum number of units. But it's a fact that in many games even a single unit may play a crucial role in determining the outcome of a game. It's therefore less disruptive to the game if every country which goes into civil disorder is given to a replacement player.

Some players who have acted as stand-bys in the past that they do not wish to play “small positions”. It’s true that such positions can be hopeless and therefore frustrating to a player who spends time and postage trying to salvage it. Larger positions may be seen as offering more interest and challenge because they offer more hope. But the stand-by player takes his chances. Some abandoned positions are quite large. Some are even very close to victory. Most are however very small because discouragement with the situation plays a large part in dropouts and resignations. Even a very small position can be salvaged. It has been done in the past. It’s true that some very small positions have come to be under replacement players who have then gone on to victory or a draw. These positions are admittedly rare. And some positions will appear hopeless and turn out to not be.

Experienced and less-experienced players alike can derive benefit and enjoyment from acting as replacement players. This is an inexpensive way of playing in a large number of games. Most Gamesmasters charge stand-by and replacement players only the cost of a subscription. A few feel the service rendered is so valuable they will send copies of their 'zines free to active replacement players.

The experienced player should be especially sensitive to the challenge presented by game positions abandoned by others. Diplomatic skills can be sharpened by the struggle to re-forge shaky alliances and recover military strength and momentum. It is important to know how to salvage a deteriorating situation.

The less-experienced play-by-mail player will find replacement positions invaluable. I have already mentioned sharpening diplomatic skills. The newer player will also find himself able to experience mid-game and endgame situations which he would otherwise not be in until he has been in the hobby for a year or more. This is a great advantage.

This advantage is not completely tangible. It's gaining a sort of knowledge which can only be gained by experience. Many articles have been written about openings and the play of the early game. Aspects of the later game such as the highly important stalemate lines have been discussed in many articles. But success in the later game cannot be based on tactics or strategies alone. Winning often depends on knowing the right things to do or say, and the right times to do or say them. This knowledge is primarily a product of experience and experience is gained through playing in manyames.

Many replacement players participate in the game as if they believe they are only place-holders. This is most true if the position is a small one. The replacements frequently conduct little diplomacy and adopt conservative “survival” tactics. I have never felt that mere survival is a valid goal in this game. The game of Diplomacy is played best when every player attempts to win the game himself and to deny victory to every other player. The challenge for the newly-entered replacement player can be no less than that. It's not an impossible goal. If it's deemed unlikely by the replacement when he enters the game, then the challenge is that much greater. A great challenge should provoke greater interest. And it should provoke a stronger response. It should not provoke apathy and automaton-like move-making. This is the time to put all one’s diplomatic and tactical skills on the line and see what may be done with a situation others may regard as hopeless.

There are ways a replacement player may increase his potential in the game. It is imperative to review the last several seasons of the game. The orders and press releases should be closely scrutinized for what they will reveal about alliances and negotiations.

Once the replacement is thoroughly familiar with the game situation, he should immediately conduct an aggressive letter-writing campaign. The object will be to convince the other players that he is an active part of their game and that they should negotiate with him.

It has never been my feeling that a replacement player is bound by past alliances and agreements. But I also do not feel that the promises of the previous player should be lightly thrown over. Keeping already-made agreements is the path of least resistance. This easy path may also prove to be a sell-out of the player's position. The replacement player must be ready to examine his predecessor's alliances and other pacts and to readily abandon those which do not serve his interests.

I have said that a replacement player should not act as a conservative place-holder. My intent is to state the opposite. A replacement player should be daring and aggressive. By the time a game is in its later stages a player may feel he has invested much time and money on it. He may not wish to overly jeopardize his position by taking risks. Yet few victories are achieved without risk. The replacement player has no such investment. If he might otherwise feel inhibited he [word missing – “should” – Ed.] not be squeamish here. I do not say that risks should be rash. Diplomacy is the art of calculated risks and the replacement player can more easily “afford” to take them.

Replacement players: be bold. Be resolute. A single unit can be a fortress. A pair of units can be an attack force. Not every taken-over position will inevitably lead to victory. But even a lost game will help sharpen diplomatic skills.

Therefore I commend to all Diplomacy players the replacement position. Standing-by for abandoned positions will greatly aid players as well as Gamesmasters.

The Diplomacy Zoo

Text by Guy Hail

Artwork by Elizabeth Hail

From Diplomacy World #31

1. The Invariant Vulture

The Vulture is a player who has made his mind up about whom to attack. After that he will not change his mind, no matter what the circumstances or what agreement you offer. He regards any attempt at negotiation or friendship to be part of a strategy for counter-attack.

2. The Rapacious Rodent.

The Rodent is a player who regards those weaker than himself as little more than neutrals such as Serbia. Instead of allying with the weak against the strong, he always allies with the strong against the weak. This almost always results in a drawn game. The Rodent also regards any attempt at neutralizing an area unworkable because he believes no player can be trusted to act as promised, even if the agreement is to the other player’s advantage.

3. The Weak-Willed Warbler

The Warbler is a player who, when attacked, promptly hands over his entire country to your enemies in an attempt to promote discord even though he will no longer be in the game. He will only defend against you, even though others threaten him.

4. Elsie Coughlan

Elsie is the pet (or mascot, or whatever) of Gary Coughlan, editor of EUROPA EXPRESS. She doesn’t play Diplomacy but just dropped by to watch the others. [Probably the best policy, with these other turkeys … RW]

That can’t be all to the Zoo … there must be all kinds of interesting fauna in the hobby. We would like to see perhaps other collections of Dip-beasties. They should be both true and humorous (which in this hobby, ain’t hard a-tall).

The Curse of Austria

By Scott Marley

From Diplomacy World #32

(I met a man the other day
While walking through the park:
His face was taut and ashen-gray,
His eyes were ringed and dark.
I asked him why he looked so pale –
Had he enough to eat?
and so he told this ghastly tale
Which I shall now repeat.)

Behold the story of my shame:
Six years ago, I own,
We started up a Dippy game
Observed by one old crone.
I drew a block and closed my fist,
Its color none might see,
When suddenly the woman hissed
And pointed straight at me.

“Beware the Curse — “ she cried at me
(I thought she must be daft),
“Beware the Curse of Austria!”
But I just jeered and laughed.
“Beware the Curse of Austria!”
She shrieked, with eyes aflame,
“For he who chooses Austria
Can never win a game!”

My laughter changed to deathly calm,
My smile gave way to shock,
To find upon my shaking palm
The dreaded scarlet block.
And so the Curse of Austria
Had come to rest on me —
The crone knew right, for Austria
was out by Fall ‘03.

At once the Russian and the Turk
Had started creeping west,
While, due to the Italian's work,
I lost my poor Trieste.
The German forced me to retreat
While France carved up my home,
And soon a silent English fleet
Was sailing into Rome.

And ever since, the Scarlet Curse
Has treated me the same,
And Austria does worse and worse
In each succeeding game.
Last month I watched Vienna grabbed
By France in Spring ‘01,
And now I’m nearly always stabbed
Before the game’s begun.

I fall upon my hands and knees
And try my best to pray.
“My Lord," I cry, "Have mercy, please,
And take this plague away!”
And yet I draw the scarlet block
In every game I play,
And still the Curse of Austria,
This Bloody Curse of Austria,
Is with me night and day.

Though twenty lanterns in my room
Spill forth their brightest light,
They cannot cure the awful gloom
Nor keep away the night.
The ruddy, swollen moon may rise,
I lie awake in bed,
For every time I close my eyes
Then all I see is red.

I try to shut my bloodshot eyes,
But all I see is red.

No more to eat, no more to sleep,
No more to shower or shave,
I lie in bed and wail and weep
And rail and rant and rave
In horror for this frightened sheep
The Lord Himself can't save,
This teeny, tiny, trembling sheep
That Death alone shall save,
Who lives the Curse of Austria,
The Scarlet Curse of Austria,
And knows the Curse of Austria
Will haunt him to his grave.

The Fiery Curse of Austria,
The Crimson Curse of Austria,
The Scarlet Curse of Austria
Will haunt me to my grave.

The Rollins Rule

By Mark L. Berch

From Diplomacy World #32

(Hello! As you've probably read elsewhere, I've recently won the 1996 election for Hobby Historian. My predecessor Bob did a good job (though I guess you might not have gotten that impression from some of my campaign ads -- sorry about that), but I’ve got some new ideas. One of them is going to be a semi-regular column in Diplomacy World. My friend and ally in 1995CM (though it will be former ally by the time you read this) have suggested a question to start things off: What was the origin of the Rollins Rule?)

For those of you who don't play postally, or who just entered the hobby, the Rule (in its original form) states, “When submitting orders by telephone, telegraph, or other electronic means, or by third party, the player's own codeword must be used.” The rule was named after, and by, Al Rollins, GM of 1984WF, which he ran in his zine *Ill Gotten Gains*.

To give the full flavor of the incident, it would be best to use direct quotations from the people involved. We start with IGG #27:

"1984WF -- Summer 1901. The game is delayed. I have received the following from Dave Springer: 'You got my order wrong. I moved A Vie-Tri, not A Vie-Tyo as was in #26. Enclosed is a Xerox of my carbon in case you didn't keep it. Please try to be more careful in the future, as your dumb mistake has caused quite a lot of confusion.’ Apparently Dave sent Xeroxes to other players, since several mentioned this. Anyhow, his written orders did in fact say A Vie-Tri. However, the night before the deadline I got a change of orders phone call, changing just that order to A Vie-Tyo. I should explain my procedure. I keep a spiral notebook and a pad of paper, with some carbon, by the phone. If I get a dippy call, I turn to the end of my last notes in the spiral notebook, slip a carbon and another sheet under the page, and take my notes. Once I'm done, the original stays in the notebook of course, and the carbon gets filed with wherever it is needed. For this it was the WF folder with the orders. If the conversation were for a game I was in, I'd file it with that game, ‘cause I like to keep track of the lies I tell over the phone too! Anyhow, both the carbon and original show 'A Vie-Tyo'. I had also written 'Sounds nervous'. In fact, I remember the call. The person had a somewhat high pitched voice. I waited a few days, and then had my wife call Dave, so he would not be aware of what I was doing. Dave answered the phone and he definitely has a low pitched voice. I tried the stunt 2 days later with the same result. I've also checked with a friend who is in another game with Dave and he said yes, Dave has a low pitched voice. So the caller wasn't him. So it looks like a certain someone who had something to gain has pulled this stunt. Thus, unless I hear some objections, switch the Austrian orders to A Vie-Tri. This of course means that A Ven-Tri and A Rom-Ven both fail for Italy. Deadline is on page 1."

Alas, things were not that simple. The following then appeared in TGG #28:

“1984WF --Very late summer 1901 - Another game delay. I have gotten the following from the Italian player, Nick Rizzo: 'I most certainly do object. Furthermore, I resent your crack about "a certain someone who has something to gain.” You have no business making such comments, and your impugning my honesty can't help but harm me in this game. I most certainly did not phone in those orders you referred to, nor did I have someone else do it. Why do you assume that it wasn't an Austrian plot? He figures I'm going to attack, but he doesn't know whether it will be via Tyo or Tri. So he covers Tri with his written orders and Tyo with a phone call. If I move A Ven-Tyo, he just keeps his mouth shut; and if I open A Ven-Tri, as I actually did, then he denounces the telephone order and again am foiled. The voice means zilch - he could have had a friend make the call. And as a bonus he makes me look like a cheat because obviously the call profited me...’”

And so he did. IGG #29 had the following:

“1984WF -- Absolutely the last day of Summer 1901. I've heard from my friends. For the sake of completeness, I’ll print what they had to say on the issue:

Bruce Linsey: 'Accede to Austria’s request and switch to A Vie-Tri. If you leave the orders the way they are, you are assuming that Austria is the cheater, i.e. you don't accept his word that the phone call was made by an imposter. This, however, involves no such assumption. Italy need not be the culprit if you make this choice. I feel you should take Austria's word as “evidence” unless you have reason to believe that Austria is lying.'

Jim Benes: 'Replay the season, allowing any player who likes to drop out of the game, full money returned. It's clear that somebody tried to deceive you, but it's unclear who. For all you know, it was a player other than Italy or Austria trying out a newly-thought-of technique. I'd also advise you to require all moves in this game to be written from here on out. You can't have an honest result if somebody tries to abuse the convenience you've allowed by accepting telephoned orders. After all, it did start out as POSTAL Diplomacy.'

Doug Beyerlein: 'I advise you to leave the adjudication as A Vie-Tyo. You had no protection mechanism set up to protect yourself from allegedly phony telephone orders and thus are forced to assume that all phone orders are real. Without a codeword system you have no other choice as you have no proof one way or the other about the phone call changing the order. Obviously this hurts the Austrian player's position (with Italy now in Trieste), but either way the GM decides someone is going to get hurt. It is impossible to know whether or not this is fair, as the Austrian player may have just outsmarted himself with this trick (if it is an Austrian trick as the Italian player claims), but at least this ruling is consistent with the above stated GM assumption that all phone orders are real and, if nothing else, a GM should be consistent in his rulings. Of course, in the future the GM should use a password system to prevent this problem from occurring again.'

Once his decision was made, Rollins promulgated the rule requiring the use of codewords except for ordinary letters. This was of course not the first use of codewords. GMs in the past had occasionally required them for all communications. The solution was more harmful than the problem, since it always engendered a stream of NMRs from forgetful players.

Other GMs had on occasion issued codewords, but had made them optional in all cases. However, Rollins viewed codewords as a protection for the players. 1984WF made it clear that a, or even the, major reason for codewords was for the protection of the GM. As the 1986 GMing Handbook put it, "The GM is entitled to expel a player for deception of the GM; some even view this as a responsibility. However, he cannot effectuate this power if he doesn't know who is doing the deception. The use of codewords for phoned-in orders makes this easier, and more importantly, it discourages the deception in the first place. Preventing a problem such as this is always superior to any solution." It should be noted that the 84WF business got a great deal of publicity at the time, and that fact no doubt gave the incident more impact. A number of GMs at the time expressed sympathy to Rollins at the awful quandary he was in. Several of the players in 84WF were later to say that they felt that all of them had been tainted by suspicion from the hobby—the feeling that there was, in a way, one chance in 7 that any given player in the game was a cheat.

The Italian player found an interesting way to deal with the problem. He left the hobby about 5 years after the incident, but Diana Rivers managed to grab him then for one of her “Exit Interviews", where he said: "I didn’t make the phone call, and I don’t know who did. But WF got a huge amount of publicity – everybody knew about it. I was sure that people were suspicious of me, even if they didn't say anything. There was nothing I could do about that. So I figured I should try to make the best of it, try to turn it to my advantage... I had two lines I used. One was that it was Turkey's doing, not so much to affect the adjudication, but to poison the A-I relationship right from the start, and in general to besmirch both I and A. The second theory was that it was done by someone outside the game, an enemy of Rollins who wanted to screw up his game. Both theories were pure jive—but, hey, this is Diplomacy!"

So that's the story. The recent Poll of GMing Practices showed that 62% of all GMs use the Rollins Rule or some simple variant thereof.

((Note: Although the actual incident has not happened (yet), the statements attributed to Benes, Beyerlein, and Linsey were actually written by them, at the request of the author and on the basis of the facts of the case as presented in the first portion of the article. The names Rollins, Springer, Rizzo, and Rivers are of course fictitious.))

Funeral in Munich

Fiction by Mark L. Berch

From Diplomacy World #32

I suppose I should have considered my campaign in the northeast a success. My German armies had found their targets. But the French stab had soured the taste of success. The Russian player telling me I-told-you-so didn’t help, either.

Anyhow, Kie had been taken in F05, and I had saved Mun in S06 only by outguessing his A Kie and standing him out. But he had brought up fresh units, so my lonely A Ber was faced with the dreaded wall of A Kie -Ruh-Bur. If that were not bad enough, the Austrians had armies in Boh and Tyo. It was known that Austrian-Italian relations were not that good, and the Italian would have a choice to make with his A Pie. My diplomatic work was cut out for me.

After the Franco-Italian conference broke up, I collared the Frenchman and launched into my spiel: “Look, you need someone to restrain the Austrian. If you take Mun, I'll be crippled—and unwilling to do the task. What's more, the Italian, needing a build, will….”

He cut me off immediately. "Forget it. I want Mun and I can take it. I need that build and I'm not concerned about the Italians. Whatever I can't reach in the east, Austria is welcome to. Your funeral will be in Munich."

He was ready to say more, but did not deem that wise. I smiled and thanked him for his candor, which I could see he appreciated. I then zipped over to the Austrian, who had kept his eye on us and had just finished talking to the Italian.

“If you're asking for support for A Ber-Mun, you're wasting your time. I’ve got….”

I didn’t let him get any further. "No, no, it's not that. I'm not concerned about France. He's sliding his armies to Gas and Bur to prepare for a war with Italy. I don't want you to take Mun. Who will check the French growth; at least, who will slow him down? You are in no good position to do that yourself. Let me keep Mun. You know I am no danger to you, as my attention will be taken up by France. Venice, you will notice I’m sure, is open.” I spoke slowly and repeated myself a few times. It seemed he was rethinking things even as I spoke.

"No dice,” he said firmly. “I want it myself. If I restrict his growth by taking Mun while I can, he’ll be more inclined to go after Italy rather than mop up against you even further. Plus I've promised Italy I’d evacuate Tyo, and I've run out of excuses for not doing it by now. And if I let you build this year, it's going to slow the business of my taking your Russian centers down.”

I continued to discuss things with him, but I could see there was no point in trying to budge him from his stance. I raised other issues, trying to see how much of Russia he wanted, trying to get him to keep talking of his plans, to get him to keep talking.

Orders were then due. As was our custom, each read his own. France started first, and ended his reading with, " A Kie and A Bur S A Ruh-Mun, A Ruh-Mun. Sorry pal, but I’m trusting Italy here.”

"Damn,” said Austria. "I wasted my move. I could have blocked Germany out of Silesia. I might even have taken Ven.”

“Venice?” inquired Italy. “You’d go for Venice?”

Before Austria could calm him down, France cut through and bellowed, “Your orders!”

Austrians unhappily read through his, ending up with "…A Boh S A Tyo-Mun.”

France grinned and boasted, “Ha! He who opposes France fritters away his moves. Get thee to the east!!”

I then read mine, ending up with “A Ber Austrian A Tyo-Mun.”

France, who seemed to think he was supposed to provide commentary on every move, said, "I thought you were going to support A Pru-Sil with that, as a…wait…actually you can’t support the dislodgement of your own…um…Damn!” He then turned to Austria. "You fool. He supported you. It's 3 on 3 now, so he keens Mun. It's your fault. If you hadn't attacked I’d have gotten in."

Austria was unhappy and in no mood for France’s abuse. “Well, if you hadn’t attacked, I'd have gotten in.”

“That’s all right,” said France, starting to calm down. “It’s just going to take longer to bring Germany down, that’s all. That build wasn’t vital to me. I can…”

"Actually, you have a removal," said Italy. "I took Mar."

I waited until the rest of the orders were read and then, staring straight at France, said, “I took StP this year, and guess what open home center…I said, open home center…that build will come in?”

Yes, the game was looking up. The build, the units which had entered Sil and Den in the fall (not to mention F Bot, which was now free to move to the Baltic), the bad feeling between France and Austria, Italy's attack on France. Yes, there was a funeral in Munich, but the casket was empty.

Allan B. Calhamer Takes a Look at the Avalon Hill Diplomacy Program

From Diplomacy World #38

I have received the new Diplomacy program from Avalon Hill and examined it on a TRS-80, courtesy of the local Radio Shack.

Another player and I spent two hours alone with the machine and program in a quiet room.

Among the advantages the program appears to have are:

• It adjudicates the entire move in moments.
• The adjudications are correct, so far as I can determine. Thus a new group, unfamiliar with the rules, can start right out with the correct adjudications, instead of unwittingly playing a variant game. It will not be necessary to go back to the rulebook to adjudicate fine points that come up only occasionally.
• Arguments over adjudications should be eliminated.
• If you don't have seven people, the computer will play as many countries as you wish, though not necessarily strongly. Of course, one person can play more than one country as well.
• Questions and instructions appear onscreen to direct the players as they go along, minimizing the amount of learning necessary to work with the program.
• The program rejects impossible, ambiguous, and poorly written orders. The player can alter his orders after keying them in, until he signals that he is finished entering orders. The rulebook has been rewritten to incorporate a user's manual. It is not much longer than the ordinary rulebook. A few small errors were detected in the rulebook-manual, and have been reported to AH.
• The program prints a map onscreen. The map is too big for the screen; pushing buttons moves it from side to side and up and down. Players might worry about strategic grasp of the whole board during play; but if you have a set already, you probably would use that set as a visual aid to follow the game. You would have to decide what to do, however, when the position on the board differed from that in the computer.
• Each player inputs his orders by sitting down at the computer. There is no way he can summon up the orders previously inputted, at this point! No peeking, either, says the rulebook-manual. One can see why; but a major tactic of over-the-board play is thus eliminated.
• Miscellaneous information, such as the number of centers each country has, is served up onscreen.
• Something might have to be done about the possibility of players accessing the Alter subroutine, which can alter the board position!
• The program is also ready on Apple, and they are working on it for other machines. It seems to me to be an excellent program, user-friendly, and a herculean job by Avalon Hill.

((I assume everyone knows that Allan is the inventor of Diplomacy…I’m told that Computer Diplomacy is scheduled for summer release but may not be quite available yet. I’m also informed that AH expects to include, as part of the Computer Diplomacy package, a Gamer’s Guide to Computer Diplomacy. You may find a familiar name listed as the author. –Ed.))

A Rulebook Dilemma

Can a Unit Ordered to Move Nonetheless Be Supported in Place?

By Mark L. Berch

What a ridiculous question, you say. Berch isn't going to waste pages in DW when IX.6 clearly states, "A unit ordered to move may receive support only for its attempted movement. It may not be supported in place in the event that its attempted movement fails."

As it happens, however, many GMs believe that there is an exception to this rule, a circumstance where a unit ordered to move can be supported in place. How common this view is I do not know; my guess would be that a majority of GMs do hold such a position.

In January 1984, Mark Larzelere ruled that a player who ordered F Mid-Hol (impossible), F Bre & F Por S F Mid did receive support for F Mid, so that the attack F NAt-Mid S by F Iri & F Eng failed. Larzelere stated, "Not all GMs would agree on how to rule regarding the French F Mid, whether it is 'ordered to move' and thus can’t be supported in place, or was given an 'impossible' order, and it is treated as holding."

Also in January 1984, Bruce Linsey, in Voice of Doom 89, writing about a situation in which a player ordered A Swe-Kie, A Nwy S A Swe, and there was no fleet to convoy, said, “The move is impossible, and the army is treated as holding, and the support would therefore have succeeded.”

Let’s start with the obvious: they've gotten the Rulebook slightly wrong. What VII.4 says is, "An illegal order is not followed, and the unit so ordered simply stands in its place." Note: “Stands", not “holds.” This then raises the question of whether “stands” and “holds” mean the same thing. I say they do not.

Alas, the Rulebook does not define “stands", and if you look through the rules, you see that the word "stands" does not appear anywhere else. The closest is IX.4: “While a country may not dislodge its own units, it can stand itself off by ordering two equally well supported attacks on the same space." The word here is "stand”, not “stands". It is my position that "stand" in IX.4 and "stands” in VII.4 are simply the transitive and intransitive forms of the same verb, and therefore they should be treated the same in the adjudication. It is striking how similar the circumstances of VII.4 and IX.4 are. In both cases, a unit is given a move order but does not actually move. In fact, one can even argue a second similarity—that in both cases, the player didn't even “intend" to move his piece (though I'm not relying on that argument). In both cases, we say that the unit(s) stands. A unit which is said to stand in the sense of IX.4 obviously cannot receive support in place, and I feel that the same ruling should be made for a unit which stands in the sense of VII.4.

