Podcast appearances and mentions of dan philip

Le conseil municipal de Montréal a adopté à l'unanimité une motion qui obligera la ville à nommer un lieu public en honneur à Dan Philip, l'ancien président de la Ligue des noirs. Pour Marlene Jennings, l'occasion est bonne d'effacer Lionel Groulx de l'espace public. C'est évidemment une très mauvaise idée selon Rémi Villemure.  Discussion avec Rémi Villemure, étudiant au doctorat en sociologiePour de l'information concernant l'utilisation de vos données personnelles - https://omnystudio.com/policies/listener/fr

Canadian journalist Nora Loreto reads the latest headlines for Tuesday, April 2, 2024.TRNN has partnered with Loreto to syndicate and share her daily news digest with our audience. Tune in every morning to the TRNN podcast feed to hear the latest important news stories from Canada and around the world.Find more headlines from Nora at Sandy & Nora Talk Politics podcast feed.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Sign up for our newsletterLike us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterDonate to support this podcastReferenced articles:Story 1 - Carbon tax protests greet the new tax, Premier of NL is Furey...ous. Story 2 - Dan Philip, longtime civil rights activist and former president of the Black Coalition of Quebec, dies at 87. Story 3 - Statscan data shows that armoured vehicles and other weapons have been exported to Israel since Oct. 7, contradicting the official government line. Story 4 - Israel passes a law to outlaw Al Jazeera. Story 5 - Unthinkable carnage remains at al-Shifa hospital after Israeli troop withdrawal. Story 6 - UN warns that the DRC is reaching a humanitarian breaking point due to fighting in the Eastern part of the country.

Dan Philip of the Black Coalition of Quebec speaks of police body cameras with Terry Haig.

The guys keep the drinking going and Diplomacy chats rolling on Bourse, variant testing and a Conspiracy app update. Plus the odd history lesson from Amby and discussion on shit cake. Intro Kaner discusses how CaptainMeme and a few webDip folks recently hosted a live vidcast of an online Dip game (0 mins 30 secs) They get around to introducing the Euro restaurant and their drinks. Amby gets a bit carried away with his wine and shares a story about his brother-in-law's bad drinking habits and how Mrs Amby's sister put in place a system to stop him drinking the expensive stuff (5 mins) Diplomacy Chat They start discussing the upcoming Bourse game. Amby gives his thoughts on Sealanes games and why he's shit at them (13 mins) Amby shares another story, this time about shit cake (18 mins 45 secs) Then its back to Kaner's learnings from the last Bourse and how he's going to correct that for the new Bourse game (20 mins 45 secs) Amby discusses YCHTT's suggestion of a proper market driven by supply and demand for the Bourse and why he loves the idea (26 mins) The guys pop upstairs to the Laneway Bar to find no-one there. Instead they've walked a block further to the Port Office Hotel (33 mins 30 secs) Amby describes how on the way to the Port Office Hotel, he managed to give Kaner a history lesson about the former Queensland colonial naval dockyards (see photo.) Amby explains why he knows a heap of irrelevant shit due to an attempt to write an alternative history novel, and how the never completed novel was the inspiration for the Mate Against Mate variant (34 mins) A small impromptu "this week in Australian politics" segment (39 mins) The guys give a drinks update (41 mins 20 secs) Kaner asks about Amby's involvement in some test games at the Diplomail Lab including another Austrian Succession game. Amby describes how he adopted a different strategy which is working well (42 mins) Then its onto the test game of the Mongolian Empire variant - created by Kaner but being advanced by other developers now. They discuss the impact of the bubonic plague on the game where a rapid die-off of units happens at the end of the first game year's build phase. They talk about other historical aspects of the variant and really interesting elements of the game including city states, rivers/bridges, trade winds and silk roads, Himalayan passes and the Great Wall of China (49 mins 30 secs) After Kaner gets a tech support call from Mrs Kaner, the guys return to the Conspiracy app. Kaner talks about his first full press game ending up in a 4 way draw as Austria. He talks about side chat rooms and how they operate really easily. That said communicating can take a while with the amount of texting required. They discuss again getting the French app developers on the show (1 hr 2 mins) The guys start wrapping things up. They discuss whether people interested in donating to the show with Patreon would prefer better audio or more drunkedness (1 hr 8 mins 45 secs) Venue: Euro Restaurant and then the Port Office Hotel, Brisbane. Drinks of choice:Kaner - Estrella lager from Barcelona, Spain and Little Creature's Roger's amber ale from Western AustraliaAmby - Marcelo Pelleriti Sol fa Soul malbec from Mendoza, Argentina and SC Parnell tempranillo from the Adelaide Hills And thanks as always to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast. Don't forget you can now donate to the show (for better audio or drunker episodes) by going to our Patreon page.

The guys interview Technostar, creator of the "Divided States" variant and discuss their in-game experience with it so far. Intro The guys introduce the Buffalo Bar and how Australia doesn't do American bars or pretending to be America in movies very well (0 mins 10 secs) They set the scene about this episode focusing on the interview with Technostar and about Divided States  (5 mins) Amby apologises about the last episode's poor audio quality and they discuss plans for anyone dead keen to donate to the show using Patreon to improve the audio quality, before jesting whether some folks would prefer to donate to getting us more drunk! (6 mins) Interview with Techostar, creator of "Divided States" Kaner starts giving a bit of an intro about the interview with Technostar (8 mins)  Amby welcomes Technostar and asks him about him getting into Diplomacy and what he likes most about the game (0 mins 25 secs) Amby asks about Technostar's gameplay philosophy (3 mins 50 secs) Kaner asks about Technostar's strong position in his WWIV sealanes game - World-Amazing (5 mins) Techostar explains how being at school helps him play a lot of games, but has the difficulty of his school blocking vDip! (6 mins 20 secs) Kaner asks about Technostar's love of larger maps and how that led him toward developing the Divided States variant and map. Technostar and Kaner discuss a WWIV game they're both playing in (8 mins) Kaner discusses the geography of the map and why Technostar arranged it that way (11 mins 30 secs) They go onto talk about the rapid speed that two games of Divided States filled up (that's 100 playing slots!) - they talk about the United States of Insanity game that they're all in (13 mins 45 secs) Amby asks about NMR's, while Technostar introduces how the build phases works for the starting phase if a player NMRs and their position isn't filled (15 mins 45 secs) Kaner discusses the coding and asks about the program used to create the map and whether Techno is insane for taking on a project of this magnitude. Techno touches on a "gotcha" about when creating the map files and how indexed mode works to ensure it can be run on php Diplomacy servers (18 mins 10 secs) Techo goes onto discussing how he had to cut down on the number of territories and how we redrew the map again to further improve the balance (20 mins 30 secs) Kaner asks Techno on his thoughts on the initial opening moves in the current games (22 mins 20 secs) Amby laments his bad start before discussing the mysteries of the Four Corner Alliance and Technostar's involvement in this as a player. He discusses the fear of large local players Texas and California and creating a block to prevent their growth (23 mins 15 secs) Amby discusses his ongoing stabbing relationship with Dr Recommended. Technostar talks about a similar challenging relationship he seems to have with Mr Finkelmeyer (28 mins) Kaner interjects, as an East Coast player (Connecticut), he discusses how he had no idea about the West Coast action going on and the Four Corners Alliance. Techno describes how he was inspired by some of the colors on the Monopoly board to inform his decisions on state colors (29 mins) Kaner asks about how Technostar ended up deciding on creating a Divided States variant and the inspirations behind: the 2016 election, alternate history and a Civilization V map he created (31 mins 40 secs) Amby asks about why Technostar didn't decide to start initially with a small variant map to see what he thought of variant development. Techno touches on New World Order being a bigger map than Divided States - a variant created by Tom Rheinecker - before they discuss the rule challenges behind that map that would make it impossibble to make web based without a very deep php skillset (33 mins 20 secs) Kaner asks Technostar on his advice for budding variant developers, including creating his own test server (36 mins 30 secs) Amby enquires if Technostar could turn back time would there be anything he'd change. Techno answers how he could've easily saved 3 months by doing something differently (39 mins) Kaner asks Techno his thoughts on Divided States moving to webDip or playDip (40 mins 40 secs) Next its on to Techno's views of variant developers using his map to create new variant versions. They go onto discuss a 1 vs 1 Red State vs Blue State civil war map and the challenges of setting orders for 100+ units each turn. Techno also talks about an idea he has on layering state names on top of the map or a compiled list of each territory abbreviation to its correct name (42 mins 30 secs) Amby asks if Techo had more time and turned his attention to a new variant what he'd do. Techno discusses getting a better php knowledge and porting across New World Order (48 mins) Technostar mentions a fun fact about drawing a map location where he was staying during his summer vacation. Techno talks about how Amby's Mate Against Mate variant acted as a bit of an inspiration for Divided States and how he used its non-occupied SCs in the variant (49 mins) Kaner asks about the prospect of Fog of War on the map (54 mins) Technostar asks Kaner about whether a new Bourse game could happen soon. Kaner runs with the idea and decides to make it happen, possibly on a War War IV sealanes map (59 mins) They get back onto Divided States and bounce around a bit on the design considerations of the map (1 hour 8 mins) Techno lets loose with his views about American state flags, a few bugs that have been picked up and his hopeful career path (1 hour 14 mins 45 secs) The guys return from the interview, but with all the editing and Amby's crap maths, we haven't worried about the timestamps for this next section. It goes about 30 mins. If you made it this far, power on! The guys discuss what they learnt from the interview. Kaner reflects that they're technologically incompetent compared to the kids these days. Amby loves the parallel between his school banning vDip and his work banning all Dip sites. Then its onto reflecting on Technostar giving his thumbs up to the map and code being available for anyone to repurpose and create new variant versions. They then discuss though the potential headache of a 1 vs 1 Divided States game with 100+ orders needed each turn The guys go onto talk about their experience to date in their Divided States games - Divided States of 'Murica and United States of Insanity before mentioning their Divided States gunboat game has just started Then Kaner and Amby become introspective about whether they are a bad influence Bourse 2018 - the great Bourse Challenge - is discussed by Kaner Venue: Buffalo Bar, Brisbane. Drinks of choice: Kaner - Five Seeds Cider from some random location in Australia Amby - Marty's Block Tempranillo  from the Margaret River, Western Australia And thanks as always to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast. And don't forget you can now donate to the show (better audio, or more drunk episodes) by going to our Patreon page.

The guys discuss the cool Android app "Conspiracy",  recent Diplomacy variants being tested and talk shop. Intro The guys introduce the NEXT Hotel Pool Terrace and Bar, discuss the weather, Kaner's take on the book about the Trump administration in "Fire and Fury" and move onto their drinks (0 mins 10 secs) Amby talks about his first ever time as tournament director for the 1066 tournament at vDip. He then goes onto discuss how the tournament is being organized and his thoughts on having access to the Mods area  (5 mins 45 secs) Around the Grounds and general Dip chat Kaner talks about how he's going in his WWIV Sea Lanes game (13 mins) They think the background noises might be too loud and decide to go to another bar - that being said when Amby edited the podcast... it sounded perfectly fine! They then address Dr Recommended latest recommendation for them to sing more often (15 mins 30 secs) The guys move to Ryan's on the Park as the Irish Murphy's Bar had really bad acoustics. Amby talks semantics about what a "hotel" is in Australia (17 mins 50 secs)  The guys talk about their second lot of drinks and chat about their Christmas day (21 mins) Amby opens his Around the Grounds on his Pirates game. A player is dangerously close to soloing in this winner take all game. He discusses how the game is going  (24 mins) Next up is the Tournament of Time over at PlayDip. Amby goes onto discuss how this tournament is working and the current Ambition and Empire game and its use of the collaboration platform Slack to manage messaging. Amby's team member (Big Joe) is playing for the team as Denmark-Norway (29 mins) Kaner then discusses the free Android app "Conspiracy" which is pretty much Diplomacy for your smart phone. The guys give it a big wrap but also talk about how it could be improved particularly around the issues of community and people NMRing and CDing. Here's some screen shots from Kaner's game interface (32 mins)                     The guys talk about whether they should run some donation option for the podcast before some more drinks and belated tasting notes (52 mins) Amby discusses his now completed test game of "Punic Wars" at the Diplomail Lab playing as the Greeks. He discusses while he won, it was an incredibly challenging map and reflects on the knife-fighting game play of the Russian players (55 mins) Then he goes into discuss his role in the War of Austrian Succession play test also at the Diplomail Lab. Amby is playing as Piedmont-Sardinia and is also enjoying this map and variant. It follows pretty much standard Dip rules but in the first year players are limited in the number of armies they have even though they have more SCs that can support more units. That said if they retain their starting SCs they can build in the second year. Its got some wacky borders too. Amby discusses the "Borders" book Kaner gave him at Christmas (59 mins) Next its onto the Western World 901 variant being tested in the Diplomail Lab. Its based on the map by David E Cohen but is focused around Europe, north Africa and the north west bits of the Middle East. None of the guys are in this test game but they talk about the variant anyway before a second hat tip to Dr Recommended's singing suggestion, before a tangent about the new Star Wars movie before degenerating into an argument about Leia (1 hour 8 mins) Kaner asks Amby about how his variant development plan are going (1 hour 17 mins) Kaner gets very excited at the prospect of "Divided States" being released (1 hour 20 mins) After a brain lapse from Kaner he discusses the prospect of an American Civil War/Mexico variant on the Conspiracy app. Amby suggests perhaps it will be the Fall of the American Empire variant (1 hr 28 mins) The guys give a shout out to cjuric for his awesome review of the podcast at iTunes. They strongly encourage you to pop over to iTunes and give it 5 stars (1 hr 30 mins)   Venue: NEXT Hotel Pool Terrace and Bar, Brisbane followed by Ryan's on the Park Drinks of choice: Kaner - Mountain Goat Ale from Richmond, Victoria and the Little Creatures "Roger's" Pale Ale from Western Australia Amby - Cape Mentelle Marmaduke shiraz  from the Margaret River, Western Australia and the Shottesbrooke grenache, shiraz and mourvedre (GSM) from McLaren Vale in South Australia And thanks as always to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

It's Christmas time! The guys exchange Diplomacy related presents, talk variants in development, the Kaner & Amby Book Club and the Colonial 1885 variant. Intro The guys introduce the Osbourne Hotel in Brisbane's Fortitude Valley and their drinks  (0 mins 05 secs) Amby explains the last podcast was late due to work business and then going on holiday. The guys then discuss their planned holidays including Amby's trip late 2018 to North America (2 mins 50 secs) Kaner discusses how the mobile interface is now starting to get rolled out to webDip. Amby talks about the different nature of the forums across vDip webDip and playDip (7 mins 20 secs) Kaner also talks about zultar's prize giveaway for Christmas at webDip (9 mins 10 secs) Amby and Kaner give an update on the new variants in development, starting with the massive 50 player Divided States variant (11 mins) Amby then shows Kaner the beta test game of Punic Wars over at the Diplomail Lab he's playing. The guys then discuss their thoughts on the variant (14 mins 30 secs) Then its onto the early work being done on the Reconquista variant where the Spanish attempt to reconquer the Muslim territories of the Iberian Peninsula. This is being worked on by CCR and Benjamin Hester. Kaner compares the Variant Bank crappy map to the latest map currently in development. They then discuss the mathematics of balance in variants (19 mins 55 secs) Then its onto Napoleonic 1 vs 1 (France against the Sixth Coalition - Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia & Sweden), the Ottomans weren't involved but will be on the map with standing neutral armies. Amby announces he's actually developing this variant after a long break from variant development using the great work done originally by Firehawk. Amby says he hasn't worked out yet whether it should be based on players choosing the units to build, or whether he sets the units and their location (27 min 50 secs) Amby then says he's exploring the coding aspects of what is needed to create the variant Sengoku: Ninjas vs Samurai (36 mins 55 secs) Around the Grounds The guys on to discuss how players are approaching things with whether to build clippers or frigates in Pirates. Amby discusses what's been happening so far in this anonymous game called "Pirate's Life". He flags there seems to be some technical glitch with some moves (40 mins) Then its back to more alcohol talk about making wine and brewing beer and how expensive alcohol is getting in Australia (44 mins) Kaner then talks around a variant concept originating a long while ago from Oli about a Randomly generated map (48 mins) Amby reflects on the mess on the Pirates map where many players are moving in relatively small territories, often making it hard to read. He then makes some excuses why he won't be changing it though (50 mins) Amby then discusses the now finished 1066 game he played against Oli and Tadar es Darden, won by Tadar. Amby flags how the game could have gone either way but experienced technical problems in trying to convey the message to extend the turn. Kaner makes a suggestion which Amby should've done (52 mins) Kaner then discusses his WWIV game that has now started and asks abut the strategy of holding back builds (55 mins 30 secs) Kaner then talks about his camping plans (1 hour 5 mins 30 secs) Variant review: Colonial 1885 The guys discuss Amby's recent drawn 1885 game. He played this anon WTA game as Italy and did well enough to be part of the draw. He talks about his allies throughout the game and his approach to get to the end game (1 hr 6 mins 30 secs) Amby then goes onto discuss the variant itself and his thoughts about it, particularly how Britain can do very well in this variant although he was eliminated in this game (1 hr 12 mins 20 secs) Amby gives Kaner a history lesson about German New Guinea (1 hr 15 mins) Christmas, Kaner & Amby's Book Club and other Dip stuff Amby is taking on the role of tournament director for a 9 player 1066 tournament (1 hr 19 mins) The guys exchange Diplomacy related Christmas presents including many evil laughs from Kaner (1 hr 22 mins 30 secs) Amby brings up the Year in Review - by playing a little game with Kaner on who are the top 10 countries downloading the podcast. Warning: bad accent attempts and a very surprising number 10! (1 hr 30 mins) The guys then discuss the books they've read this year that have a Diplomacy connection. Kaner suggests "Borders: A Very Short Introduction" and "The Origins of Political Order". Amby discusses "Theodore Rex",  "Musashi" and "Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations". He goes onto to say he plans to read "Guns, Germs & Steel" next year. Kaner recommends "Collapse" by the same author (Jarred Diamond). They also mention "Sapiens" and "Cro-Magnon" (1 hr 37 mins) All this stone age discussion gets the guys thinking about the possibility of a Stone Age variant (1 hr 51 mins) Venue: Osbourne Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Boston Lager "presumably from Boston" according to Kaner Amby - Some Young Punks "Naked on Rollerskates" Shiraz Matro from the Clare Valley, South Australia and The Stag "St Hubert's" Shiraz from the Yarra Valley, Victoria   Don't forget to give the podcast a great rating on iTunes or Stitcher, it'll help get the message out about Diplomacy. And thanks as always to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

