Dip Game 1 Spring 1919 Orders Due Thursday 11:59 PM EST

[Remus West]

Rule and such will be appearing here sometime soon. Sunday probably.

Sign up in announcement thread. Jeff I got you though.

1. Cesare Italy
2. Grand_Director France
3. Kelric Germany
4. Chaosraven Russia (white doesn't show up well)
5. Jeff V Turkey
6. Crux Austria
7. Austin England

[Jeff V]

Okay, I've been ignoring all of these games. Until now.

I haven't played Diplomacy in ages. I used to be addicted to Judge Diplomacy. Count me in I guess.

[Remus West]

Will this work as the main display map for folks?


I will be (learning how to be) putting colored A and F on to mark fleets and Armies of the respective nations. I may need to adjust the colors for Russia and Germany for them to show up better.

[Austin]

I've never played. Is this something I could jump into? If so, in.

[Remus West]

Austin - Check out the wiki link and read through the rules to give you an idea.

[Remus West]

rules

[Remus West]

Assuming Austin decides he is going to stay I will post the nations and their leaders sometime Sunday night. I will assign the nations numbers 1-7 then use random.org to generate numbers for the players in order of sign up to determine which nation you get. Thus Cesare will get first shot. When he is assigned I will number the nations 1-6 and assign Grand_Director. And so on.

[Austin]

Been figuring out the rules and will continue over the weekend. I'll be in.

[Remus West]

Been figuring out the rules and will continue over the weekend. I'll be in.

Excellent. I shall go ahead and assign nations then.

[Remus West]

Nations have been assigned in the first post. Start negotiating first turn moves. Orders for Spring 1901 due by 5:00 pm EST Tuesday July 3rd. Orders should be submitted by PM to me with a subject line reading "Diplomacy Orders Spring/Fall 19**". Good luck and strong negotiating to all.

[Kelric]

Damn, Germany? Really? Damn. Time for another Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact!

You guys are going to have to bear with me as I screw up the rules every now and then. I barely remember how to play and going over the internet isn't necessarily the best way to remember it all even with the rules link.

Edit - BTW, Cesare's link to the realpolitik engine has a problem for me. My install gives me an error saying it can't find variant files/standard/standard whatever and then doesn't open.

[Kelric]

Here is a nicer map I found.

[Chaosraven]

For those interested in game related discussion (strategy, deals, or mischievous rumormongering) you can get ahold of me thru:

chaosraven @aol.com
and
bchriste @severstalna.com

(in case I'm not around answering your PM)

[El Guapo]

Just to supply everyone with some advanced strategy, here is a discussion of the devastating North Sea to Picardy maneuver.

[Jeff V]

Just to supply everyone with some advanced strategy, here is a discussion of the devastating North Sea to Picardy maneuver.

With a newbie playing England, are you trying to see how quickly he can piss off his neighbors and get himself assimilated?

People who play Diplomacy tactically letting preconceived gambits chart their course rather than paying attention to which way the diplomatic winds are blowing usually don't do well. Furthermore, every gambit carries with it an element of danger; good players know how to sniff these out and turn it to their advantage.

The game dynamics are much different in a PBEM (essentially what we're doing) than a FTF game running under a tight shot clock. In the latter case, "natural" alliances and common openings/gambits are the norm. PBEM is much deeper; you might find better working relationships with unnatural allies and find yourself compelled to follow an unexpected path in order to fully leverage your relationship with a certain player. That also keeps PBEM games from becoming too predictable and static.

I'll be out all day again today, but I'll have limited email capacity; if anyone wishes to contact me, try jvitous at speakeasy dot net. I probably won't get to any PMs until later this evening.

[Kelric]

I respond to PMs quicker than I do e-mails. I'm on OO almost every day, whereas I don't check my e-mail nearly as often.

[Austin]

I'll check both PM's and email.

My email is apreik at gmail

[El Guapo]

Just to supply everyone with some advanced strategy, here is a discussion of the devastating North Sea to Picardy maneuver.

With a newbie playing England, are you trying to see how quickly he can piss off his neighbors and get himself assimilated?

People who play Diplomacy tactically letting preconceived gambits chart their course rather than paying attention to which way the diplomatic winds are blowing usually don't do well. Furthermore, every gambit carries with it an element of danger; good players know how to sniff these out and turn it to their advantage.