Thus my main argument is that the best guide for the meaning of “stands” is the word “stand", since they are virtually the same word and arise in very similar circumstances. In the absence of any other clear definition, that should be used, and thus such a unit cannot be supported in place.

I have some secondary arguments as well. The first is from "realism". I realize that it is quite debatable whether “realism” has any role at all in such an abstract game as Diplomacy. This argument then has meaning only if you happen to be one of those who believe “realism” has some role. The Rulebook doesn't discuss the question directly, though there are places where Calhamer is clearly trying to give a ring of realism to the rules (such as the definition of fleets in VI.2, the reference to the use of waterways in VII.3a, restrictions on two-coasted provinces in VII.3b, etc.).

In the real world, an order to “hold" would presumably involve actions designed to keep one in place. Trenches would be dug, anchors would be dropped, and the like. Other units could support this attempt to remain in place by helping establish a common defensive perimeter, mining the approaches. A move order is exactly the opposite, and support for a move order would presumably take a completely different form. Here the supporting unit would possibly send spies into the province to be attacked, would provide “covering” or distracting fire, would try to protect the supply lines which lengthen in an attack, etc. These would be of little or no value at all in helping a unit stay in place. Thus, a unit ordered to provide support would not be doing the sorts of things that are helpful to a unit under attack in its own province. And a unit ordered to move is not in a configuration to receive such help.

Second, if “stands" is supposed to mean “hold”, why didn't Calhamer say so? Why would he use a word which is essentially the same as a word he's already using, and have it mean something different? In other words, why would he pick a word (stands) that doesn't resemble the word (hold) he wants it to mean, and closely resembles a word (stand) that he doesn't intend. After all, he is usually very exacting, telling us, for example, that attack and move mean about the same thing, and instructing us on the differences between thin and thick lines. It seems inconsistent for him to have left out “hold” = “stands".

Finally, it seems to me that a rule ought to stand unless it is clear that there is an exception to it. IX.6 is quite explicit, and no exception should be made to it unless we are sure that an exception was really intended. And we're not. Moreover, if this is an exception, why didn't Calhamer note that there would be an exception later? Note, for example, Rule VIII, where the fact that there are exceptions elsewhere is explicitly noted.

Thus I believe that a unit ordered to move cannot be supported in place simply because the player has chosen an impossible order, and that IX.6 should be followed without exception.

((Rod Walker here. Although I agree with Mark's conclusion (with one minor exception), I am not sure about the whole argument about “stand". The term “stands" in VII.4 is really an anachronistic holdover from the older Rulebook. In the 1961 Rules, the terms “stand” and "hold" tended to be used interchangeably••• although I'm fairly certain that "hold" meant "ordered to hold" and "stand" meant "not ordered to move" (that is, ordered to support or convoy, or not ordered at all). But there was no practical result of this distinction. The 1961 Rules, for instance, called what is now Rule IX.6 "Standing and Receiving Support" (emphasis mine).

((Even so, the use of "stands" in VII.4 is quite possibly deliberate, indicating that a unit ordered to move, and which fails, isn't "holding" and can't be supported…that is, an illegal order doesn't translate to hold. Rule IX.6 really does seem clear that only a unit which is ordered to hold, support, or convoy, or is given no order at all, may be given support in place. A unit given an order to move, even an illegal one (e.g. F Mid-Hol), does not qualify for support under IX.6, period. This is regardless of the meaning of VII.4. The other order in question, by the way, A Swe-Kie (where there is no convoy), is not illegal anyway…it is merely a mistaken order (lack of a convoy should never make a perfectly legal convoyable order "illegal").

((Thus Rule IX.6 requires that if a unit is given an order to move anywhere on the board, it is not eligible to receive support in place. My "minor exception" is this: if a unit is given an order to move to a place not on the board or impassable (e.g. F Brest-Argentina, A Munich seek refuge in Switzerland, and such-like), I count it as a “joke” order and translate it, in, effect, back to "hold".))

In Defense of Albania

by J.C. Hodgins

In all the copious Diplomacy literature, pertaining to strategy, tactics, alliances, personalities, stabs, revenge, psychology, openings, negotiations, and color of units, one country has been notoriously left out. Albania. It is the intent of this article to rectify this sorry situation.

What is it about Albania that players don't like? It is, after all, quite a special place in the Diplomacy world. It is the smallest of the three non-Power, non-supply center provinces on the Diplomacy board. This means, however, that players must continually move aside fleets and armies which reside in Albania so they can read the name of the province. This in turn leads an observant player to spread the word "He’s going after Albania!", and another fine strategy inevitably goes down the drain.

Albania does not have a dot, which means that the economy can’t produce enough goods to support an army or fleet. The Albanians have a complex about this and very often get mad at Switzerland because at least it is "impassable." Somebody should tell the Albanians that their economy, based largely on the production of horseshoes, is not a viable one in an age of mechanized transportation.

Situated on the Adriatic between beautiful Serbia, rugged Greece, and downtown Trieste, Albania also has access to the Ionian Sea. The people are friendly, but do get tired sometimes of being invaded by the red guys, the green guys, and the yellow guys. The white guys aren't much bother, but sometimes they sleep over too.

Albania is a favorite resort spot for Austrian fleets. The Austrians are always heading there on their way south in Spring 1901. They never stop for long, however, deciding to travel to Greece most times. Must be the food or something. The Turks, who generally have stronger stomachs than the rest of Europe, love to go there for "a good game of horseshoes."

Albania is usually a strategic goal of England. The Wicked Witch of the North quite often directs much diplomatic pressure on Germany to "stay the heck out of Albania!" This causes much consternation in Berlin as the Kaiser never has any desire to enter Albania anyway. But no one likes to be pushed around, and so war usually breaks out. Statistically, Albania is the cause of 87% of all Anglo-German fights in Diplomacy.

Most of the other powers are content to leave Albania alone initially, and Italy has enough problems getting Army Venice to hold.

"All roads lead to Rome" is actually a misquote of the more accurate "All roads lead to Albania," which is itself only true because so many people over the years have LEFT Albania that it just SEEMS that all roads lead INTO it.

Albania is also near the beginning of any list of provinces in alphabetical order.

It has a big crease running through it when you open the board.

Hopefully, after reading the above information, Diplomacy players will have a better appreciation of this tiny but great province. Just remember, without Albania in Diplomacy, Trieste would touch Greece. So there!

Press in Diplomacy

By David K. McCrumb

Originally appearing in Diplomacy World #44

Play-by-mail Diplomacy has a different flavor of play from face-to-face Diplomacy, for many reasons. Some of the most obvious include: the different type of interaction between the players; the longer time between turn adjudications; and the possibility of small articles dealing with the game. This last item, commonly called "press" is the most misunderstood and ignored difference in the two styles of play. The problem is not a lack of press, but rather because it is assumed that anybody can sit down and write a competent piece of fiction in only five minutes. For this reason, press usually lacks the intensity and thoughtfulness that are regularly found in the moves.

The greatest problem with press is that most people do not know how to write an effective article. By definition, press is criticism, news, etc. that is published in newspapers and journals. This definition has been expanded in Diplomacy to include all fiction about the game in progress. The number of press releases has not diminished over the years I have been playing Diplomacy, but the quality has dropped tremendously.

During the 1970s, press articles usually involved well thought out stories about the situations as they appeared on the game board. Characters were invented and their exploits followed throughout the entire game. Occasionally, spin-off characters (as is done with successful television programs) were formed, adding to the fun. Parodies of story and song were frequently used. While these were fun in themselves, the literary quality was kept high. The enjoyment of the games increased to the point where you would sometimes look forward to the next turn more for the press than for the results.

Press in its present-day form is much different. Most releases are only one or two lines long. They usually include a short note from one player to another apologizing for not writing that season, gloating over some success, or something of that nature that could be handled much better. A few paragraphs about the subject would be much more interesting, especially if well done. The decline in secondary education may have something to do with this literary decline, but I am still surprised since most Diplomacy players are above the average intelligence.

Even with all the bad writing, all of the blame cannot be placed on the players. A great deal of it is the fault of the publishers. Many of them do not know how to properly write fiction themselves, and when it comes to reproducing a press article they make many mistakes. I have had releases printed with conversations all run into one paragraph, quotation marks left out, and date lines purged. As a result continuity is lost, confusion reigns, and the story line cannot be followed. These mistakes should not happen if the editor is competent, all of them being mistakes a sixth grader would recognize. While some editors would claim space limitations as the problem, I feel that printing quality fiction properly is much more important than saving a few lines of type. I am very disappointed in how most editors handle press, and am in the process of looking for a 'zine that still prints quality articles.

Press is the major reason I join a game of Diplomacy. I enjoy the play and interaction of forming and breaking of alliances, but literary enjoyment helps bring it all together. Press is not the whole story, but it can be a major source of the fun derived from the game, even for the players who are getting trounced.

Diplomacy Metaphysics

By Michael Hopcroft

Originally Appearing in Diplomacy World #60

Diplomacy is an odd game, and some odd people play it. Being of a philosophical bent by nature, and one who is always willing to look foolish in a good cause, I thought I would speculate for a moment on what the pieces mean.

Suppose the Diplomacy map represented a real world? Suppose the moves made by Dip players were, in some alternate cosmos, actually happening?

A real war fought in the manner of a Diplomacy game would be odd. There isn't much historical evidence I can see of countries changing sides in the middle of a modern war. There would be much confusion on the lines were that to happen.

"Say, aren't those our allies marching in?" "They sure are. But their bayonets are fixed and they don't look happy. I suggest we duck."

Neutral capitals would be a frenzy of activity. Diplomats from all sides would meet in Switzerland in secret to arrange the changes of sides. The dealing would be fast and furious, as great powers suddenly cease to exist.

The war itself may or may not be bloody. Soldiers would seem to be very willing to give up territory rather than get squashed. Neutral countries, accepting their lot as part of the vast empires, won't resist at all. Maneuver is emphasized over fighting, and when faced with overwhelming odds armies invariably retreat.

How does the individual soldier feel? Caught in seemingly endless fighting against enemies who were once friends, the individual soldier would have to feel his effort pointless.

What about the civilians? War breaks out everywhere suddenly after almost a century of peace, for no reason whatsoever. I'm sure shock would give way to ennui; "So who's conquering us this time, I wonder?" "The English." "Better stock up on tea then."

Only a select, slightly mad few would realize that their world was crumbling because somewhere in the infinity of space-time seven people are playing a game. I know that it would threaten my sanity to realize my universe is merely a game board!

Michael Hopcroft is the former publisher of Not Up to Modern Graphics Standards.

The DW Interview: Gary Behnan

From Diplomacy World #61

Q. What is your age and occupation?

A. I am 30 and a salesman.

Q. How long have you been in the hobby? How did you start?

A. I started playing Dip in 1974 when a friend gave me the game and I wrote Rick Loomis over at Flying Buffalo.

Q. You have several postal wins. Is there any particular one that stands out in your mind?

A. Every win is fun and memorable in one way or another, but one of the most interesting to date was a game in The Appalachian General. I was France, and although he was doing well my German ally reversed his offensive against Russia once England fell, then NMRed out! Meanwhile, the AIR finished Turkey while Italy harassed the Austrian flank. Eventually, Russia stabbed Austria and allied with Italy and the game began to go Russia's way. Italy refused to join an A/F alliance against Russia so A/F moved against Italy as Austria executed a strategic retreat from the Balkans. The new German player agreed to join the A/F and we began to build a stalemate line against Russia. Germany misordered, then NMRed, so it finally came down to a winter supply center count of R-17, G-2, A-I, F-14. For the next year we could take a Russian-held center and then had a 50/50 chance of holding it, but the following year would see Russia win in any event. Graciously Austria and Germany both agreed to thwart Russia by ultimately sacrificing their centers to France. In the Fall, we held and France won due to A/G cooperation and our tactics.

Q. What does it take to win a postal Dip game?

A. Unfortunately there is no formula to assure a win. Most wins require frequent communications, a blend of diplomacy and tactics, and usually a successful series of alliances... some broken. Sometimes a little luck helps, too!

Q. Who has been your strongest adversary? How about your best alliance partner?

A. I've had numerous strong adversaries and great allies, and some were both! I really can't pick one individual as the strongest or best overall, but I do have a favorite game alliance. It was an I/G 2-way that Don Williams and I forged in Fall 1901 in our first game together. Everything we did diplomatically and tactically worked as planned and when it came time for one of us to go for the win, we both decided the best conclusion was our planned draw.

Q. Do you have a favorite zine to play in?

A. Yes, the one I got in the mail today! Seriously, my favorite zine of all time was Claw and Fang by Don Horton. It was very well done, punctual, had articles and even recipes at “The Diplomat's Other Table.” If anyone knows what Don is up to these days, I'd love to find out.

Q. How have NMRs impacted postal games you have played in?

A. Ah, the proverbial skeleton in our closet. Unfortunately some games are fundamentally changed by NMRs. All you can really do is try to adjust, grin, and bear it.

Q. What is your favorite Great Power, and why?

A. Russia is my favorite country. It has tremendous potential in Spring 1901 and is the only country that can appreciably effect both the West and East from the start.

Q. You are also an experienced tournament player. How do postal players do in FTF games as compared to their postal play?

A. I guess the "logical" assumption is that a postal player doesn't do as well FTF as postally. My experience is that your postal record is not a good indication of your FTF play. Indeed, a generally conservative Postal player can be a loose cannon when put on a FTF board. I believe personality and tactical prowess are your greatest attributes when you play FTF.

Q. Which was the best convention/tournament that you have been to?

A. Best Con? No contest: PoolCon, hosted by Vince and Melody Lutterbie. Definitely on my schedule every year.

Q. What is the biggest problem facing the Diplomacy hobby today?

A. Really the only problem I see is the politicizing of the service offices, like the BNC or MNC. No one person or group can or should "control" or "guide" this hobby and I emphasize the word hobby. As long as we have individuals like the BNC willing to do the work, why fight about it?

Q. Any other comments about the game or hobby?

A. Not to be argumentative, but I must disagree with Eric Klien's argument in the last DW Interview that PBEM will completely take over the Diplomacy hobby, at least not in the near future. First, not everyone can afford to play by computer or has a desire to get one! Second, although the quick turnaround for turns may be preferable to those who have gravitated to PBEM, such speed isn't for everyone. I admit that sometimes postal games seem to drag, but I for one could not meet or enjoy two-day deadlines. For me, this is a hobby - one that I don't always have time to "play" and (I hate to admit this) which sometimes piles up a week before I get back to it. Although PBEM may quickly pass the PBM hobby in sheer numbers of games played, I look forward to my mailbox ritual. With apologies to Joe Biden, the news of PBM's hobby demise is greatly exaggerated.

Note: Gary is the top-ranked postal player in N. America.

A Draw is Not a Win

By Stan Johnson

From Diplomacy World #63

I recently had the unpleasant experience of playing Diplomacy with a pair of players who made no attempt to win. These miserable excuses for Dip players were suffering from what is commonly known as "Good Ally Syndrome." Everyone who has been in the hobby any length of time has had the misfortune of encountering these pathetic creatures masquerading as true Diplomats. They are easily identifiable by their plaintive cries of "Oh, I could never STAB anyone" or "I couldn't stab a faithful ally just to win a game!" These, along with the oft-repeated call, "I'm just in the hobby to make friends."

Disgusting, isn't it?

If all you want to do is make friends, join the local quilting club. A real Dipper plays to win each and every time. If I played Diplomacy against my mother and grandmother, I wouldn't show them any more mercy than I show anyone else. And that, of course, is none. I don't hide my light under a bushel, either, as everyone who has played against me can attest to. I expect my fellow players to do the same to me in return.

If, on the other hand, you enter a Dip game knowing full well you plan to play for a draw, you have perverted the game. Indeed, you are playing an entirely different game. The idea that everyone is trying to win is what creates the ebb and flow of the game, and the shift in alliance structures that make the game fun. The good ally Dip game compares to real Diplomacy the way a stagnant, putrid, polluted pond compares to a fresh, swift-moving stream.

Why would anyone do such a thing to Diplomacy? One theory has it that these Good Ally players feel secure thinking "No one will like me if I stab them." Among real Dip players this is simply not the case. The Icons of the hobby, men like Walt Buchanan, Doug Beyerlein and Edi Birsan are winners all. Walt Buchanan's record was, I believe, seven wins in seven postal games; yet I am unaware of anyone who knows him who does not speak of him with anything but respect.

A second reason might be that these spineless jellyfish are ratings hounds. Their strategy involves kowtowing to deviant ratings systems that equate a two-way draw as half a win, a three-way as third of a win, and award points accordingly. But to a real player, the win is worth ten times one two-way draw, if not more. The jellyfish think that if they just pile up those two or three-way draws they will move up in the rankings. Perhaps if a more correct ratings system were instituted that properly reflected real Diplomacy values, such wimp attitudes would not be so prevalent in the hobby.

I'm sure some of you are saying, "Where does this Johnson fellow get off copping this attitude? What does he base his holier-than-thou attitude on?" My short answer is: The Rulebook! For years two things about the Good Ally Pukes annoyed me. One was their smug air of moral superiority, implying that they were too good to stab their loyal allies. The second thing was a sneaking suspicion that their "Good ally from start to finish" strategy was in fact a thinly-disguised form of cheating. Now I know I was right all along. Almost all postal House Rules state that "The 1971 Rulebook will be used", then they turn right around and allow people to vote for draws that exclude some surviving players. Not only are these guys wimps, but they are too lazy to honestly earn their draws by eliminating the competition.

But just take a look at the Rulebook. Section II, under the heading "Object of the Game", clearly states ''Players may terminate the game by mutual agreement before a winner is determined, in which case all players who still have pieces in the board share equally in the draw." So unless the zine's House Rules specifically declare that section of the Rulebook void, all those other declared draws are in fact illegitimate, and should not be considered for ratings purposes.

David Hood has mentioned that the statistics he received with the Dragonstooth Ratings System may be defective. I suggest he compile his own stats, counting only wins and draws that were Draws Include All Survivors (DIAS), or were played in zines (if any) where the House Rules specifically legitimize voted draws. If players feel that using the correct rules would make the game too long, I refer them to Section III of the Rulebook, entitled "The Short Game."

The whole accomplishment of Diplomacy is beating six other players. One over six. When you change this to 2 over 5 or (heaven forbid) 3 over 4, then the glow rapidly fades. Let all right-thinking Diplomacy players stand up and be counted. Together we can get the game back on the right track. Let's put an end to all these disgraceful draws. The only legitimate use of a draw is to end a hopelessly stalemated game. If a draw is declared, the Rulebook should be followed and it should be DIAS. This by itself should greatly reduce the number of draws of convenience and this "play to a draw" attitude.

Diplomacy World Interview with Melinda Holley

By Phil Reynolds

Originally appearing in Diplomacy World #67

Take a large sampling of Diplomacy games and you might find her name in half of them. Add a ton of games being run in both Rebel and Starwood, plus the BNC publication Everything and it's no wonder how Melinda "Hobby" Holley earned her nickname. To many hobbyists, though, she is still something of a mystery. Who is Melinda Holley? Diplomacy World decided to find out.

DW: Melinda, tell us a little about yourself and your family.

MH: I was born August 9, 1954, in West Palm Beach, Florida. I moved to West Virginia when I was 15 months old. Both my parents were from West Virginia. I have an older sister and a younger sister in Huntington. Since my father was the sixth of 14 children and my mother was the youngest of ten, I have numerous cousins. I have three nieces, too. I love the mountains of West Virginia. This is a good place to live. If I had to live elsewhere, I think I'd choose North Carolina.

DW: What is your occupation?

MH: I am an office manager of a firm that sells lighting equipment. I guess we're proudest of the sports lighting. A company we represent has done lighting for the Olympics, several movies (mobile lighting technology), a lot of televised football games, and most recently it introduced a radical new lighting system for nighttime car races.

DW: Despite your extensive hobby involvement, you seem to have a reputation for being a bit of a recluse. Why do you think this is?

MH: I do have the reputation of being a recluse because I haven't participated in any cons. My appearance at DipCon this year will be my first con. Personal real life problems and conflicts basically precluded any prior participation. Hopefully, this will change.

DW: There also seems to be a fascination with what you look like. PDORA accepts bids on photos of you every year. How did this start, and what do you look like?

MH: If I tell you, then the photos won't sell! Nothing spectacular: dark hair, glasses, grey eyes. Someone (John Caruso, I think) suggested I offer an autographed picture of myself for POORA. The next year, he suggested I offer a few more since it was a big draw.

DW: PDORA also offers a personal horoscope by you. How did you get interested in astrology?

MH: I've been into astrology since I was 14. I had a crush on a guy who was into it. Learning about astrology didn't help me with the guy, but I got interested nonetheless. I like seeing how accurate the horoscope readings really are to people. Of course, no one sees himself or herself as others do, so it'll never be perfect.

DW: What other hobbies do you have?

MH: I like music and listen to just about anything except jazz, opera, and most country-western. Basically, though, I like rock and roll. I'll read maybe two or three books at a time (biography, history, and nonfiction; some mystery, science fiction and romance novels).

I'm also into genealogy. Because I like history so much, it's a lot of fun to track down family members. For instance, both my father's and my mother's families were split pretty much down the middle during the Civil War (half were Union supporters, half were Confederacy supporters), which made for some interesting stories.

I'm still into fantasy role-playing games, especially Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. My other main hobby is embroidery. My mother got me started on it when I was four years old. It's about the only traditionally feminine pastime she was able to drum into my hard little skull! I don't cook. I detest cleaning, but I will do laundry!

DW: Is there something you could tell us about yourself that we might find surprising?

MH: You want a surprise? I love WWF Wrestling! Beyond that, I'm not that extraordinary. I have a temper which I've learned to keep under control since childhood. Despite all the rumors, I do not have a torture chamber in my basement. I don't have a basement. It's located in my bedroom's large walk-in closet. I don’t like cats or most animals. I love chocolate, adore Mel Gibson, and am a closet romantic.

DW: How did you get into the PBM Diplomacy hobby?

MH: I got into the hobby through fantasy role-playing. I saw an ad in Aries magazine for a fantasy role-playing-by-mail game and wrote about it. Unfortunately, the person running the game was Elmer Hinton, about whom the least said, the better. The only fortunate thing was Hinton said he was also running a PBM Diplomacy game and asked if I'd like to join. I said sure, and then I went out to find the game and see what I had agreed to do.

DW: Describe your first game.

MH: My first game (82-CN) was with Hinton as GM. Talk about starting out rough.... However, I was really lucky to have Kathy Caruso (then Byrne) and Steve Courtemanche also in the game with me. I was playing Russia, Kathy played Italy, and Steve was Austria. We had a ball, and Kathy showed me the ropes.

I was awful in this game. I didn't understand many of the rules. For instance, I didn't realize I could move F Sev-Rum. I thought I had to move F Sev-Bla first before I could take Rum. Kathy told me to quit fooling around and move that fleet into Rum. Then she took me under her wing. I survived with one center.

The most fortunate aspect of the game was that Steve told me there were other people who also GM'd games. Kathy gave me a start in one of her games and passed me Steve Heinowski’s name.

DW: How many games have you played? Why so many?

MH: Ah, the big number people seem fascinated by. I've played in about 350 games total since starting in the hobby in 1982. A lot are Gunboat games. I shouldn't try to be in so many. I really overextended myself and I wasn't able to give as much attention to each game as I should have. That's one reason why I'm trying to cut back, but it's sort of like staying away from chocolate-one whiff, and I'm back again.