The guys get into some serious Diplomacy chats and boozy rants covering new variants, Dip news on the web, current games (including a special guest!) & mouth off about a range of Dip topics. Intro The guys introduce Riverland - a bar based around shipping containers - and their excellent view before describing their drinks (0 mins 05 secs) We have received feedback that the last podcast was a bit too quiet. Amby apologies and also mentions that things have been busy for Kaner which has caused a bit of a gap between podcasts (2 mins 30 secs) The guys discuss the new mobile interface at vDip and discuss plans for it to be rolled out on webDip (5 mins) They go onto discuss how vDip players can now also change the look and feel of the site from the old world feel of vDip and the webDip look (8 mins 15 secs) Next up they discuss new and revived variants. Amby describes how we was keen to play Imperium, a variant based on the barbarian invasions of the Roman Empire, but it had been taken down due to bugs. And then out of nowhere, Oli fixed it! Kaner describes how the River rule works and how some of the coding changes to Pirates flowed onto Imperium. All players begin with no supply centres and need to grab the available Roman SCs. Amby discusses the challenges of this variant if you were playing gunboat. Amby then rides his historical hobby horse on whether the Eastern Roman Empire should have been included in the variant.  (9 mins 30 secs) On top of this a revised version of Sengoku called Sengoku: Nagashino, created by Benjamin Hester. The variant goes from 8 players to 5, and has a new set of rules around the coastal areas regarding convoying (15 mins 30 secs) Then they discuss how Flame in the Diplomail Lab is developing a 4 player Punic Wars variant based around the central Mediterranean during the classical period. Some folks have commented that the game play is a little similar to Sail Ho II. Amby goes on another pathetic historical bent around the geography of the map. Amby gives another shout out to the History of Rome podcast (21 mins 30 secs) Kaner discusses how Reddit is show casing WebDip which is a great way of getting more folks aware of the game and playing it online (25 mins) Amby also mentions how Lifehacker had a story about Diplomacy (although it was more board related) (29 mins) Amby also discusses a series of Diplomacy blog posts by Edwin Turnage which are very insightful  (30 mins 30 secs) The guys talk a bit more about cider and the podcast intro music (33 mins) Around the Grounds Kaner is just in one game at the moment, a WWIV sea lanes game using rulebook press. Kaner teaches Amby about what rulebook press means. Kaner gives a run down of the players, with a number of newbies around him where he's playing as Japan (35 mins) Kaner then goes on to discuss his recently finished Known World 901 Tourney game 6 where ended in a draw as Turan. Kaner is frustrated about the stalemate line being broken at the end of the game and discusses a decision made by mouse as Wagadu that he wasn't happy about. Basically the issue related to throwing a game to better position yourself more broadly in the tournament scores. The guys give their general perspectives on the tournament  (39 mins 30 secs) Amby is in 5 games at the moment. He talks about the anonymous Pirates game he's in with the rule change for clipper retreats working well with no glitches (52 mins 30 secs) He's also in Known World games 7 and 8 but is on a slippery slope in both. He admits he NMRed in these games and how it impacts badly on your strategy (55 mins) Amby then reflects on all 5 games he's in are anonymous, and ponders the advantages and disadvantages of playing anonymously. Kaner discusses how some players can still identify who players are based on the way they play, write and other traits. Kaner accuses Amby of double standards (57 mins 30 secs) Next up is Amby's recently finished game Napoleonic communication skills where he played as Spain and scored a draw. Amby gives a blow by blow account of the game from his perspective and how a strong Russia (played by LovelyPinkEgg) was prevented from winning a solo with a cessation of hostilities with Britain (played by slypups) and how Mr. Finkelmuiyer was a great ally in Italy (1 hour 2 mins 30 secs) Finally Amby talks about the 1066 game Welcome back Tadar. Tadar Es Darden was the co-creator of 1066 with Amby and dropped off the vDip radar many years ago. Well he's now back and is playing this game with Amby and one other player: vDip's very own admin, Oli. This is in fact only the 2nd game Oli has played on the site (the other being when 1066 was launched in 2011) (1 hour 9 mins) Kaner announces that gopher is now a Mod at vDip. The guys discuss having him on for an interview and reflect on the lack of recent interviews (1 hr 14 mins 40 secs) The guys share a couple of jokes (1 hr 20 mins) Online Diplomacy Pet Peeves We've already discussed Kaner's pet peeve, so Amby talks about in the Pirates game he's in. A player CD'ed and held no supply centres, but during the build phase a new player bought in, even though it meant guaranteed elimination. They talk about why a player would do this and as a result whether this is a ethical practice. Kaner explains that it may not have the benefit the new player hoped for (1 hr 29 mins 15 secs) Amby talks about the original intent of this segment and how the feedback from players don't require an admin's perspective (1 hr 36 mins 30 secs) They next discuss the pet peeve of players getting angry with you when you stab, but get onto the stab wagon issue (1 hr 37 mins 40 secs) Amby asks Kaner whether a Mod could do some analysis around the behavior of new players and their drop out rates. That way if there's a high drop out rate perhaps they need more education up front about the stabbing nature of the game and what to be prepared for. Kaner suggests perhaps a basic welcome guide. Amby suggests some user centered design, getting feedback from new players about their experience and what they in retrospect would like to have known before playing a game. He goes on to suggest as new players need to provide an email address, perhaps an email auto-responder could send them some info to prepare for games and the community  (1 hr 46 mins 30 secs) The guys discuss their own thoughts on the "sense of joy" of stabbing players before wrapping things up (1 hr 53 mins 30 secs) Venue: Riverland, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Hills Creek Cider from the Adelaide Hills, South Australia Amby - Kurtz Family Vineyard "Seven Sleepers Shiraz" from the Barossa Valley, South Australia If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Also, if you know how to help boost up the audio levels please contact the guys through DiplomacyGames.com. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

    The guys go to another fancy pants drinking joint and jump from one Dip topic to another. Get ready for a wild ride talking rule changes to the Pirates variant and other variant development, around the grounds, the Viking variant and surrendering. Intro The guys introduce the Cloakroom bar, while the bartender joins them to serve orders in the JFK Room and educate the guys on glasses. This is the first time Kaner grabbed a glass of red instead of beer or cider. Plus they get a mouth cleanser rosé with ouzo spritzer and chilled towels! (0 mins 30 secs) Oli at vDip has delivered on the money fixing a major problem in the Pirates variant Amby created. He then gives a quick overview of the dynamics of the game and Oli's coding change. As discussed in the podcast there are two types of units: frigates that move normally but attack with double strength and clippers that have normal attacking strength but can move two places. The change relates to a retreating clipper that now will retreat only 1 space, not 2 spaces, which all too often resulting in dislodged units retreating easily behind an enemies' lines (4 mins 30 secs) With that retreating rule, it means the same can now be implemented in Chaoctopi and Germany 1648. It will also allow Amby's Ninjas vs Samurai 1-on-1 variant (8 mins) Western Known World 901 map is currently in development at the Diplomail Lab. Its similar to half the usual KW901 map but with some other changes (10 mins 15 secs) After another cheers they move onto talk about Napoleonic variant being live and the Sengoku version 2 progressing along well (11 mins 30 secs) Amby talks about his ideas about having a 1066 tournament and asks Kaner's thoughts (13 mins) Around the grounds The guys each talk about their dismal performance in their respective games trying out the new Balkans 1860 variant. You can see their dismal performances at: Kaner's game and Amby's game (17 mins 30 secs) Kaner gives a shout out to cjurick (sorry Amby may have written that down wrong - let us know!) after he got in touch saying he regularly listens to the podcast and enjoys it (19 mins 30 secs) Amby clarifies he in fact is not playing in round 3 of the Online Diplomacy Championship due to serial NMRing (21 mins 40 secs) He then goes onto discuss the Dissolution game he got eliminated in at PlayDip and how despite being removed from the board he, and other eliminated players could still allocate favor votes for the non-playing nuclear players. Amby talks about his sharing the love strategy (22 mins 15 secs) Amby mentions how the 1898 variant being put together by Flame at the Diplomail Lab follows a similar approach to the Age of Empires rule over at PlayDip (25 mins 40 secs) Kaner then asks about Amby's poor performance in the WWIV Furnance of Affliction game (26 mins 30 secs) Amby flags an anon game he's in where a number of players are wanting a draw, it appears to be stalemated but another player is holding out. He asks Kaner about the process for how things like this get resolved. Amby also discusses examples in the past where he's played games where a player has held out as part of a strategy, where a bigger player in a gunboat is holding out hoping the other bigger players pick up the message to kill off the smaller players so they could share in a draw with the big players getting a bigger share of the pot (30 mins 15 secs) The Viking Diplomacy variant + Online Pet Peeves Kaner starts talking about a Viking game he recently won, but discusses how he was driven up the wall by a player who appeared to have given up and was just putting hold orders in (not even self supporting) but would come back in put in retreat and disband orders. This is similar to a Pet Peeve submitted by Traumatizer to the forum thread. Kaner throws in some #BadSportsmanship rants (35 mins 20 secs) Amby talks about how Kaner brought the Viking Diplomacy variant to the community 3 or 4 years ago. They discuss the map and how you can convoy armies down rivers using code hacks. It also includes interesting twists with self-supporting neutral armies in a couple of strategic places on the board. Plus the balance between players is excellent and player positioning makes things really challenging. Kaner gives Amby a language and geography lesson (41 mins 40 secs) Due to a segue point Amby asks Kaner if anything is happening with the Mongolian Diplomacy variant at the Diplomail Lab. Kaner says Tristan is currently doing work on it which he's more than happy to have happen (49 mins) Amby convinces Kaner to sign up to the Pirates game (52 mins 30 secs) The good folks at the Cloakroom misunderstood Amby's visual cue for two more red wines, and thought he meant two more folks arrived. So the guys got more cool towels, more Rose and Ouzo spritzer and then their reds (53 mins 40 secs) Surrender option? The guys got an email through the website from Bosch Dewalt about the idea of a Surrender button. Amby initially thought the Concede button achieves this, but the concept of how a Surrender function may work better if you don't want to play anymore and it automatically puts your units into hold (55 mins 20 secs) They go onto discuss how the downside of this would be players could protect their NMR rating but this could be a bad thing. Players may want a game where other players are of a high calibre and won't throw a game. Having "surrender" could ruin this, unless it was part of the mix when creating a game on reliability ratings: maybe a half penalty or another method? (59 mins 45 secs) The guys agree its got merit, although Amby and Kaner say they probably wouldn't click it for their own different reasons (1 hr 1 mins) Other stuff They segue onto a discussion about Diplomacy based publications with Kaner saying he owns a copy of "The Game of Diplomacy" by Richard Sharp and a board games novelette from Playboy which featured Diplomacy (1 hr 3 mins... they talk about it again 5 mins later too when Kaner says you can find it on the internet in PDF) Mrs Kaner segue discussion (1 hr 5 mins) Amby is trying to line up an interview with Oli from vDip, so if you're a vDipper get in touch so we can put your question ideas in the mix (1 hr 6 mins 20 secs)   Venue: The Cloakroom Bar, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner & Amby - Rosé and Ouzo spritzer, followed by the The Other Wine Company grenache from McLaren Vale, South Australia If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

A new Diplomacy variant Renaissance dawns! The guys talk about all the new variants coming down the pipeline at vDip, "Balkans 1860", wrap up the recent massive Bourse game and talk Online Dip Pet Peeves about metagaming. The new Dip variant Renaissance! BIg news at vDip with variant development ramping up.  The guys declare a new Renaissance while Kaner reflects on many vDip players probably never on the site when it was pumping variants out every week or two (3 mins) Oli is updating the code base at vDip and is in contact with nopunin10did about bringing the 1900 variant across. Kaner then goes on to say that following the Balkans variant release, the Napoleonic variant is next to come to vDip. How fucking awesome! (4 mins) Amby gives his take on a slight tweak to the Napoleonic variant at the greatest extent of Napoleon's reach. Amby reflects it would be very unbalanced but would be historically correct. The guys then go on to discuss whether you could do it as a 1 v 1 game with France vs the Sixth Coalition. Kaner then goes on to discuss how much even better the map would be if it included Egypt and northern Africa. Amby then gives Kaner a history lesson on why Napoleon invaded Egypt. Kaner then educates Amby about the Mamluks... don't worry they get back to Diplomacy eventually! (7 mins) Then its onto more variants coming down the pipeline! Kaner delves into Flame's Lab at Diplomail about the variant Classic Home Retreats. This is a really clever sounding variant. If dislodged you can only retreat backwards, not forwards.  (12 mins 30 secs) Kaner attempts to break news on two variants which Amby quickly puts in him in his place on the Classic Calhamer Prototype/Realpolitik and a tweak to Pirates (15 mins 15 secs) After a quick battery change Kaner goes on to quickly touch on the Troy variant... but doesn't know much about it. He mentions quickly a Westeros variant at Diplomail's Lab, but flags Oli in the past has shied away from any variants that could be seen as breaching intellectual property ownership. Kaner then goes on to explain how code snippets developed and tested at the Diplomail Lab can then be ported across to vDip (20 mins 30 secs) Kaner also discusses how people can create their own Lab's to develop and test variants before porting them across to other sites like vDip (22 mins) The guys then discuss even more variants in development, starting with Michael B's "World at War" variant set in WW2. Check out the draft map at Imgur (24 mins 45 secs) They then go on to talk about Technostar's "Divided States" variant, a 50 player game where everyone is an American state after the US has fallen apart. It is a truly mind blowing map. Amby discusses how Canada and Mexico have also collapsed in this variant, but with neutral standing armies to prevent states bordering these countries growing too quickly. The variant comes with unit transform options to allow players to better move around, in addition to sea lanes (27 mins 30 secs) The guys move on a little, with Amby discussing his tournament progress, while Kaner advises he's pulling out of the Known World tournament (34 mins 30 secs) Amby's brain starts arguing with itself (36 mins 20 secs) Kaner then goes on to talk about games he's since signed up for (37 mins) Then its back again to yet another variant in development, a 4 player game called the "Corsican Revolution" by Vauban (38 mins) And before we know it, a revised Sengoku variant is on the books from Benjamin Hester. Amby thinks this is great, plus it'll make it so much easier for his "Ninjas vs Samurai" variant (40 mins) Balkans 1860 This brand new variant by Benjamin Hester (he's also done the original Sengoku and Dark Ages), is a 7 player game set in the Balkan region of Europe. Amby tries remembering his Balkan history after a question from Kaner. Both of the guys have signed up for games of Balkans with Kaner in a gunboat game and Amby in a normal full press game (42 mins 45 secs) In approaching a brand new map, the guys talk about their early strategy approaching this variant (45 mins) Kaner and Amby disagree with each other on the nature of corner players on this new map (46 mins 30 secs) The guys pick on Captainmeme before grabbing another drink (50 mins 45 secs) Amby's proposed variant: The Crisis of the Third Century Amby kicks things off with a flashback to his earlier idea about a Roman Empire based on the Tetrachy (in the 300's), but reflects in retrospect that it probably wouldn't allow for good conflict between players on the far west and far east (51 mins 30 secs) Amby gives a shout out to the podcast "The History of Rome" where he got the idea about instead looking at the mid 200's, where for 50 years there was a period of great instability with generals declaring themselves emperor (around Britain, Germany, the Danube and Syria), the Senate anointing emperors, the Praetorian guard controlling emperor appointments at various stages, barbarians attacking from beyond Rhine, beyond the Danube and the Picts and also the Sassanid Persians attacking too (53 mins 30 secs) Clearing things up for Kaner, Amby explains how he's trying to get gameplay balance and history right, with the Senate and the Emperor/Praetorian guard having units dispersed the empire. Kaner gives his take (again) on how he'd like to do it (1 hr) Amby then goes on to describe the non-playing player for the variant: the Plague of Cyprian, which wipes out a random territory each game turn (1 hr 5 mins 30 secs)   The Bourse is over! The Bourse game is at last over after almost a year with a joint win between RUFFHAUS8 and bozo. Amby ended up finishing fifth. Check out their end of game statements (scroll to the bottom of the page and onto the next page), particularly Captainmeme's extensive breakdown of the thoughts of a Diplomacy player (1 hr 11 mins) With it now finished Kaner discusses the idea of a School of Bourse (1 hr 12 mins 30 secs) Furnice of Affliction WWIV game The guys are in the same WWIV game and discuss how its going for them, including the "invading assholes" all around Kaner (1 hr 17 mins 30 secs) Kaner tries provoking Amby on his gameplay. After a while Amby goes on to discuss how he changed his strategy for this game compared to his normal gameplay... not attacking anyone (1 hr 21 mins) Amby discusses how he decided to stab Kongo, which really didn't work out (1 hr 28 mins 30 secs) Kaner talks about his safe refuge plan (1 hr 32 mins) Online Dip Pet Peeves: Metagaming Last episode we discussed NMRing and posted across vDip, webDip and playDip about players' pet peeves (1 hr 35 mins) Amby forgot about getting the admins views on the issue, so we're not getting their take. But its ok as we don't really need their input on this one: Metagaming.  We touched on this in Episode 16. Kaner gives a quick run through for listeners about metagaming (1 hr 35 mins 30 secs) The guys talk about ways to try to reduce the risk of metagaming before Kaner talks about his blocked player list (1 hr 41 mins) Thanks to Benjamin Hester, GhostEcho and Warsmith for suggesting this topic and for their comments (1 hr 44 mins) Other stuff Amby flags how they received an email - but lost it - suggesting they cover off some of the Diplomacy aps on the internet (1 hr 45 mins) Kaner does a shout out about getting different points of view on the podcast for folks interested in being interviewed on the show (1 hr 48 mins 30 secs) Amby thanks AWanderingMoose for their first iTunes review and rating. Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out (1 hr 50 mins 30 secs) Venue: Newstead Brewery, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Newstead "Out and a Bout" Pale Ale from QueenslandAmby - NBCo cabernet sauvignon from Victoria If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