The game dynamics are much different in a PBEM (essentially what we're doing) than a FTF game running under a tight shot clock. In the latter case, "natural" alliances and common openings/gambits are the norm. PBEM is much deeper; you might find better working relationships with unnatural allies and find yourself compelled to follow an unexpected path in order to fully leverage your relationship with a certain player. That also keeps PBEM games from becoming too predictable and static.

I'll be out all day again today, but I'll have limited email capacity; if anyone wishes to contact me, try jvitous at speakeasy dot net. I probably won't get to any PMs until later this evening.

Man, did you even CLICK on the article?

[Austin]

Just to supply everyone with some advanced strategy, here is a discussion of the devastating North Sea to Picardy maneuver.

With a newbie playing England, are you trying to see how quickly he can piss off his neighbors and get himself assimilated?

People who play Diplomacy tactically letting preconceived gambits chart their course rather than paying attention to which way the diplomatic winds are blowing usually don't do well. Furthermore, every gambit carries with it an element of danger; good players know how to sniff these out and turn it to their advantage.

The game dynamics are much different in a PBEM (essentially what we're doing) than a FTF game running under a tight shot clock. In the latter case, "natural" alliances and common openings/gambits are the norm. PBEM is much deeper; you might find better working relationships with unnatural allies and find yourself compelled to follow an unexpected path in order to fully leverage your relationship with a certain player. That also keeps PBEM games from becoming too predictable and static.

I'll be out all day again today, but I'll have limited email capacity; if anyone wishes to contact me, try jvitous at speakeasy dot net. I probably won't get to any PMs until later this evening.

Man, did you even CLICK on the article?

Here's the conclusion of the article.

So now that we have looked at every aspect of the order -- geographically, politically, diplomatically, and at the possible results of the order -- we see that the order "North Sea to Picardy" is among the worst order choices that any power could make.

What we can do with this information is limited, but it is my theory that this total uselessness is one reason -- and while I am tempted to say that it is the major reason, I am not as confident as I would like to be in the depths to which I investigated -- why "North Sea to Picardy" is so rarely used in modern games.

Make a note of it.

Edit: North Sea doesn't boarder on Picardy.

[Austin]

Kelric, cool map.

[El Guapo]

Edit: North Sea doesn't boarder on Picardy.

You, sir, are a Diplomacy genius.

[Crux]

So can we make some agreements on etiquette?

For example, no forwarding emails or pms from other players? That would make diplomacy rather hard.

[Jeff V]

Man, did you even CLICK on the article?

Hell no, I don't click on strange links...I thought everyone knew that by now!

[Remus West]

So can we make some agreements on etiquette?

For example, no forwarding emails or pms from other players? That would make diplomacy rather hard.

I would like this suggestion followed but keep in mind that faking a PM or email from a player is extremely simple as well, so if players decide to ignore my request keep in mind that a quoted PM does not make it an accurate or actual PM, the same holds true for email.

[Austin]

I hear Putin is claiming The North Pole. We need to do something about that.

[Chaosraven]

So can we make some agreements on etiquette?

For example, no faking emails or pms from other players? That would make my devious plot rather hard to pull off.

I would like this suggestion followed but keep in mind that faking a PM or email from a player is extremely simple as well, so if players decide to ignore my request keep in mind that a quoted PM does not make it an accurate or actual PM, the same holds true for email.

Indeed

[Cesare]

Players - Please discuss and post how long of an interval you would like to have for turns. As I noted I think 2 or 3 days should be plenty of time but I will be gone until Sunday night so you can discuss/argue about time limits to your hearts content until then.

edit: Also note if you would like a different time set for weekends, maybe just run timing from Monday - Friday, or count Saturday and Sunday as a single day, or count the weekend the same as the work week. It is up to you the players.

I've generally found that Tuesdays and Fridays are the best days to submit moves.. ymmv. Retreats and builds could possibly take one day?

[Remus West]

I will bow to Cesare's experience here and go with that.

Orders due on Tuesday's and Friday's. Build and retreat orders will be given 1 day. For purposes of that Saturday/Sunday count as a single day.

[Cesare]

Will this work as the main display map for folks?


I will be (learning how to be) putting colored A and F on to mark fleets and Armies of the respective nations. I may need to adjust the colors for Russia and Germany for them to show up better.

Remus, I just sent you a PM to the page where my current game is being run, maybe you can get some ideas from there.