DW: What was your first win? How many games have you won?

MH: My first win was as Germany in a game GM'd by Don Williams. He seemed rather astonished that this was my first win. For some reason, I had a reputation as a winning player before I even won a game! I've won just seven games. So much for a winning reputation!

DW: Is there one game in particular which is memorable?

MH: It was written up recently in The General. It was memorable because I stabbed Kathy Caruso for the win. I'd won other games, but this one ranks the highest. As I said, I consider Kathy to be my mentor in this game. I probably wouldn't even be playing if she hadn't steered me in the direction of reputable GM's and zines. To stab Kathy and win made me feel like I really had a handle on the game.

DW: Rebel has been host to a great many games over the years. What motivated you to begin doing it?

MH: I started Rebel in November of 1984. (Starwood began in 1987.) I saw other zines and wanted to try my hand at it. I'd talked about it for quite a while with a friend who wasn't into Diplomacy. She finally got tired of the topic and told me either to do it or to forget about it-so I did it. I've run about 50 games since Rebel began.

DW: Besides games, Rebel featured the subzine High Inertia, a popular and entertaining letter column by the Courtemanches.

MH: High Inertia was Rebel's first subzine, and the Courtemanches (Steve and Linda) gave Rebel a balance between games and chit-chat. Although Rebel is (and was from the start) a game-zine, I started Foxfire earlier this year as a subzine to give it balance again.

DW: What about your experience publishing Everything...?

MH: I enjoy publishing, so it's no big deal to include Everything.. .. in the roster. One big plus is that I've gotten to work with various BNC's and people I might not have had much contact with otherwise.

DW: Have you ever run any hobby services?

MH: Being publisher of Everything.. ... has given me two chances to become BNC [Boardman Number Custodian]. It's been offered twice, and I have refused twice. Hey, I've seen the job-no, no, no, no, no! The only other hobby service I've done was being DW's Interview Editor for a very brief time. I was a lousy interviewer, though.

DW: You refused despite recent BNC's being criticized?

MH: I think the hobby has been blessed with BNC's who have tried to do an excellent job and had the best intentions of doing a good job. Sometimes personal real life intervenes, and it has priority. Each BNC has his or her own way of doing things. Other people will say its should be done a different way, but these people aren't doing the job.

DW: What has been your experience with hobby politics and some of the more colorful episodes in hobby history?

MH: I was an indirect participant in the so-called Great Feud. I tried awfully hard to get a BNC decision against Elmer Hinton (who, in my opinion, couldn't be kicked out of the hobby quick enough), and I had a run-in with the alleged Bad Boys of the hobby (who did leave quickly). In Hinton's case, I butted heads with him over some of his shenanigans. In the other two cases, I got into things because my friends were being attacked. I've never been known for staying out of a fight if I thought I should get into it.

DW: Have you had any pleasant surprises?

MH: There was the write-up of a game in The General by Rex Martin. He and I were both in the game. Neither of us did well, but Rex gave Rebel a nice little plug. The response was tremendous! At its height. Rebel had 185 subbers-that's when I closed the games.

The other surprising thing was the Melinda Ann Holley Award. I was surprised so many people managed to keep their mouths shut about it! Mostly, though, I was surprised so many people thought I was worthy of having an award named after me. Of course, I was glad no one put the word "Memorial" in the name!

DW: If anything, what would you like to change about the hobby?

MH: It would be for new publishers to take a little more time to think about what they plan to do. It seems that lately a lot of zines start up and then fold within ten issues because the publishers got in over their heads. Then games have to be rehoused, etc.

DW: What do you think is the greatest problem facing the hobby?

MH: There seem to be a lot of zines folding. Some are like what I've just described, but a lot of elder zines are going, too. Kathy's Korner just announced its fold. It seems strange when someone tells me that Rebel is one of the older zines. If newer zines can't keep publishing and the elder zines drop out, those of us still publishing will be handling a lot more games if we want to keep people in the hobby.

DW: What advice would you give to prospective publishers?

MH: They need to think long and hard about the time and money they are going to invest in a zine. It might be a good idea to publish a subzine for a while to get a feel for what they're doing.

DW: How have you stayed in the hobby so long and not burn out?

MH: I just haven't lost interest in Diplomacy either as a player or as a publisher. I get almost as much enjoyment from following the games in Rebel and Starwood as I do from playing in games. I guess when the day comes that I moan and groan at putting out a zine, or I start NMRing, I'll consider dropping out. I just don't see that happening right now or in the future.

DW: What do you think will be your future in the hobby?

MH: I'd like to continue publishing Rebel and Starwood. Of course, I’ll keep publishing Everything.. ... as long as the BNC wishes me to do so. I rather like publishing. Don't get me wrong-it's a lot of work and it takes a great deal of time (in relation to the finished product), but I enjoy it I also enjoy playing, and I think I've about reached a more manageable level of games I'm in. I'd certainly like to improve my ability as a player.

DW: In closing, what do you like most and least about the hobby?

MH: What do I like the least? I guess it's the people who take themselves so seriously. It seems those people feel everybody else should genuflect towards their opinions. But I dislike that sort of character outside the hobby, too.

The thing I like most is that I've found people just as warped as (if not more than) I am! Trust me, that's something to be treasured. Actually, friends are easy to make in this hobby since we have such a diverse group, but you can find something in common with others quickly. I've been extremely fortunate to make good close friends with people I've never met!

On Matters of True and Everlasting Depth, and Why I've Nicknamed my Diplomacy Set "Sigmund"

By Conrad von Metzke

The following article has been written for entry in a contest involving a cash prize. On that basis, it would be to my distinct advantage to focus on the predilections of the judges. Regrettably, the chief judge has revealed to us that, while he will accept submissions in any relevant genre, he "naturally lean(s) towards S&T articles”... This makes a meaningful contribution difficult, inasmuch as strategy and tactics are at best peripheral issues in the play of Diplomacy.

This is not to dismiss those components outright. Save for "parlour" games of pure luck, e.g. Snakes and Ladders or Uncle Wiggly, there isn't a game in existence that doesn't require some elements of strategy and tactics. But some games require those elements in plentitude, and others merely in passing. Being understood primarily as military terms, particularly when taken as a single phrase, "strategy” and "tactics" obviously connote games derived from military foundations, be they the direct-replications (D-Day, Gettysburg), the more generalized canvasses (chess), the abstracted derivations (go, draughts) or the fantasized embellishments (Dungeons and Dragons).

Diplomacy is none of these things. It is, foremost and overwhelmingly, a game of human psychology. Never mind that it uses a map and, ostensibly, armies and fleets; that it vaguely emulates the First World War; and involves "attacks" and “convoys" and all manner of other militaristic terms. It is NOT a war game! It is a game of interpersonal relationships, garbed in warrior's clothing.

On its face, this appears to be a preposterous statement. The rules of the game, almost five pages (1992) excluding the sample game, devote exactly two paragraphs to the “psychology" aspect of the game. The printed literature derived from hobbyists is similarly overwhelming; by contrast with the stack of tactical articles, one would need a magnifier to see the pile of human relations items.

But on further reflection, there's a good and obvious reason for this: People who write articles tend to focus on the finite, on the quantifiable, on matters about which fabulous charts and tables can be prepared. This allows the writer to come across as a richly gifted mentor, and permits the reader to bask in the misapprehension that he is actually learning something significant. What is really happening is that the mechanical aspects of the game are being raised to undeserved levels of importance, merely because the REAL fundamentals – deceit, manipulation, inscrutability, lying, cheating and stealing - cannot be taught at all. Manuals on poker can teach you how to count cards and predict odds, but they cannot teach you to bluff. Equivalently, manuals on Diplomacy can teach you how to form a stalemate line, but they cannot teach you how to twist the opposition around your little finger.

Consider for a moment the summary course of a game. Seven persons are cast together as opponents. Of these, only one can win. (A draw is not truly a finished game, but is instead an agreement to stop playing. Remember that there is no such thing as a true stalemate which renders a win truly impossible.) For a winner to emerge, combinations of opponents - enemies, if you will - begin by assisting one another in gaining strength, which will ultimately be turned against one another. In other words, to defeat the opposition you must first help it achieve greater power to defeat you.

There are very few games in which one is constrained by the rules to operate this way, and it is this Janus-like feature which in my opinion gives Diplomacy its popularity and seemingly endless variety. The thrill is not in planning the orders, or formulating the Grand Design; rather it is in the constant mental see-saw with the other players, individually and severally. It is not in the pushing around of wooden blocks, but in the scheming and negotiating to push them around (hopefully) in such a way that you gain more than the opponent-cum-ally who is nevertheless lulled into thinking that he got enough. And ultimately, the thrill - and by extension the durability - of this game and its outgrowth hobby are in the personal relationships that devolve from the interactive nature of the play. I have a strong sense that few other gaming groups, at least those that operate by post or on­line, achieve anything resembling the level of familiarity and bonding which Diplomacy's adherents attain. The game itself makes it so: it is simple cause and effect. As a "wargame,” a test of one's tactical skills, Diplomacy is of no great moment. As an exploration of involvement with the vagaries and complexities of other human beings, it is a wondrous game indeed.

The above is not, you understand, to belittle strategy and tactics overmuch. They are very useful little skills, well worth the trouble of analysis and understanding. But they do not make Diplomacy the game that it is. That honour is reserved to people who play it. And the testament to the brilliance of Mr. Calhamer’s invention, and Dr. Boardman’s application of it, will never be in the ratings lists and opening gambits charts and exhaustive dissections of stalemate lines, but rather in the friendships and warm feelings that survive long after the charts have been filed and the game box returned to the shelf.

Let’s Talk Novice Recruitment

By David Hood

The big news item in the Diplomacy press lately has been the perceived lack of hobby growth over the past few months and years. Zine editors lament games on offer that do not fill, prospective readers lament the dearth of new zines to subscribe to, and the latest Everything, which reports on postal game openings and finishes, reports a large drop in the number of new games began in 1992 versus the numbers from previous years.

Is the hobby in a slump, or even serious decline? I don't think so. Opportunities exist to bring new people into the fold, if hobbyists would be willing to stop blasting everyone in sight and agree to do some work instead. The first priority should be to bring the Email players into the mainstream of the hobby. Diplomacy over the networks is likely to be the growth area of the 1990's, as many letter writers have been saying now for years. The problem has been how to keep in touch with these people, and how to get them interested in all the things the greater hobby has to offer, like tournaments, ratings, publications, how-to articles, letter columns, etc.

Jim Burgess has been working on this issue now for some time in his zine The Abyssinian Prince. This zine, which is sent by "snail mail" to people like me as well as over the network to PBEM players, includes a letter column that discusses, among other things, happenings on the PBEM front. Of particular interest has been the discussion over house rules and general setup of games, with the PBEM community revisiting some of the same issues the postal folks began to explore twenty or more years ago.

More needs to be done with respect to PBEM. Somehow those with access to the Dippers on Compuserve, Internet, Genie, Prodigy, etc. need to get the word out about hobby services that exist in the PBM world. In addition, there are zines in the postal world that include material of interest to PBEM players that would not be available by recourse only to Email, such as the articles in Diplomacy World. Perhaps most importantly, those playing isolated games of Dip over the networks need to be told that they do not exist in a vacuum; that other Diplomacy aficionados are out there waiting to welcome new members into the fold. This needs to be the responsibility of anyone and everyone who can contact the PBEM players.

Other sources of new players that must be explored are the various Diplomacy tournaments already in existence out there. With the advent of the new novice intake system through the five regional contacts on the Avalon Hill flyer, we need to make that flyer available to be picked up at all Dip events. Avalon Hill has graciously agreed to send color copies of the flyer to interested Can hosts, so please contact them. Also, the DIP packet currently being given to new players by the five regional contacts needs to be jazzed up a little so it can be distributed directly at cons as well.

Of course, as has been said in these pages several times, another growth impetus should come from the establishment of more Diplomacy events around the country. Having cons closer to home makes it easier for current hobbyists to bring their friends to a Can, particularly those who know about Dip but cannot play much on a regular basis because of lack of people. Once we get these folks hooked on the sheer fun of the game at a Con, we may be able to get them into postal and PBEM Diplomacy.

Buz Eddy's article in this issue points to another growth area: clubs. Efforts should be made to establish local clubs to increase face-to-face play apart from cons, with the hope that more opportunities for play on a regular basis would bring in more new players as well. This takes a great deal of work for present hobbyists, but there is no real way around this if this hobby is to grow and expand. Particular attention needs to be paid to current gaming groups on university campuses — those people need to be turned on to Dip as soon as possible.

Some have asked why the hobby needs new players. What is so good about a growing hobby? Well, it makes everything more fun, I believe, to constantly have new players added to the mix of both postal and tournament players. Also, we have a great game here in Diplomacy — it should be shared with as many people as possible.

The Double Eagle

by David P. Smith

It had drizzled rain for two days now. I heard the roll of thunder, and our prospects for a new job were the color of the clouds I saw in the distance. Miles had just come in from a stakeout. He was leaning back, legs stretched out, rolling a cigarette.

He had just opened his mouth to speak, looked like he had an idea about something, which would be a change, when Effie opened the door.

"Sam, you've got a client in the office," Effie announced. "Said she needs action fast."

"Uh, huh. What d'ya think?"

"Oh you'll like her," then she eyed Miles, whose ears had perked up by now.

"Her threads have some mileage, but they cost a bundle."

"And....?"

"And she has lots of these and a lot of those."

"Well, send her in, sweetheart, time is money."

She went out and came back in with our prospective client and Effie wasn't kidding.

"This is Miss Claire Adelaide. Miss Adelaide, Mr. Same Spade and his partner, Miles Archer."

Jesse Owens couldn't have grabbed a chair for her as fast as Miles. She was just his type, when his wife wasn't looking. Young, slim and sophisticated. Effie eased out. The only sound was the patter of rain and Miles's heart.

"What can we do for your Miss Adelaide?"

"Oh, call me Claire, please. I do hate to bother you gentleman so late in the day, but I'm so terribly worried."

Miles was lapping this up like Effie's terrier.

"Go right ahead....Miss Adelaide. It's our job."

"Well, it's my sister, I'm afraid she's in over her head. You see, she's supposed to play in the Diplomacy tournament at Daddy's club tomorrow night, and, well, you don't know Helen. She's so trusting and innocent. Daddy's always said her mind was like a feather pillow, that bore the impression of the last person to sit upon it. I can't bear to think what would happen to her in a game with ruthless grognards."

"Groan what?"

"Old veterans, Miles. Now, Miss Adelaide....Clair...just what is it you want us to do?"

"Oh, please, could one you arrange to enter the first round game with her. I'm afraid to think what would happen if she went into the game without a friend--flying dutchmans, miswritten orders ignored, lies and backstabs. I just couldn't let that happen to my sister."

Miles glanced at me and grinned.

"Sure," I said, "if it'll make you rest any easier, one of us will sit in and play, just to keep things on the up and up."

"About the money....."

"We charge $100 a day, plus expenses," I said. She hesitated at that. Then pulled out two crisp C notes.

"Here you are...and I thought, perhaps, you could tell us something about the other players in the game. They are a despicable lot, and it might help if I...uh, if Helen knew how they played....opening moves, their strengths...."

"Sure, sure, we'll find out. Just who is in the game?"

"Well, the best player, I believe, is a Mr. Gutman, a quite large and abusive fellow. Wears white suits. I don't like him. I understand he particularly wants to win this tournament...because of the trophy."

"The trophy?"

"Yes, a double eagle coin struck in obsidian--quite rare and priceless--donated by a Diplomacy-playing numismatist."

"Yeah, sort of a black bird, huh?"

"There is also a little man...Joel Cairo. He has an accent, eastern Europe I think. One look at him, Mr. Spade, and you just know you can't trust him. There is also a weasel-looking character named Wilma. It is well known that he makes his moves just as Mr. Gutman says. He scarcely has a mind of his own--I believe the word for him is 'toady'. There are two others, an Englishman, Blakely Crawford, whose favorite country is Russia, and a Texan, Victor G. Clarke, known for his unpredictable and bizarre openings, and for his foul press in postal games."

I reached for her dough, but Miles beat me to it, and blurted out that he would be so very honored to be at the game himself.

We rose and escorted Claire to the door.

"Thank you ever so much, gentlemen, I feel so relieved."

Then giving Miles the eye, she added, in a voice that purred--"I don't know how I will ever be able to repay you."

When she had left, Miles held the bills up to the light and whistled.

"Crisp as a starched collar. And did you see their brothers in her purse? This one gig I'm gonna enjoy."

The ringing wouldn't stop. I shook my head, but it kept on ringing. Eyes open now, I sat up in bed and fumbled for the phone. It was two o'clock in the morning.

"Hello. Yeah, this is Spade. What is it? You don't say? Uh, huh. Yeah, I can't say...it's confidential. Yeah, all right. I'll be up there in thirty minutes."

I pulled up in front of the building where the Diplomacy tournament was being held. Inspector William Owens, the pick of the bad lot, met me at the door and scurrying along beside him was Sgt. Paddock. Paddock and I had tangled once before. It stuck in his craw--I could see he hadn't forgotten.

"Hello Sam. Tough break about Miles."

"Yeah, Bill, tough. Show me where it happened."

"Ain't you even going to ask how he got it, Spade? Or don't you already know?"

A short right cross would have put Paddock on his back, but Owens grabbed me first.

"Come on, Sam, let it go."

"All right, but get him away from me, you hear, get him away if he knows what's good for him."

We went up a flight of stairs, through heavy oak doors and into a well-lit room. Old look...19th century...large leather-covered easy chairs, but only one caught my eye. The photographer was still at work, others were dusting for prints around the table--the Diplomacy game still set up where it was interrupted.

I walked over to the chair, but I knew what I was going to see. There was Miles, head slumped slightly forward. Just as I figured it. He had been stabbed....a crimson strain on his white suit encircled the ivory-handled stiletto in his back.

They took the body out and we got down to business. There wasn't much to go on...except one thing. No one had come in or out of that room while the Diplomacy game was in progress--no one had seen the murder committed. They narrowed the suspects down to the six surviving players, unless Miles had committed suicide by stabbing himself in the back. He would have thought it was a great gag.

"Well, Sam, what d'ya think? Miles have any enemies in this game? Revenge, maybe?"

"You got me, Bill."

"All right, Sam, let me have it. I know Miles was on a case. Who's the client?"

"All right. For what it's worth, a dame named Claire Adelaide--her sister, Helen, was one of the players."

"Who are you trying to fool? Claire Adelaide was one of the players. And she doesn't have any sister. We started the questioning with her. The others are all in an adjoining room now. They all claim the same thing. No one saw anything. They all say someone must have sneaked in and stabbed him while everyone else was over at the board. But one of the tournament directors was out in the hallway the whole time. He said no one came in or out. That's not all. The Double Eagle coin that was to be the first place prize is missing. It was in a case over the fireplace and we've searched them already--it can't be found, and we don't have a clue."

I asked Bill to let me question the suspects and he agreed. Paddock didn't like it--said the force didn't need the likes of any gumshoe in their investigation--but Bill had the suspects all brought in anyway. I've been around a few Diplomacy players in my time, long before Miles ever thought about playing, but this was as seedy and untrustworthy a bunch as I've ever seen.

Bill introduced everyone, then we all sat around the table with the game board still set up just as the game was interrupted after the Winter of 1904. Most of them kept darting their eyes over to the chair off to the side where Miles got it. They all looked guilty to me. Before I could say anything, the fat guy, Gutman, started in.

"I'll have you know, sir, that I am unaccustomed to being treated in such a manner. I demand that I be charged immediately or released."

Then they all started in. Everyone shouting at once. All demanding their rights. Paddock got them quieted down. Then I looked at the board, and an idea came to me.

"Mr. Clark, could you tell me who was playing each country?"

That was a mistake. You would have thought the redhead had a spotlight on him as he pontificated. I finally shut him up after coming up with the players; Gutman--England; Wilma--France; Blakely Crawford--Turkey; Joel Cairo--Italy; V.G. Clarke--Austria; Claire Adelaide--Germany; and Miles played Russia.

I had seen the recording of the moves in the game. I believed I had it now. I knew who killed Miles, how it was done, and the location of the missing Double Eagle. But I never could resist winding up a case with a flourish.

"Mr. Gutman. I notice that you began the game with the Churchill Opening: F Edi-Nwg, F Lon-Nth, A Lvp-Edi. Why that opening rather than the Channel attack?"

"Hrumph, there was no profit in the Channel, sir, no profit at all."

"You no doubt knew that France would not dare open there. Yes, we know that France kowtows to you so don't deny it. But I know you would give your right arm for that Double Eagle--so Wilma here was your target--but something lured you to Scandinavia."

Wilma was standing now, glaring at Gutman and looking like he could jump over the table and grab his flabby throat.

"Yes, sir, I don't deny it. I had good information that Russia would not only move A Mos southward, but he would not receive a build for Sweden."

"Not good enough Gutman. You know that St. Pete is a dead for England. You're a better player than that. You know you had a firm alliance with France, so no worries there. It was Germany and Russia you had to deal with. Germany passed along information that F Kie-Den would allow Russia to be stood off in Sweden. Germany promised you something more, didn't she? A classic Anglo-German alliance that would take out the threat of Russian fleets building StP(nc) and later your good ally France would be your next victim."

"Sit down, Wilma," growled the inspector.

"Yeah, you knew that England always is better positioned in such an alliance to stab Germany after France falls."

Puffing himself up, and looking at the rest of us with contempt, Gutman went on. "I tell you, sir, I did not want to trust that woman. She has a certain reputation on the Diplomacy circuit. But confound it, the Russian would not look me in the eye. I never trust a man who will not look me in the eye. He kept leering at her all night. Yes, sir, I took her up on the offer."

I eased up out of my chair and sidled over by the Italian player, Cairo. A sweet scent from his oiled ringlets, combined with the perfume from his pocket handkerchief, made me a little nauseous.

"What's your story, Cairo? No, let me guess. Germany persuaded you that she was opening Mun-Bur, so you decided to head westward, knowing that the only time a western attack by Italy is not hopeless is when Germany expects to make it to Burgundy. What did she promise you? Marseilles, Spain, Portugal?"

Cairo whimpered and bolted for the door. I grabbed him and slammed him against the wall.

"Let me go! I know nothing. She sounded convincing; I thought I could trust Austria and Russia to be busy against Turkey. I will not answer anymore questions! I will not, do you hear!"

I took a fist full of shirt and slapped him a few times.

"You'll answer questions and like it, Cairo."

"She probably said she had a firm Anschluss in place, didn't she?"

Cairo whimpered and nodded.

"Just as I thought. The grand German-Austrian alliance was in place, with Italy sufficiently warned not to enter Tyrolia--and encouraged to head westward. You folded like a cheap paper bag, Cairo. You make me sick."

Cairo sunk down on the floor. He looked like a frightened rabbit.

The redhead, Clark, was next. I took a deep breath. His kind always get on my nerves. Before I ever said a word he was on his feet. He thrust his pipe toward me and began a monologue.

"I tell you, the Anschluss was only for convenience and defense. And besides, I convinced her of its potential. True, she mentioned it first, but I was going to ride to victory anyway. After all, Russia was doing everything I asked. Russia, your late partner, seemed distracted about something. He opened A Mos-Sev, F Sev-Rum, and A War-Ukr. So that tells you something right there about his lack of ability. He actually thought that was an anti-Turkish opening. With Germany backing me, I opened F Tri-Alb, A Vie-Bud and A Bud-Ser. Of course, I am aware that opening is inferior to the Southern Hedgehog, but after all, my neighbors Italy and Russia could be trusted to toe the line."