The guys discuss how to develop a variant, introduce the new segment: online Diplomacy pet peeves and talk NMR's, interview Captainmeme: a player across vDip, webDip and PlayDip and talk about the Rat Wars variant. Phew! What a bumper episode! Intro The guys go ga-ga over the classiness of the speak-easy bar they're recording in today: Saville Row. Amby is in ecstasy with his glass of wine as they discuss it's a year since our first episode (15 secs) How do you develop a variant? Kaner starts discussing recent questions in the forums from MichaelB and Vauban about how do you create a Diplomacy variant (4 mins 15 secs) MichaleB is looking at creating a global World War 2 variant. Kaner discusses at the time of recording he wasn't sure about starting positions and as a result getting the right balance vs historical accuracy (5 mins 30 secs) Amby suggests the timeline of WW2 in best achieving historical accuracy and player balance would be around the time of maximum extent of the Axis powers, or just before it. Kaner also suggests depending on the positioning of sea territories around America you could slow down their engagement in the war (6 mins 30 secs) Kaner discusses how do you take an awesome map and prepare it for coding. A long time ago KingAtom who created Habelya posted on forum.webdiplomacy.net about what you need to do for map names, and color coding territories to upload them into a php Lab (10 mins) After this you need to do some work in a Diplomacy Lab using its tools to identify where each territory is (which connections that location to the color of the territory), assign whether the territories are land, sea or coast, and create connections between territories. Provided you're following standard Dip rules this is a pretty straight forward process. Its only with special rules that you need a developer. Depending on the complexity you can either  (14 mins 30 secs) Amby discusses how he really would love to see Versailles brought to vDip. We've discussed how awesome this variant is in other episodes. Having it implemented with its special rules for controlling two countries would be really handy if that code is re-used in other variants (18 mins) Kaner discusses good variant development resources at Dip Pouch, Diplomatic Core and the Diplomacy Variant Bank - a couple of good articles about supply centre ratio to territories which you could easily find with a bit of Googling (20 mins) He goes onto mention how a Dip Wiki could come back at some stage in the future which could help pull together even greater detail (21 mins) Kaner brings up how he stumbled on an old archived game on the Diplomatic Core called War in 2020 by Jason Reiner, where using his Indiana Jones skills he reconstructed the variant and brought it to vDip. Jason says he made the map over 20 years ago, and is now looking at developing a Vietnam War variant  (21 mins 30 secs) Kaner likes the region and would like to create a Khmer Empire game also set in the region, but understandably hundreds of years earlier (26 mins) The guys start fighting over how successful America's military endeavors have gone since WW2 (27 mins) They move back to variant development talk and discuss the time they generally took to create variants (from back when vDip was regularly publishing new variants a few years ago). They talk about the prospect of a Dip variant renaissance (29 mins) Online Diplomacy pet peeves: NMR's We have a suggestion from Super_Dipsy at PlayDip for a new segment about frustrations of online Dip (31 mins) Kaner discusses one that gets to him is loss of previously published info. Amby mentions the guidance on what to do isn't always clear and you repeat the same mistakes again and again (31 mins 45 secs) They fight over the frustrations of NMR's (and Amby takes it on the chin). Kaner discusses the dilemma he has in whether he should take advantage of a NMR player's centres and whether the game should be cancelled. Amby has no problems with this at all, gobbling up SCs (32 mins 30 secs) They talk about ways around trying to avoid this problem, or reduce the risk of it happening (34 mins): Reliability ratings and how you can create games with high benchmarks to try to avoid this happening Inviting players into password protected games where players are generally reliable A pre-agreement where the game condition for playing is if a player NMR's the game will be cancelled Set up the game settings when creating to extend the phase automatically if a player NMR's Amby and Kaner suggest they'll go out to vDip, webDip and PlayDip and ask what are player's pet peeves, and based on that highlight a peeve each episode and look at how each of the sites deal with that (43 mins) Interview with Captainmeme Kaner discusses how Captainmeme has a lot of experience with iritations due to being a vDip moderator and has the Comedy Cube at webDip and also hangs out at PlayDip (45 mins) Our interview starts with Captainmeme introducing himself and how he finds the time to be so prolific on vDip, webDip and PlayDip (46 mins 30 secs) He explains the different styles of play across the three main sites (49 mins 20 secs) Captain talks about his role as a moderator (50 mins 30 secs) He goes on to discuss what he likes about PlayDip (52 mins 30 secs) Captain touches on Mafia and explains the culture of it at webDip and PlayDip (54 mins 30 secs) Kaner gives his thoughts and explains why Mafia sounds so attractive to Dip players. As Amby is a bit slow in learning, he keeps asking Cap more questions to better understand Mafia (57 mins 20 secs) Kaner asks what attracted Cap to Diplomacy variants and the variant that hooked him (60 mins) Then its on to his current two favorite variant: 1 vs 1 and Chaos. He goes on to describe his role coordinating the 1 vs 1 tournament at webDip (1 hr 2 mins 45 secs) Captain talks about the upcoming conclusion to the 1 vs 1 webDip Showdown tournament (although this is now completed since the interview) (1 hr 7 mins) Amby fucks up on muting his mike, giving listeners an insight into what happens when his dog barks too much during Skype interviews with Dip players (1 hr 11 mins 15 secs) Kaner gives his personal perspectives on 1 vs 1 games (1 hr 12 mins 30 secs) Amby asks Cap about his role bringing Ankara Crescent (zultar's favourite variant) to vDip and explains how you play the game (1 mins 13 secs) Amby keeps fucking up with his mike and his dog's antics. Meanwhile in proper Dip talk, Cap takes his hat off to Kaner's gameplay in a game of Ankara Crescent they played together in (1 he 15 mins 30 secs) Cap talks about his thoughts on preventing losing SCs in Ankara Crescent (1 hr 17 mins 30 secs) Kaner gives his ideas of playing Ankara Crescent... with Bourse (1 hr 19 mins) The guys then start discussing the Bourse game, Captain's strategy and where he sees the game going (1 hr 20 mins 20 secs) Kaner asks Cap why he let the cat out of the bag on Bourse strategy during the middle of the game, before giving a summary of the game's comings and goings (1 hr 25 mins) Amby asks if Cap's strategy has changed now he's no longer on the board (1 hr 36 mins) Amby asks Cap about his mid-game suggestion for a future game where the score is a mix between the Bourse and the board (1 hr 39 mins 45 secs) Kaner delves into what map would be best for the next Bourse game (1 hr 41 mins 50 secs) Post interview wrap-up Amby discusses his conversation with Captain re: whether Ruffhaus or Bozo will win the Bourse. Amby discusses the Bourse board SC transfer which would bring Bozo up to 1st position. Amby is doing this at the same time of eliminating Axum and Wagadu and is hoping it will get him into the 5th position he has been aiming for a long time [Amby says in the podcast that RUFFHAUS didn't know about this, but in fact did... bozo just didn't tell Amby that he also told RUFF!] (1 hr 43 mins) Kaner also says he found Captain's  1 versus 1 tournament and Mafia discussion was really interesting and he learnt a lot. Then they start squabbling about how Mafia works based on their understanding of what Captain said (1 hr 47 mins 30 secs) Kaner says he's interested in giving a Mafia game a go (1 hr 50 mins) Amby says he's starting to get a number of games finishing, including a Mars game - Ground control to Major Tom. And with the ratings changes needs to join some new rated games (1 hr 51 mins 15 secs) Amby asks Kaner about how he created the Mars variant. Amby tries educating Kaner on who Kim Hughes is (1 hr 53 mins 30 secs) They discuss the WWIV game they've both joined: Furnace of Affliction (1 hr 55 mins 45 secs) The Rat Wars variant Kaner created the Rat Wars variant and recently won a game! You can see this game called Ratatouille on vDip (1 hr 57 mins 15 secs) Kaner accuses Amby of not playing his variants (1 hr 57 mins 45 secs) He goes on to discuss the variant's fog of war nature, the two types of rat units you can build (arrow rats and spear rats) and how they differ in movement and when confronted with walls, and how supply centres work based on rat unit type (1 hr 58 mins 15 secs) Amby expresses his interest in the way the coding for the rules works and how that code could be used in other variants. Kaner then gives a synopsis about the game he played and won. He touches on some general aspects of the variant (2 hrs 2 mins) Amby asks Kaner how he got the idea for Rat Wars (2 hrs 6 mins 30 secs) Amby then asks Kaner if there was a working Lab, what changes would he make to the variant now that its been played a while (2 hrs 7 mins 30 secs) Kaner finishes up to discuss his winning strategy for the variant: luck.  Amby says its Kaner's equivalent of 1066 to Amby (2 hrs 9 mins 45 secs) The guys start wrapping things up. Kaner leaves us with a joke about heaven, old ladies and ducks (2 hrs 11 mins 15 secs) Venue: Saville Row, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Young Henry's Seasonal Brew from Victoria Amby - The Other Wine Company grenache from McLaren Vale, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

Kaner and Amby talk about recent Dip changes across various sites, current games and Game of Thrones/Diplomacy interview with RUFFHAUS8. Intro and recent changes across Dip sites The guys celebrate their 20th episode!  (5 secs) Jason4747 suggested that Kaner and Amby provide more background info on their drinks, so the guys try (2 mins 30 secs) Kaner talks about the new webDip forum interface (4 mins) Oli is back at vDip! Kaner discusses how Oli worked on vDip's database of games as it was getting too large and needed resetting. This flowed through to player scores and reliability rankings (7 mins) Amby gives his thoughts on vDip using the same approach as PlayDip re: players who go away/return and how it impacts on rankings (14 mins) Kaner goes into a little more detail on Oli's return to vDip (17 mins) The guys talk a little about nopunin10did's ongoing plans to bring 1900 to vDip (19 mins) Nopunin10did is also organising a multi-variant Dip tournament called "Tournament through Time". The guys discuss their thoughts on how the team structure would work if players outside PlayDip wanted to participate (20 mins 30 secs) Amby goes on to discuss how he's been knocked out of his Dissolution game (28 mins) He then discusses how he did a Renley Baratheon and got kicked out of the Online Diplomacy Championship due to an inadvertent NMR/couldn't be bothered ruling (31 mins) Interview with RUFFHAUS8: a Diplomacy player's interpretation of Game of Thrones The guys start introducing the interview with RUFFHAUS8 from vDip (34 mins) Amby admits he banned RUFFHAUS from playing with him in games for over a year. RUFFHAUS addresses his gameplay and reputation (37 mins) Kaner gives his perspective on RUFF's game style and asks how he got into the game, both offline and online (39 mins) RUFF turns the table and asks Amby and Kaner about how they got into the game (42 mins) Kaner asks how RUFF moved from the standard board to variants and how he got to vDiplomacy (44 mins) RUFF talks about his favorite variants: Imperial II, World War IV sealanes and Versailles (49 mins) Before coming to vDip RUFF used to play at Redscape (60 mins) Amby asks RUFF about the Bourse game and his thoughts on how its progressing towards the end game (1 hr 2 mins) RUFF suggests perhaps in hindsight the game should have been rated to create a more competitive environment before discussing ideas on the Bourse scoring system and how the nature of the game creates intriguing dynamics (1 hr 5 mins) Kaner asks RUFF on his variant preference for the next Bourse game (1 hr 15 mins) Amby discusses how he likes YouCantHandleTheTruth's suggestion of using supply and demand in the Bourse marketplace. RUFF gives his reservations (1 hr 19 mins) Then it's Game of Thrones time! RUFF gives his perspective as a Diplomacy player about the characters in the TV show and books - SPOILER ALERT (1 hr 22 mins) In doing so he touches on why Winner Take All is the only way of playing Diplomacy (1 hr 24 mins) RUFF discusses his virtual "dossier" on players and how that related to his original Game of Thrones post of vDip players (1 hr 25 mins) Then its onto the deeper analysis of show characters viewed with a Diplomacy lens (1 hr 26 mins) Kaner asks whether RUFF will be doing an updated character list of vDip players  (1 hr 42 mins)   The guys both realise they forgot to ask why RUFFHAUS has the number 8 in his player name (original 36 mins - add 2 mins on past this from interview) (1 hr 49 mins) To start wrapping up the guys received an email about a Youtube video about the Australian bird the ibis, and what the video is all about. Profanity wording for the video (1 hr 51 mins 30 secs)   Amby realises they missed something on the run-sheet: what do you need to do to make a variant? They realise its a pretty chunky discussion topic and decide to park it to the next (1 hr 56 mins) Ratings and reviews for Diplomacy Games The guys have some at last: both in Stitcher and iTunes! Jason4747 has posted one in Stitcher and Amby screws up and forgot to bring the iTunes review (1 hr 57 mins) Venue: Eleven Rooftop Bar, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Mountain Goat pale ale from Victoria Amby - Teusner Bilmore shiraz from the Barossa Valley, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

The guys keep the drinking going and the Dip talk rolling with variant ideas and interview Alex Ronke/nopunin10did from Play Dip, creator of the 1812 Overture and Dissolution variants and talk exciting development news. Intro The penny drops for Amby after Kaner's initial rambling start to the podcast  (15 secs) They provide an intro about the interview of this episode with Alex Ronke, who goes by the pseudonym on PlayDip of nopunin10did (3 mins) But before that the guys go on a tangent about Game of Thrones and RUFFHAUS' naming of various vDip players' equivalent if they were GoT characters, and ask him to do an update of Dip players and GoT characters  (4 mins) They talk about whether they should make an effort to go to a face-to-face tournament in Australia later this year (8 mins) Amby starts talking Bourse, even though the discussion is a little dated now due to the time delay between recording and getting the podcast out. Kaner says he's a slack bastard for NMRing (10 mins 30 secs) Then its on to discussion about the actual map of Known World 901 and Amby hearing even more nations on the map and their SC's mentioned in the podcast "The Lesser Bonapartes" and the real life expansion of Axum and also Samarkand capital of the Timurid empire. Check out Google Images to see what Samarkand looks like (13 mins) Variant ideas Amby's got into another podcast called "Our Fake History" which had an episode on Ninjas which got him thinking about a new variant set on a modified Sengoku map called "Ninjas vs Samurai." (23 mins) Kaner gets taken in by a fake concert poster (34 mins) Amby then starts discussing his idea of a variant Century series, where the map is based on real life borders every 100 years eg building on the 901 map, having a 1001 map, a 1101 map etc. Kaner discusses how he has a program that shows this for every six months. But you can also get a feel oft this on Youtube (36 mins) Kaner briefly discusses how he wants to make a variant based on the Khmer Empire in southeast Asia (38 mins) The guys talk about the release of the Napoleonic variant at the Russian site, Diplomail. They talk about the challenge of a map with no neutral SCs. Kaner reckons if the variant was made available elsewhere it would get a good following. They guys discuss the play test of the map on the Diplomail dev server - Kaner as Naples NMR'ed and Amby played the Ottomans. Sweden won the game - congrats to Anglichanka who soloed (39 mins)  Amby then start talking about a PlayDip play by forum game "Dissolution" that he's currently playing and how he's going (45 mins) Interview with Alex Ronke / nopunin10did from PlayDip The guys introduce our interview. Alex who goes by the screen name nopunin10did at PlayDip has created both the Dissolution and 1812 Overture variants as well as helping out Baron von Powell on 1900 and The Two Towers. The guys foreshadow that there's some really exciting stuff toward the end of the interview  (51 mins) Alex starts by giving a little background about his Dip journey and how Baron von Powell's 1900 got him into PlayDip variants (52 mins) He describes how he likes turning on and off various PlayDip rules, especially the Age of Empires option and Fog of War (54 mins 30 secs) He goes on to discuss his views on what is the greatest Dip variant (56 mins 30 secs) Amby asks Alex about explaining the Dissolution variant, how non-playing characters work and we take a flashback to the 1990's (59 mins) Alex goes on to explain that the game Amby is in is the first time the variant has been played (1 hr 13 mins) Amby asks about what possible changes to the map or rules may be incorporated into the variant after its first run (1 hr 15 mins) Alex talks about the system he put in place for a simulated foreign relations grid vs a more complicated system of favors and Diplomacy points for non-player characters (1 hr 18 mins) Alex explains what he has learnt along the way when it comes to variant creation and discusses 1812 Overture and balance (1 hr 23 mins) Amby asks about the GMing role of a game and what time commitment is needed (1 hr 31 mins) Apologies for an audio quality breakup around 41 mins 45 secs, but it only takes a moment to pass Amby gives Alex a big thumbs up on the graphical quality of Alex's maps and asks about automating any of his variants (1 hr 35 mins 30 secs) Then Alex drops a bomb shell on his side project plans for moving 1900 to the vDip/webDip platform and improving the way the core php code works for Diplomacy so coding hacks for variants aren't the default way of solving problems (1 hr 36 mins) He gives an example of how be cleaning up the code it will allow rules initially intended for variants to be implemented, such as Ancient Mediterranean's rules around the Balearic Islands (1 hr 43 mins) Alex discusses how he's already been talking to Oli about how he may be able to contribute to vDip with his coding improvements (1 hr 48 mins) Kaner discusses Alex's plans to change the core code to be more user friendly and really likes his thought processes with variant development. Plus he's been talking to Oli  (1 hr 50 mins) The guys then start wrapping things up and introduce the idea of listeners shouting a round of drinks rather than rating and reviewing the podcast (1 hr 52 mins) Venue: Sonny's House of Blues, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Young Henry's Natural Lager from New South Wales Amby - El Hurricane pinot noir from the Barossa Valley, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