If I got a vote, I'd recommend using Realpolitik software to enter people's moves, even if not everyone is using the software themselves. It will eliminate any illegal moves and automatically give you a decent looking map each turn. I think in a completely ideal world, we'd also have a place to host old moves and Realpolitik files.

[Austin]

I"m not sure what it entails but I can host files and setup software somewhere, some how depending on how it needs to be presented. In some forum games I set up forums for good guys who are allowed to PM or bad guys to communicate on. I'm empty except for a WordPress front page with an example on it so can host whatever is needed. Just let me know.

[Austin]

This helped me too. Oh yeah Remus you can disregard my PM question about one fleet transporting 2 armies in one turn.

http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/diplomacy.pdf

[Cesare]

Hmm.. okay Austin I sent you a PM to that page as well. It would be nice to get that Realpolitik software hosted, since the one I linked to apparently had issues. I'll let you and Remus decide how hardcore you want to get with this stuff, but here's how it works if we want to go this route:


Realpolitik allows each player to set their moves visually. Going to Windows -> Orders then gives them a text output of the current moves, which can easily be copy/pasted into an email or PM*.

The game ref can create a .txt file with everyone's output (for example, 01Spring_Moves.txt), and go to Orders -> Load Text to bring up these orders in his current Realpolitik file. Hitting Orders -> Resolve tells you want happened, and going Orders -> Commit advances the turn.

For the other game I'm playing, the ref provides the latest order, status, and map information for each turn, as well as the current map. This includes retreats and builds. To get the latest order information, you want to go to Windows -> Order, after you Resolve, but before you commit. This information tends to be really useful since you can see everything that happened on the map in the last turn. To get current status information, go Windows -> Status... both Orders and Status can be copy pasted into a single "most recent orders" file. At any time the map can be saved out as a BMP through the File menu. Here's an example of one of our Most Recent Orders files:

Movement results for Spring of 1913. (s13retreats)

Austria: A Budapest Supports A Serbia - Rumania.
Austria: A Serbia - Rumania.
Austria: F Trieste - Adriatic Sea (*Fails*).
Austria: A Vienna Supports A Budapest (*Cut*).

England: F Denmark Supports F Holland - Kiel.
England: F Edinburgh - Norwegian Sea.
England: F English Channel - Brest (*Fails*).
England: A Finland Supports A Norway - St Petersburg.
England: F Helgoland Bight Supports F Holland - Kiel.
England: F Holland - Kiel.
England: F Marseilles - Gulf of Lyon.
England: A Norway - St Petersburg (*Fails*).
England: A Paris Supports F English Channel - Brest (*Cut*).
England: F Spain(sc) - Western Mediterranean.
England: F Tunis - Ionian Sea.
England: F Tyrrhenian Sea Supports F Tunis - Ionian Sea.

Germany: A Belgium Supports A Kiel - Holland.
Germany: A Berlin - Kiel (*Fails*).
Germany: A Brest Supports A Picardy - Paris (*Cut*).
Germany: A Kiel - Holland (*Dislodged*).
Germany: A Picardy - Paris (*Fails*).
Germany: A Ruhr - Burgundy.
Germany: A St Petersburg Hold.
Germany: A Venice Supports F Naples - Rome.

Italy: F Adriatic Sea - Trieste (*Fails*).

Turkey: A Bohemia - Vienna (*Fails*).
Turkey: A Bulgaria - Serbia.
Turkey: A Greece Supports A Bulgaria - Serbia.
Turkey: F Ionian Sea - Naples.
Turkey: A Moscow Supports A St Petersburg.
Turkey: F Naples - Rome.
Turkey: A Rumania - Budapest (*Dislodged*).
Turkey: A Sevastopol - Ukraine.
Turkey: F Smyrna - Aegean Sea.

The following units were dislodged:

German A Kiel can retreat to Ruhr or Munich.
Turkish A Rumania can retreat to Bulgaria or Sevastopol or Galicia.

Unit locations:

Austria: A Budapest, A Rumania, F Trieste, A Vienna.
England: F Denmark, F English Channel, A Finland, F Gulf of Lyon, F Helgoland
Bight, F Ionian Sea, F Kiel, A Norway, F Norwegian Sea, A Paris, F
Tyrrhenian Sea, F Western Mediterranean.
Germany: A Belgium, A Berlin, A Brest, A Burgundy, A Kiel, A Picardy, A St
Petersburg, A Venice.
Italy: F Adriatic Sea.
Turkey: F Aegean Sea, A Bohemia, A Greece, A Moscow, F Naples, F Rome, A
Rumania, A Serbia, A Ukraine.