He would have rambled all night like that if I had let him.

"All right," I said, "let's take a look at the Supply Center Chart."

01	02	03	04
England	5	6	7	8
France	5	5	5	6
Germany	5	5	5	5
Italy	4	4	3	1
Austria	5	5	6	7
Russia	5	4	2	0
Turkey	4	5	6	7

I told them the solution to the case was right before their eyes. Paddock snorted, but everyone leaned over the board and shifted their eyes from the chart to the board and back again. At least one of them knew what it meant.

"Oh, Mr. Spade," cooed Claire Adelaide, "could I please have a word with you...in private?"

She took me by the arm and eased to a far corner of the room, while the players, the Inspector, and Paddock, all shook their heads and muttered as they studied the board.

"Mr. Spade...Sam...I have something to say. I don't know why I didn't mention this before. I suppose I was afraid of him. Of Wilma, I mean. I know I saw a knife blade in his coat pocket. He saw me watching him. Oh, Sam, you've never seen such a vicious look as he kept giving me."

I couldn't help but grin.

"You're good, Angel...Claire...real good, but I don't doubt if you've ever told the truth in your life. No, Angel, it won't work. You killed Miles and you're going over for it."

"Sam, don't joke about things like that. You almost sound as if you mean it."

"I do. You made it easy. Look at the last turn. Russia, Miles, was out of the game. He probably didn't mind at all; he could get a better look at you as a spectator. And you were the only player that winter turn who didn't have a build or removal to make--just the way you planned it. Who would have a better story? After all, you hired the poor chump, so it would be one of the other players who would take the rap. And, besides, it gave you the perfect chance to take the Double Eagle and dispose of it. No, while everyone else was at the game board, you were beside Miles--it was your knife, your murder, and now you're going to pay for it."

"Sam, please, you don't have to say anything. Wilma can take the fall. Gutman and Cairo will be glad to hand him over. It'll take everyone off the hook. Besides, you didn't care for your partner. We'll go away together, Sam, please!"

"Miles wasn't worth much in a lot of ways, but he was my partner. And when a guy's partner is iced someone has to pay. If not, it's bad for business...bad all around. Oh, I doubt if they'll stretch your pretty neck, Angel, but they'll put you away for a long time. With good behavior you'll be out in twenty years or so, and I'll think about you a lot. Goodbye, kid."

I laid it out for the Inspector. They had enough to get her on circumstantial evidence, but her confession was icing on the cake.

"It seems easy, the way you explained it, Sam," Bill said as he rubbed his chin and slowly shook his head, "but something else still has me stumped. The Double Eagle. Where is it? We've made a thorough search of everyone and everything in the room. No one got out to this room, so where is it?"

"You're wrong, Bill, someone did make it out...Miles. I'll bet if you check his clothes at the Coroner's office, you'll find the Double Eagle somewhere on him. Right where she put it, just after she stabbed him, but before she eased back to the game before being missed. You'd better hurry, though. She must have a partner on the inside--at the Coroner's office. Better get there quick."

Bill left in a hurry. As the rest of us headed out the building I could still hear snatches of conversation about the game from the players. They had already forgotten the murder...only the game was important now. Sgt. Paddock, more subdued than he was earlier, shook his head as they walked by, all five of them planning to resume the tournament--making their alliances and opening move proposals.

"Can you beat that? It's just kid stuff, pushing wooden blocks around. What kind of game is that anyway?"

"Game, Paddock? It's not a game. It's the stuff dreams are made of."

Subzines: The Publisher's Little Helper

by Jack McHugh

You want to publish but don't want to be bothered with publishing chores like collating, stapling and mailing a zine. Perhaps you can't afford to publish or don't have time to do more than write or gamemaster or both?

I have a suggestion for you, my friend. Do a subzine. Subzines are zines published in other zines. The category is quite large. It encompasses everything from columns of less than a page to my own 10-page-plus subzine "...And the Horse You Rode in on!" in Doug Kent's zine Maniac's Paradise, and everything in between.

Subzines usually run no larger than 4-5 pages, and consist of everything you find in regular zines. A subzine can include, but is not limited to, games, articles, cartoons, whatever you want. The only limit is usually on the size, and that is negotiated between you and your publisher.

Just why would anyone want a subzine? They usually serve one of two purposes. The first is that of alternative gamemaster for games the publisher wants to either play in or run. Of course, you can't play in a game where you are the GM, so you bring in a subzine editor to run the game.

A good publisher knows when he has his hands full, and will not hesitate to stop GMing when his limit is reached. If the demand exists for more than he can handle, bring in another GM to run the extra games.

The second reason is when a publisher wants more reading material in his zine but doesn't have the time or energy to write it himself. In this case a subzine is more like a guest columnist who writes up an article for each issue.

What are subzines about? That is up to the publisher and subzine editor. Perhaps it is about sports. You could write up predictions every month or two. What about politics? Many publishers like to balance their own viewpoints with their opposites. It can be useful to show that alternative viewpoints are welcomed.

The key to a good subzine is being able to quickly get it into the zine it is to go into so that it doesn't get dated by the time it reaches publication, especially if you plan to run any game. In zines with relaxed schedules, ala Vertigo and The Canadian Diplomat, this isn't a problem as the subscribers wouldn't be expecting a quick turnaround.

Personally, I use electronic mail to send my subzine to Doug. This allows me to have a deadline three days before Doug's and still get my zine into Maniac's Paradise, despite Doug's 24-hour turnaround time. I usually upload my subzine the night before MP's deadline and Doug has it the next day.

First class mail from the US postal service is fine as long as you are aware it will take 3-4 working days and plan accordingly. However, this way your zine must be camera-ready so that the publisher can merely insert it in his zine. With my subzine, Doug is able to print out the file on his printer because we both have IBM PCs and use WordPerfect software. To use our e-mail method you generally need compatible hardware and software.

Another alternative is to publish a subzine every other issue of a zine. This will allow you not to worry about having to do the zine on the same schedule as the publisher. You will have more time to adjudicate the games and send in the results if your deadline is in between two of your publisher's deadlines.

The other useful purpose of subzines is that they usually lead to zines, and many publishers have begun as subzines. It gives a future publisher useful practice GMing and writing. Subzines turned into zines usually lead to more stable zines once they begin to publish on their own.

So do the hobby a favor if you're a publisher and sponsor a subzine. If you can afford the space, you'll be helping your zine and the hobby as a whole.

If you want to write, go ahead and write out a few pages and pass it around to find a publisher. More than likely you'll find a publisher and find yourself enjoying a whole new hobby activity to boot.

Diplomacy: Bridging the Generation Gap

by David P. Smith, Ph.D.

For many years I have sponsored a game club at Highland Park High School, Dallas, Texas, where I have taught Advanced Placement European and American History, but in December of 1992 a group of seniors wanted to try a game I had told them about: Diplomacy. I had played it about one hundred times, face-to-face and postally, back in the late 70s and early 80s, and had regaled them with tales of duplicity -- so they just had to try it for themselves. I made a blow-up of the Diplomacy conference map, put it on a bulletin board, got the colored pins in place, and we were ready to go.

There is a thirty minute "tutorial" period each morning at school, so we decided that we would make one move per day at that time -- as they turned in their written orders to me. That first game was a great one -- I have rarely seen players have so much fun with a game -- with conference calls to allies and enemies each night, and with negotiations furtively taking place in classrooms, at lunch, and before and after school. I kept bringing to school articles on strategy and tactics from old copies of Diplomacy World and the General, and they were devoured, along with Richard Sharp's The Game of Diplomacy. These were, after all, mostly honors students, quite bright and eager to learn the intricacies of both tactics and diplomatic skills, or better yet, how to pull off a memorable stab.

We quickly filled up another board when the first game finished and for the rest of the year we usually had two games going simultaneously, with our first tournament of the year held in the Spring of 1993. Our tournament winner, Davio Ventouras, won six games that year out of twelve that were played, making him far and away the year's champion. The following school year, beginning the first week of September, we started off with two games, one with all rookies. When they concluded we filled three boards and have had at least three games going almost constantly since then. We also had a three-round Fall tournament with a three-board first round. The Spring Tournament held in May of 1994 used the scoring system from Origins '93; in fact, we've used different scoring systems for each tournament we have had. At the end of each tournament a host of awards are given in various categories, including the grand prize of a subscription to Diplomacy World. Our Fall Tournament for 1994 is a three-round tournament with four boards filled for the first round, plus a non-tournament all-rookie game going on at the same time.

What a delightful madhouse my classroom is each day during tutorials, as between thirty and forty players engage in the hustle and bustle of fervent negotiations. When noon arrives the room begins to fill again all through the lunch period as the players stream back in to see the results of the morning moves, and the diplomacy begins again for the next day. Nothing else but this could have energized me to become active in the hobby once more, after a nine year absence. A few months after that first game in my classroom back in December of 1992 I joined a couple of postal games, wrote several articles for Diplomacy World, and started my own zine, The Game's Afoot for local gamers. When those seniors graduated in May of '93 they wanted to try their own postal game among themselves, so I started The Flying Dutchman zine just for them, with monthly turns as they are away at college, and I added a second game for the seniors who graduated in May of '94. With forty-one games completed in my classroom between December of '92 and December of '94, here are a few statistics we have compiled. These numbers per country are based on a simple scoring system, giving ten points for a first-place, five points for a second-place finish and three points for third place.

England - 128

France - 124

Germany - 138

Italy - 91

Austria - 95

Russia - 126

Turkey - 195

The surprise is that Italy has done so well, much better than the five percent average wins found in postal play. In '92-'93 Italy only managed two third place finishes, but the following year's strong Italian play (at the expense of Austria) led to four Italian wins in '93-'94, one second place, and one third place. Conversely, the first year's strong Russian play gave way the following year to a combination of generally weak Russian play and bad fortune in Russian alliances. In fact, we had one Russian player eliminated in the Fall of '02, something I had never before seen! And of course Turkey's strong standing is also somewhat of a surprise, although I must add that not all the Turkish victories have been eighteen-center wins: some were concessions and others ended by tournament time-limits on years played. Our best "survivor" has been France, with few wins but a host of third places, and England follows in survival skills with even fewer wins than France, but with many second place finishes. Second in total wins to Turkey has been Germany, not surprisingly, but counteracted by its weaker survival power.

In 1993-94 thirty-nine different students played at least one game of Diplomacy, including seven females. In fact, our first win of the year was an eighteen-center Turkish win by Phoebe Ventouras, sister of the previous year's champion. Eighty-two different students have participated in at least one game since our first one in December of '92, and each senior class has a postal game awaiting them in The Flying Dutchman, where I also keep them in touch with our club's Diplomacy news. As I write this, six boards are filled and in action each day in a Diplomacy game in my classroom, and fourteen former students send in their moves to me monthly in postal Diplomacy. I have to believe that Highland Park High School is the hotbed of Diplomacy in this country! At least I have never heard of any other place where so many players are continually engaged in "The Game," five days a week, for approximately eight months out of the year.

So I beg to differ with those I have read who say that young people are just not getting into Diplomacy these days. In the March 1994 issue of Fire and Movement the editor lamented that so few of the young are playing board games: "We beat our breasts and wail about the lack of new blood entering the hobby. But take a look at where the kids hang out. Whether it's video arcades or concerts, the name of the game today is instant gratification." Similarly, a recent editorial in The General detailed the shift in emphasis away from board games and to computer games, noting that new players are just not getting into board games as in past years. Now I realize that Diplomacy has always held a special niche in gaming, (board games, computer games, role-playing games, and Diplomacy) but for three years I have seen a great carry-over from Diplomacy to board games, particularly to historical simulations.

I watch these students go at it each day, with sophisticated and knowledgeable play, and with enthusiasm. I know that Diplomacy is in good hands with players like this coming into the hobby.

David Smith is a regular contributor to Diplomacy World.

Adjudicating Diplomacy Games By Computer

by Stewart Cross

Well, here was a challenge - design a computer program to adjudicate Diplomacy games. Stephen Agar assured me it would be useful, and he was not aware of any commercially available program designed specifically for long-suffering zine editors. Now I wouldn't exactly claim to be a computer genius, but I'm reasonably literate, and here was an opportunity like no other to familiarise myself with the rules of a game which, it must be admitted, I haven't exactly distinguished myself at yet.

At first sight, Diplomacy appears to be quite a simple game, and my target was a simple one - I wasn't trying to play the game, after all - only provide a framework for managing it. But once I started thinking of how to actually analyze moves and decide whether they succeed or not, I realized it's actually deceptively difficult, for a variety of reasons.

One reason is the sheer volume of possible moves. Take for example four armies in (say) Venice, Tyrolia, Trieste, and Vienna, and for the moment ignore their countries. How many different orders could be submitted? Let's start with Venice:

• A(Ven) Stands
• A(Ven) - Tri
• A(Ven) - Tyr
• A(Ven) S A(Tri) - Tyr
• A(Ven) S A(Tyr) - Tri
• A(Ven) S A(Vie) - Tyr
• A(Ven) S A(Vie) - Tri
• A(Ven) S A(Tri)
• A(Ven) S A(Tyr)

Venice can make 9 different orders in total. Vienna can also make 9, while Tyrolia and Trieste can make 11 each because they are adjacent to three of the other provinces instead of two. So the grand total of possible moves here is 11 x 11 x 9 x 9 = 9,801. And this is just for 4 units in 4 provinces. The possibilities for 34 units in 75 provinces are enormous.

Actually, the situation isn't quite as mathematically complex as that. The scenario I've described has several different symmetries which reduce the number of genuinely different combinations to around 250. But although most of the possible combinations are illogical and would very rarely, if ever, actually be ordered, the computer has to be able to adjudicate them nevertheless.

Now the human mind is very good at scanning complex situations and recognizing patterns, and this is the way in which Diplomacy players, by and large, adjudicate. We can quickly recognize which moves are interdependent and ignore all the others while we analyze "groups" of moves. The computer, on the other hand, is good at calculations but cannot recognize patterns easily, especially where the number of possibilities is so great. Instead, it has to work analytically on each move and determine its success or failure.

Another reason why Diplomacy is difficult to analyze is that it is potentially very "interconnected". For example, the outcome of A(Mos) - Ukr could, potentially, determine the result of F(Lon) - ENG on the other side of the board. Convoys, in particular, allow arbitrarily long-range movement, and allow units to influence events very far away. In practice, we all know that most Diplomacy rounds can be broken up into small independent scenarios, and the human mind can quickly work out which moves affect the outcome. The computer, though, cannot normally break up an adjudication into small parts, for its lack of pattern recognition means it can never rule out the possibility that a unit in a different part of the board will affect its result. It has to deal with all the moves at the same time.

So the solution had to be analytic and deal with all the units together. My next consideration was how to do the analysis, and this is where more problems arose.

Diplomacy works on a rule of simultaneous movement, but the actuality is more subtle than that. There is a hierarchy of moves, ranging from the simple uncontested moves which must succeed, through to moves dependent on a complex chain of events. It is very important to get this hierarchy right. When we apply the rule ourselves, we quickly identify it - "move A must succeed, therefore move B, which is dependent on its outcome, fails". The computer must firstly identify which moves must succeed or fail, and then use this knowledge in an iterative process to adjudicate the dependent moves.

So consider what factors determine the outcome of a single move (let's call it "your" attack). The first is clearly its strength. It is fairly simple to add 1 (for the move) plus 1 for each valid, un-cut support, to give a total "weight" for the attack.

The second factor is the defence. If there is a unit in the province being attacked, what does it do? It might stand, it might counterattack (these two cases are actually the same as far as the calculation is concerned), or it might move somewhere else. This move "somewhere else" might be significant if it dislodges your attack's support, or another attacker, or one of its supports. The third factor is other, third-party attacks. These have the potential to "stand off" your attack, so they must also be considered.

Taken together, I drew up (after several attempts) a list of 20 distinct categories of result with different outcomes. These ranged from the trivial:

• "No unit in province attacked, all third party attacks have less weight than yours - move succeeds."
• to the uncomfortably complex:
• "Unit in province attacked succeeds in dislodging the support of the only third party attack with a weight equal to yours - move succeeds."

These 20 categories fell into 2 broad classes. 7 of them were determinate, in the sense that their result was independent of any other moves. The remaining 15 were indeterminate until the moves around them had been decided. This now gave me a basis for the program. The components of the analysis were as follows:

• Check the syntax of each order
• Check the validity of individual orders
• Check orders' dependencies
• Check the validity of convoys
• Make support cuts
• Adjudicate moves:
• (a) Calculate weights of attack, defence & counterattack
• (b) Determine category of result
• (c) On the first pass, adjudicate the determinate moves
• (d) On subsequent passes, adjudicate other moves
• (e) Loop until all moves are adjudicated
• (f) Check for dislodged convoys & adjudicate again if necessary
• Make retreats, disbands and adjust units.

There was one final complication. This "algorithm" depends on there being at least one move which is determinate at the start of the adjudication. There are some cases where this is not so. These are the three- or four-way rotations, for example:

• A(Bud) - Ser; A(Ser) - Rum; A(Rum) - Bud

An explicit test for these needed to be included in the adjudication routine.

There were some other areas where careful thought and rule-reading were required. Self-dislodgement was prohibited by putting a test in the adjudication cycle to prevent it; but I had to be careful not to do it too early, as self-attacks are valid for other purposes, for example to stand off another player. Support cuts were relatively straightforward, but I had to be careful to include the bit about a convoy not being able to cut support for an attack on its last fleet. The convoyed swap:

• F(TYS) C A(Tus)-Rom; A(Rom)-Tus

was also quite simple once I remembered it.

Convoys themselves required quite a bit of thought. In the end, I settled for a compromise. My program supports convoys of any length, but they must be linear and unbroken. The "unbroken" bit is common sense, but the "linear" actually goes contrary to the rules, which do allow multiple paths for convoys. Not only that, I (against Stephen's advice) insisted on including "unwanted" convoys. So, given

• Germany A(Bel) - Pic
• England F(ENG) C GERMAN A(Bel) - Pic
• France F(MAO) S F(Bre) - ENG

The French move would succeed, F(ENG) would be dislodged and the German move would fail, even if the German was unaware of the other moves. Well, it keeps me entertained!

Once the basic adjudication routine had been designed, I spent some time shaping the program as a genuine game manager. I set up map, unit and country files to store the basic data, a system for changing seasons, an editor for changing orders and examining results, a game file to store basic game information like the players' and GM's names, and a menu system to control everything. The result is reasonably pleasing, although it probably needs fine tuning. I am fairly happy with the integrity of the adjudicator, having spent many hours testing it on the most difficult situations I could think of, and initial tests have do seem to be showing that it can save a good deal of time, especially as it generates a text file of the game report which can be pasted into a word processed document. I must admit, I don't feel the urge to run a Diplomacy zine myself, but it's nice to do something useful. Now, if anyone's interested in Computer Croquet.....

Stewart Cross's Diplomacy Games Manager for DOS is available by FTP (I'm not sure from where, though - ask in rec.games.diplomacy). Stewart's next project will be to program a personality for Mark Nelson (ha!).

What Do You Say?

by Pat Conlon

What do you tell others about Diplomacy? You know what I mean. Many of us have respectable jobs with a fairly traditional image: bank managers, Army Captains, trucking company executives, lawyers, etc. We strive to uphold a certain, stable image in these jobs and we carry that image over into most of our personal lives. The president of the bank would not be impressed to see one of his bank managers pissing in the sink at a crowded rock concert. Your average general would take a very dim view of a captain who frequented transvestite bars. So, what do you tell other people about Diplomacy?

Dip is a game, and serious people don't spend much time on games. They're too busy raising kids, working towards the next promotion, or trying to get into that exclusive country club. Worse, Dip is a wargame, something that most people look upon as an activity for pimply-faced geeks after the science lab has closed for the day. Do you have an image in your mind of what the average Dipper looks like (and acts like)? Now I have met many wonderful, level-headed people in New York, Chicago, Madison, and San Francisco who just happen to play Dip. Despite all of them, what persists in my mind is an image all con-goers know from the hordes of role-players and fantasy-freaks. I'm sure most con attendees have been on an elevator with a grossly obese, oily-faced, unshowered-in-three-days gamer who's more gamey than a ten day old carcass and more loudly opinionated (and wrong) than Howard Stern. If you caught yourself holding your breath during that last sentence, then you know what I mean.

I thought that playing by mail would allow me to avoid that image. But PBM only serves to reinforce and even exaggerate that negative image. Because we generally lack an accurate picture of who we are playing and lack information about these people outside of their continued interest in the game, our imaginations take over and supply images for us. These images are the product of the other person's letters and what we as recipients read into those letters. Of course such images are further sullied by the occasional jerk, such as the guy who's first letter to me in a new gamestart included this bit of diplomacy. "I was going to compare you to weasel or dodo, but what would be the point." And I've received worse. Some letters appear to be written in pencil or crayon in large block letters by a ten year old. But the lack of sense in the letter suggests a five year old and hobby records may show the person to have been playing for the last 3 - 5 years!

Admittedly, not all dip-players look like a reject from a role-playing circle. But there are many who fall somewhere in between the respectable citizen and the nerdy teenager images, like the forty year old whom you suspect has no life outside the 30 - 40 dip games he's currently playing or the thirty year old with the ugly face, the foot odor problem, the twenty year old shell of a car, and a great job as the night clerk at 7-11. You know the word I'm aiming for: LOSER. All too often the world classifies people in one of two categories: winners and losers. Even the best people sometimes catch themselves making these judgements about others. The line that defines winners and losers is a vague one, defined differently by different people. And (surprise, surprise) most tend to put that line somewhere below their own perceived station in life.

So, do you tell your boss or your co-workers about your hobby? Do you show them maps and letters? Tell them how you once outsmarted an opponent with a forged letter? Or do you worry that may alter his/her image of you? Me, I just tell people that I like writing letters and keeping in touch with old friends. Even that gets raised eyebrows. Most of my friends think that letter-writing is too archaic and time-consuming. It adds a dash of realism (the kind of realism tailored to their biases) when I tell them that having a computer allows me to keep in touch with a large number of friends, since the computer allows me to write one basic letter to 20 different friends, changing only the salutation and whatever pertains to only one individual. How many dates before you tell the new girl (or guy) in your life about Diplomacy? Is that before or after you show her/him the booger collection under your bed?

Pat Conlon is a well-regarded Diplomacy player, and apparently also collects boogers and hides them under his bed.

In Search of the Cult of Personality - Part 4: Why I am a Christian (and a Diplomacy player)

by Jim Burgess

This column in the series is probably the hardest I've written and I've been working on it for quite some time. I sincerely hope I don't offend anyone by it since that is not my intent. On the other hand spiritual beliefs are a deeply held element of one's personality and ultimately I can only write about my own reaction to these questions. That element of telling one's own story though is at the heart of what it means to be a Christian. Being a Christian is not about being a hermit or hiding from life and the diversity of people in creation. It is about being given each other to listen to and learn from. One of the ways to do that is in games and fun, like Diplomacy. Diplomacy played remotely offers even wider possibilities as people read my szine from all over the world and people play in it from all over the United States. The Game and its focus on personality offers a myriad of opportunities to listen and learn and I try to take advantage of all that offers. Yet, that statement is pretty general, what is Christian about this? The evangelist Linda Strohmeier has said, ``Religion is always struggling with its relationship with power and money and control. People who would have power in the world want to connect with the enormous power that religion wields. And spiritual pride is seductive, the certainty that `we know.' I want to be very sure that I don't climb onto my own spiritual pride bandwagon, seduced by temptations to power.'' I identify with that struggle quite viscerally and have found writing this column hitting to the depths of those urges. Moreover, I found it very similar to the feelings I sometimes have in playing Diplomacy in feelings of guilt generated by taking advantage of the skills that I have, weak though they might be.