In this episode we take a deep dive into webDiplomacy and also one of its variants, the Ancient Med. The guys celebrate the conclusion of the Diplomacy World Cup with a webDip player - Demon Overlord - coming in 3rd (30 secs) Kaner discusses how one of the guys at webDiplomacy has created a pilot "Diplomacy - the Game Show". Amby and Kaner give their thoughts on it and some possible tweaks to improve it further (3 mins 55 secs) The guys pose the question why more women don't play Diplomacy (7 mins 20 secs) Kaner discusses the backlog of Mod issues at vDiplomacy and has discovered he's now an Admin. He talks about what magical powers he now has (9 mins 40 secs) Interview with zultar, co-owner of webDiplomacy The guys talk about how they both started out at webDip when they started playing web based Diplomacy (13 mins 30 secs) After a bit of a false start Kaner kicks the interview off properly (16 mins 30 secs) Zultar explains when he first joined webDip as a player and his role as co-owner with Kestas (17 mins) He goes on to give a summary about webDiplomacy (19 mins) The guys explore with zultar about the process for bringing variants to webDip and what happened with the attempt to bring Known World 901 across. He also touches on how webDip differs from vDip, and how the webDip code has been picked up and used on other Diplomacy sites (23 mins) Discussion turns to the preference by webDip players to generally stick with Classic games (25 mins) Amby shares his thoughts on playing live games at webDip (26 mins 45 secs) Kaner explores with zultar how the mod system works at webDip (28 mins 20 secs) Kaner asks zultar about how much he likes getting lots of +1's (30 mins) Zultar talks a little around how they address meta-accounting and multi-accounting (32 mins) Kaner asks about the forum and what happens when things get too heated in discussions (33 mins) Zultar discusses his favorite variant at vDip but why it probably won't be coming to webDip  (37 mins 15 secs) Amby asks about the Mafia culture on webDip and if there's any connection to the actual game Diplomacy (39 mins) Zultar gives his view about any future merge between webDip and vDip (41 mins) Zultar discusses what's coming down the pipeline as a result of webDip's donation drive to make a range of improvements to the site (45 mins 40 secs) Audio quality warning - a flakey bit of the recording, sorry lasts for about 45 seconds (46 mins) Zultar describes his goal for webDip and then goes on to discuss all the updates and improvements coming up at webDip (47 mins 30 secs) Amby asks about the process followed at webDip to prioritize the proposed features (52 mins) Kaner asks zultar about an interesting story around his experience as a mod (53 mins 30 secs) Following the interview the guys share their thoughts on what they learnt and go off on a little Fog of War tangent (55 mins) Kaner goes on to discuss the webDip forum while Amby discusses how Kaner has previously talked about getting a different political view of the world from the webDip forum (1 hr 2 mins) Amby discusses a theory around whether Putin's minions have penetrated the webDip forum to create friction within the US. He goes on to reference Dan Carlin's "Common Sense" podcast around this (1 hr 5 mins) The Ancient Mediterranean variant The guys discuss how the Ancient Med is one of the few variants available at webDip, and also at vDip (1 hr 7 mins) Amby talks about why he likes this variant, and discusses he recently played a game of it (Gunboat Pizza) over at webDip as Carthage.  The variant sees Rome face off against Greece, Persia, Egypt and Carthage. The variant was designed by Don Hessong (1 hr 8 mins 30 secs) Kaner goes onto explain to Amby how to see which territories are connected in any php Dip game (1 hr 11 mins) Amby particularly likes the territory connections for this map, saying it reminds him a lot of Indians of the Great Lakes (1 hr 15 mins) The game was drawn between Poohbelly, Captain Tomorrow and song. Well done to them with Amby being eliminated due to poor timing and as a result getting involved in too many fights. Amby explains his bold plan of crippling Rome quickly and then turning his units on Egypt, but it didn't work out (1 hr 17 mins) Amby gets excited discussing the game and knocks over his wine (1 hr 21 mins 45 secs) The guys wrap things up as Amby's iPad (which had just had wine spilled on it) goes crazy (1 hr 23 mins) Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. Venue: Sonny's House of Blues, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Young Henry's Natural Lager from New South Wales Amby - El Hurricane pinot noir from the Barossa Valley, South Australia If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

After a full month and a half between episodes Kaner and Amby catch up on their games, with a deep dive into PlayDip's forum game "Dissolution" - a variant about the breakup of the Soviet Union. The guys kick things off by acknowledging YouCan'tHandleTheTruth's recent efforts to still get orders in for his game despite having a heart attack! Hope he recovers quickly (30 secs) Kaner fills listeners in about Mrs Kaner's European trip (2 mins 45 secs) Correction from Episode 15 about Amby's personal experience on PlayDip. Super_Dipsy provides his feedback on Amby's experience (reproduced below.) Amby also explains how he still is making the odd mistake in submitting orders on PlayDip.  Super_Dipsy has provided the following screenshots to show how to not screw up as much as Amby originally did - go to the show notes at DiplomacyGames.com for these. Kaner and Amby discuss strategy around last minute submission of orders and how it can blow up in your face (13 mins) Super_Dipsy is rating the podcast on iTunes... and why you should too! (15 mins 45 secs) We recently got an email from David who said he felt we have too much background noise on the podcast. Kaner explains the rationale for why we record in a pub, while Amby discusses how some players like the idea of recording in a pub. The guys ask what do you think? (16 mins 30 secs) Kaner brings up a recent message from Dr Recommended about how the podcast is helping educate his son (18 mins 30 secs) Amby talks about the little thrill he gets when someone emails or comments about the podcast (22 mins 15 secs) Around the grounds Bourse The guys kick off discussions about the Bourse game at vDip and how things have moved on since the last podcast update, including his latest flanking strategy against Leif (playing as Axum) (24 mins) Amby discusses how YouCan'tHandleTheTruth is giving him the shits with his territory painting next to his vacant SC's (29 mins 30 secs) Kaner provides the one an only crappy joke of the episode (31 mins) Kaner shares a little Autumn 924 insight from Captainmeme about the board and how that creates difficulty for his bourse buy for that season (32 mins 30 secs) Amby discusses who is the king cool kid in the Bourse, Kaner flames Amby's position in Bourse. Amby asks whether some players are no longer actively playing the Bourse (34 mins) Kaner explains his thinking on how the next Bourse game should be run to help iron out some of the issues with this game and reflects on Captainmeme's suggestions on how the Bourse game  (35 mins 30 secs) Amby asks about what the end-game plan is for this Bourse game (39 mins 30 secs) Known World 901 tournament The guys move onto the 901 Known World tournament that has progressed onto Game 5 and 6 - a tournament comprising 15 games where everyone tries playing every country on the board (41 mins) Kaner provides his view on Game 3 and turns the blow torch on Amby, much to his chagrin - check the map history to understand the discussion (42 mins 30 secs) The guys get into a bit of a verbal bitch fight over their gameplay against each other (49 mins 45 secs) Amby congratulates Kaner for being part of the 5 way draw  57 45 Amby discusses a recent Youtube video that mentions a number generally unknown countries in 901 (eg Srivijaya, Axum etc) are mentioned in an interesting speedy viral Youtube video called History of the entire world I guess... word of advice from Amby, the first 50 secs are a bit boring but it ramps up from there (58 mins) Amby's been eliminated in an Ancient Mediterranean game at webDip, but as its still going and its anonymous he'll hold off on discussing until the next episode. He then touches on the Online Diplomacy Championship at PlayDip (59 mins 30 secs) Dissolution: Play-by-Forum game at PlayDip Amby goes on to discuss how he's recently started playing his first Forum game at PlayDip. Dissolution is based on the collapse of the Soviet Union and has many, many complicated rules. Amby was invited to sub into the game by nopunin10did as the variant developer after a player (Egypt) had to leave due to real life commitments. He outlines the countries in the game (60 mins) He goes onto explain how there's 5 non-playing nuclear players and how they move and react based on favors accumulated by real players and what they do on the board through bidding (1 hr 02 mins 45 secs) Amby then goes onto explain how unlike normal Diplomacy with just navies and armies, Dissolution also has airwings... which are more like air bases rather than a bunch of aircraft. He then goes onto explain how they can drop paratroopers and how the rules apply when using one or multiple airwings (1 hr 6 mins 40 secs) He explains how the player who left gave Amby a handover, and how it aligned with what his long-term - but possibly backstabbing ally - Ethiopia said. Ethiopia went on in Amby's first season to stab him even more than he'd done to the former Egypt (1 hr 9 mins 15 secs) Kaner has trouble getting his head around how the rules of the game work (1 hr 12 mins) Amby explains how its a challenging variant and particularly hard coming in mid-game, but makes more sense after playing it for a while (1 hr 13 mins 45 secs) Amby tries to help Kaner understand airwings by giving a description of how it could work if the same rules applied to a Classic Diplomacy map. Amby tells Kaner "No, no, no" a lot (1 hr 14 mins 45 secs) Kaner at last gets it! (1 hr 17 mins 20 secs) Amby says he'll explain the game a little more in a future episode. Kaner asks listeners to let them know whether they think Amby was right or Kaner was right, before the guys wrap it all up (1 hr 18 mins) Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. Super_Dipsy is.... so why aren't you? Venue: Mr Edward's Ale House, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Mountain Goat "Crazy Mountain" special IPA  from Victoria Amby - Fat Fish shiraz from the Barossa Valley, South Australia If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

Kaner and Amby get talking about playing metagaming arseholes, live Diplomacy games online, the variant Colonial Diplomacy, possible variant ideas and get more entertaining after many more drinks This episode is a back-to-back recording again at the Breakfast Creek Hotel. Amby pays homage to Aussie rock band "Midnight Oil" and their lyric about the pub in the song Dreamworld, and their disappoint in the political career of its lead singer (Peter Garrett)  (20 secs) Metagaming arseholes  Kaner gets hot under the collar about his recent experience with metagamers: people who come into a game with a preconceived alliance and will not vary from it (2 mins 30 secs) The game was the very last to be played Known World 901 game at WebDiplomacy (2 mins 45 secs) Kaner explains the difference between metagaming and multi-accounting. He talks about a useful thread on webDip that discusses this (4 mins 45 secs) Kaner blows off some more steam, and then explains what happened to the game after the metagaming was discovered (7 mins 45 secs) Variant and Lab talk Kaner goes a little off topic and discusses a new variant being put together by David E. Cohen, the creator of Known World 901 (8 mins 45 secs) Amby discusses his recent holiday and a surprising spotting of a book written by a David Elliot Cohen - is it the same guy? (9 mins 45 secs) Kaner talks about other great combined maps done by David E. Cohen, combining the Maharajah and Spice Islands maps (11 mins 30 secs) Amby discusses how Flame is setting up Pirates on the Lab so he can correct some of the issues players have raised about the variant (12 mins 45 secs) Kaner talks about how he'd like to see the minor power element of the Versailles variant brought into Pirates (14 mins 15 secs) Mrs Kaner is going soon to France. Kaner discusses his wife's French pronunciation skills (14 mins 30 secs) Amby discusses his other variant creation plans and ideas after reading a Theodore Roosevelt biography that touches on possible conflicts that never occured and how it'd make a fun variant. Basically it would encompass the Venezuelan crisis of 1902-03 where America and Germany could have come to war. Similar potential conflict almost happened over Morocco (15 mins 45 secs) Amby keeps the ball rolling talking about another variant idea after listening to two podcasts (12 Byzantine Rulers and The History of Rome) about the tetrarchy of the Roman Empire when it was governed by four separate emperors. A system that eventually brought them into conflict (19 mins 15 secs) Kaner discusses his interest in the Byzantium Empire and the Black Death (21 mins 50 secs) Back to Metagaming The guys talk about whether an aspect of metagaming is acceptable based on your prior experience against a player (23 mins 50 secs) Kaner talks about players that rub him the wrong way (27 mins) Amby explores a situation whether metagaming could be done in a potentially positive way  (29 mins) Kaner flows off the discussion with a story about his first Diplomacy game against his father and brother (31 mins 40 secs) What the Dr Recommended update - part 2 of the Top 100 at WebDiplomacy The guys follow on from episode 14 and attempt to pronounce player names from #20 to #50 (33 mins 45 secs) Amby discusses how he's been thinking about playing an Ancient Mediterranean game on WebDip (38 mins 30 secs) Live games Amby does another holiday flashback and how with a bit of spare time on his hands, played a live Classic game at webDip (38 mins 55 secs) Amby discusses this was his first ever live game, although he'd tried to get this happening once before on the basis of having a Drunk Diplomacy game (where all players have been drinking) (40 mins) With so many players at webDip its a lot easier to get a live game going, the same with PlayDip (40 mins 50 secs) Amby drew Russia and explains why he likes playing Russia in Classic (and hates Austria and Italy). Kaner also gives his views on which countries he likes playing in Classic (41 mins 20 secs) Amby expected a 45 minute game, but found out that was not the case! (42 mins) He talks about the challenge in a live game of competing real life demands that get in the way of preparing and submitting orders (43 mins) Amby explains he had a lot of fun playing a live game. cspieker as Turkey won with Amby coming second (43 mins 45 secs) The game used the draw size scoring system. Amby explains he has no idea how that works, or sum of squares. The guys talk about how they need to get someone from webDip on to explain it without too much highbrow maths. Amby asks Kaner to organise zulta or another informed webDip person on (45 mins) Back to the live game. Amby explains how he was doing alright as Russia but Turkey was starting to make moves his way. One of the big problems was the amount of CDing in the game, although generally replacements popped up really quickly (46 mins 45 secs) Amby explains his gameplay to avoid attacking Austria and blitzed Scandanavia and started taking SCs off England. Only for Austria to start attacking Amby, quickly followed by Germany doing the same. Amby explains his attempt to send gunboat messages of peace out to England failed. Kaner asks about Germany's rapid rise followed by rapid decline (48 mins 55 secs) Once it became very clear to Amby he wasn't going to win, he set himself some personal goals, including Russia making its way to the Iberian peninsula. The guys then talk about their future plans on playing more live Dip games (51 mins 45 secs) Kaner talks about the importance of hitting the refresh button in live games (55 mins 45 secs) The guys discuss their games Kaner briefly touches on his Sengoku tournament situation (57 mins) Amby similarly discusses briefly his games: Bourse, WW2 and Indians of the Great Lakes (57 mins 30 secs) The Colonial Diplomacy variant Amby quickly segues into a game of Colonial Diplomacy he recently finished (58 mins 40 secs) He describes how he hasn't played it for a couple of years. Kaner says the Trans-Siberian railway and Suez canal rules have been coded into the game (59 mins) The guys give a shout out to those who brought the Colonial variant to life: Peter Hawes for designing the game,  Oliver Auth for the php coding and Tobias Florin for the Trans-Siberian railway and Suez canal coding functionality (1 hour 00 mins 00 secs) They talk about how the special rules work for the Suez canal and the Trans-Siberian railway. That said in the podcast the guys totally forgot to mention the special rule for Hong Kong: it counts as an SC if occupied by any country except China, in which case its considered a non-SC territory (1 hr 1 mins) The guys get increasingly pissy as they move onto drink number six... and it starts showing on Amby's memory of the game (1 hr 03 mins) Amby does however remember his overall strategy playing as Japan and what he was trying to achieve and how he managed relationships with other players (1 hr 4 mins 40 secs) Congrats to Matticus13 who won as China with Amby coming second (1 hr 6 mins) Amby discusses his mid-game plans and how we tried sending gunboat messages of peace to Holland and France (1 hr 7 mins 45 secs) Amby describes how it was a really fun variant and would be interested in playing again as another player (1 hr 9 mins 30 secs) Kaner asks Amby's thoughts on naval vs land based warfare in the variant (1 hr 11 mins) After some initial pissy rambling, Amby reads some of the End of Game statements to explain the players' thoughts on this game and old-man flash backs from Amby about the fall of the Berlin Wall (1 hr 13 mins 15 secs) We then get onto the EoG statement from England, the winner of the game (1 hr 18 mins 15 secs) Amby discusses the fortress nature of Singapore as an SC (1 hr 20 mins) After Kaner's dismal attempt at a joke, Amby slips in a drunken joke or two (1 hr 22 mins 40 secs) After being at the pub for over 4 hours, the guys acknowledge this is a good time to wrap things up before it gets messy, before suggesting listeners send their best jokes by PMing or sending a comment (1 hr 26 mins) Venue: Breakfast Creek Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Carlton Draft and XXXX "off the wood" Amby - Riddoch cabernet sauvignon from the Coonawarra, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