Ownership of supply centers:

Austria: Budapest, Serbia, Trieste, Vienna.
England: Denmark, Edinburgh, Holland, Liverpool, London, Marseilles, Norway,
Paris, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Tunis.
Germany: Belgium, Berlin, Brest, Kiel, Munich, St Petersburg, Venice, Warsaw.
Italy: Rome.
Turkey: Ankara, Bulgaria, Constantinople, Greece, Moscow, Naples, Rumania,
Sevastopol, Smyrna.

Austria: 4 Supply centers, 4 Units: Builds 0 units.
England: 12 Supply centers, 12 Units: Builds 0 units.
France: 0 Supply centers, 0 Units: Builds 0 units.
Germany: 8 Supply centers, 8 Units: Builds 0 units.
Italy: 1 Supply center, 1 Unit: Builds 0 units.
Russia: 0 Supply centers, 0 Units: Builds 0 units.
Turkey: 9 Supply centers, 9 Units: Builds 0 units.

The next phase of s13retreats will be Retreats for Spring of 1913.

Our ref also saves out the actual Realpolitik file each turn, so players can load the most recent .dpy file at any time, and make their moves on the most recent map. If we go this route, on some sort of main page we'd want the most recent orders, the most recent map, and the most recent Realpolitik file. We'd probably want to link to each of those this thread. In an archive, we'd want all the previous orders, maps, and files. Or this thread could serve as the archive (the files would obviously still need to be hosted somewhere).

Just some things to think about.


* IMPORTANT NOTE: The software will not immediately prevent a user from making an illegal move, you have to hit RESOLVE to see if your move is legal or not.

[Austin]

I've got a poker game tonight but I'll see about getting it all set up.

Edit: Of course I'd like to keep as much here as possible but maybe posting the text results and maps here (from Screen caps maybe? I haven't looked at the software yet) would keep it OO centralized.

[Austin]

Ahhh, not quite what I thought but simpler. I thought it was a module I could install where one logs in and enters their move. This is rather something people have installed and use to make their move, correct? So I'd make my moves and send a file to Remus who would collect them all and combine them into one game-file?

[Cesare]

Ahhh, not quite what I thought but simpler. I thought it was a module I could install where one logs in and enters their move. This is rather something people have installed and use to make their move, correct? So I'd make my moves and send a file to Remus who would collect them all and combine them into one game-file?

Ya, basically. You'd enter your moves, then send Remus a text output. You can also share/suggest moves with other people by entering your proposed moves, saving the .dpy, and then sending the entire file. We used that a lot for proposing and counter-proposing joint moves.

By maintaining an updated .dpy file, anyone can load the current game state and make their moves directly onto the map, instead of having to visualize moves and manually transcribe them.

[Austin]

Ahhh, not quite what I thought but simpler. I thought it was a module I could install where one logs in and enters their move. This is rather something people have installed and use to make their move, correct? So I'd make my moves and send a file to Remus who would collect them all and combine them into one game-file?

Ya, basically. You'd enter your moves, then send Remus a text output. You can also share/suggest moves with other people by entering your proposed moves, saving the .dpy, and then sending the entire file. We used that a lot for proposing and counter-proposing joint moves.

By maintaining an updated .dpy file, anyone can load the current game state and make their moves directly onto the map, instead of having to visualize moves and manually transcribe them.

Well regardless, I'll host the files so your buddy doesn't have to eat all the bandwidth, but we really won't use up much.

[Remus West]

You guys can do all that if you want but I was playing around with realpolitik and having you send me your moves I can make them and post shots of the various screens. If you want me to create a single .txt file from a group of them you are going to need detailed instructions on how to do that.

[Mandeville]

I just realized that I didn't post my email address if someone wants to reach me that way.

Grand_Director at sbcglobal dot net

[Chaosraven]

I just realized that I didn't post my email address if someone wants to reach me that way.

Grand_Director at sbcglobal dot net

FINALLY, geez louise, I've been trying to tell you about the English/Italian alliance all weekend^H^H^H^H

Uh. Glad to see you France.

[Austin]

http://jdip.sourceforge.net/download.html

Here's another computer move thingy I found in the Diplomacy 2 thread. I have not installed it but Grund did mention preferring it to Realpolitik.