A Christian approach to these questions must stem from Christian love. If the role of the Christian is centered in love and inclusivity, why is that so? Does it stem from browbeating, proselytizing, and commanding?? No, not in any sense that I believe. Since you can read scripture in so many different ways and the act of reading interacts with us as persons, I don't think you EVER can read the lessons of Jesus as saying that you should browbeat people into doing things your way. Instead, you're supposed to live like Jesus, which is much more than using him as a model or a standard. It's going out every day and trying to live like him and that means loving everyone, throwing no one out, and trying your best to feed other people with what they need. These three central elements of Christianity seem to me to be ever present in the Diplomacy hobby as issues to be addressed. But that's not exactly how I see them, they aren't issues to be addressed. They are ways to live, every day and in every way. I find Diplomacy to be a great way to feed people in all sorts of ways, some obvious, some not. Don't you?

Ah, but what about lying. You aren't supposed to ``bear false witness against your neighbor'' and in the game of Diplomacy lying is permitted or even encouraged. What does one do about that? The simple solution is to decide that you are going to play the game without lying. This is possible and has been taken as an approach by numerous people whom I have encountered in my nearly three decades of playing this game. I want to take one example whom I know well to describe some of the implications of taking a ``no-lying'' pledge. I am pretty sure the person I have in mind was choosing not to lie as part of being a Christian, though I can't recall ever discussing it with him. I've decided not to name him in this column since it doesn't advance my point and actually might detract from it. Choosing not to lie took a large set of potential actions and strategies out of his toolkit. Partially as a result of this decision, he had a terrible record in playing Diplomacy games. Moreover, in struggling to do well in these games, he also tried to use deceit that came just short of actually lying in order to achieve Diplomacy goals. In other words, he would discuss particular moves or strategies and wouldn't actually promise to do his part for them and try to mislead others by doing so. In the long run, this also backfired because he became known for this to such a degree that even these deceptions were completely worthless. If he failed to come out and make an actual promise to do something, you knew he was being deceptive. He also had a slogan that I've found to be one of my favorites to such a degree that it always sticks with me. It was ``Learn to love to do well and you shall.'' I don't know where it comes from, but it says a great deal for me about how to grow and learn continuously in order to do well, not just at Diplomacy but at life.

The commonplace of lying and deceit, then, seems really difficult to overcome. How can this be reconciled with Christian moral formation, ultimately based upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Well, I won't even try to prove anything to you, but let's look at what is widely considered Jesus' most difficult parable, about the servant of two masters and see what it has to say on these questions:

Jesus said to the disciples, ``There was a rich man who had a steward, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his goods. And he called him and said to him, `What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your stewardship, for you can no longer be steward.' And the steward said to himself, `What shall I do, since my master is taking the stewardship away from me? I am not strong enough to dig, and I am ashamed to beg. I have decided what to do, so that people may receive me into their houses when I am put out of the stewardship.' So summoning his master's debtors one by one, he said to the first, `How much do you owe my master?' He said, `A hundred measures of oil.' And he said to him, `Take your bill, and sit down quickly and write fifty.' Then he said to another, `And how much do you owe?' He said, `A hundred measures of wheat.' He said to him, `Take your bill, and write eighty.' The master commended the dishonest steward for his shrewdness for the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light. And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous mammon, so that when it fails they may receive you into the eternal habitations. He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much; and he who is dishonest in a very little is dishonest also in much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.'' (Luke 16:1-13)

The standard ``lesson'' taken from this gospel is that the temptation to be dishonest is almost irresistible. In doing so, the assertion of the self as I have been calling the expression of personality can lead to doing ``whatever you can get away with,'' honesty be damned. The nagging finger pointing view from the pulpit then can be a simple ``Enough is enough.'' Draw a line against dishonesty for yourself and live within it while also demanding that others do so as well. This ``shoulds and shouldn't's'' view of the Gospel is terribly simplistic though and this Gospel is far more complex than that. I want to discuss this from a couple of different levels.

First, note that the steward is commended for his shrewdness. Why? Let's start with a dictionary definition of ``mammon''. It was the Aramaic word for ``riches'' and really is meant to encompass all of the talents and resources which Christian theology clearly states belong to God and are given to us as stewards. Thus, a ``difficult'' Gospel also is a centerpiece for the concept of stewardship. To me, the personification of this word as devilish is a crucial misreading of the sum total intent of this Gospel. The steward does use the ways of the world (in its representations in the ledgers of the master's business) in order to secure for himself a life that he can live based upon an honest assessment of all that he is. Even though he ``cheats'' the master in a sense, he does so through kindnesses in distributing riches that all belong to God. And in doing so, his need to be dishonest is ended. Playing Diplomacy and using all of the riches provided to us is not un-Christian. It's part of where we are as sons of this world who are not completely divine in nature. In other words, being faithful in the unrighteous mammon is important and being faithful means not making the mammon the master. That tells me that doing as well as one can in games or anything else is a good thing.

Second, Jesus is very clearly telling us to draw lines and demand honesty at the ``meta-level'' where it really counts. This is very telling for how we play Diplomacy as Christians. This occurs within ourselves and in how we follow the real commandment to love one another as ourselves. Being honest with oneself at all times is essential. One of the reasons I like reading the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who is popularly known for saying ``God is dead,'' (even though he really didn't, at least not so simply and clearly) is that you can look at him as a failed Christian who was trying to be honest with himself. I don't think it has happened yet, but someday some philosophic critic is going to write a revisionist treatise arguing that Nietzsche really was a Christian. Nietzsche said that, ``It seems to me that even the bluntest word, the bluntest letter is still more good-natured, still more honest, than silence. Those who remain silent are almost always lacking in delicacy and politeness of the heart. Silence is an objection, and swallowing things down unnecessarily makes for a bad character--it even upsets the digestion. All who remain silent are dyspeptic. Clearly, I would not have bluntness underestimated: it is by far the most humane form of contradiction and, amid modern pampering, one of our foremost virtues. When one is rich enough for this, it is even good fortune to be wrong. ((Clearly, Nietzsche is talking about the same kind of ``mammon'' and richness as Jesus was; and Nietzsche knew the Christian gospels backwards and forwards.)) Were a god to come down upon earth, he should do nothing but wrong: to take upon oneself guilt and not punishment, that alone would be godlike.'' (From Ecce Homo: How One Becomes What One Is, Section 5 of the chapter ``Why I Am So Wise'') While I am tempted to explicate that further, I think I'll just leave it with this additional comment: part of feeding people and throwing no one out means that we need to admit our wrongs to ourselves so we can go beyond them to love others.

Lastly, in a related way, think of this contractually. I have used this Gospel in teaching about economic contractual relationships in the classroom. One of the reasons I've always found it so fascinating is its clear sense of understanding of some of the concepts of game theory. Game theory equilibria obtain from the assumption that each independent agent will act in his or her best interest while anticipating the reaction of others. Why did the master (representing God) in the Gospel allow the steward to retain the books in order for the steward to give the master's wealth away? In fact, this was the welfare maximizing solution for everyone concerned. We've already dealt with the advantages for the steward, but the master benefits as well. For one thing, the steward creates good feelings for the master amongst the community, reversing the bad feelings generated by the wasteful behavior of the steward. While the steward receives the direct benefits, the indirect benefits are the ones valued by the master and he chooses to attain his goal by playing this game with the steward assuming that the steward's behavior will be self-interested. I assert these are relevant aspects of the game of Diplomacy. It is the indirect benefits of playing the game that accrue to everyone that are the most important. These benefits are the fellowship and fun obtained in playing the game and using the wits and skills God has given us in order to do as well as we can. Moreover, when we assume the contract of playing a Diplomacy game, we accept the rule condition that lying and deception are allowed. As in any game, things happen in games that would not be considered fair or ethical if they occurred outside of accepting the implicit contract by playing in that game. Think of the hitting and violence in hockey or football. Are these players any less followers of Christ because they do things to each other that would get them arrested if they did them out on the street in public? No.

One of the things that always has struck me as strange is the way we accept the use of physical gifts more readily than we accept the use of intellectual or clever ones. Of course, many people decry this sort of violence too, but to me the key is contractual acceptance of the terms or rules of the game.

As a result, a certain strength of character is needed in order to be a Christian in general and a Diplomacy playing Christian in particular. Game playing and Diplomacy fandom is part of a way of being and so are matters of religious doctrine. Using the imagination in playing games is part of the way we feed our souls and keeping our souls in line with religious ideals requires a duality that is common to religious thinking but ultimately not based in fact or mathematical proof. Using all of our gifts in playing Diplomacy means exercising a combination of the highest order of spatial, empathic, mathematical, verbal persuasive skills with which humans have been blessed. Doing that to the very best of our ability in playing games further develops those skills as long as we approach each game with an open and honest mind. To do so while still being an inclusive Christian requires that highly developed courage that Nietzsche asks for in the quote above, without the scorn (which I didn't quote from) that Nietzsche delivered against essential human failings. Diplomacy also is a game in which it is really easy not to be successful. Playing it has taught me a great deal about how to accept failure and keep trying. Being a Christian and a Diplomacy player might not be easy, but it can be an integral part of the lifelong spiritual growth that a contract with Jesus Christ asks of Christians.

Jim Burgess currently publishes the postal/email crossover zine The Abyssinian Prince.

The Replacement Player - Germany in the Real World

by Brent McKee

Have you ever played against one of the master players: someone legendary for their skills in negotiation, tactical insight and the ability to see and act on opportunities as they develop; in short, someone that it's a pleasure to lose to. Unfortunately, halfway through the game this dream player drops out and is replaced by the player from Hell. Arrogant, self centered, bullying, with the tactical insight of an ant, who misjudges every situation. Of course this could never happen in real life. Except that in Germany in 1890 it really did happen.

For almost thirty years Otto von Bismarck directed the foreign and domestic policies first of Prussia then Germany. Bismarck was first and foremost a pragmatist: policies and alliances shifted as circumstances dictated. What never changed was that he would do whatever was necessary to strengthen Prussia and Germany. Every power in Europe was a potential ally and enemy. This was never clearer than in the German wars of unification. Prussia allied with Austria in 1864 to defeat Denmark, but in 1867 went to war against Austria with the tacit approval of France. In 1870 Prussia fought France while Austria-Hungary, if not allied with Prussia, was not hostile. The rewards of these wars were great. War with Denmark brought Prussia parity with Austria in Germany. The Austrian war ended Austria's influence in Germany and gave Prussia control of Northern Germany. Finally, the war with France led to German unification under the leadership of Prussia, and Bismarck.

The Franco-Prussian War also created Germany's greatest problem because of the humiliating terms that ended the war. France was forced to cede Alsace and Lorraine to Germany and to pay a huge indemnity (equal, on a per capita basis, to that levied on Prussia by France in 1809). The military, supported by Wilhelm I, insisted on these terms against the wishes of Bismarck. Germany's demands eliminated the possibility of the sort of "peace of reconciliation" that had been reached with Austria. Instead a "revanchist" spirit developed in France, focussed on redeeming Alsace and Lorraine. However both Bismarck and the French leadership realized France could not fight Germany alone; they needed allies.

Bismarck's foreign policy was based on two points: the isolation of France and the preservation of peace between Austria and Russia. Bismarck needed stability in Europe to keep France isolated and that meant preventing conflict between Austria and Russia. Bismarck's initial effort was the original Dreikaiserbund (Three Emperors' League), a general convention binding on no one, which called for consultations when situations arose. Possibly the one thing uniting the powers was that they were conservative monarchies and France wasn't. Historian A.J.P. Taylor has written that "The League of the Three Emperors was supposed to secure the peace of Europe. It survived only so long as the peace of Europe was secure. Monarchical solidarity was a luxury which was blown to the winds as soon as Russia and Austria-Hungary saw their eastern interests in danger." That happened following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. The settlement forced Russia to give back most of her gains in the Balkans, restored the Austro-Russian rivalry and destroyed the Dreikaiserbund.

Bismarck was forced to remake his foreign policy. He set out to create more binding relationships, beginning with a treaty with Austria-Hungary. Twenty-five years earlier Bismarck had opposed such a treaty, likening it to "tying our neat, sea-worthy frigate to Austria's worm eaten old galleon", but in 1874 an alliance made sense. Both parties were obliged to go to war if either were attacked by Russia and to maintain benevolent neutrality in wars with other powers. For Bismarck, Austria was a secondary power that Germany could dominate. The new treaty secured Germany's southern border and was intended as a lever to bring Russia into a new alliance. It was never meant to be the central plank of Germany's foreign policy.

Wilhelm I opposed the Austrian treaty and even considered abdicating until he realized that Bismarck was more indispensable than he was. Wilhelm's objection was based on his close family relationship to Tsar Alexander II and because Russia's role in restoring Prussian independence in 1813. Bismarck also wanted a treaty with Russia. He felt there was no valid reason to fight Russia and in any case Russia was too big to really defeat. He certainly didn't want to fight Russia and France together. Nor did he want Germany dragged into a war over the Balkans, which he felt weren't worth "the healthy bones of a Pomeranian musketeer". Thus Bismarck moved to draw Russia into a renewed Dreikaiserbund, a mutual defense pact in which if one power were attacked the other two would maintain "benevolent neutrality". This wasn't enough for Bismarck. The new Dreikaiserbund was allowed to lapse in 1887, and Bismarck negotiated his final masterpiece, the Reinsurance Treaty, with Russia. The treaty was secret, and for good reason. It promised neutrality if either party was attacked. This meant that Russia would be neutral if France attacked Germany. It also meant that Germany would remain neutral if Austria attacked Russia, which contradicted the spirit of the treaty with Austria.

Events began to conspire against Bismarck. His power derived from his ability to get things done for Wilhelm I. The Kaiser wasn't terribly intelligent but he knew enough to realize that he needed Bismarck. Bismarck's fear was that his "master" would die. Bismarck expected that he would lose his position under the liberal Crown Prince, Friedrich. Then in 1887 Friedrich was diagnosed with inoperable throat cancer. When Wilhelm I died in 1888, Friedrich was barely able to speak and too weak to attend the funeral. He lived just 99 days after his father's death and was succeeded by his son Wilhelm II. Bismarck had high hopes for the new emperor, who had spent time studying at the Foreign Ministry under Bismarck's son Herbert. Yet within two years of Wilhelm taking the throne, Bismarck and his son were removed from office.

Wilhelm II was a complex character. Difficulties in his delivery resulted in his left arm being shortened and withered, which he continually tried to hide. He held gloves to create the illusion that his arm was longer, and avoided being photographed from the left side. Wilhelm was always desperate to fit in, to be one of the boys, especially among British society. He loved his father despite his liberalism, hated his English mother, adored his grandmother Queen Victoria and hated her son the future Edward VII. He regularly stated that he was half English, ignoring the fact that the British Royal Family was probably more German than the Hohenzollerns.

Bismarck underestimated the new Kaiser. He expected Wilhelm II to be content to reign not rule. Wilhelm wanted to rule and not merely as a constitutional monarch. One of his fondest memories was reading one of his father's books which glorified the Holy Roman Empire. Wilhelm wanted the sort of power that the old emperors had and was unwilling to be restricted by a minor inconvenience like a constitution. To do this he needed to be surrounded, not by old men with minds of their own, but by people willing to follow his lead. Thus Bismarck's time was limited. The trouble was that neither Wilhelm nor the men who surrounded him were in any way Bismarck's equal.

Within days of Bismarck's resignation, Herbert von Bismarck had resigned as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, leaving a foreign affairs vacuum just days before the Reinsurance Treaty was to be renewed. General George von Caprivi was made Chancellor, while Baron Alfred Marschall von Bieberstein became Foreign Minister. Neither had any diplomatic experience. The man with diplomatic experience was Freiderich von Holstein, a professional diplomat who had been a "loyal" advisor to the Bismarcks. The Kaiser had told the Russian ambassador that Germany's foreign policy would not change with Bismarck's fall and that the treaty would is renewed. However Holstein had opposed the agreement, seeing Russia as a threat even as an ally. He showed the treaty to Caprivi, who asked for Holstein's opinion. Holstein advised letting the treaty lapse. If Austria learned of the treaty it would harm relations with her, and Holstein felt that Germany needed Austria as a balance to Russia. Caprivi then advised the Kaiser to let the treaty lapse, and Wilhelm, failing to mention his pledge to renew the treaty, agreed. When Caprivi learned of the Kaiser's promise he threatened to resign. Wilhelm had no choice but to give up the Russian treaty since he didn't dare lose a second chancellor within a week. The decision made domestic sense, but it gave France the perfect opportunity to end her isolation. Within three years Russia joined France in an alliance. Germany had gone from being the encircler to being the encircled.

Under Bismarck, Germany's relations with the British were basically good, largely because their interests did not conflict. Germany had a small colonial empire and her growing overseas trade was protected thy British warships. On the other hand Britain had virtually no involvement in Europe. Although he offered to enter into a treaty with Britain on at least one occasion, Bismarck understood Britain's isolationism and that their primary concern was the colonial empire. Bismarck once commented that "An English attack would only be thinkable if we found ourselves at war with Russia and France, or did anything so utterly absurd as to fall upon Holland or Belgium or block the Baltic by blocking the sound." Bismarck wasn't about to do anything absurd, and his efforts were directed at avoiding a two front war with Russia and France. Indeed by encouraging the colonial ambitions of France and Russia, Germany could be sure that Britain would never enter into an alliance with them, while colonial confrontations could distract French attention from Alsace-Lorraine.

With Bismarck's fall two developments, extensions of each other, would worsen relations and eventually lead to exactly what the German's didn't want, a cooling of the antagonism between Britain, France, and Russia. The first of these developments was adoption of the policy of Weltmacht, or world power, in 1890. After unification Germany was an industrial powerhouse. By 1914 they produced as much coal and twice as much steel as the British and had the second largest merchant fleet in the world. To proponents of Weltmacht this wasn't enough. Germany had to expand overseas, and neither the fact that Germany's existing colonies were unprofitable nor that most of the world had been colonized mattered. Germany began taking an aggressive interest in colonial affairs between 1896 and 1914. Such a policy also required a navy.

A navy had never played a major part of Bismarck's plans. Germany's enemies were continental, so while there may have been naval engagements they would not be decisive. The only power against which a naval battle would be crucial was Britain with whom Bismarck was careful to maintain good relations. Thus, under Bismarck the German Navy was primarily a defensive force capable of offensive action against either France or Russia, but not a challenge to the British.

Wilhelm's position on the navy was entirely different. A combination of admiration and jealousy towards Britain led him to want "as fine a navy as the English." He was also influenced by the writings at Alfred T. Mahan, which were becoming popular at the time. Mahan's theory could be reduced to the belief that to be a world power you must first have sea power. And a major tenet of German national policy was Weltmacht, world power. The type of ships needed to achieve this was subject to debate. Wilhelm wanted cruisers for commerce raiding but Admiral Tirpitz, chief of the Naval High Command wanted battleships. Tirpitz presented his views to the Kaiser in an 1897 memorandum: Germany's principle naval enemy was Britain and only the main theater of war was important. Germany didn't have the overseas bases to sustain commerce raiding. Tirpitz stated that a fleet of seventeen battleships would make Germany a force to contend with: "Even the greatest sea state in Europe would be more conciliatory towards us if we were able to throw two or three highly trained squadrons into the political scales." To respond to British superiority Tirpitz developed his famous Risk Theory. The idea was simple: in a war with Britain the German navy might be beaten but the British fleet would suffer such losses that other powers would inevitably attack them. Thus a strong German navy would force the British to make an agreement with Germany. The difficulty was how to become strong enough to avoid a pre-emptive strike. As both sides built more ships, and newer classes of ships, the point where such an attack would cease to be a danger moved further into the future.

It is interesting to speculate on what might have happened had Germany not tried to build a fleet to challenge Britain. As it was, although Tirpitz would never have admitted it, his Risk Theory failed. The key assumption had been that by building a powerful fleet Germany could force Britain to make an agreement with them. The British made approaches, but at the time the Germans wanted too much: Britain would have to become a full member of the Triple Alliance with Germany, Austria, and Italy. The Germans were content to wait for the British to come on bended knee, acknowledging Germany as superior. Instead Britain resolved its differences with France and Russia. With that the assumptions underpinning "Risk Theory" were negated.

Once Britain reached an agreement with France, the aim of German diplomacy shifted to destroying that relationship. Belatedly Bismarck's successors recognized the importance of keeping France isolated. Unfortunately they lacked clear objectives and usually over reached what they could reasonably hope to achieve.

The first major opportunity was the Moroccan Crisis of 1905. Under the Anglo French Entente, France was granted dominance over Morocco. At the time German Chancellor Helmut von Bulow agreed with the provision as a way to restore order in Morocco. When two Americans were kidnapped by a Moroccan chieftain in 1904 the French took the opportunity to demand that the Sultan turn control of his army, police, and customs service over to them. The Sultan appealed for help to the German government. Bulow and Holstein seized on the situation as a way to destroy the Anglo-French agreement, and force French Foreign Minister Theophile Delcasse from office. The timing was ideal for brinkmanship: Russia was entangled with Japan, the British army was weak, and France was unprepared for war. The German position would officially be support of treaty rights and an open door policy. This was emphasized by a rather farcical visit by the Kaiser to Tangier and in the German demand for a international conference on Morocco. The crisis seemed to be producing the desired results when Delcasse resigned from office under fire from both sides of the National Assembly and from within the French Cabinet. When the Kaiser learned of this he made Bulow a Prince. However the Germans wanted more. French Premier Maurice Rouvier, acting as his own Foreign Minister, assumed that the situation would calm down with Delcasse gone. Instead he found the Germans unyielding and the British unhappy over the French failure to support Delcasse. With Germany threatening war, Rouvier gave in and accepted a conference on Morocco in the Spanish city of Algeciras. The result was scarcely the triumph Bulow and Holstein hoped for. Instead of breaking the Entente Cordiale, German bullying at the conference strengthened it, as Britain repeatedly supported the French position. Holstein was removed as a result of the diplomatic debacle, and Bulow was forced out as Chancellor in 1909.

By 1911 Germany had recognized France's "special political interests" in Morocco in return for French promises not to obstruct German commercial interests there. However the French refused German mining companies permission to operate in southern Morocco, which was closed to international commerce under the Algeciras agreement. When a rebellion began against the new Sultan, Germany took the opportunity to pressure the French. The Algeciras agreement allowed countries to intervene in Morocco to protect their nationals. The German navy was instructed to send a gunboat, the Panther to the port of Agadir in southern Morocco to protect German citizens. First a German citizen had to be sent to Agadir to be "saved", since there were no Germans living there. Once he arrived, sailors from the Panther and the cruiser Berlin moved to protect the "endangered German". Although the intention was to pressure the French, the British were increasingly worried that Germany wanted to establish a permanent base along a vital sea lane. The British were prepared to go to war over this, however the Germans managed to reduce tensions with Britain by explaining the Franco-German nature of the crisis. British pressure eased off, but British support gave the French a greater will to resist German demands.

One problem was that Germany's objectives in this confrontation were never clear. German Foreign Minister Kiderlen maintained a studied silence in public, hoping to increase the pressure on France. This led nationalistic German opinion to expect great things, including a partition of Morocco and humiliation of the French. Kiderlen did make major territorial demands, which were rejected by France. He eventually reduced his demands while the French increased their offers. When an agreement ceding 100,000 square miles of the French Congo to the German colony of Cameroon (less than half Kiderlen's "irreducible minimum") was finally reached, it was clear that for all he had risked Kiderlen had accomplished nothing. The British Foreign Minister, Sir Edward Grey, described it as "almost a fiasco for Germany: out of this mountain of German-made crisis came a mouse of colonial territory in Africa."