Kaner and Amby discuss the Calhamer estate auction of original Diplomacy paraphernalia, other news and game updates before interviewing Super_Dipsy and Morg from PlayDiplomacy before Amby gives his final thoughts on PlayDip after his exposure during his Online Diplomacy Championship game. Apologies in advance, this is our longest podcast yet at around 2 hours 15 mins! Latest news The guys announce that the DiplomacyCast podcast is back after a 8 month hiatus. Its a good listen focused more on the face-to-face aspects of the game rather than online which we cover off (2 mins 30 secs) The big news is the Calhamer estate auction over at eBay where the creator of Diplomacy, Alan Calhamer, has a heap of original Dip material when he created it in the 1950's. He passed away 4 years ago and now his estate is being sold off. Amby discusses how they've tried to get on the buyer of the very first Dip game (number 1 of 500) on to discuss their purchase, but they want to keep their anonymity (5 mins 50 secs) Amby discusses how he'd love to look into which notable historical figures have played Diplomacy beyond JFK and Gary Gygax (9 mins 45 secs) The guys then go onto discuss the prototype maps made by Calhamer, the auction just finishing about an hour before this recording (11 mins 30 secs) Kaner gives an update on the 1 vs 1 Dip tournament at WebDip  which is getting close to a tournament conclusion with the semi finals just round the corner (16 mins 45 secs) Amby gives a brief update on the 2016 webDip championship after speaking with Goldfinger. Amby goes onto explain how webDip has a tournaments page where you can find out all things Dip tournament related and also ghost ratings (20 mins 10 secs) Around the grounds The Pizza, Pasta and Popes Rinascimento game played to welcome back drano19 at vDip has now ended in a seven way draw (23 mins 50 secs) Amby gives a quick End-of-Game statement on his thoughts as Venice on the game and discusses Samj's well played stab, touches on RUFFHAUS' delicate gameplay as the Ottomans and what lead up to the draw occurring (25 mins) Next its the Bourse game update with many big twists and turns since our last podcast update including: Amby deciding which side of the fence to fall to, the German Talus big buy and its impact on Victory Points and the migration strategy by China to harbor Turan in modern day Indonesia to keep his poker machine running (33 mins 40 secs) Amby gives a brief Periscope update that at least we're getting proper Diplomacy players tuning in now, not just random foreign affairs questions. Then back to Bourse with Amby giving credit to Dr Recommended for his rapid strategy to safeguard Africa (40 mins) Amby gives his view that France is as good as dead based on Dr Recommended's currency ownership (44 mins) Interview with Super_Dipsy and Morg from PlayDiplomacy Kaner and Amby set the scene for the interview (46 mins 30 secs) We welcome Super_Dipsy and Morg from PlayDiplomacy and explain why we needed to talk to them after a heap of questions Carebear said other PlayDippers were better placed to answer (49 mins 15 secs) We set the scene that Morg will be take on play by forum discussion, with Super_Dipsy tackling the rest as site Admin (52 mins 15 secs) Super_Dipsy kicks things off by discussing the different options in PlayDip for country selection - random, first come first served and the preference system (52 mins 45 secs) He then helps explain some awesome functionality at PlayDip for introducing the game to school students and how that's managed for teachers with over 200 schools now participating as part of their studies on how politics and other parts of the school curriculum work. The guys ask about retention of students playing and whether any schools tournaments happen (54 mins 15 secs) Next Super_Dipsy talks about the different draw options at PlayDip: open ballot, secret ballot and solos only (59 mins 15 secs) We then get into how the rating system works at PlayDip and how it gets around players sitting at the top of the rankings without actively playing (1 hr 2 mins 15 secs) Super_Dipsy then gets onto the variants 1900 and Versailles that are on PlayDip but aren't on vDip. Both Amby and Kaner really like the way the gameplay works in Versailles where you're playing as a major and minor power and how Super_Dipsy describes it (1 hr 10 mins) Super_Dipsy starts turning things over to Morg as he explains how games before being php coded for PlayDip are first played out extensively in the forum. Morg gives his take on being a GM in the early days was highly entertaining with the major/minor power dynamics (1 hr 14 mins) Kaner asks about how the coding was done for Versailles (1 hr 15 mins 30 secs) Amby clarifies how soloing the game works in Versailles (1 hr 17 mins 30 secs) Super_Dipsy explains how games start and develop using the Escalation option with anywhere between 2 and 7 players in a game (developed by Edi Birsan) (1 hr 20 mins) Then he gets onto the dynamic created when the Stuff Happens option is chosen for games (1 hr 22 mins 45 secs) We next turn to finding out a lot more about forum games from Morg (1 hr 27 mins 15 secs) He goes onto discuss how many forum games are typically played at any one time (1 hr 29 mins 30 secs) Morg talks about some of the variants played, including Diplomacy points used for bidding what powers do eg Ambition and Empires, and also Greek City States (1 hr 30 mins 15 secs) We then discuss how games make it from the forum to be php coded for PlayDip - apologies for the crows in the background! (1 hr 32 mins 30 secs) Morg talks about one of his favourite forum games at the moment: Othello and Seismic (1 hr 33 mins 45 secs) Amby asks how much effort is usually required of a Game Master to adjudicate a game (1 hr 36 mins) Kaner asks about how you join a forum game at PlayDip (1 hr 37 mins 30 secs) As mentioned in Carebear's interview there is a lot you can do at PlayDip without having to pay to play. Amby asks how much is premium membership with Super_Dipsy explaining how the membership costs are helping go to a new interface and an App for mobile phones (1 hr 38 mins 45 secs) Amby clarifies if there's any rating system in the forum community (1 hr 40 mins) Player classes are also discussed (1 hr 41 mins) Kaner asks about the governance process for changes at PlayDip (1 hr 43 mins 50 secs) Super_Dipsy touches on the changes they usually make each year to provide extra options for the army and navy icons, with a changes including sea serpents and griffins (1 hr 45 mins 45 secs) Kaner asks Super_Dipsy and Morg about to what extent they keep an eye on other Diplomacy sites other than PlayDip (1 hr 46 mins 30 secs) Kaner then has a follow up question for Morg about any variants he's seen at vDip or WebDip that might be coming to PlayDip's forum games soon (1 hr 49 mins) Amby asks if they guys have any last minute advice or suggestions for anyone thinking of going over to PlayDip (1 hr  51 mins) The guys discuss what they liked about the interview (1 hr 53 mins 15 secs) Amby discusses how the Versailles variant helped inspire a new variant called the 1812 Overture mentioned in Diplomacy World - see page 12 in the linked PDF (1 hour 55 mins 40 secs) The guys then go onto discuss the PlayDip approach to players' rankings when they become inactive (1 hr 57 mins 40 secs) Amby's experience with PlayDiplomacy In wrapping up the episode Amby discusses his thoughts after participating in the Online Diplomacy Championship over at PlayDiplomacy (1 hr 59 mins 45 secs) He describes how aspects of the interface in some ways works really well, but in others not so. Also the caliber of the players was extraordinarily high and very cut-throat (2 hours 00 mins 20 secs) Amby acknowledges he should have followed Carebear's advice about playing a game beforehand on PlayDip as without this he made errors on how to use the interface (2 hrs 3 mins 30 secs) The guys discuss the great aesthetics of the PlayDip board (2 hrs 6 mins) Amby talks about how he liked using the messaging system in PlayDip and its functionality to send reminder emails (2 hrs 8 mins 40 secs) Finally Amby discusses some of the more clunky aspects of the game interface and hopes these aspects will be corrected with the update Super_Dipsy discussed in the interview (2 hrs 10 mins 20 secs) The guys then wrap things up and discuss the importance of putting in a review and rating for the podcast in iTunes, it just takes 30 seconds guys, so please help and get to it! (2 hours 14 mins) Venue: Breakfast Creek Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Carlton Draft and XXXX "off the wood" Amby - Riddoch cabernet sauvignon from the Coonawarra, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

The guys live stream with Periscope and hit many Diplomacy topics: when your employer blocks Dip, the new Lab & variants being tested and interview with Flame. Plus we talk Dip etiquette on readying up orders, Victory Points farming in Bourse and how they're going in their games. Around the grounds Amby describes for new listeners/viewers on Periscope what the podcast is about (1 min) Both of the guys say they're in way too many games. Amby says his problem is he's often having to go to 4 different Diplomacy platforms (2 mins 10 secs) Amby describes briefly Cisco Spark, one of these Dip platforms that we will highlight in a future episode (2 mins 30 secs) Kaner asks Amby how he's going in the Online Diplomacy Championship over at PlayDip (3 mins) Amby also goes to on to briefly discuss the group messaging system at PlayDip and his initial thoughts on it, before talking php and their WebDip games (4 mins) The guys stuff around with the live Periscope feed (6 mins 45 secs) Kaner talks about how he's been going in his Sengoku tournament games (7 mins 45 secs) Amby digresses onto the Known World tournament, before briefly touching on his First Crusade game, with that variant being highlighted in more detail in a future episode (8 mins 45 secs) Amby tries setting Periscope viewers expectations straight about the podcast being about the game Diplomacy, rather than real life international foreign affairs (9 mins 30 secs) The guys talk about how a number of players in games they're in are criticising other players for taking too long to ready their orders (14 mins 15 secs) Amby explains why he's occasionally been guilty of this of late (16 mins 45 secs) Diplomacy Dilemmas Kaner raises a Diplomacy Dilemmas question he received: "Is there any time in a game where you can legitimately NMR in a game?"  (18 mins 50 secs) Amby gives his take, indicating he might have done this once in the past (20 mins) Kaner describes how he's done this once before too (22 mins 15 secs) Amby discusses how a player contacted him about Victory Points farming in the Bourse Known World 901 game, trying to get Amby to see the light (25 mins 15 secs) Kaner gives his independent non-player perspective on this issue (28 mins) Amby flags how he's looking forward to when the game finishes up to have a wide ranging end-of-game interview in the podcast from other key players (29 mins 30 secs) What the Doctor Recommended Amby discusses how he received a PM from Murcanic who made it into the vDip top 100, and wanted to be included in an updated pronunciation effort from the guys (30 mins) Kaner and Amby then go on to start a What the Dr Recommended attempt at pronouncing the names of the top 20 players at webDip (31 mins 10 secs) When the boss bans Dip The guys discuss how Amby's employer blocks pretty much all Dip sites, while Kaner's gives him access, but blocks Diplomail, possibly because its a Russian site (34 mins) Amby gives Kaner some bullshit excuses on how to convince your employer to lift their block on Dip sites. Kaner adds to the possible arguments depending on your line of work (35 mins) The guys then go onto explain how you can try getting around this by not using the boss' network (eg using an iPad, phone etc) (37 mins 15 secs) Amby explains how the only Dip site he can reach at work is Cisco Spark's Diplomacy area. Amby goes on to talk briefly about Cisco Spark and North American face-to-face champ Chris Martin. We'll cover this in a future podcast when Amby has more time to familiarise himself with how it works  (40 mins 20 secs) The new Lab The guys discuss the new Lab and its 4 variants being currently play tested: Napoleonic, War of the Austrian Succession, Mongolian Empire and Lepanto x6 (42 mins 45 secs) Kaner is playing in all 4 games, Amby just in Napoleonic. As a result Amby asks Kaner to explain his thoughts and experience first up on Lepanto x6. It follows a lot of the same principles and gameplay as Lepanto which is a 1 vs 1 game, but turns it on its head (44 mins 15 secs) Kaner talks about how Flame (Admin at Diplomail and the new Lab) has received some of the files for the new Lab (45 mins 15 secs) As Guroz created the game but has since dropped off the scene, it may be a little harder for this game to make it live. So far it is the only variant that failed technical play testing by crashing - as a result we have no link for you (46 mins 15 secs) Amby starts describing how Lepanto x6 is played out on a hexagonal board set in space. Kaner gives the details for how armies, space ships, planets (SC's), warp points and space stations work in the game (46 mins 45 secs) Kaner explains in light of all these little twists the board is a bit visually overwhelming for his liking and gives it a thumbs down. Amby explains he likes the space based concept but maybe not this map (50 mins) The guys move onto the next game Kaner is playing in the Lab, the War of the Austrian Succession. Kaner likes this one, he played as Prussia and felt he was thrown straight into the diplomatic arena of negotiation straight away while still having opportunities to expand. Amby explains how he likes the visual nature and historical accuracy of the variant (51 mins 45 secs) Amby asks Kaner what the dark black lines on the map are, but doesn't get a very convincing answer from Kaner. The guys also discuss some of the border connections on the board shown with red lines. Overall they both give this two thumbs up (53 mins 45 secs) Finally the guys turn to the new Napoleonic variant in the Lab, discussing the test game they're both in. They both really love how the map looks and works, even down to the way territory names are displayed on the map. What makes this variant particularly challenging is the absence of neutrals. For this reason Kaner doesn't like this aspect of the map, making diplomatic negotiations even more important. Amby doesn't mind this but acknowledges it makes the game a lot harder (56 mins 45 secs) They discuss how they're going in this particular game, with Kaner as Italy and Amby as the Ottomans. As its a test game, the usual confidentiality and speaking about a game they're both in isn't as critical as normal. Amby goes on to discuss how he likes the little postcard sized territories. Players on the board have different number of units with most on 3, some 4 and France on 5 SCs  (1 hour 00 mins 30 secs) After Amby stuffs around with the pause button as they get drinks, Kaner explains the decor in the hallway to the gents toilets. In wrapping up the Lab games, Kaner explains he wants to discuss the Mongolian Empire variant a little later in a future episode, so we'll wait 'til then  (1 hour 05 mins 30 secs) Interview with Flame, creator of the new Lab and admin at Diplomail Amby gives a quick back story on how Diplomacy labs work in creating php games. He explains vDip while having a Lab, its become inactive with Oli busy with other priorities (1 hour 07 mins 15 secs) As the php web Diplomacy code is open source, it can be picked up and installed anywhere. Kaner explains why some Dip sites have been reluctant to install extra variants because of the risk of code incompatibility and crashing. Basically you need a good php coder to manage the risk of this. The Diplomail community was created using this open source, primarily for the Russian community. However, Flame has made the Lab more open to English speaking players (1 hour 09 mins 15 secs) Due to the fact that English isn't Flame's first language, he preferred to do a text based interview which we were cool with. Kaner is going to ask the questions, and Amby answers on behalf of Flame (1 hour 11 mins 45 secs) We start exploring why Flame created the Lab, what level of technical skills are needed to add variants to the Lab and whether there's a guide on what to do to create variants (1 hour 12 mins 30 secs) Next we look at Flame's role at Diplomail and his role in personally creating the variants Classic Cataclysm - the standard map but units can move seamlessly between land and sea territories regardless of how they start. Flame says the next variant he'd like to see is the Western 901 variant. The Known World 901 variant was originally envisioned by David Cohen as two maps, a western and eastern version but it was subsequently sewn together. Flame would like just the western iteration to come to life on the site  (1 hour 15 mins) We ask Flame about in his opinion what makes a great variant. He says he likes good balance and based on history, for this reason he really likes the Napoleonic variant (1 hour 19 mins) Amby asks about the flexibility of the Lab and its game engine eg he'd like to change the way retreating clippers operate in Pirates, as their current behavior is generally hated by anyone playing the variant. Flame goes onto explain what new game functionality will be available from the Lab (1 hour 20 mins 45 secs) Amby goes on to say that if there's a chance the double space retreat movement of clippers can be reduced to one, he'd like to check with the Dip community if there are any other fixes so they can all be done at once in the Lab. Amby goes onto say some players bitch about how privateers are tied to their host nation eg Captain Henry Morgan (one player) and England (another players) cannot attack each other. Amby goes on to explain that he doesn't want to change that as the coding would be too difficult to swap privateers into pirates, and potentially pirate to privateers (1 hour 24 mins 15 secs) We explore with Flame whether he can personally help if a variant creator doesn't have strong php technical skills (1 hour 27 mins 30 secs) Next we tackle the question of plans for once games are successfully play tested in the Lab and then moved to Diplomail, what chances are there that the variant will also be moved to vDip (1 hour 28 mins 30 secs) We ask about Diplomail and its community and culture compared to other Dip sites, and support for Diplomail (1 hour 32 mins) We discover that Flame isn't actually Russian, how he got into Dip and shares some of his political views about Putin. Flame goes on to discuss the breakdown of Russian players at Diplomail compared to players from other parts of the ex-Soviet Union (1 hour 35 mins 15 secs) Amby goes off on a tangent with a culturally insensitive joke (1 hour 38 mins 45 secs) Flame explains in Classic what countries he likes and dislikes playing, then he discusses what variants are his favorite and what he thinks about getting more people playing Diplomacy (1 hour 41 mins 30 secs) Lastly we ask Flame about the quality of Amby's Russian pronunciations from our last episode before wrapping things up (1 hour 44 mins 15 secs) Venue: Embassy Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Drought Relief lager by Newstead Brewery from Queensland, Australia Amby - Cake shiraz from McLaren Vale, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

In this episode the guys discuss late news, introduce the new Diplomacy Dilemmas segment, review the Japanese medieval variant Sengoku and do bad Russian pronunciations while examining Diplomail, the Russian Diplomacy site. Late news and game updates Flame has flagged he's putting together a variant Lab. Amby mentions how Captain Meme and A_Tin_Can don't seem to be making a Lab anymore, which is ok if Flame is doing so. Kaner points out Flame is one of the admins at http://server.Diplomail.ru - the Russian Diplomacy site (2 mins 50 secs) The guys talk about what variants they'd start working on if the Lab was up and running again. Amby says he'd do his planned Cold War 1 vs 1 game on the WWIV map, although if the Lab allowed non-standard coding he'd be keen to do his Nuclear Diplomacy variant. Kaner says he'd like to work on David E. Cohen's Southeast Asia variant or "Fuck You Stalemate Lines" - a variant using a standard Classic map, but each territory would be divided into "sea lanes" rules ie 5 territories in each territory NE, SE, SW and NW and a central overseer zone where the SC would be located if there was an SC in that territory (5 mins 30 secs) Amby reflects on the PlayDip forum and variant banks on what maps don't get enough love and need to be brought to the online environment (10 mins 20 secs) The guys then start talking about their Rinascimento game "Pasta, Pizza and Popes" and reflect on Kaner being eliminated first. Kaner asks Amby (who started in the box seat as Venice) about how he's found the game, especially in the centre of the board (12 mins) After the occasional tangent on alcohol, cars and holidays the guys start talking sport and discuss the women's Australian Football League, before discussing how you could create a sports based Diplomacy variant - skip over this bit if you don't care about the types of football in Australia (16 mins) Kaner gets back to Genova's approach in the Rinascimento game before Amby discusses how alliances keep changing in the centre of the map. Kaner cheers on Decima's efforts while Amby lifts the cover on PMs from our resident Italian player (20 mins) New segment: Diplomacy Dilemmas In this new segment the guys asked players for particular problems they're having in their games and attempt to give sage advice (26 mins) Our first Diplomacy Dilemma comes from Dr Recommended who asks "How do you deal with a player like Amby?" Kaner gives his sage advice based on his experience playing against Amby. While Amby reflects on Kaner's suggestions (26 mins 45 secs) Amby in return asks how do you deal with a player like Dr Recommended (34 mins 30 secs) The guys talk about how game ending has increasingly been solo focused rather than two or three way alliance draws (36 mins) Kaner and Amby talk about how your relationships with players tends to ebb and flow over time in games (40 mins) Ezio is up next in Diplomacy Dilemmas with a question on how can you can tell that a player is about to stab you, and how you can avoid making telltale signs if you're planning in stabbing. Mikey99 responded in the forum about his thoughts. Kaner starts with his take re: builds and how he used a similar strategy in his recent African game  and relates it to Mikey's advice (44 mins 30 secs) The last bit of Mikey's advice is when a player has been chatty and then goes silent on you. Amby brings up the scientific evidence of this - a 2015 study in Science News by researcher Cristian Danescu-Niculescu-Mizil looking at the way people communicated across 249 games and 145,000 messages between players. When there was a time to stab there was a shift in politeness. Players who were excessively polite were more likely to betray. People suddenly becoming polite were more likely to be victims of betrayal  (49 mins) Also increased planning language with the soon to be victim also tended to lead to pending betrayal (52 mins) Amby brings up another Diplomacy Dilemma from Donald45 who's playing an American Conflict game and trying to work out how to deal with his current situation (53 mins) And our last Dip Dilemma from Leif about a problem he keeps having in Gunboat games fighting two front wars and never accepting overtures towards peace. The guys discuss whether timing is the key to Leif's dilemma (55 mins) The guys talk about how timing, and how performing well at the start, tends to also lead to players ganging up on you (59 mins 30 secs) After yet another drink Amby discusses whether he should join a 1066 gunboat game or not, and chooses to do so (1 hour 8 mins) Sengoku - the Japanese variant Kaner explains he's in a 8 x 8 Sengoku tournament at the moment (1 hour 9 mins 30 secs) Kaner talks about the board layout, where each player represents a Samurai and battle it out across Japan. There can only be one victor (the shogun) - so no drawing is allowed (1 hour 11 mins 30 secs) Amby asks about player biases against a map based on how they're previously played (1 hour 14 mins) Sea territories play a big role in this game based on the guys'experience (1 hour 15 mins 15 secs) Kaner laments that when he plays in the centre of the board he generally doesn't do well (1 hour 16 mins 15 secs) The guys talk about the latest Kamasutra position that's become all the rage in Diplomacy (1 hour 17 mins 30 secs) Kaner gets shitty about Amby winning Sengoku in his recent game as a central player (1 hour 18 mins 30 secs) More Dip chit-chat The guys discuss how they're looking forward to new variants. Amby mentions he's in a First Crusade game at the moment and may talk more about it in the next podcast (1 hour 20 mins 15 secs) Kaner gives Amby a history lesson about the Childen's Crusades, and goes on to talk about the show Drunk History (1 hour 23 mins 30 secs) The guys give a belated shout out to Benjamin Hester for creating Sengoku, and Oli for porting it across online (1 hour 27 mins) Lastly the guys talk about the Russian diplomacy site Diplomail.ru. Amby tries his bad Russian (after many drinks please forgive him for bad prounciations and translations). Amby asks Flame to critique him (1 hour 27 mins 30 secs) Kaner goes onto show Amby how they've ported across almost all the variants at vDiplomacy to Diplomail (1 hour 30 mins 30 secs) Venue: Victory Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Bright Ale by Little Creatures Brewery from Victoria, Australia Amby - Parson's Nose shiraz from McLaren Vale, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

In this episode the guys discuss the cross-site Online Diplomacy Championship happening over at PlayDiplomacy and interview the tournament director Carebear.  Fast news First up a quick update on the 1 vs 1 WebDiplomacy tournament and the shock news of Devonian and a number of other great players losing their games (2 mins 20 secs) It looks like the face-to-face DiplomacyCast podcast website is off the air again. Amby has emailed one of its co-hosts twice to find out what's happening but hasn't had a reply (5 mins 40 secs) Amby and Kaner explain how they're getting busy in real life and will be changing their recording schedule. Basically they'll catch up a little less often and record two episodes at once - which is what they start doing from today (7 mins 15 secs) Carebear interview Special note: Carebear asked if we could mask his voice a little, so we did our best... Amby explains he had some recording problems with his questions, so he's tried to amplify his voice to make it clearer for listeners (8 mins 30 secs) The guys set the scenes for the interview and the Online Diplomacy Championship which includes players from PlayDiplomacy, webDiplomacy, vDiplomacy, Stabbeurfou, BackStabbr and face-to-face players (10 mins) Carebear discusses how he got started in Diplomacy 30 years ago and tracked down the first Diplomacy instances online (11 mins) Amby asks why Carebear ended up ultimately at PlayDiplomacy and why he likes it (13 mins 45 secs) A brief discussion about the how the PlayDip forum is very different to other Dip forums (15 mins 15 secs) Carebear gives an overview about the Online Diplomacy Championship originally created by ghug and why the second championship is being held at PlayDiplomacy (16 mins 20 secs) Invited players from other sites are getting access to PlayDip's tournament interface during the competition without having to purchase a premium membership (18 mins) Players not from PlayDip are invited provided they have high rankings and reliability on their respective sites. To reduce the chance of players from PlayDip from NMRing/CDing, only the  top 150 players from there are being considered (22 mins) Kaner clarifies what the PlayDip vernacular "surrendering" means (24 mins 30 secs) Kaner asks about how the various Dip sites factor in reliability (25 mins) Cut off deadline for Round 1 at the ODC is 15 February 2017. There'll be additional deadlines for the second and third rounds, with some solid reliable players able to join later, although it'll be harder to reach the top board (26 mins) Amby asks about the tournament system being used to manage the championship. Carebear explains how preliminary round scores are aggregated so the top seven scoring players make the top board for the fourth round. There may be two other boards running for players who don't quite make the top board (27 mins) Kaner double checks its being played on the standard Classic board. Carebear confirms, although its called Pure Diplomacy at PlayDiplomacy and will be played by standard rules (29 mins) In discussing PlayDip, Carebear mentions the interface isn't brilliant on mobile devices, but changes are currently being worked on to improve the experience. The interface at PlayDip also allows you to put in illegal orders eg army Munich move to Sevastopol, which is changed by the system adjudicator as a hold  (29 mins 45 secs) In PlayDip there are many more options for how you can post messages which allows you to send a single message to multiple players in the group you choose (32 mins) Amby asks about whether invited non-PlayDip players can try the interface before the game. Carebear clears things up saying there is a free membership at PlayDip but there are limitations of a maximum of 3 games and only on the Pure Diplomacy board. For those wanting to access the features above that you'd need to pay to be a premium member (34 mins) Carebear discusses the Guest Guide for non-PlayDip players about PlayDip, and recommends jumping into an unranked game where a player has gone into civil disorder (36 mins 15 secs) Amby gives a thumbs up to the look and feel of the Pure Diplomacy map at PlayDip before asking about if there is any prize for the winner beyond the kudos. Carebear says he's planning on having certificates and is open to ideas on what else could be added in. Zoltar at webDip is giving 500 points to whoever wins the tournament (37 mins) Kaner asks Carebear about what some of the variant options in PlayDip do eg Stuff Happens and Escalation (39 mins 20 secs) As Carebear hasn't used a lot of the PlayDip variant features, Amby asks if the guys can be hooked up with another PlayDip player with a variant interest (42 mins 20 secs) Carebear says he can organise that, and gives an overview of how Forum games work including how some forum variant games were successfully ported across to the main part of the site eg Versailles (43 mins) Carebear explains why he prefers standard Pure Diplomacy and his thoughts on Gunboat games (46 mins 30 secs) Kaner asks if Carebear has any picks or players to watch out for in the ODC (48 mins) Carebear explains the ODC needs a few more vDip players (53 mins) Carebear outlines how Edi Bersen will be playing and how he's trying to get the current World Diplomacy Champion involved (54 mins) Carebear gives his views on the differences between face-to-face and online players perspectives on each other's respective channel (55 mins) Kaner reflects on the interconnectedness between the various Dip sites and face-to-players (1 hour 1 min) Post interview Amby explains how he didn't know PlayDiplomacy allowed for free games and had incorrectly assumed everything was pay based (1 hr 2 mins 45 secs) Kaner likes the ability to input illegal orders as a means of communicating in a Gunboat game (1 hr 3 mins 20 sec) The guys agree that Carebear's girlfriend that took him to his very first Diplomacy game should be considered the best girlfriend in the world  (1 hr 3 mins 50 sec) They go onto disagree with each other about PlayDip's forums - with Amby loving it and Kaner hating it (1 hr 5 mins) The guys had a heap more PlayDip questions about how the platform operates, but as it wasn't Carebear's forte we've held them over for a PlayDip second part at some stage in the not too distant future (1 hr 6 mins 20 secs) Game updates First up it's Bourse time with Amby saying he's started going backwards in the bourse part of the game and continues to go poorly on the board. That said he outlines his own goal for the game (1 hr 7 mins 40 secs) Kaner grills Amby on missing the big Khazaria currency speculation (1 hr 9 mins 20 secs) Amby asks Kaner about the suggestion in the vDip forum about a World War IV Bourse game (1 hr 11 mins) The guys discuss Captainmeme's suggestion of changing the scoring system in the next Bourse game so victory conditions are determined by both how a player performs in the Bourse and the board (1 hr 13 mins) Amby outlines how he appreciates Captainmeme's outline of the concepts of Money Farms and VP Farms (1 hr 15 mins 10 secs) Amby asks what Kaner's thoughts are on CD's - with 35 players there's a much higher chance of someone failing to enter orders - and time game time limits (1 hr 18 mins 45 secs) Venue: Victory Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Bright Ale by Little Creatures Brewery from Victoria, Australia (although Kaner calls it a "Pure Blonde") Amby - Annie's Lane cabernet merlot from the Clare Valley, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

The guys pick up discussion on 1 vs 1 games following last episode's technical difficulties and look at the Cold War and Duo games they're playing against each other. Then its an unexpected journey down the rabbit hole of recent events at webDiplomacy before discussing how Diplomacy sites could better structure themselves for longevity. Then Kaner talks about his recent "Africa" variant game. Enjoy! Amby does a mea culpa on why last episode had so many technical difficulties (2 mins) 1 vs 1 variants - part 2 The guys discuss how they've been playing against each other in two 1v1 games: Cold War and Duo. In the Cold War game Amby as the USSR convincingly beat Amby as the USA (3 mins 30 secs) Kaner discusses the battlefronts for the Panama Canal, Europe and around Australia and Indonesia. Amby reminds Kaner how its important to familiarise yourself with each variants special rules (4 mins) In Cold War there are in fact land bridges between Australia-Indonesia and Indonesia-Philippines (5 mins) Kaner discusses he made a few misorders and was taken by surprise when Amby convoyed into Alaska (5 mins 30 secs) Amby discusses how the map used is a very different perspective of the Earth and can be confusing in Europe on which territories are connected (6 mins 20 secs) Set just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, to achieve game balance this variant by Safari misses out on historical accuracy eg East and West Germany, Japan, Saigon and Alaska start as neutrals (7 mins 20 secs) Amby discusses his thoughts on maybe how the map could be improved for better historical accuracy, before Kaner points out how it'd probably detrimentally impact gameplay (8 mins 30 secs) The guys talk about their cut and thrust experience before wrapping up the end-game (14 mins) They go onto discuss how there never was a dull moment with this variant with many offensive opportunities available. Kaner gives his thoughts on playing the variant with victory conditions requiring taking all the SC's (15 mins 30 secs) Amby discusses his thoughts of a bigger Cold War game set around 1983 on the WWIV map, aiming for gameplay balance while maintaining historical accuracy. Amby talks about how in Dip there's a proxy between cities and military strength. In real-life there would've been more territory controlled by the west this could give them too much of an advantage.  They both give their ideas on how to balance this out with guerilla units for the initial opening year (17 mins 30 secs) The guys then move onto their Duo game with Amby discussing how he's really enjoyed this game with each of them taking the lead at various times. That said Kaner suggests he doesn't have high hopes and can see himself being flanked in the west (23 mins) Kaner gives his thoughts on the territory naming and how they don't necessarily intuitively match up between the map abbreviations and their names in the drop down order menu (25 mins 30 secs) Amby chastises Kaner for his piss weak excuse about mis-ordering (26 mins 30 secs) Following on from last episode's interview with Devonian and the concept of "lanes of attack", Amby discusses how he now comprehends his argument (27 mins 20 secs) The guys give their final thoughts on the Cold War and Duo maps, and the special rules in Duo (28 mins 45 secs) Amby concludes how much he likes the Duo map as he felt constantly on his toes, meanwhile Kaner slams it (30 mins 30 secs) The guys agree to take a break from 1 vs 1 games for a bit, due to their over-commitments (32 mins) After discussing their recent games together, the guys touch on their Mate Against Mate game and that they should've held off on that variant on the podcast until Australia Day (26 January.) Amby gives a big thumbs up to the Australia Day ad for the Australian Lamb Corporation who've cleverly branded lamb as being the food of choice on this public holiday (33 mins 40 secs) Goings on at webDip Kaner mentions that webDiplomacy are removing Known World 901 after only a short gig - and Duo as a result will never be ported across for the same reason. The standing armies and transform orders are apparently an issue with the way the code works and its potential impact on the official php Diplomacy code  (35 mins 20 secs) Kaner goes onto explain that Oli's "hacking" of the code for vDip has created some issues at webDip (36 mins 50 secs) Amby calls Kaner out as a webDip lurker (38 mins 30 secs) Amby confirms how his team members in the 2016 webDip championship have lost all their games and are now well and truly out (38 mins 50 secs) The guys talk about the 1 vs 1 webDip tournament and mention Ezio has thrown down the gauntlet against Devonian for Round 4, to see who'll take on bozotheclown (presumably bozo) in Round 5 (40 mins) Kaner explains how the Challonge system works in this tournament (all rounds must finish before the next round commences) (43 mins) The guys at webDip are attempting to crowdsource additional funds for making technical changes to the site (45 mins 15 secs) Down the Dip site ownership rabbit hole  Amby builds off the crowdsourcing post at webDip to talk a little about his personal thoughts and concerns about vDip. As the site is owned by Oli and he's been absent the past 12 months (aside from a brief appearance to get the 1600 variant up and running), Amby poses the question: what if Oli's real life commitments saw vDip drop off the internet? (47 mins 50 secs) For example if the domain name registration wasn't kept up to date, expired and got grabbed by a cyber squatter, losing the whole playing community (48 mins 30 secs) Kaner mentions how exactly this happened to the Italian online Diplomacy site and has just recently happened to the face-to-face Diplomacy podcast, DiplomacyCast  (49 mins) Amby discusses how about a year ago he PMed a number of "old school" players about how to mitigate this risk for vDip (51 mins 15 secs) In addition, Amby discusses the risk of the rights holder of the Diplomacy board game strongly enforcing intellectual property, or if a player did something adverse in real life against another player, what would be the legal impact on the vDip site owner. Amby flags in his personal view thoughts on mitigating personal liability risks to Dip site owners with possible changes to the structure of legal ownership for sites  (52 mins 30 secs) The guys flag they need to get another update from ATinCan and captainmeme on the proposed development site. They throw down the gauntlet that if ATinCan comes to Brisbane, the guys will buy him drinks all night  (55 mins 30 secs) Amby and Kaner discuss "getting their shit together" in attending an Australian based Dip tournament this year, possibly PoppyCon (56 mins 30 secs) Kaner mentions why Oli may be reluctant to look at moving things around a little.  (57 mins 30 secs) The guys talk about the idea of structuring site ownership as a not-for-profit organisation to eliminate the personal risk to the site owner(s). This could make it more possible to push boundaries for other variant ideas that have some IP clouds around them eg fan based maps for Westeros, Lord of the Rings, etc (58 mins) Amby asks Kaner about his thoughts on what could happen in this space. Kaner flags a similar donation idea so people could voluntarily contribute and a backup facility could be put in place in case the webserver goes down. Amby asks what players think - send us a comment from the web site or PM us (1 hour 0 mins) Kaner says he values the political discussions in the webDip forums  (1 hour 2 mins 15 secs) Amby discusses fan creations broadly across the internet and provided its not being done for profit, the risk can be better managed (1 hr 5 mins) What the Doctor Recommended The guys finish up the Top 100 in the vDip Hall of Fame with their Aussie pronunciation attempts (1 hour 6 mins 45 secs) Game wraps - Rinascimento We initially didn't plan to talk about the "Welcome back" Rinascimento game for drano (technically called Pizza, Pasta and Popes), but started chatting anyway. Kaner drew Sienna (good luck there!) while Amby scored Venezia, the big kid on the block. See our earlier episode on this variant if you don't know much about Rinascimento (1 hour 9 mins 30 secs) Kaner talks about his attempts to work with Firenze unsuccessfully and is bummed he'll likely be the first one out, and France is likely to survive year one (1 hour 11 mins) When asked by Amby about what France and Savoia are up to, Kaner comes up with his stunning strategic assessment of the situation (1 hour 11 mins 45 secs) Amby discusses Leif's smooth talking style in staying in as France, before giving a big hat tip to RUFFHAUS' negotiation skills in grabbing 4 SCs in the first year with his 4 fleets  (1 hour 12 mins 20 secs) The guys discuss what left-field strategies Kaner could follow to survive and stay in the game ( 1 hour 13 mins) African variant Kaner starts talking about his recent African game "The ghost and the darkness" including special intro music (1 hour 14 mins 30 secs) In this game Kaner took part in a three-way draw between himself as Ethiopia, Dr Recommended as Morocco and trip as Madagascar (1 hour 18 mins 20 secs) This variant was created by Tristan. Incidentally we didn't mention in our earlier discussion that Cold War was created by Firehawk and Safari and Duo by Frank Hegermann (1 hour 18 mins 30 secs) "Africa" is an eight player variant. Its essentially a map of Africa with each state as a territory with a random sprinkling of SC's (1 hour 19 mins 45 secs) Amby thinks Tristan would a good call with blocking out the Arabian peninsula as inaccessible territory and a number of navigable rivers. Amby gives a random thumbs up to the bar for their second Beastie Boys song. Then he proceeds to pay out on Kaner's territory pronunciations before getting tongue-tied himself. But back to the variant which has a number of neutrals (poo brown in colour) that begin with standing armies (1 hour 21 mins) The guys point out that this variant appears to be unbalanced as Morocco and Madagascar significantly out-perform other players in the statistics (1 hour 25 mins) Kaner talks about his overall strategy in this game to be part of the three way draw and the critical role of the Rift Valley region on the map (1 hour 26 mins 45 secs) Amby discusses how he's surprised Egypt doesn't perform better.  This was a gunboat game and Kaner goes onto explain how he thinks it would be a better map to play with normal press (1 hour 29 mins) Kaner describes a large convoy attempt in autumn 2016 which Kaner interpreted as a subtle gunboat communication for players to pull their heads in against a strong Morocco. Amby blows Kaner's idea away as a fuck up, before he back-peddles seeing the logic in Kaner's argument (1 hour 31 mins) As a result of the draw Kaner went up 50 points, but still missed out making the Top 100 in the vDip Hall of Fame (1 hour 36 mins 45 secs) Other stuff Amby recommends after all their drinks that they both hold off on putting in Duo orders until the next day when they're more sober (1 hour 40 mins 45 secs) Venue: Brooklyn Standard, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Hopsmith IPA by Akasha Brewing from New South Wales, Australia Amby - Zitta Union Street shiraz from the Barossa Valley, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