The policy of brinkmanship reached its inevitable climax with the Balkan Crisis of July 1914, the roots of which lay in the annexation of Bosnia-Hercegovina by Austria in 1908. At that time the German government had been prepared to support Austria to the point of war, even though the Kaiser described the Austria move as "a piece of brigandage". The Russian government was forced to accept the Austrian action and the resultant loss of face in the Balkans without gains of their own. Thereafter Russia policy was to actively contest any challenge over the Balkans. At the time the Tsar said that "German action towards us has been simply brutal and we won't stand for it." Thus, as a result of Germany's role in the crisis there was a significant cooling in relations between Russia and Germany even though the Kaiser considered the Tsar - his cousin Nikky - to be his dearest friend.

Of course the Germans had little choice. Although their Ambassador in Vienna, Count Tschirshky wrote in 1914, "I constantly wonder whether it really pays to bind ourselves so tightly to this phantasm of a state which is cracking in every direction", the truth was that Austria-Hungary was Germany's one reliable ally. For their part Austria-Hungary could do nothing internationally without German help, but the government was willing to take chances because they knew Germany would support them.

Things flashed into a crisis with the assassination of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The plot had been supported by elements within the Serbian government, but Franz Ferdinand's death evoked general sympathy for Austria-Hungary from the international community. For Hawks within the Austrian and German governments it seemed an ideal opportunity. On the advice of his ministers, Wilhelm offered Austria-Hungary support for whatever action they took including war, assuming that Russia would not fight. Having approved the offer, the Kaiser went on a summer cruise along the Norwegian fjords, leaving management of the crisis to his Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg and State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Gottlieb von Jagow.

They apparently felt that it was just as well that the Kaiser was away. They worried that the crisis couldn't be managed with the Kaiser interfering. Their expectations for this confrontation were great: the destruction of Serbia, the restoration of Austria-Hungary as a Great Power, and the reduction of Russia's status. The Germans wanted swift action, but the Austrians were intent on crafting a set of demands which, they believed, Serbia could not possibly accept thereby justifying war. Astonishingly the Serbs accepted nine out of the ten Austrian demands. The Kaiser, who returned to Berlin the day that the response was received, declared it a "great moral victory for Vienna", and ordered Bethmann-Hollweg to offer Germany as a mediator. The Chancellor ignored the Kaiser's instructions. On July 29, Austria began shelling Belgrade.

Even as the bombardment began, Bethmann-Hollweg was worrying about world opinion. He contacted the Austrian government several times demanding, even begging them to restrict their actions and to accept mediation. After that, if Russia declared war the blame would fall on them. Austria refused all entreaties. The Chancellor wasn't the only one trying to slow the Juggernaut. The Kaiser wrote numerous letters to Tsar Nicholas, trying alternately to bully and persuade him not to mobilize. The problem was that within Germany the Generals were anxious for war. Helmut von Moltke, chief of the General Staff, even went behind the back of the Kaiser and the Chancellor to tell his Austrian counterpart to begin full mobilization, promising that Germany would follow. On July 30, the Austrians began full mobilization. This was followed the same day by a Russian mobilization order. When word of this reached the.German Foreign Office the next day, only one course seemed to exist. Ultimatums were sent to St. Petersburg demanding a halt to mobilization, and to Paris demanding that France declare its neutrality and turn over certain fortresses to Germany as a guarantee. At noon on August 1 the ultimatum to Russia expired. Wilhelm ordered general mobilization.

And there of course was the final, sickening, fatal irony. Even if France declared their neutrality, nothing could be done. The vaunted German General Staff had only one mobilization plan and that was to hurl the bulk of Germany's 51 regular infantry divisions and 31 reserve divisions at France through Belgium. No one believed that there would be a war in which France would not be the main enemy. When Kaiser Wilhelm, in a frantic effort to keep the war from widening, tried to stop German forces from entering Luxembourg, Moltke told him "Your Majesty it cannot be done. The deployment of millions cannot be improvised....These arrangements took a whole year of intricate labor to complete and once settled they cannot be altered." So war with France was preordained, and because the Schlieffen plan insisted on doing what Bismarck had called "utterly absurd", invading Belgium, Germany also found herself at war with Britain.

In looking at German history leading up to the start of World War I, the importance of Bismarck's firing cannot be over emphasized. Bismarck played Diplomacy on the "real" board, shifting his policies based on the situation at the time. Bismarck would never have clung to the Austrian alliance long after it had ceased to be useful, although he might have let the Austrians think he had. Bismarck's successors failed in exactly the areas where he had succeeded, by being inflexible in their planning and expecting things to go their way just because they wanted them to. In relations with Britain they tried to scare the British into being their friends. Instead of being conciliatory they bullied. Their failure should be a lesson to Diplomacy players.

In Search of the Cult of Personality

Part 5 -- Play-by-Mail Diplomacy vs. Play-by-Electronic-Mail Diplomacy: Some Differences in Style and Feel

by Jim Burgess

This must be represented as a personal view of some of the differences between the world of Postal Diplomacy and the world of E-Mail Diplomacy. In particular, on the E-Mail side I have been involved with the Internet-based hobby for nearly ten years and the postal for about twenty. Others may have had different experiences or different conclusions from those experiences. What I hope it will do is to give both audiences an idea of what factors might lead them to want to try the other medium. I also apologize up front for the gap in the columns since I do intend them to be read as a balanced sequence. An earlier version of this particular column in the sequence has been available on the Internet through the Canadian Diplomacy Organization home page and The Diplomatic Pouch. This version should be considered the final one.

Playing Diplomacy by mail now has a history lasting more than three decades but some have said that its days are numbered. The perceived threat usually has been seen as coming from the interconnectedness achieved by Electronic Mail and the perceived superiority of that medium. My argument, focusing on the differences in personality between these two media, is that both are viable and both are likely to thrive into the next century. Nevertheless, the equilibrium sizes of the two different, but related, hobbies still has a bit of movement toward the electronic medium to go before it is done, I think. Therefore, I will focus on those differences that exist and how they interact with our personalities as players to determine what medium or mediums we will choose to get our Dip fix.

Differences that are General and not Confined to Diplomacy

Postal play is more touchy feely. There is an aesthetic value to touching a letter or a szine that is missing on E-Mail. This is generally accepted by people when they use E-Mail and has been widely discussed on the Net for years. In particular, the impersonal nature of E-Mail allows people to create a new personality or approach interactions with other people in an impersonal way. These characteristics carry over to the play of Diplomacy as well and brings out a general pervasive factor that affects how games are played. People flesh themselves out into real people as they interact with their opponents far more often in the postal world than they do in the E-Mail world. Postal people also are much more likely to organize and go to Diplomacy Conventions. Efforts by E-Mailers to organize simple face-to-face get-togethers, let alone conventions, usually fare very poorly. For example, for the 1995 North American DipCon (the one in the Bay Area), I and other people intensively pushed all of the Convention details on the net. There are LOTS of E-Mail players in the Bay Area (perhaps more concentrated than in any other area). I didn't go, but all available evidence suggests that this effort resulted in NO additional participants. Pete Gaughan was part of this effort and discussion on the Internet and he did go; however, his primary background is as a postal player and publisher. This summer's World Dip Con/North American DipCon in Columbus was a pleasant surprise that might change this direction as a number of prominent E-Mail players showed up and one (Pitt Crandlemire) actually won the World Dip Con title. Of course, I shouldn't say "actually" like it was a big surprise. The best E-Mail players are as good as the best Postal players. I'll address that more below; however, more E-Mail presence at conventions is a very good thing. Now perhaps convention attendees will be able to evaluate both Postal and E-Mail play as a place to play Diplomacy in between tournaments and get-togethers.

Differences in Definitions or Technical Capabilities

On the Internet, Anonymous games are extremely popular! This is where your identity (both E-Mail address and name) are concealed from the other players. All negotiation occurs through the Judge (the UNIX-based programs that adjudicate games on the Internet). Paul Rauterberg once tried such a game postally (I played in it), but it was very difficult and time-consuming for him to do the activities that the Judge handles so effortlessly (taking in mail, stripping the identifier, and re-mailing it). E-Mail players seem to like Anonymous games for two reasons. First, since they are anonymous, no one has any excuse for trying to inject any personality into the game (in fact, it is severely frowned upon because you might be doing it in order to let your real identity slip). This style of play is good for people who like to play in lots of games at once and do all of their negotiations in quick one-liners that are devoid of personality. Second, there is no reputation factor. Good players with lots of experience on the Internet say they like this since other less experienced players can't gang up on them out of fear that they will sweep the board with their skill. These good players (and they are as good as any players I have seen anywhere in the world) think that gives them a better chance of doing just that. Poor players or novices believe that it gives them more time to develop some skills or some luck while other players won't quickly gang up on them as easy pickings. I don't have any complete statistics on this, but roughly speaking about half of all games played on the Judges are Anonymous. What postal players call "Gunboat" games (anonymous games that do not allow "partial press" or private press between players) are also popular on the Judges for the same reasons... they play out quickly without requiring the injection of personality, but they also don't require negotiation at all (except in public press, where that is allowed, or in hints delivered through impossible orders like A Spa-Lon in No Press" games). In fact, some interesting debates occur about these hints" since the Judge will accept certain types of impossible orders, but not illegal ones. A Spa-Lon is possible with a convoy, while A Bur-Lon (e.g.) is not. This adds a bit of unreal surreality to No Press games on the Internet Judges. Some of these definitions end up being confusing without really qualifying as differences between the two hobbies. E-Mail players have a tendency to call all of these games I am describing as Gunboat games, while I have carefully distinguished between No Press, Gunboat, and Anonymous games.

Psychological Factors

In concert with the age of the hobbies, the E-Mail crowd tends to be younger than the postal crowd. The E-Mailers dominate in the large pool of high school to mid-twenties aged players that always used to be hanging around the postal hobby. I now find very few postal players that are not out into the work and family worlds and almost no college students. Moreover, most of those exceptions are old-timers who just haven’t settled into families yet (such as the Ellis brothers or Mike Barno). While this is most true of the US, it also seems to be true in large part in other countries like Britain as well. Unlike in the US though, where every college student pretty much has an Internet account these days, the British E-Mail crowd appears to be more diverse. There is a high concentration of older students pursuing advanced degrees mixed with professionals who have a high degree of Internet access in their jobs and fewer younger college students. In a parallel fashion, more US Diplomacy players as a percentage appear to have some access to E-Mail than their British counterparts, so some of these differences may fade over time with further market penetration of E-Mail into the British market. These issues create a difference in the psychology of the way games play out. Since most postal players are older, the seriousness and general level of play has been rising. People also have to pay real money for sub and game fees while Internet games are free. There is a huge degree of turnover in the younger E-Mail-based players. It appears to me that people sign up sometimes without even knowing the rules or owning a game. This very seldom happens with postal players. Nevertheless, as I suggested above, the very best players in each medium are comparable in ability, just not in style. These issues also possess feedback loops through other parts of the discussion above. In a related way, computers and E-Mail themselves tend to generate a more mechanistic style of play on the Internet. Many more people are fascinated by finding and knowing stalemate lines of all types, even stalemate lines holding fewer than 17 centers. The analogy may not be apt, but many E-Mailers sit in front of their computer screen in the same way as they sit behind their stalemate lines.... silently and with no intention of breaking through or moving forward. There are a lot of wins in the E-Mail world, but I would assert that they are due to the high novice factor. When most E-Mailers run up against serious resistance, they look to lock things up. Generalizing a bit more than necessary to make the point, postal players will probe for calculated risks to turn the advantage, frequently with a great deal of patience for long games. In games between experienced E-Mail players, on the other hand, they nearly always quickly move to the stalemate lines and lock into large draws. The free-wheeling aggressive postal players are almost nowhere to be found. I have found this myself in the E-Mail games which I have played. My aggressive postal-bred style has found few converts.

Press and Other Subtle Details

Postal Diplomacy games (good ones especially) are well known for their "press". This press appears in publication with the game results and can be funny, sarcastic, or witty. Good GM's collect and order this press for maximum reader impact. Many E-Mail players cannot see any reason whatsoever for writing this kind of press (dubbed "broadcast" press by the Judge). Thus, it tends to be pretty sparse and highly oriented toward the one-liner. One of the reasons for this is the technical one that the Judge does not save up such press and print it all at once with the results. Moreover, even if it did, the ordering and placement of press is crucial in the postal szine to maximize its growth and impact. The computer Judge expert system to do this likely never will be designed. Instead each broadcast item goes out by itself as the equivalent of one hand clapping. Nevertheless, the intricate detailed stories that many postal people write as press with their games, or filks and poetry based off of popular songs or other inspirations, still would seem to be possible and desirable. Nonetheless, they are nearly unheard of in Judge games. These are speculations, but I would assert that the speed of E-Mail games is a factor here. Most games schedule moves once a week, or even faster. There just isn't time to get involved in writing press in this way. I suspect the equilibrium of games between the two worlds eventually will include much more explicit recognition of the speed of the games being the primary differing factor. Games with less than three week deadlines will be played entirely by E-Mail and 3-6 week games will be played postally with postal szines, yet E-Mail will be one of many communication media used (also including telephone calls). The world here will be one where everyone has E-Mail, yet there still will be postal games. In the current Internet world, there also tends to be greater emphasis on the quantity of games played at a time, possibly because of the quantity-based nature of the dominant rating system (the Hall of Fame or HoF) where the more good results you have, the higher your rating. Perhaps a switch to average ratings would change this. It would be an interesting experiment to see if the ratings system is driving the play or if it is more fundamental in the nature of E-Mail play.

There are many other differences between postal szines and the Judges that organize Diplomacy games, but this is a good summary of some of the ones that I think are most important. Try both! They each have aspects that are worthwhile, but if you're interested in meeting people and getting involved in the interaction of personalities and things outside of the strict conduct of the game, the postal world is the place you have to go.

By a Whisker

by Conrad von Metzke

If you ask me in public, I'll continue to insist that it was all Henry's fault, but the truth is that it wasn't. At the time, I felt that I needed a scapegoat, and - to paraphrase Tigger - "that's what Henrys are best at." But I plan to write a codicil into my will exonerating the poor man, and letting the world know that I did it all by myself.

In fact it shouldn't have been anybody's fault, but then again, the last time life was fair was before God had created any. By all rights it should have been a trounce. Only one of the other players knew me - Henry, of course, who wouldn't matter - and so once I drew Turkey it should have been all over. I'm sure you all know by now that I simply do not lose as Turkey - 59 for 59 and still counting. But the five new guys didn't know that, and Henry was insignificant; and so, stifling a yawn, I set off for Number Sixty.

As always, it began wonderfully. Austria was a young gawky chap named Milos, who apparently had just arrived on the train from Slovakia. The only thing worse than his tactics was his English. A quick chat with Italy, another with Russia, and Milos was gone before anybody had a chance to open the bean dip. The poor lad departed soon after, and the last we saw of him he was standing at the taxi stand reading timetables for the trains back to Bratislava....

At this point I actually had to make a decision. It happens sometimes. Italy next, or Russia? - that was the choice. It took me all of three seconds: Russia had shifted most everything north to counter England, and Italy was an even gawkier chap named Jeffie - yes, that's what he called himself. I had, of course, told him every single move to make as we dismembered Milos, and now he stood there before me, a look of sheer idol-worship on his face, waiting to see how much more time I'd allot him to bathe in the glow of the master. As it turned out, not much. I nodded knowingly to France, in whom I had previously seen a spark of ability. France winked back. Jeffie gawked. And I was merciful, thinking that perhaps Jeffie would appreciate being able to share a cab with Milos.

At about this point in any game, no matter how good one is, one needs to pause for a moment and take stock, and so I did. Austria and Italy, of course, were in the trash. Russia was stuck in the north. France and England (mostly the latter) had made severe inroads into Germany, and I was ready to steamroll into the mid-game and prepare for the inevitable. It thus became necessary to deal with Henry.

Henry was England. Henry is a nice enough person, but if truth be told, he is not terribly bright. I've played several games with him before. He brings his dog to every game - a little Schnauzer with the face of a gopher and the charm of an eggplant - and Henry's style of play reminds me a lot of the dog, somewhere between 'nondescript' and 'plodding.' It suits his personality. He is addicted to immediate gratification, and has no capacity for long-term planning. It is best, therefore, if one wants him as a pawn-cum-ally, to write his orders for him, as of course I now offered to do. Henry, much to his frequent chagrin, trusts me. If I make a deal with him and then take away a couple of his centers, he firmly believes it is for the 'greater good' of the alliance, which of course he freely admits he cannot comprehend.

Henry and I agreed (translate: I agreed, Henry and the Schnauzer looked glazed) that I would undertake to snag Russia from the rear while England and France finished up in Germany, at which point France would be pinched between Henry and me and would quickly do a passable imitation of Milos and Jeffie. And so it began, with Russia and Germany quickly making the hoped-for sounds of Rice Krispies being crushed, and my Turkish units of course fairly pouring across Europe. But suddenly I glanced to the West Med. and noted an odd event: A couple of rogue French fleets seemed to be steaming south, in complete contravention of the agreed-to plan, and wholly without my permission. "This will not do," I muttered, "Doesn't this bozo understand what is happening here?" I took him aside for a chat.

I began with a disarming gesture, offering him the chips and the bean dip, which he began to munch generously. I then followed with a gentle query: "As concerns those two fleets you have elected to move toward the south, I was wondering if you might perhaps enlighten me as to what precisely you are the hell doing?" His reply, bracketed by healthy ingestions of bean dip, was equally measured: "Simple. I'm trying to force a stalemate."

Calmly I rejoined, "@#%&!!&! WHAT?!?"

"Mind you," he continued, "I may have left it too late. I'd heard your name before, but it just didn't register until something Henry said - or was it the dog? - about your having eighty-eleven wins or whatever. Then I remembered! Well, anyway, it's worth a try. And Henry says he'll help me; says he's tired of you always taking his centers just so you can add another score." (Munch.) Henry, in the background, waved sheepishly.

"@#%@!!@! WHAT?!?"

"Mfgwblq pfwzd glb mmdsjwd..." (munch munch gulp) "do you by any chance have any more of this bean dip?"

I studied the board. Unit by unit, province by province, border by border, dust speck by dust speck, I dissected that position to a fare-thee-well. Maybe - just maybe - Eisenhower was more thorough on D-Day, but only because they paid him more. And when I'd convinced myself that every possibility, every combination, every indefinable had been taken into account, I gritted my teeth. "It's going to be close," I said to myself. "But no-one - NO-one, and least of all Henry and his idiot mutt - does this to me! I will crush. I will KILL. I will DESTROY, and mutilate and disembowel and squish and shred and...." I fairly cackled. It was one of those defining moments in one's life for which there are no words. Or else there are far too many....

Fall 1909. Solemn scowls and furrowed brows all around the board - even, perhaps, the Schnauzer. The wreckage of chip bags and bean dip tins all over the room. The French player gobbling still more of the stuff. Henry staring absently at some abstract point in the next universe. The dog stupidly licking all the empty dip cans. And I, cemented to the game board, watching it all devolve to this final turn of the game. It would end here. I had 17. France and England had 17. I had two chances: Brest and Belgium. Both were guessing games, and if I failed, the enemy backfield units would arrive at the front and it would be a stalemate. I needed just one - either would do, and Henry, poor benighted sod, would be pulp. Offal. Carrion. "A step up in the world," I mumbled, and stared at the enemy with the most withering gaze imaginable. Even the dog flinched.

"This is it," I brazened, and wrote my orders....

It was the French player's turn to read, and it was no easy task. Between handfuls of chips and bean dip smears all over everywhere, he was all but unintelligible. But one by one, the telltale moves were read, and one by one the units were moved. Henry's first - the least important, all he did was stand and support. Then mine - six critical orders, eleven meaningless ones, but even the least of them as usual oozing sheer brilliance. And finally, the French paper was produced, quickly coated with bean dip smears, and read. "F Nth S GER Bel." Damn - lost that one. It was Brest - or oblivion....

At last! "F Mid - Gas." No problem there...and then: "F Eng S GER Bel." YES! - he'd guessed it wrong! Brest was mine! The game was won! Henry was LUNCH! In my shrieking glee, I think I may have turned a cartwheel. Certainly my screech of triumph was heard a mile away as the poor, sagging French player took his bean-dip-smeared right hand and shakily moved my army Gascony into Brest - to take the center and win the game! And then - and then, for SURE, I leaped from my chair and turned a cartwheel. And danced. And flung myself all about the room, all tension gone, all decorum abandoned, reveling in the glory of the greatest moment of my life. "I won!," I screamed, "and YOU LOST! You ninnies, I WON and YOU DIDN'T! I WON I won I won I won I won......."

And the Schnauzer licked his chops. And the French player, waiting for me to take a breath, said, "Er...well...I'm sorry, I just don't see it.!"

"You don't see what?," I intoned.

"Er...well...(munch) I just don't see that you've won...."

I leaped to the table. "Right there...I took Brest...." And I stared at Brest, and there was nothing there! "The army Gascony took Brest! You supported Belgium instead...WHERE IS MY ARMY?! ...well, no matter, we'll just go back over the order sheets...WHERE ARE THE ORDER SHEETS?!"

And the Schnauzer licked his chops, his whiskers gleaming in the bright light of my doom. "Oops," said the French player, "I must have smeared some bean dip on the orders. He just loves that bean dip, you know. Do you happen to have any more?"

On clear nights, when they let me out to walk in the garden, I often reflect on eternal things. The existence of God, the meaning of life, the army that should have been in Brest....

I reflect for a while, and then I stop. There's no need, because, you know, there aren't any eternal things. There is no God or any meaning. There are only simple, transitory things. Henry. Schnauzers. Half-eaten pieces of paper.

And bean dip. There's always bean dip. In fact, that's what we're having for dinner tonight. Would you care to stay?

A Hobby on the Brink? - An Interview with Conrad von Metzke

by Conrad von Metzke

PREFACE: Greetings. I seem to have talked my way into becoming DW's "new" Interviews Editor, and as such it is my hope that I can provide you with regular probing investigations into major hobby personalities and dominant issues that drive the hobby as it marches across President Clinton's bridge to the 21st Century. Beginning next issue, I will do that. For this time, however, my original plans for a spectacular opening salvo - which have changed three times in the 24 hours I've been working on this, and have fallen apart each time - will have to be shelved in favor of an approach which may seem rather pompous, but which may actually be useful in the long run. For my first interview with the DW team, I'm going to interview a long-time hobby figure of occasional (though erratic) importance, someone who has seen the hobby ebb and flow almost from the beginning, and who has participated at virtually every possible level at one time or another - in short, one of the tiny handful of true "old-timers" left in our midst.

I'm going to interview myself!

THE INTERVIEW:

DW: Give us, please, a capsule introduction to yourself, and to your place in the hobby today.

CONRAD von METZKE: Gee - I'm really surprised you asked! But since you did - I 'm a California native (1944, San Francisco) and have lived in the State of Lunacy my whole life - in San Diego since 1957. I've had a career in various capacities with the U.S. Postal Service, which I suppose gives me a vested interest in the future of PBM gaming. I'm presently in charge of the registered mail division in San Diego - and I'm now verging on retirement. I'm married with two teen-aged sons, God help me, and apart from gaming my free-time interests include voracious reading, classical music (both listener and performer), keeping tropical fish, philately and doing just enough household and garden work to keep from becoming sedentary.