This episode sees the boys tackle 1 vs 1 games while hitting many a technology glitch. From a bad Skype connection for Kaner during our interview with Devonian, to multiple times the recording dropping out during the episode. So apologies in advance. But otherwise please enjoy! Around the Board - game updates The guys give an update on how they're going in the Known World 901 tournament in games three and four (2 mins) Then its time to talk about the ongoing Bourse game and how Amby has reached the point where he's sure there's no way he can win (2 mins 45 secs) Kaner has a giggle at ScubaSteve's global press comments in the game and the guys give their views on how the players are doing  (4 mins 40 secs) Amby explains how he's turning into a vassal state and how more powerful states are using them (7 mins 45 secs) Amby gives his take on "how bozo does it" (9 mins 20 secs) The guys flag they've just started a Rinascimento game with a number of great players and their early pre-game thoughts on how it'll go (12 mins) The game is being played as a result of Drano coming back to vDiplomacy after a two year hiatus (14 mins 15 secs) 1 vs 1 variants (& Amby's update on the webDip 2016 championship) webDiplomacy has now released two new 1 vs 1 variants - France vs Austria and Germany vs Italy (17 mins 40 secs) Amby digresses to discuss how he lost his 2016 webDip championship round. He discusses how at the end of autumn in 1901 he missed out on grabbing an SCs with Russia and Austria ganging up to cripple Amby as Turkey. He describes how we worked to stay in the game and come out equal 2nd, although losing to General Lee as England who soloed(18 mins 15 secs) Kaner explains about the crazy 110 player 1 vs 1 webDip tournament (25 mins 15 secs) The guys experience their first technical glitch at this point. Originally we thought the wind had blown a piece of paper onto the recorder and turned it off. But as we later discover, it had more to do with the batteries running out! (27 mins) The guys return to the 1 vs 1 webDip tourney and give their top tips on players (27 mins 45 secs) Interview with Devonian  First up an advance apology on Kaner's audio. He had a crappy Skype or internet connection so sometimes its hard to know what he's saying. So Amby and Devonian try to do their best interpreting what they think the question may be (28 mins 30 secs) Devonian is the reigning 1 vs 1 champion at vDiplomacy. Amby asks how to correctly pronounce Devonian's handle (30 mins) Amby outlines how he did badly at when 1 vs 1 games originally became available on vDip, and as a result has generally avoided it  (30 mins 55 secs) Devonian explains how he started getting involved in 1 vs 1 games, how he enjoys it and uses the skills he's learnt from it in normal Diplomacy games (31 mins 15 secs) Kaner asks about Devonian's approach to discussion with other players and how he employs tactics as a result (33 mins 05 secs) Kaner discusses how Devonian destroyed him in a game of Duo. Kaner asks about the strategy Devonian used against him, with a particular focus around getting the right balance between capturing SCs and advancing a unit. Devonian explains how Duo is a really different game with no stalemate lines, 4 to 5 lines of attack and the time taken to get a build up to the front line impacts on effective gameplay. As a variant Duo though tends to rely on 50/50 guesses sometimes being made (34 mins 10 secs) Devonian goes into a little more detail about approaching lanes of attack on Duo (36 mins) Devonian explains how the tactics vary between Duo and a traditional 1 vs 1 game on the Classic board. Lanes of attack still exist on the classic board but they tend to be wider and more varied (38 mins 30 secs) Amby asks about Devonian's approach to openings on a 1 vs 1 board (40 mins 05 secs) Kaner asks Devonian about whether 1 vs 1 games lend themselves to a race for supply centres. Devonian discusses its more about maintaining parity against an opponent grabbing SCs, or you ideally gaining the advantage. This is particular critical in the first 3 game years. The only real "race" tends to be the England v Turkey variant (41 mins 20 secs) Amby asks Devonian's take on whether 1 vs 1 games should be viewed as "diplomacy" games as there isn't any real communication (43 mins 15 secs) Amby explores with Devonian his views on playing Diplomacy as training for how to deal with people in real life (44 mins 50 secs) Kaner asks about whether Devonian is excited about the new webDip 1 vs 1 tournament (46 mins) Devonian explains how he doesn't think he'll catch the webDip players unawares (47 mins 40 secs) Amby asks Devonian about what type of things can webDip players do to improve their chances in the 1 vs 1 tournament. He gives his insights on staying on the offensive and going after the opponent rather than neutrals. Tactics beyond this can only really be learnt by playing (48 mins 10 secs) Devonian outlines how Germany vs Italy is his favourite amongst all the 1 vs 1 variants. He also like France vs Austria and also Germany vs Austria (note: GvA can't use the "choose your country" option as it crashes). He also explains which 1 vs 1 variants he doesn't like (49 mins 50 secs) Amby asks about some of the other 1 vs 1 variants including Fall of the American Empire: Civil War and Cold War and Devonian's thoughts on them. Cold War gets a massive thumbs up and also has the advantage that if you fall behind on SC count it is possible to recover (51 mins 30 secs) Amby asks about whether there's any 1 vs 1 variants that don't exist on vDip or webDip that he'd like to see created (53 mins) Devonian talks about the 1 vs 1 variant Lepanto and why he doesn't play it much as it's too easy to stalemate (54 mins 10 secs) Kaner asks which player Devonian struggles with the most. He explains how the caliber at the top of the 1 vs 1 vDip ladder has really strengthened in recent years. He goes on to discuss how bozo really challenges him as he doesn't make many mistakes (55 mins) Devonian discusses how he got into playing variants instead of Classic Diplomacy. He touches on how the vDiplomacy community is really great (56 mins 30 secs) In closing... The guys then discuss their key takeaways from Devonian's interview before Amby challenges Kaner to a 1 vs 1 Cold War and Duo game (58 mins 40 secs) Just before the batteries start running out Kaner touches on webDip players' reactions to the Known World variant (1 hour 2 mins) Venue: Sixteen Antlers, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - White Rabbit ale from Victoria, Australia Amby - Yangarra shiraz from McLaren Vale, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

Time to open the Diplomacy Christmas crackers! The guys discuss game etiquette and look at the variants "Atlantic Colonies" and the Australian "Mate Against Mate". Enjoy! Kaner starts by discussing his drinking Christmas tradition (1 min 30 secs) Amby talks about his recent cruise ship holiday and why his mental age is younger than his physical age (3 mins 10 secs) Diplomacy game etiquette  Being away for his holidays Amby discusses how being on holidays with no internet on the ship (well there was but it was expensive and from talking to others onboard it was pretty crappy), Amby put in place various measures for his games. So the guys start discussing etiquette relating to when you're away on holidays and can't play Dip (7 mins 20 secs) The guys talk about using a sitter with the practical example of Amby calling on Kaner to sit for him in the American Conflict game "2017 The Trump Wars". Amby discusses his approach on using entertainment as gameplay by taking on the persona as Donald Trump as the USA. If you've got some spare time read the public press history posts  (11 mins) Amby talks about the importance of riding instructions for handing a game over to a sitter. Then the guys talk about how to deal with riding instructions if the dynamics in the game changes (15 mins 45 secs)Kaner discusses etiquette issues he's having in one of his games where a player has stopped putting in proactive orders, just submitting Hold orders for all units. And then another player dropped out after being stabbed (19 mins 30 secs) General chit chat The guys flag that the Known World Tournament has its games 3 and 4 now commenced (25 mins) They briefly talk Bourse but give it a break this episode (25 mins 45 secs) Atlantic Colonies variant After refilling their drinks Kaner and Amby discuss the Atlantic Colonies variant, a 4 player game (England, France, Spain and Portugal) set during the time of colonisation (28 mins 45 secs) The map is well crafted to provide good balance in gameplay, plus its a beautifully elegant map you'd expect a 17th century cartographer to draw  (30 mins 30 secs) The guys give a shout out to Safari for creating the game. Amby discusses the variant is well balanced, although in achieving this it loses historical accuracy eg France not having Detroit and New Orleans. The guys also discuss how some places they'd expect as SCs but are not eg Paris and Buenos Aires (33 mins 20 secs) The map has neutral territories to limit some movement eg Sahara, Amazon, Rockies and Europe east of France (38 mins 35 secs) Kaner discusses how it'd been good for Holland to also be included, including its Boer African possessions. If the map was set before 1664 the Dutch could also have New Amsterdam (modern day New York) (39 mins 25 secs) This variant is given the guys thumbs up with such a beautiful and well balanced map (43 mins 20 secs) What the Doctor Recommended Continuing our series, the guys go through the vDip hall of fame from the 45th ranked player to the 80th (44 mins 30 secs) The guys celebrate Christmas  Spontaneously the guys exchange Diplomacy themed Christmas gifts to each other (47 mins 40 secs) They then make their suggestions on ideal Christmas gifts the Diplomacy player in your life. Kaner discusses a beautiful book called "Maps that Changed the World" and Amby recommends the book "Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna" by Adam Zamoyski. It covers the diplomatic realpolitik between the great powers of the time swapping coalition alliances during the Napoleonic wars and afterwards when they jockey for power over Europe. Amby discusses how well the French foreign minister Talleyrand is portayed in the book as the ultimate Diplomacy player (50 mins) The guys discuss how they'd love to find a good book on Bismark and the Thirty Years War. PM us your recommendations! (55 mins) Mate Against Mate variant This Australian based 8 player variant has 6 Australian players, New Zealand and Indonesia. This variant is based on an alternate history where each of the British colonies never federated and become their own independent countries (57 mins) Set in the early 1970's it draws on supply centres not just being cities but major resource areas, some of which are sea-based eg oil, minerals etc (59 mins) Kaner starts discussing how each of the player generally go eg Tasmania never seems to win, but often doesn't get killed off (1 hr 00 mins 30 secs) Indonesia provides a good balance to Western Australia. Kaner gets a history lesson from Amby about how modern day Northern Territory was part of South Australia prior to federation. Likewise Queensland owned Papua in real life in 1883 (Port Moresby) (1 hour 02 mins 20 secs) The guys discuss how they played a Mate Against Mate game recently in "Australia Day Jan 26-2" with Amby as Indonesia and Kaner as Western Australia. They discuss how these two countries usually come into conflict, likewise New South Wales and Victoria (1 hr 06 mins 15 secs) New Zealand, Tasmania and South Australia can generally expand out in the first game year without coming into conflict with any players, but often in the second year on South Australia tends to get attacked by someone as its squashed between everyone. Amby discusses strategies a South Australia player can employ but it doesn't guarantee success (1 hour 07 mins) Amby discusses how if the game could be remodeled how South Australia would need to have its position improved. He also discusses how some of the borders could ideally be changed. Kaner suggests ideas on how to better use the river systems  (1 hr 09 mins 45 secs) The guys give a "no update" update on the vDip Lab replacement with no news from Captainmeme. Likewise Kaner flags how the new variants promised for webDip still haven't turned up (1 hr 10 mins 45 secs) Getting back to the variant Kaner discusses as Western Australia he pretty much was talking to everyone on the board (1 hr 13 mins) Being Australians the guys go through all the supply centres they've been to on the Mate Against Mate map. Kaner thrashes Amby with 23 SC's to 17 (1 hr 13 mins 50 secs) Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating a Venue: The Stock Exchange Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Stone and Wood Pacific Ale from Byron Bay, Australia Amby - Yalumba Patchwork shiraz from the Barossa Valley, South Australia Food of choice: Kaner - Braised squid with Aioli Amby - Rump steak and salad Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

The guys lament their recent game eliminations, Amby's poor Bourse game play and discuss the variant USA, a Classic wrap around map including the United States as an 8th player. Enjoy! Exploration variant update Amby and Kaner discuss this game that has just finished. Organised by Decima Legio, it uses the Fog of War classic map but with a special rule around communication. You can only communicate with a player that you have direct line of sight contact with: supply centre to supply centre; unit to supply centre or unit to unit (2 mins 30 secs) Kaner and Amby talk about how they both had bad games, Kaner getting eliminated first and Amby removed later in the game (6 mins 45 secs) Amby reflects on how he had a great opening as Germany, but that actually became his downfall as he was viewed by France and England as growing too strongly, encouraging them into alliance. Then as Amby attacked Kaner (Russia) at the same time Austria stabbed Amby. And in good order Amby was eliminated (8 mins) Kaner discusses how he pretty much got stabbed by everyone (11 mins) The guys reflect that the game wrapped up too early with 4 players drawing in Autumn 1906 with no stalemate lines formed (12 mins 40 secs) Kaner discusses a little more his unsuccessful strategy on trying to survive (16 mins 20 secs) The guys' lessons learnt from this game (17 mins 40 secs) Known World 901 tournament update The first game in this 15 player tournament has just wrapped up with again Amby and Kaner being eliminated. The premise of this gunboat tournament is for every player to play every one of the 15 countries on the map. For this game Kaner was Wagadu and Amyb was Egypt (19 mins 30 secs) Amby discusses how his sixth sense thought Kaner was India in this game... but clearly got that wrong (21 mins) Kaner questions Amby on why he didn't pick up his subtle gunboat support messaging. Amby makes excuses and throws insults and a few f-bombs at Kaner (22 mins) Kaner discusses how Amby got his just deserts when France came and ate Egypt up (27 mins 20 secs) Bourse update After discussing two eliminations, Kaner turns the blow torch on Amby about why he missed out in the most recent big Bourse buy (31 mins 40 secs) Kaner and Amby both discuss how this variant game dynamic is so different with Arabia convoying Egypt deep into Arabia's territory to pick up a safe SC (35 mins 30 secs) After fresh drinks, Kaner asks Amby about his currency's strength, and which currency represents the best value for victory points. Amby reflects on how other players are doing much better on the Bourse and on the board (38 mins) Amby discusses how he was also surprised when RUFFHAUS (Russia) stabbed YouCantHandleTheTruth in Khazaria. He goes onto explain why he thinks Russia continues to represent good long term value on the Bourse and why he's heavily invested in roubles (40 mins 30 secs) Amby reflects on whether Dr Recommended as Wagadu might be a bit of a long term contender to take out the Bourse and the board, or could Leif as Axum emerge as the dark horse (46 mins) "What the Dr Recommended" The guys continue their new segment of poor pronunciations of player names, territory names and country names, as recommended by Dr Recommended  (48 mins 20 secs) For this episode Kaner and Amby begin reading the names of the vDiplomacy Hall of Fame from about player 25 onwards (49 mins 20 secs) During the segment Amby discusses the important role of the crappy 80's Australian band The Chantoozies and one of its singers, Tottie Goldsmith (51 mins 20 secs) General chat The guys talk about the number of newer younger players coming into the game, and what they should be mindful of (52 mins) Kaner and Amby scratch their heads over what happened to the new variants that were imminent in their launch on webDip (55 mins) Amby also gives an update on not making it to PoppyCon in Melbourne, and why we haven't yet released any new player interviews (56 mins 30 secs) Kaner discusses how he's being cc'ed into a 3 seasons email webDiplomacy game - and how exactly a 3 seasons game works (58 mins 50 secs) In describing this, Kaner goes into a little description around how the GameMaster function works in vDiplomacy if you need to create a game and be a GM (1 hour 1 min 30 secs) Amby describes how the guys received their first Facebook message about how to respond to a tricky situation on a board they were playing (1 hr 3 mins 30 secs) In reviewing the situation Amby laments how hard it must be remembering who owns what SCs on a board are owned by whom - when it is so easy to understand online (1 hr 4 mins 30 secs) Amby tries explaining to our non-Australian audience what Blu-tack is (1 hr 5 mins 30 secs) The boys get excited... well Amby mostly... about a brilliant business opportunity: selling Classic country mini paper flags on toothpicks to the world's Dip players (1 hr 7 mins) Kaner discusses how Diplomacy is his Facebook when it comes to internet addiction (1 hr 8 mins 40 secs) While Amby was getting drinks, Kaner was reviewing the finished Known World tournament game and noticed RUFFHAUS made some post-game observations. Kaner relays these (1 hr 11 mins 50 secs) In the process Amby questions why Borussia is called Borussia, or for that matter Prussia was named that when it is so close linguistically to the country name Russia (1 hr 13 mins 20 secs) Kaner mentions how we got a great PM from David E. Cohen about Episode 1 of the podcast when we covered off his variant Known World 901 and ideas about a new variant (1 hr 14 mins 30 secs) Kaner mentions his ideas about a Khmer Empire/ancient Southeast Asian variant. Amby rambles on about the lyrics for the Cold Chisel song Khe Sanh and the guys discuss countries in the region they've visited in real life (1 hr 16 mins) Amby talks about Kaner's beard and how he's looking more and more like Jorah Mormont from Game of Thrones (1 hr 19 mins) USA variant - because its not a war without the USA The guys start talking about the little played now - but much loved in the past - variant "USA". It's essentially the Classic map but wrapped around with oceans and including the United States as an 8th player. Created by T. Moscal, Kaner adapted it to vDiplomacy a few years back (1 hr 22 mins) Amby discusses how having the wrap-around effect puts players normally on the board's extremities now at the heart of gameplay. One different aspect of this variant's rules is the USA only needs 14 SCs to win, while European players need the traditional 18 (1 hr 25 mins 40 secs) The guys discuss how this is an under-valued variant that really should be played more often (1 hr 28 mins 30 secs) Kaner mentions he's signed up for two new games in variants he hasn't played before - Africa and Atlantic Colonies; which Amby waxes lyrically on how beautiful a map it has and how well positioned territories and SCs are. The guys decide that they'll do a deep dive on the Atlantic Colonies variant soon (1 hr 29 mins 15 secs) Two new podcast segment ideas: "How does Bozo do it?" and "Diplomacy Dilemmas" Kaner discusses his new suggested segment called "How does Bozo do it?". Every game Kaner plays against him, Bozo either wins, draws or survives. His stats are incredible, only losing 13% of the time, meaning 87% of the time he's won, drawn or survived (1 hr 32 mins) PM Kaner or post a comment on your thoughts on how Bozo does it (1 hr 34 mins) Amby suggests a segment called "Diplomacy Dilemmas" - inspired by the guy who sent a random photo of his board game and question on how to approach it. Send us a key problem from a game and Kaner and Amby will give you our advice/interesting view of the world. PM Amby or post a comment with your Diplomacy Dilemma (1 hr 34 mins 30 secs) In wrapping up the guys make an observation about the massive bibs people are wearing at the Plough Inn to safeguard clothes from their spare ribs (1 hr 36 mins) Venue: Plough Inn, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Fat Yak original pale ale from Matilda Bay Brewing, Australia and Bulmer's cider from Hereford, United Kingdom Amby - Pepperjack shiraz from the Barossa Valley, South Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