I first discovered the game Diplomacy in a classified ad. in "Saturday Review" in 1961, bought a game set by mail, and enjoyed many long evenings of FTF gaming with friends for some while. (I even tried to start a PBM game in mid-1962 when some of our local group went off to college and/or the Air Force, but the attempt failed.) Along the way I had occasion to write to the designer concerning a rules question, and this letter got my name on his mailing list. Thus, one day early in 1965, I received in the mail a solicitation to play Diplomacy by mail in a new 'zine called "Wild 'n' Wooly," published by Steve Cartier. I quickly signed up and thus learned of the then-fledgling PBM hobby founded by Dr. Boardman. In April '65 I started my own 'zine, "Costaguana," which came and went for years before folding entirely in 1976 - and then restarting in 1984, since which time it hasn't stopped.

I've been Boardman Number Custodian (1972-74), Miller Number Custodian (on a brief interim basis in 1973), Orphan Games Honcho (same time frame - I was busy then!), editor of "Diplomacy World" (1976-78), two-time Runestone Poll winner (1987 and '88), and will be taking over again as Boardman Number Custodian later in 1997. I've also done an immense amount of publishing, using a variety of formats - but these days I confine myself to "Costaguana" (20 pages of games and drivel every few weeks), an e-mail effort concerning the game Railway Rivals, and later this year I'll resume editing the hobby statistical 'zine I started twenty-five years ago, "Everything."

DW: So - you've been a hobby "leader" on and off, and you seem to be angling to resume that role. Can you give us an assessment of the "state of the hobby," its vitality and health, its prospects for the future?

CvM: Aren't you supposed to ask one question at a time? Well, no matter - I'm frankly concerned that the postal hobby is in a state of terminal decline. Actually, I'm not so much concerned as convinced of it. My fear is that hobby participation will continue to narrow to the point where it won't be possible to mount games any longer, because the circle of participants will be too small to provide significant variety in a player base.

So far, this decline seems mainly to have affected America, where computers are gradually taking over. In Europe and elsewhere overseas, the postal hobby still has great following and much life to it. But I suspect they'll follow our lead eventually.

I see evidence of this decline everywhere. The number of 'zines published has been in a downslide for years. The number of NEW 'zines is quite small - once upon a time they seemed to pop out of the woodwork every few minutes, but now they've become a rarity and a real event. The number of gamestarts is down dramatically. Interest in variants - once a good bellwether of interest in the hobby and the game itself - is close to nonexistent (except anonymous, or "Gunboat," Dip, but I think that's significant too as I'll discuss in a minute). Participation in the Runestone Poll (of 'zine popularity) is no longer of much interest. And, curiously, I think the fact that the hobby no longer has much interactive bickering among its personnel - i.e. no 'feuds' - is a bad sign as well.

DW: Sounds ominous. Do you have any idea why this decline has set in?

CvM: Obviously I have several ideas, or I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now. My feeling is that the several contributing factors, which seem to have converged all at once, are: (1) the emergence of e-mail gaming, (2) a decline in interest in the type of game Diplomacy is, (3) a social trend toward depersonalization and efficiency, and (4) a dropoff in interest in board gaming in general. Of these, the first is of course paramount - the bald fact is that computers are taking over, and will continue to do so. And once someone has a computer in place, e-mail becomes quick, cheap and generally reliable in ways that postal mail is not.

Let me relate my own experience, which may not be 'average' but is probably representative. Apart from one quick on-line fling in 1987, I didn't get into the on-line world until about nine months ago - I'd had computers and modems all along, I just hadn't bothered to use them. But when I finally did, and established an e-mail "presence," my world shifted almost instantaneously. Previously I'd gotten tons of postal mail, and eight to ten 'phone calls close to my deadline day; but e-mail cut the postal delivery down to almost nothing (except other people's 'zines), and the 'phone never rings any more. And this for a person who had made no effort whatsoever to collect a subscriber list that was on-line. It simply happened. Now, this doesn't mean that all these people actually PLAY their games by e-mail - obviously not, because that's not what I'm running. But they could just as well, and more cheaply at that (no game fees or sub costs), and as the e-mail gaming community expands to allow more variety in matters e.g. of deadline, I strongly suspect that the on-line people will be slowly winnowed from the postal hobby.

But that's not the only factor. Read any news magazine or journal of social commentary, and one of the common themes is the depersonalization of society as a whole in the '90s. Postal letters are a personal touch; even when they're just bare-bones game orders, the writer usually feels some obligation to include a personal "hi, how are you?, we've had lousy weather" note, or at the very minimum a personal comment bemoaning that (s)he doesn't have time to include a personal note this time. But by e-mail, no such; very often all I get is a print that says "Game XXXX, Spring 19XX," followed by orders. Often not even a signature - not needed, as the sender's name appears in the electronic transmission data at the top of the message. Of course exceptions are there, but the percentages are not exactly "warm and fuzzy."

It's this kind of insularity to which I referred when I mentioned the continuing popularity of Gunboat - a good deal of it no-press Gunboat at that - and of the disappearance of hobby feuding. If there is anything more impersonal on this planet than no-press Gunboat, I am unable to conceive of it. (It also has the side "benefit" of allowing a GM to operate effectively with a narrow player base; as identities aren't known, the same people can play over and over without ever really becoming "inbred.") As to feuds, I'm not for one minute suggesting that personal invective and continuous bickering are wonderful things, but consider for a moment: They did force an interchange among personalities like nothing else has ever done. They represented a form of energy and vitality - negative, to be sure, but energy nonetheless.

And then there's the general decline in board gaming overall, and the specific decline in the kind of political game that Diplomacy is. It was devised in a political-science atmosphere in a day when the international stage was of more interest to the population as a whole, and it grew and matured in the socially-active '60s and '70s. But the '80s and '90s have spawned a retreat from that focus, and game popularity has followed suit. Shelves in the game stores I know no longer reflect variety and diversity; everything is now children's or "family" games (a retreat into one's own little world?), or "party" games for those who still entertain friends and neighbors. There's also apparently a rage in card-based games, many of which feature quick gaming results and a focus on acquisition ("I have more 'Magic' cards that you do!") rather than on actual player interaction. I don't involve myself in this stuff, so I may well be a bit off base here, but I do know what the game shelves at the shops reflect because I've looked, and I'm not happy.

DW: But don't you see a diversification developing out of the very decline in socio-political gaming? Don't postal 'zines show a variety of games these days instead of the old "dip-and-variants" staples?

CvM: Sure. That's good, and it helps immensely. Word games, for instance, seem to have scored some big points in recent years - those games don't require negotiation or interaction, but can still represent a "family" of players within a given 'zine. Shorter and smaller games than Dip crop up a lot too - fewer turns, fewer players, thus more chance of actually completing the game before players lose interest or the 'zine folds. In the respect that 'zines seem increasingly inclined to vary their games base, I'm encouraged - not so much that the hobby itself will rebound in any massive way, but rather that it can retain a 'niche' where a more limited hobby would eventually succumb.

DW: Did you just say that you think the postal hobby can make a comeback of sorts, or not?

CvM: What I said, if you'd been listening, was: There's a fringe area that can continue to be occupied by purely postal-based gaming, and this will be true for some time to come no matter what happens with the electronic world, IF (and I suspect ONLY IF) diversification continues to the point that enough people can be gathered in one place to keep 'zines and games viable.

There was a time in the past when my 'zine, "Costaguana," had a circulation over 200, and it could have gone higher if I'd pushed it (and found some way to make the copies - in those days I used a spirit duplicator, and 200 was about the upper limit of possibility). Today, when I could theoretically make infinite copies, I'm down to about 50 - again I could push it up some if I tried, but I have a healthy respect for my own limits of time and money, so I don't. But I cannot imagine pushing it all the way to 200 again, unless I sent it to random names as unsolicited "junk mail." More to the point, at least a fourth of my 50 people are "deadwood" in the sense that they receive and presumably read, but don't play or contribute. My most popular game at the moment, a word game, started with about 24 participants (out of 60 at the time) and is just now ending with 18 (out of, to be exact, 49). That's something like a 40% participation rate - but translate this to Diplomacy, and it would be very difficult to sustain very many regular Dip games when there were only 18 players willing to join, as the player lists would get pretty repetitious.

None of which really addressed your question. I think there's absolutely no way the postal-based hobby can ever be rekindled to the way it once existed, and I think continuing compression is inevitable. I suppose eventually postal gaming will vanish altogether, probably by transmogrifying into something wholly alien to our current concepts - but I'm not expecting to live to witness the denouement, just the run-up.

DW: Well, gee whizzers...if the decline and fall is inevitable, why don't we just chuck it right now and be done with it?

CvM: Because of Yogi Berra - "It ain't over 'til it's over." Despite the increasing limiters, there's a good deal of fun still out there. With a couple of exceptions, I haven't seen a whole lot of creativity in the on-line community, but it's still there in the dangling remnants of postal-dom. If I really felt that all that's left is the hobby's wake, I wouldn't be here now.

DW: Perhaps then the postal hobby ought to be thought of as "creative chaos" and left to do its own willy-nilly thing, without further effort at any formal trappings.

CvM: In other words, why not dismantle all the hobby 'projects' and 'offices' and let the hobby turn back into a free-fall 'happening?' Oh, I think that's already under way. As examples, I don't see the "'Zine Register" and the Runestone Poll lasting very much longer; the support is just not there. Miller Numbers for variant games can probably be forgotten pretty soon, too - apparently a few people still care, but not many, and with the whole variant hobby largely moribund I don't see much point. But other things will last a while longer - Boardman Numbers, "Diplomacy World," the orphan rescue service - because they still have some utility and because they serve to keep the hobby elements connected to one another.

DW: You mentioned earlier a decline in board games overall. Do you think Diplomacy - the commercial game - is on its way out?

CvM: I'm not in touch with the Avalon-Hill people and have no inkling as to their business decisions. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if production were discontinued at some point in the near future. It's already disappeared from most of the game shelves I know anything about in San Diego - the last time I found one on a shelf, it was so faded that it had obviously been there since the Great Flood. Perhaps there's a small mail-order market for it, or maybe more cosmopolitan cities than mine still peddle it successfully, but I'm pretty dubious.

DW: If the commercial game goes, won't the hobby inevitably follow suit?

CvM: Of course, after a while. It's pretty tough to snag new blood if the game can't be bought; there are limits to what can be done with conference maps and photocopies of rulebooks passed around hand-to-hand. Some of us diehards would linger on for a while, of course, but in the last analysis, without game sets to be had, I don't see any way to stop the sand from running out.

DW: You know, your whole attitude sounds pretty negative. It almost seems as if you think you and your ilk are dinosaurs trapped in a tar pit. Aren't you helping to kill off whatever hobby remains by that sort of approach?

CvM: Maybe, but I'm concerned that some of us are flailing in the wind trying to sustain something in ways that just aren't viable. I'd be much more comfortable with a reality-based approach to postal gaming - it's small, it's getting smaller, and there's no point in trying to make it come roaring back when it simply can't do that.

But if you want some positives, they're there all right. The most positive thing I can come up with is that there are at least ten postal 'zines, based in the U.S. or Canada, that I really look forward to receiving and reading - plus a batch of foreign ones. Yes, it used to be twenty or more. But ten isn't bad at all, and in those 'zines I find some of the most scintillating creativity I've ever known - even compared to the ostensible "golden age" of the hobby, which by the way wasn't all as "golden" as some people seem to think. In some ways, the restriction of the hobby is a good thing: It now makes it possible to keep up with most of everything, rather than have to pick and choose. But mostly, the people remain animated and exciting - editors and contributors alike. Okay, maybe such people are fast becoming anachronisms. So what? Anachronism can be a lot of fun as long as you don't expect it to be something else, or try to force it to conform to a mold. And if the ranks really do dwindle, I'll just spend more time with those who remain.

DW: Well...this has been fascinating, and certainly immensely informative. Could you wrap it up now with a succinct summary of how you see the hobby now, and in the near future?

CvM: Me - succinct? Well, why not? - I like a new challenge. I see the postal hobby in a state of flux, trying to "reinvent itself" (to steal from Al Gore) to carve out a place for itself in a world that is trying very hard to pass it by. And I think it will work far better if the hobby carves out that niche on its own terms instead of someone else's terms. Postal Diplomacy no longer lends itself well to formalisms - structure, forced cohesion and artificial skeletal trappings. If the hobby continues to posture as in any way "serious," it will evaporate very quickly; but if it can accept itself as a relaxed gathering-place, there can be a lot of fun to be had still. This isn't to say chaos is the answer; but that's not going to happen anyway, because the games themselves are.the focal point of the hobby and they necessarily have structure. No, it's more an attitudinal thing - we postal types just aren't on the cutting edge any longer, and we might just salvage a perfectly fine hobby if we'd stop bemoaning this change and get on with it.

DW: That was succinct? How long will it take you to tell me the time of day?

A Discussion of House Rules

by W. Andrew York

I. INTRODUCTION

It has been suggested that a series discussing House Rules, how to write them and what they mean would be a help for potential GMs and for the players in various Diplomacy games. Thus, I will attempt to give you my viewpoints about House Rules. Contributions will be most welcome, as will contrary viewpoints.

I plan to divide this into five parts. The first part (this one) will cover the reason for House Rules and some important items to be included. The second will cover press. The third will deal with order formats, "how to" submit them and other information on the mechanics of House Rules. The fourth is planned to cover variants and other games often played in the Diplomacy Hobby. The last will be a wrap-up, touch on Tournament Rules and anything that I may have to add.

Please note I will usually refer to postal play. This is for convenience only and, for the most part, also applies to fax or Email based games.

II. WHY HOUSE RULES

Diplomacy was originally conceived to be a board game to be played face-to-face. The Rules as Written (RAW) are designed to cover that type of play and, without some modification, are ill-suited to postal play. For instance, sections on writing orders and conducting Diplomacy can't be used as written in postal play.

The GM routinely makes other modifications to the RAW. For instance, most postal games allow draws, which is not allowed in the RAW. Also, the concept of press is not detailed but is an important part of the postal games.

The use of House Rules allows the GM and the players to know what the changes to the printed rules are and how the GM will oversee the game. Of course, situations may arise that are not covered under the House Rules and may mean that they will be rewritten for future games.

III. WHICH RULES AND A REALITY CHECK

The first, most important, portion of House Rules deal with which version of the published rules are being utilized to GM the game. Published rules exist in the United States in three versions. There are also a number of other versions of the rules as published in foreign countries. It is vital that everyone uses the same set of rules so that every nuance in them will be known to all.

For those players who have earlier or later editions of the rules, sometimes the GM will provide a summary sheet of the differences. However, in the end, it is the player's responsibility to know the set of rules used by the GM. The most common rules used are the 1982 (2nd Edition) and the 1992 (3rd Edition) published by The Avalon Hill Game Company in the US.

By "Reality Check", I'm referring to something I've put in my House Rules for Rambling WAY (RW). Other GMs have used comments akin to it, and I may have well taken the concept from one of them. However, I've had more feedback (and all positive) about this single one:

"16) FINAL WORD: Diplomacy, and all games associated with RW, are played for fun, and that is the primary reason for RW. I welcome any thoughts on increasing your enjoyment and participation in the newsletter. Also, keep that thought in mind when you conduct your negotiations and write letters or press to other players; after all, it's only a game."

HOUSE RULES, PART II -- Press

In PBM games, press is the replacement for general public discussions between players and the GM that usually occur over the game board. In Gunboat games, many times this is the only way for the players to communicate. Also, for some players, it is another enjoyable aspect of the game where they take on a persona (either historical or hysterical). They then conduct their diplomacy in that guise and/or provide storylines for the enjoyment of all participants and observers.

In your House Rules, it is important to identify the types of press normally allowed in your games. This allows every player and observer to know the style of the press. Of course, in the specific guidelines for a game, your usual practice may be revised. In these cases, it is advisable to include the type of press in the header of each game report; such as "Black-Press Gunboat" if you normally use only white press in your games.

It is also an acceptable practice to put limits on the press. For instance, most house rules include a statement that says, in effect, "press may be edited for vulgarity and/or space by the GM". This informs writers ahead of time that their press may be edited; and allows them to indicate whether their press must be run unedited or not at all.

There are primarily three kinds of press that are allowed in games. Called White, Black and Grey, each has its advantages and disadvantages; and there are players that won't play with certain types of press.

WHITE PRESS: All press is identified by who wrote it. Usually this is the country name, country capital, or abbreviation of one of them.

GREY PRESS: Anonymous press is allowed. This press may be from Switzerland, Washington DC, the Moon, etc. Usually the only protected press bylines are the various countries/capitals, player names, and a location for the GM to write from (such as having all press from Geneva originating from the GM).

BLACK PRESS: Anything goes! All press bylines are open for use and if it says it is from Berlin, it may or may not be. This allows quite a bit of freewheeling conversation between the players. However, in a Gunboat game, it makes every single communique suspect at best.

There are some variations, or shades, of the three types of press. For instance, I use what I call "off-white" press. The only grey press allowed must come from Switzerland or Geneva. There are almost Black press games which protect a limited number of bylines for each player to conduct actual press. This may be allowing black press from everywhere except from the country names. Only the actual country can use their name to write press (and, thus, is the only press that can be "trusted").

Further, some GMs allow non-players to submit press. Except under Black Press, all guest press is anonymous. However, a regular contributor may adopt a nom-de-plume to signify their particular writings.

There is also a variation to many games. No-Press variants always have had some following, as the games usually are tactical in nature. This allows players to hone their performance (as opposed to negotiating) skills. A few No-Press games allow tacit communication, such as permitting an impossible order "A BUR sends a peace envoy to Russia" or "A BUR s ENG A Stp-Mos". However, most GMs will convert such orders to "A BUR holds".

Knowing the type of press allowed in a game is important. It provides the perimeters of public negotiations between the players and, in Gunboat games, can be critical in successfully winning. The House Rules (as modified for an individual game) should be the best source of information for the player and all questions about press should be directed to the GM early in the game's course. Press can be a pleasure or a curse, and in a number of cases one of the most enjoyable parts of the game.

HOUSE RULES, PART III -- Orders

It is important to let every player know how you wish orders to be submitted and the conditions on using them. It should be clearly stated about deadlines and whether you have NMR insurance. Lastly, in your house rules, you should include a section on what you, as the GM, do with ambiguous or poorly written orders.

Order submittal has to do with how you expect your players to send their orders to you. All GMs (except those running Email-only games) accept player orders by post. Ensure that you let all the players know what address to use (if you have multiple addresses) and, it is best, if you include the zip+4 to speed the letters along.

If you accept Email, fax, or phone orders, let the players know when and how to use them. For instance, if you only want orders sent to one Email address, make sure that your house rules specifically state that. For phone orders, it is recommended that you include the hours that you want calls (otherwise you may get calls at 4 am). Further, if you don't want your family members or housemates involved in taking orders, clearly state that.

Many GMs that accept phone orders have a caveat in the house rules akin to "however the orders are written (or transcribed from the answering machine) is how they will be used." This takes the burden from the GM in trying to understand orders spoken onto an answering tape while the speaker is chewing on a carrot or the GM who can't read his own handwriting after scribbling down orders after being awakened in a deep sleep.

It is also recommended that you put into your house rules that orders for each game be submitted on a single sheet of paper, and that there should be writing only on one side. This allows a GM to easily file the orders for a game in its folder without cutting or, in the case of two games on opposite sides of the same sheet of paper, going to the copy shop. For Email, depending on how you process the orders, you may wish to have the orders in one long file (with appropriate spaces between games) or in separate messages.

In each issue of the newsletter, make sure that your deadlines are clearly stated. If you have a set formula for the deadlines (such as the last Friday of every month), you can state that in your house rules. However, every set of house rules should include a statement that "it is the player's responsibility to ensure that their orders arrive by the stated deadline".

You may have different deadlines for different types of submittal. For instance, mail deadlines are typically "mail delivery of the indicated day" for the specific address. On the other hand, Email, phone, or fax orders may be accepted only until a certain time. There are some GMs that have a deadline of the evening before the mail deadline for phone orders or a fax deadline (using the machine at work) being 5 pm on workdays.

If you use NMR insurance (where the GM attempts to contact the player if orders are missing), make sure that the conditions for using NMR insurance are plainly stated in the house rules. This should include when you will use them, how you will attempt to contact the player, and any costs that the player may incur if NMR insurance is used.

A common manner of using NMR insurance is to state that "one attempt will be made to contact the player by phone the evening of the deadline. Any time NMR insurance is used, whether they were contacted or not, the player will be charged the cost of one issue."

How the GM will handle ambiguous or poorly written orders is vital to have in your house rules. For instance, the use of NOR in a movement order could be to Norway, North Sea, or Norwegian Sea (as in F Edi-Nor); F Por-Spa could mean either coast; or a player could give the same unit two valid orders, such as A Bur-Mun and A Bur-Par. Most GMs include a list of "approved" abbreviations to use and/or state something akin to "ambiguous or poorly written orders will be converted to a HOLD order for the unit involved." With this house rule, all three units (F Edi, F Por, and A Bur) would hold for that season.

By plainly stating how orders are to be submitted and what format to use in the house rules, the players know what the GM expects of them. Further, by explaining what will happen with ambiguous or poorly written orders saves the GM from pitfalls and complaints during the course of the game. Also, if there are any questions on how these situations will be handled or on how orders should be sent to the GM, they can be cleared up before a player NMRs or becomes upset with the GM.

A Visit to the Asylum

by Anonymous

Hello, my name is Henry. I'm a diplomat. Oh, I don't mean that I work for the government or anything, I mean that I play Diplomacy. And, if I may say so for myself, I'm rather good at it.

You may wonder what I'm doing in a place like this. Well, I'm visiting an acquaintance. The world championship is coming up you see and I'd heard a rumor that he'd be out in time to attend. Perhaps I ought to give you a little background. There have been a lot of rumors floating around lately, and it's probably time that someone set the record straight.

It all started a couple of weeks ago when we got together for a friendly game one weekend. As always, he drew Turkey. Somehow this always happens. Doesn't matter if he draws first or last, he ends up Turkey. More annoyingly, he always wins as Turkey. He's a decent player mind you, but he's just not that good. Give him Germany or France and he'll bobble his share, but give him Turkey and his neighbors turn into simpering idiots, every guess goes his way, and alliances against him fall apart over the smallest detail, one even collapsed over an argument about who's pencil it was between them!

Well, not this time. I knew he'd draw Turkey at the worlds, and I'd been preparing ever since last year. Now it was time to put those preparations to the test.

Things started out as normal. The poor Austrian was from Slovakia. He was still trying to locate just where his homeland was on the map when his last unit was removed from the board. Italy only had to make a small break in his stride to avoid the backswing of the door from Milos's exit and he was gone as well. That old familiar self-satisfied gloat started to spread across his face and you could see that he was already anticipating the win and his chance to gloat. Oh yes, he ALWAYS gloated. I had prepared France well however, and as the fleets began to move south, that gloat began to fade, then it turned to a look of aggrieved fury, sort of the look you figure the Lord had when Adam took a bite out of the apple.

He took France aside and if you'd seen a picture out of context, you'd have thought it was someone chastising a puppy who had just made a mess. He knew it wasn't the puppy's fault, he just didn't know better, and if he could only explain it to him, he'd understand and do the right thing. Then, as the awareness came across him that this puppy was doing it on purpose, the air began to blister with his comments. To give him his due, he had a certain artistry with his words, a mastery of invective worthy of respect.

It was a battle of epic proportions, and it all came down to the wire. One last set of moves and it was stalemate or a Turkish win. We worked through the orders and the grin returned. First he began to chuckle, then it was a chortle, then he positively began to cackle with glee. He capered and cavorted growing louder by the moment, so that it was a fair bit before the French player's quiet protestations could be heard. Finally, it sunk in to him that someone was debating his conquest.

"What?!?" he demanded.

"I just don't see it" replied the Frenchman.

"You don't see what?," he intoned?

"Well, I don't see how you've won..."

He leaped toward the table and stabbed out a finger, "Right there, I took Brest...WHERE'S MY ARMY? Gascony took Brest, WHERE'S MY ARMY?! Okay, look at the orders, WHERE ARE THE ORDERS?" he yelled, his voice rising to a shriek at the end.

The Frenchman tried to explain to him how he'd gotten bean dip on the orders, and maybe some of the pieces, and well, you can't really blame a dog for loving bean dip can you? He never made it through the explanation though as he finally snapped. Only gibberish was coming out by the time they came to bring him here for a rest.

Anyway, that's why he's here. I'd heard a rumor that he was much better and would be discharged soon, so I dropped in to see. What, oh how's he doing? Well, I don't think he's going to be out any time soon. That's him you heard screaming a little while ago. Actually he seemed to be doing pretty well when we first got here, we had a pretty reasonable conversation for a while. I guess it's partly my fault, I should have remembered that association might have brought back bad memories. You see, I was feeding my friend here his favorite snack, these little pressed tidbits, just about the size of a Diplomacy piece. He really loves them with a bit of bean dip on them. Well, he noticed me doing that and gave a kind of a shake, then he bent down to the floor and said "You, you cost me that game, you know! What's your name anyway?" Then he read his tag and sort of gagged. He straightened up, looked at me with his eyes practically spinning, gasped out "you... you" and collapsed.

They gave him some tranquilizers and led him away. The doctor said it might be a couple of months before they'll even allow him visitors again. Gave little Pavlov here and me quite a start I'll tell you.

In Defense of "Snail Mail"

by Mark Fassio

As any good military officer is wont to do, I'll go straight to my Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF): I like play-by-mail (PBM) much more than play-by-electronic-mail (PBEM) and as much as face-to-face. In that regard, my friend Jamie McQuinn hit the nail on the head with his pro-PBM piece in this 'zine a couple issues back.

But geez, Faz, you might be saying, how can you relegate yourself to those, those ..troglodytes.. who haven't joined the Information Age? Simple; it strikes me as more enjoyable, and offers better opportunities to use a variety of tactics that are a little harder to implement in FTF or PBEM.

Let's look at the name first. The term "snail mail" may connote slowness to some. To me, however, it evokes the image of home-brewed beer, or sun tea: a process that ages, allows for time to "ferment," to analyze the letter, digest its contents, and the reply in a fitting manner. With PBEM it seems (to me) that the deadlines are quicker, the pace more rushed. If you're like me, you try and juggle your gaming life with work (the dirtiest of four-letter words!), with keeping mama and the kids happy (and trying to remember what they look like after a long day/week at the office), taking poochie for a walk, doing the "honeydew" chores ("honey, do this, honey do that") and all the other time constraints that impinge on your gaming. With PBM one has time to receive a letter and let it sit for awhile, confident that you have two-to-three weeks to reply, or to call or (gasp) e-mail a short reply in an emergency....I just feel that it allows you more "breathing space" to properly mull over its contents as compared to ftf and PBEM timeframes.

The letter's reply is even an art form in itself. In e-mail, the sender knows you're there (and can even get the system to indicate a successful delivery). Whether you want to discuss information with others (whether to plot a stab or work an alliance), or if you merely want to find an evening to set up the board and analyze the options, common courtesy would dictate that you owe a reply fairly quickly after receiving a note. In fact, if you don't reply via e-mail in a proper time, the sender may get nervous/suspicious. And if you wish to deliberately delay a reply to Sender X, you can only use the "my system is down" excuse for so long. However, with PBM's snail mail, letter replying becomes an art unto itself. Person X sends you a letter; you wish to ignore its onerous contents, or even plot a stab. You can delay acknowledgment of the letter for quite awhile ("Well, you know, you did mail this from California; it'll take a little longer to arrive; I'm sure I'll get it soon"). In addition to delaying receipt of said letter, you can always blame USPS for non-delivery: "Letter? What letter? That d**n Post Office!" And let's face it: how many of you have had a letter lost/misrouted by USPS? I rest my case. Plausible denial works!

Timing thus becomes a weapon in your arsenal by using snail mail. Another example: it's close to deadline. You want to gain an advantage on someone, but not totally alienate them; let's say it's a quasi-potential ally. However, you're unsure of his intention, and you still want what you want. You merely send a letter, timed to arrive right around the due date. If it arrives early and the person is interested/has concerns, you can expect a last-minute call. If it arrives on the due date, or right after, then, hey--you tried, but the mail screwed up your coordination for this time. This ploy also works if you're trying to psyche someone out. Let's say you're in BOH, moving on Vienna against the Archduke, who's tightly allied with a hostile Hun against you and your pals. You can send a last-minute "gloating" card to Germany, saying in essence, "Well, now that the deadline is here and you can't change anything, here's what we did to you in Munich." Of course, you send the letter so it arrives on the day before or the day of the moves being due. Germany is happy that the post office worked extra-efficiently, and feels like he can prepare a crushing riposte against this smug Bohemian--he may even call the Austrian and pass along the "intended Mun hit," which may lull the Viennese defenses in time for you to do what you really intended all along!

Another beauty of PBM snail mail is the misdirection ploy. You want to spoof a target, or perhaps get someone to join you, but want to do it indirectly. Unless you travel to Sheboygan and use another player's terminal, people can generally "see" the sender's identity. Not so with letters. One tactic that's worked for me involves sending a typed letter (using a different font, to make it "not your style") in a small envelope with no return address. The letter basically says, "I'm a friend with the same enemies/concerns as you, but don't want to compromise my identity, or worry in case you perhaps 'turn me in' to the person(s) I'm ratting on. Here's what your enemy is planning to do to you this turn." I then mailed this envelope in a larger envelope to a friend (usually a non-gamer). The friend opens his envelope, sees your letter to Target X, and is told in a short note by you to drop off the Dip letter in a local mailbox. Bingo! Your letter now is postmarked 500 miles from where you live, bearing some cryptic words of wisdom to Target X. Your target--especially if s/he is under siege or in need of good help--is usually willing to at least accept part of the note (why not? what's left to lose?). If you do this for a "one-shot deal," you can devastate an enemy's position. If you are allied with someone but don't want them growing too fast as compared to you, you can make this a longer-term project -- send mostly-true data on what your ally's doing, but only half-truths on what you're doing. The Target will thank his lucky stars that this letter-writer is at least "80% correct," and you can still work your wiles while keeping your faster-growing ally at manageable proportions. Once you've lulled the Target over a longer period of time, you merely pick your stab time in a final "truthful" letter (cackle)!

Finally, there's something to be said about the mere act of receiving a Dip letter. Oh yeah, bold-faced e-mail announcements are nice to note, but getting a letter is fun. When I started playing PBM 21 years ago (egad; I'm getting old), I lived for the mailman's arrival -- it was almost like Christmas coming every day. Of course, "in my time" back in the late 70s/early 80s, the PBM hobby was much more vibrant and active. Everyone wrote, every turn -- not this Weak Willie situation in the hobby today, when you're lucky if a non-adjacent neighbor writes you at all before 1905. Letters conveyed true dedication to the game -- By Gum, if you were serious about the hobby, you were sending and receiving mail, in spite of all the aforementioned constraints. It became the benchmark of your reputation: "I deal with him because he writes, and that's the name of the game." If someone didn't write, they generally weren't alive by mid-game. Heck, with e-mail, anyone can now sit down a zap a three-line note, but is there effort behind it? (And in my current "ghodstoo" PBEM game -- the one where my head is being handed to me on a platter -- even some of those Hobby Greats can barely find the time to correspond, and they stare at the terminal all day! Have we lost the Correspondence Aura when we went cyber?) As Jamie mentioned in his piece, there's just something about sitting down in front of the board, or at the table, with your freshly-arrived correspondence -- usually ignoring friends, family, food, or other distractions the minute you tear open the envelope and began devouring the contents. THAT can't be replicated via any other means.

I'm sure the devotees of ftf and PBEM would tell me that I overemphasize the bennies of PBM and downplay their modes. And perhaps I do. I mean, I love the convenience of e-mail, and you can't beat ftf for real-time enjoyment and reaction from your buddies as you play. All these media have a part in hobby participation. It's just that, for my "cuisine," I'd rather have a diet of "snails." Call me wacky if you will.

The Role of the Standby

by Jim Grose

originally printed in Diplomacy World #84

In about half of the regular Diplomacy games I'm currently playing in I joined as a standby. To my surprise others often compliment me for immediately contacting them, asking what has happened to date, proposing alliances and discussing tactics.

What else is the standby player expected to do? Play Gunboat for one turn, assuming he will not actually be taking control, while the others continue to play regular Dip? This approach could prove fatal, is entirely preventable but is all too common.

Look at it this way: either the standby will assume permanent control or he won't. Additionally, either he will conduct diplomacy during the season when control of his country is in doubt or he won't. Thus there are four combinations:

• 1. He assumes permanent control after conducting diplomacy for the one season that this is in doubt. Great. His country's relations with others never skip a beat.
• 2. He assumes permanent control but conducts no diplomacy for one season beforehand. The worst case. Joint attacks on mutual enemies may be delayed for one critical season. Worse, former allies, willing to remain so if only they were contacted, may decide to switch sides.
• 3. The original player returns even though the standby conducted diplomacy. This leaves some room for confusion if the standby proposed one set of moves to others while the original player issues a different set but surely the original player would contact his allies to assure them that he is in fact still in the game. If the two players have proposed different retreats and/or builds/removals then to be safe others can make their orders conditional.
• 4. The original player returns while the standby contacts no one. This is the scenario that most standbys seem to assume will happen. They are gambling, however, because if the original player does not return then we're back to the fatal #2.

If the standby is 100% confident that the original will return then why bother even submitting orders? If he is less than 100% confident, why risk the consequences of not conducting diplomacy for one season?

On a related topic, replacement players hold an interesting range of views on what their "obligations" to their predecessors and previous alliances are. One told me that he felt it would be unfair to change sides and undo all the hard work of the previous player, even though he agreed that in his current alliance he stood little chance of winning.

Another agreed with me that any agreements made by the previous player were null and void. Consequently, he leapt at my offer to allow him to change sides.

The first type of player seems to think that as a replacement he doesn't "deserve" to win. The second type understands that the object of the game is for a great power to win by taking 18 (are you reading this, Berry Renken?) and all strategy and tactics must flow from this. It is completely irrelevant whether that great power has one, two or ten different rulers during a game.

Diplomacy World Interview with David Norman

by Jim Burgess

The Diplomacy AI Development Environment (DAIDE) was developed starting in 2002 as an attempt to centralize (centralise to David...) efforts to develop Artificial Intelligence (AI) robotic (bot) structures for replacing a human Diplomacy player with a computer programmed player. Since that time, a very active Yahoo Group (dipai) and numerous web sites have developed to support this project. David Norman, the DAIDE language, server, and mapper designer/author, has written an introductory Diplomatic Pouch article on the project as well as comments in that and other forums. Today, I'd like to ask David a few probing questions about the past and present and future of this project and see if I can excite more of you to think about participating in the project as an observer, commentator, or programmer.

Jim Burgess (JB): Thanks, David, for being willing to talk about this.

David Norman (DN): No problem.

Just to add to that description, I think it's worth repeating the opening of the article you cite. The key aim of the DAIDE project was not so much to centralise efforts, as to provide a framework for development where Bots could easily compete against each other and against humans. Before the DAIDE project, there had already been two hobby projects to develop a Diplomacy AI - Danny Loeb's DPP, and then Sean Lorber's SeaNail. Both of these had had a huge amount of development effort put into them, but neither had that much use, as the only way for them to play in a game was for a person to manage the program, entering results from the game into the AI, and then submitting the orders generated by the AI to the GM.

So, the DAIDE project set out to provide an environment where AIs could be developed, and then play against each other and against humans. By allowing them to play a lot more games, we could not just develop AIs, but also find out how well they were playing, and refine and improve them.

JB: Let me ask a general question first about the current scope of the project. I know that there are currently 195 members of the Yahoo Group, though many of them are like me, who do not intend to actually program a bot themselves. Roughly how many working bots have been designed to your knowledge and how many of the 195 group members would you classify as active programmers?

DN: There have been ten Bots developed so far, by nine different authors, although of course for each of those Bots, there are many different versions. The Bots vary from DumbBot, the first Bot produced by the project, which I wrote in two days, to Albert, which Jason van Hal wrote recently, and is the best Bot to date. Playing a no-press game against six Alberts is very difficult. And I should emphasise, the Bots do not know that six of the powers are being played by the same Bot, or which power is the human player.

JB: You've developed what I think is a neat three letter token language syntax that to me strikes a near perfect balance (especially for this development phase) in being computer program readable and human readable but expresses most all of the types and levels of negotiation that most players use in working out tactics and cooperation on the board. Could I get some of your thoughts today on how well this is working in the actual operation and negotiation between bots in tests you've seen?

DN: So far, it hasn't been used that much by the Bots.

The language is split up into 13 levels of increasing complexity - from the first level - where all you can do is offer an alliance, and the second level where you can suggest specific orders, up to the top levels where you can ask for an explanation of a power's press or orders, and pass on messages that you've received from other powers. By splitting it into levels, you can have games where only language up to a certain level is allowed, allowing Bots to build up their press capabilities in stages, and still compete with more advanced Bots.

So far, none of the Bots can handle more than the bottom two levels.

Having said that, we have had one game using the full language - we had a game between seven human players where the only negotiation allowed was in the DAIDE language - mainly to test the language and find any problems with it before Bots started to use it. This was easier to do than it sounds, because the DAIDE Mapper has a press entry system which allows you to enter press in English by selecting from a list of options, and then translates to and from the tokenised language for you. And of course, we found a number of problems - mostly questions which could be asked but there was no way to express the answer you wanted to give!

JB: Of those, about how many have implemented language syntax above Level 0 (no press)?

DN: Of the ten Bots that have been written so far, seven are no-press only, and three support some press. But as I said, none of these three can handle more than the first two press levels.

JB: Do you feel that current playtest efforts around these have pushed the negotiation side of the project very far to date? As a non-programmer, participator in group discussion on dipai, I've not seen that much discussion on this, or are people mostly trying to master the efforts to evaluate and improve coordinated tactical movement amongst one's own units?

DN: Yes, the tactical and strategic side is receiving a lot more focus at the moment.

There are two theories on how to write a Diplomacy AI that negotiates. The first is that you need to understand the tactical and strategic side of the game. Once you understand that, you can then understand where cooperation would improve both your prospects, and then that is the foundation for your negotiation. The second is that you negotiate with your neighbours. The agreements you make with them determines your strategy and tactics.

Currently, the first theory seems to be prominent, so people are concentrating on putting all their effort in writing a Bot that can play no-press well, with the expectation that once that works well, press will follow on.

Of course, there is a third theory that the two sides need to feed into each other. But that's well beyond anything anybody's trying to do at the moment!

JB: One of the things that strikes me is the sheer range of types and goals of programming that must be accomplished to design a good bot, it seems to me that more "jointly designed" bots where one person worked on one piece while someone else works on something else (with an understood and planned for goal of integration) would push things forward faster. This was what Daniel Loeb was doing in the early 1990's in the original Diplomacy Programming Project as he had numerous students working for him on various parts. One failure in that was the "coordination" part, so there always is a tradeoff between the single mind of a designer and a group effort. What do you think of the joint design/single designer issue, both historically and in the future of DAIDE?

DN: In the long term, I think the best Bots will have to be a joint development - there's just too much involved for a single person to write it. But the disadvantage of a joint project is that you're unlike to get several competing joint projects - and at the moment, nobody knows the best way to write a Dip AI. So for the moment, I think we are better off with people doing their own thing, letting the different results play each other, and learn what works and what doesn't.

JB: My understanding of the mapping is that DAIDE would support variant maps (variant rules might be a bit more problematic), but I think one really good use for Diplomacy bots would be in playtesting maps to get general senses of balance between powers. Most playtests are extremely limited while it is easily possible to run thousands of DAIDE games on a variant map to test its characteristics. I think I actually have a series of questions about this. First, do most of the bots people are designing have the capability of operating on other maps?

DN: As far as I know, they all do.

One of the early decisions we made, was that the project should not be limited to the standard map, as this may lead to Bots that are coded to take advantages of the public knowledge and specific features of the standard map (such as coding the opening book, the stalemate lines, etc), rather than learning how to take a map and work out the features on the fly.

Hence there is very little to do to make a Bot handle all maps. The full definition of the map is sent to the AI from the server when it connects (whether it's a variant or standard).

JB: And to the extent they do, it seems it wouldn't be hard to code them into your mapper, would it?

DN: The easiest way to code a new variant map, is to enter it into MapMaker (www.ellought.demon.co.uk/mapmaker.htm). From there, I have a process which can fairly quickly convert it into all the files required by the server and the mapper. Plus MapMaker has a lot of internal checking built in, which will pick up a lot of the common errors made when defining a map.

Entering a variant the size of Standard into MapMaker takes about an hour.

JB: Given current bot capability, do you think a variant map designer would learn much from repeated bot tests of their maps in the design phase? How do bots do at replicating some of the statistics on regular Diplomacy games (realizing that there are large differences in those across playing groups across time)?

DN: With the early Bots, it definitely wasn't worth it. There was a huge disadvantage to playing some powers. For instance, playing as Austria or Germany against six DumbBots is pretty difficult, as you tend to get attacked from all sides, while playing England, France, Italy or Turkey against six DumbBots is extremely easy - and if you set seven DumbBots playing against each other, it'd almost always be one of those four that won.

But as the Bots have improved, so has the balance of their play. And as that happens, they would become a much better source of testing.

We have run a few DAIDE tournaments between the different Bots, with around 2000 games per tournament. The statistics from these tournaments do show a significant variation of results of each power compared with human games, but unfortunately, there haven't been any such tournaments run recently enough to involve the latest Bots, which I would expect to give results that are far closer to the results of Standard.

Even when Bots are able to play sufficiently well, there are still things that a variant tester would have to note. For instance, a game between Bots has never ended in an agreed draw, as there is no Bot that is yet able to agree to a draw. Furthermore, they also don't have any specific knowledge of how to set up a stalemate line, so almost all games end in a solo. The few that don't are where a Bot manages to form a stalemate line through its other algorithms, and the game is eventually ended by the server terminating it (which is usually set to happen if there have been 50 years without a change of centre ownership!). Because of this, play testing with the current Bots wouldn't tell you if the game is prone to stalemates or solos. But it should give you a good idea of the balance of the strengths of the powers in the variant. And hopefully future Bots will resolve this issue.

Another thing the Bots can't do, is tell you whether it's actually an interesting variant to play!!!

Of course, there is one additional advantage of testing with Bots. With human players, your results are going to be skewed by the skill level of the players. By testing with every power played by an instance of the same Bot, you have a perfectly level playing field from the player ability perspective!

JB: In my view, the negotiation part is not hugely important, I would think that testing a variant map in no press Level 0 would give a designer most of the input they needed, especially regarding statistics on which centers particular bot countries ended up holding. Do you agree?

DN: I would go further than that. My experience of testing variants is that No Press games generally show up problems with a variant better than press games. Playing a game with press allows the players to compensate for weaknesses in their power, and counteract the strengths of other powers, much better than they are able to in a no-press game. Hence if there is an imbalance, I believe it will show up much better in repeated no-press play than in repeated press play.

Of course, if you are trying to make an unbalanced variant, one where one power is unusually strong, and the other powers have to work together to deal with it, then this doesn't follow. But variants like this are in the small minority.

JB: One of the problems we all have is that this is a hobby. Daniel Loeb made a fairly significant amount of progress in a relatively short period of time with making his project a school/student activity. Some of the efforts at developing bots has come from people working on Masters degrees. But the "professionals" have done a horrible job (my opinion) in designing bots, probably because they were up against commercial constraints that made them repeatedly take inappropriate shortcuts. I've heard the comment lately about "programming projects taking over your life" as well (knowing you, like me, are much too busy a person to actually have this or any other part of the hobby actually take over). How would you assess the "incentive" problems, "time" problems, and "gosh darn it, this is just a really difficult programming task" problems in determining the speed and direction of DAIDE to date?

DN: I don't think it should be that big a problem yet. Some people spend years working on a hobby project - indeed, I know Sean Lorber says he spent 15 years developing SeaNail. And yet Albert, the best DAIDE Bot to date was developed in a number of months. Given this, I don't see why there should be barriers to other people writing better Bots that we currently have while still keeping it as a hobby.

When the time comes that the best Bots really are that good that it's more than a one-man hobby commitment to write a new competitive Bot, that's when I think we really need to look at forming a community project to write the next generation of Bot. But I don't think we're anywhere near that yet.

JB: I'd now like to turn to the future. I've often said, and still believe, that truly solving the dipai problem is synonymous with the task of solving the "Turing test" of AI that currently fascinates the futurists like Ray Kurzweil and Mitch Kapor, but not much of anyone else. In that sense, solving the dipai problem is a game, really interesting to crack, but not of much external use. On the other hand, many of the futurists believe this is a really important hurdle to cross and thus solving the dipai problem in that way (having bots be "indistinguishable" from human players in an open test) could be a huge breakthrough in human evolution. I don't quite believe either of these extremes, though remain fascinated by the ideas generated. What do you think?

DN: It's not something I've really considered. I think when it comes to Diplomacy, Bots have some huge advantages and some huge disadvantages. They can calculate a massive number of possible orders in a very short length of time, but on the other hand, they don't have the natural ability to empathise with their ally, or to talk about anything other than the game. Hence I think that when Diplomacy Bots do become competitive with human players, they will do so by out-playing them in the parts of the game they are good at, not by playing like them.

JB: Would you care to give odds on a DAIDE bot passing a Turing test by 2029 (Kurzweil's date)?

DN: As in actually playing like a human, not just playing as well as a human? I'd be very surprised. They may manage it in a no-press game, but in a press game, even using the DAIDE language (or something similar), I wouldn't expect them to be able to accurately mimic a human in the way they use the language.

JB: Any other thoughts on all this you would like to convey?

DN: If people want to get involved in the project, then there are two ways they can. The first is to write their own Bot. If this is of interest, then join the DipAI YahooGroup, and have a look at the DAIDE Homepage (www.daide.org.uk).

The other way they can help, is by joining the Real Time Diplomacy group. This is a group of players who play a complete no-press Diplomacy game online in a couple of hours, using the DAIDE software. When there are seven of them available, they play an all-human game, but when there are less available, the spaces are filled by Bots. Hence this is a great way for Bots to get some playing experience in a human environment.

There have also been a couple of spinoffs from this project. One of them is, having put together a list of all the concepts you need to negotiate in Diplomacy, I've then laid them out on a double-sided A4 sheet, in multiple languages. Hence you have an instant translator for if you're ever playing FtF Diplomacy with someone who you don't have a common language with. See www.ellought.demon.co.uk/dip_translator. It currently covers five languages (English, French, German, Dutch, Italian).

And taking this one step further, I've already said that the DAIDE Mapper can translate between the tokenised DAIDE language and English. Well there's no direct link between the two, so it could equally translate between DAIDE and French, German, or any other language. Once this has been done, you could have two Mappers in a game, one in English, one in French. Each player enters their negotiation in their own language and it's automatically translated into the language of the other player! It's not there yet, but it's something to look out for in the future...

JB: I wish you luck in this project and hope that more people engage with it over time. One wishes one didn't have to work so much and had more time for play..... people can see your site on this project at: http://www.ellought.demon.co.uk/dipai/