The guys go down many Diplomacy rabbit holes and tangents. Our main focus was the 1066 variant but we also discuss current games for Bourse, the Known World tournament, Kaner's WWIV game, new webDip variants, an update on the vDip development server and ideas for a new variant based on the American presidential election. Enjoy! Venue: Super Whatnot, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Mysterio IPA from Sydney, Australia Amby - Mr Mick Cabernet Merlot from Clare Valley, South Australia Bourse update Amby and Kaner give an update on how the Bourse game is going and the strategies being adopted by various players (2 mins) Amby discusses the most recent turn went and how he's a simple man when it comes to communicating about currency names (4 mins 50 secs) Kaner and Amby talk about perceptions of who's "in" when it comes to speculation on currency buys (6 mins 45 secs) The guys talk about the spreadsheet and graph the players are using to help inform their decisions. Amby describes how he applies a lens over the spreadsheet to determine value but also long term strategic value (8 mins 20 secs) Known World 901 tournament update Amby is in both of the games, while Kaner has been eliminated in one (11 mins 20 secs) Massive webDip news! Zultar has announced on the webDip forum that the site will be getting some "new" variants: Known World 901 and two 1 vs 1 variants - France vs Austria and Germany vs Italy (13 mins) The changes are likely within a week and are being implemented by A_Tin_Can (15 mins 45 sec) Kaner surprises Amby by discussing how he used 1 vs 1 maps to introduce his wife to Diplomacy. He also describes the rationale behind his wife's handle (16 mins 50 secs) New segment - "What the Doctor Recommended" The guys have received a lot of feedback from listeners about our poor pronunciations of player names, territory names and country names. webDip and vDip player Dr. Recommended suggested that we introduce a segment where we play to this, reading out names in a short segment  (18 mins 30 secs) For this episode Kaner and Amby begin reading the names of the vDiplomacy Hall of Fame (20 mins 40 secs) Kaner's WWIV game update The guys discuss Kaner's public press unrated WWIV game "Can we do this 2" (24 mins 50 secs) He's up to 52 SC's and explains how he's going in the game up to this point - to better understand what the guys are talking about we recommend visiting the map page for Autumn 2119 to get the context of discussions (25 mins 30 secs) As things progress, Kaner asks Amby for his thoughts on how he'd approach the game  (33 mins 45 secs) The guys start on their first unrelated tangent where Amby talks about his idea a few years back for a Beer Diplomacy or Alcohol Diplomacy variant (38 mins) Amby pays out on Kaner for playing so well in a WWIV game, but doing so when its unrated (39 mins 45 secs) In concluding this segment Amby points out the risks of stalemate lines being formed in the oceans to lock down Kaner's progress, before they discuss what could happen if WWIV made it to webDip and was played live (42 mins) Variant talk: 1066 We get onto the 1066 variant, a game that exists in 3 iterations: 1066 v1, 1066 v2 and 1066 v3 (45 mins) Amby as the co-creator of the variant talks about the real life history that the game is based on. He describes how he's physically been on the field the Battle of Hastings was fought - managing to fall over and get muddy (46 mins 20 secs) This is one of the few rare three player variants with players representing the Anglo-Saxon English, the Normans and the Norwegians. To win the game you need 10 SC's (a majority) and control over two of the three capitals (49 mins) Amby describes how he's actually won the game as the Normans, winning the game by conquering the Norwegians instead of the English. It's also one of the few games played under Fog of War conditions (51 mins) Amby created the game with Emmanuel Ravioli and significant technical help from Oli (the site owner of vDiplomacy.) This in fact is the only variant ever played by Oli on this server - see "Deep Satisfaction" (51 mins 30 secs) The guys talk about the starting positions of each of the players, but with a significant focus on England. Amby discusses how the Norwegians start with an additional unit on Hadrian's Wall  (52 mins 20 secs) Amby goes off on another tangent explaining how his wife almost got run over by Gwenyth Paltrow while they were living in London (54 mins 55 secs) Kaner extends the tangent wondering about how many celebrities play Diplomacy. The guys then discuss to what extent politicians learn some of their craft by playing Diplomacy (56 mins 40 secs) Getting back to Hadrian's Wall, a territory that can only be accessed by land (you can't send a fleet to the Wall or convoy onto it. Amby throws in a Game of Thrones analogy, describing how the Wall acts as a defensive barrier (57 mins 40 secs) As Kaner discusses how the map is visually beautiful, Amby explains how the color palette of the map is drawn from friezes in the Bayeux tapestry which depicts the lead up and aftermath of the Battle of Hastings (59 mins) Just prior to getting another drink, the guys start behaving badly, arguing about their proficiency on the 1066 map  (1 hour 0 mins 30 secs) Kaner asks Amby about what his strategy would be when playing England in this variant (1 hour 1 min 20 secs) We then turn to Amby's Norwegian strategy (1 hour 7 mins 30 secs) Finally we look at how to effectively play as France (1 hour 10 mins) As its a relatively small map its a great variant for a fun quick game (1 hour 11 mins 15 secs) Update on new development server talk Amby gives an update from Captainmeme on the new development server discussed back in episode 2 (1 hour 13 mins 40 secs) Amby's idea for a American Presidential election variant As we get towards the end of the podcast Amby starts throwing around his initial ideas about creating an American Presidential election variant (1 hour 15 mins 20 secs) Amby explains how he'd create it initially as a 1 vs 1 game (Republicans vs Democrats), prove the concept and then roll out 3 person and then 4 person games  (1 hour 16 mins 50 secs) He talks about how the variant would see players start off the American coast but without any SC's - just like the Turkish position in Rinasciemento. This then takes the guys off on an Italian inspired tangent (1 hour 17 mins 15 secs) The guys eventually get back to the American Presidential variant. Amby discusses his idea about each state being a supply centre. Kaner throws in his idea about player bids for SC's from Greek Diplomacy and whether that could be used to determine your starting position in the Presidential variant (1 hr 20 mins 45 secs) Amby tells Kaner to pause that idea as he returns to his initial thoughts, with each state's SC having a force multiplier based on the number of electoral college votes they have eg California may be worth 50 points and Delaware 1 point. You then win the game by getting the majority of electoral college votes (1 hour 23 mins) Kaner talks about how you could use some zonal form using the code from WWIV Sealanes. But with the amount of coding required, it may be a bit too much to get the Presidential variant up on Captainmeme's development server (1 hour 25 mins) The guys explains that if they have to wait until the development server could cope with the coding challenges from the Presidential variant, they both have so many "normal" variants rolling around their heads eg Kaner talks about a space-based variant he's talked to Guroz about, while Amby raises his idea of a 1 vs 1 Cold War variant played on the WWIV map (1 hour 26 mins 30 secs) Coming up Next we talk about upcoming plans for the podcast with Devonian - as the number one 1 vs 1 vDip tournament player - keen to be interviewed about how to play 1 vs 1 Diplomacy games (1 hour 28 mins) On a Chicago inspired tangent Kaner starts talking about Gary Gygax, the inventor of Dungeons and Dragons, and how he used to play postal Diplomacy. Amby raises the idea of a more highbrow podcast talking to truly successful people who have played Diplomacy that they then used in real life  (1 hour 29 mins 15 secs) Amby mentions how once the development server is up and running, Captainmeme is happy to pop on for an interview (1 hour 33 mins) And if Amby heads down to Melbourne for PoppyCon he plans to catch up and interview A_Tin_Can. Amby throws around the idea who great it would be if Kestas was still in Melbourne whether he'd be keen to talk about the old days of phpDiplomacy - Amby has since discovered Kestas is actually in Perth, not Melbourne (1 hour 33 mins 20 secs) Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

In this episode the guys kick off a pub crawl and dive deep into the variants Modern Diplomacy and Sopwith, while also talking other Diplomacy stuff.Kaner talks about a recent Fog of War game he's finished (Blind War + Less Draw) that he's animated - and won!  Kaner rambles off a few players' names much to Amby's amusement.  (0 mins 57 seconds)Kaner acknowledges he had a bit of a hollow victory with many disbands much to his advantage. He discusses while under the "fog of war" he got many surprises along the way as he explored the map (3 mins 0 seconds)Modern Diplomacy 2 variantThis is one of the few variants on both webDiplomacy and vDiplomacy (5 mins 40 seconds)Kaner takes Amby off on a tangent by asking whether he's going to the face-to-face PoppyCon tournament in Melbourne, Australia in December (6 mins 40 seconds)The guys outline the gameboard and context of this variant set in 1994 created by Vincent Mous and adapted for webDiplomacy and vDiplomacy by Carey Jensen and Oli. This game has ten players and you need 33 supply centres to win. It allows building new units in any open supply centre  (8 mins 10 seconds)Kaner starts talking about a Modern game he's playing at the moment as Egypt and is getting totally destroyed in (9 mins 35 seconds)Then we get onto a Modern game recently played by Amby over at webDiplomacy where he was part of a draw - see "Real Debate for All 2" (10 mins 30 seconds)This was a public press only game which complicated communication with its subtlety. Kaner says he finds public press as a bit of a nightmare.  Amby talks a little about how with a 10 player game in public press it was a fair number of messages to read, but was manageable (11 mins)He outlines his strategy for making a strong alliance with Germany. Which wasn't very smart with Germany frequently NMRing (lingo for new players = No Moves Received). Compounding this Amby decided to not stab Germany despite the reoccurring NMRs.  (13 mins 30 seconds)As a result France and England took over a lot of Germany. Amby ended up then becoming buddies with France, who was getting carved up by England (15 mins 55 seconds)England was being played by Dagabs0 who is one of the best players over at webDiplomacy, ranked 14th from a total of over 13,000 players. Not surprisingly he was on top of his game. However Turkey was the superior player on the board for this game, forming a "tighter than a monkey's arse" alliance with Ukraine, even though later on Turkey was eating Ukraine's SC's up (16 mins 45 seconds)Amby, playing as Poland, describes how he got into a fight early on with Russia after forming an alliance with Germany. Russia got smashed quickly by Poland, Ukraine and Turkey. Amby says - after some entertaining pronunciation attempts - how he offered Murmansk to England (18 mins)Kaner asks about what Egypt was up to at the time as he was "doing a Kaner" dying. Amby explains how while Egypt was doing well at the start, however the Turkey-Ukraine alliance gave Turkey the opportunity to move south, wiping out Egypt.Italy had a really bad start with France attacking him from the game's opening, while England similarly attacked Spain and took him out quickly (19 mins)Amby explains how it probably wasn't the best move to stab England by taking Murmansk and sending a bullshit excuse to him. But despite this Dagabs0 came back with a beautifully constructed diplomatic response (20 mins 30 seconds)As a result Amby was at war with Ukraine and now England and at this time Germany started NMRing. Not looking good for Amby, so he tried making peace with Ukraine by ceasing military operations against him. But of course that didn't happen with Ukraine continuing to fight. (21 mins 15 seconds)Meanwhile with everyone fighting each other Turkey was "gobbling" up the board. This caused Amby, England and France to push Ukraine hard to break ranks with Turkey (22 mins 40 seconds)The guys get into their second - or maybe third - pronunciation fight for the evening while talking about the Russian language's use of the Cyrillic alphabet before Kaner shows his ignorance of Italian thanks to Dean Martin's classic song about a moray eel (25 mins)Back to the game, England who had been a long term adversary of Amby's and France, made peace so the three of them could contain Turkey and his Ukrainian vassal state. This quickly made an impact and Turkey put in for the draw, finishing up the game  (26 mins 15 seconds)Amby goes on to explain how the different scoring systems between vDiplomacy and webDiplomacy impact their rankings. At vDiplomacy rankings are impacted based on how you played vis-a-vis other higher ranked players eg a player ranked 100th who manages to get a player ranked 10th to draw, is going to get a greater rankings boost while the player who is 10th may slip in their rank  (27 mins 30 seconds)But at webDip it doesn't work that way with the Sum of Squares scoring system where depending on the number of supply centres you finish with and the number of supply centres in a game are squared and some magical math equation comes into play to determine your score and ranking (28 mins)The guys debate how at vDip a draw works on points in a Winner Take All versus Points Per Supply Centre (PPSC) game. Amby mentions how WTA is now the default at webDiplomacy, however he prefers PPSC as it allows for greater negotiation opportunities. Mind you throughout the whole conversation - and probably due to the drinking - the guys continually refer to PPSC as PPCS. Idiots (29 mins 15 seconds)This spurs on a discussion about the value of rankings. Kaner doesn't see their purpose, while Amby disagrees and laments on the good old days when he was once top of the vDip rankings (31 mins)Wrapping up their discussion on Modern, Amby mentions how he received an End of Game statement from Dagabs0, giving his perspective on their game:  (32 mins 30 seconds) "As I've played more Diplomacy over the years (including dabbling in the original board game 20 years ago when I was in high school ), I've come to enjoy gunboat games the most out of any set of rules. I'm not sure if I share others opinions that it's the "purest" form of the game, although I certainly understand that point of view. For me, it's the idea that there are more possible diverse outcomes in a gunboat game than in a normal messaging game. When I discovered the webDip site 3 years ago, I began playing mostly normal classic games, but I discovered that most of my games resulted in similar outcomes, with either France or Germany almost always becoming the early behemoth, and the other players having to chase him down and force him into a draw. Those 2 nations seem to have been too powerfully unbalanced in their designs; just as Egypt and Rome were too weakly unbalanced in their Ancient designs; and similarly to many nations being unbalanced both ways in the World & America variants. So although I still very much enjoy the ancient variant due to the benefit of the ultra aggressive gameplay strategy (which is my preferred style), those factors led me to the Modern variant becoming my favorite. In my opinion, the benefits of the Modern variant are that it has harnessed the happy median between certain aspects of the different variants - namely game size. 10 players (compared to the 5/7 or 17) allows for a fair amount of aggressive early gameplay, but also usually punishes players who refuse to choose any early allies. The factor of being able to build anywhere also adds a unique & fun aspect to Modern games. In the recently completed game 'Real debate for all 2', I was Britain (a much more enjoyable nation than the Classic English counterpart). This contest was a Public Messaging Only game. I've found that the gameplay using these unique messaging rules equates much more to a gunboat game than a normal messaging game, especially among more experienced players - simply because most allied agreements & moves that can be safely conveyed publicly can also (eventually) be conveyed in a gunboat. This specific game was enjoyable all the way through except for the fact that the (many) German players only had the decency to enter orders half the time. Indeed, there were 2 different CDs and over a dozen NMRs in that nation alone. Among the early alliances, the immediate French/German partnership was the main one that jumped out to me (due to the personal regional significance). As Britain, I did not feel the need to seek out any early allies, so I chose to remain a lone wolf. I was slowly conquering Spain and had a foothold in Scandinavia as well (hat tip to you for having crippled Russia). It was a nice gesture for you to originally offer me Murmansk, and I quickly accepted, since I felt it was high time to have an ally. I was very much enjoying my battle against a strong French/German wall, and that extra build was just what I felt I needed to gain an advantage against them. As the game progressed, I felt comfortable in leaving Murmansk unoccupied & moving 2 full spaces away from it. Then, just as I was about to finally break through into Germany, I was dismayed to see you retake Murmansk without alerting me. Since I was already sailing through Scandinavia en route to Germany, I decided to turn a portion of my naval strength east to mount an attack against Poland in the Baltics. We quickly formed a stalemate on that front; but by that stage in the game, there were only 4 1/2 legitimate players left: Turkey (along with his protectorate nation - Ukraine), France, and the 2 of us. Turkey was quickly passing 20 SCs, and even as I was finally breaking into France, I realized that my previous chance of beating Turkey to the solo was impossible. France pointed out that the only thing I would accomplish by continuing to wipe him out would be to give Turkey (who had taken all of Italy, and was attacking France from the southeast) an easier solo. He was in desperate straits, but also quite right, so I immediately ceased my hostility against him and you, and the 3 of us made peace to turn our combined efforts against Turkey/Ukraine. And the rest, as they say, is history. I've always personally had the habit of trying to master a certain strategy game/puzzle (and often even one specific aspect of said game) before moving onto the next game or activity. So I think that's the only reason that I haven't gotten around to exploring the vDip variants yet; but I certainly plan to in the near future." Sopwith Kaner and Amby kick off their pub crawl by moving from Brew to John Mills Himself. JMH pride themselves on their locavore menu with all drinks produced within 250 kilometers, except for their Tasmanian whiskeys (40 mins 25 seconds) After a discussion on drinks Kaner moves the conversation onto the Sopwith variant:Sopwith is a game of six players with each of the players taking on the persona of a World War 1 fighter pilot. The game is played on a hexagonal board. Grey cells represent clouds that randomly move. You can fly into them, but as you lose 1 of your 16 health points each time you fly into a cloud it's generally not recommended unless you're about to get shot. You also start the game with a full amount of ammunition (43 mins)Each turn takes place over three moves (instead of the usual 2 in Diplomacy). You begin at your airport with the taking in your first turn you.  When flying your orders can move ahead, turn left (turning your plane to point a direction), slip left (banks you left but you don't change the direction you're facing), turn right, slip right and an Immelman turn which can only be made by aces... more on this later. If you want to make sense of this there's a good graphic explaining it here (44 mins)You PM the Game Master your three moves, as does everyone else. The GM then hand adjudicates the game and updates a  visual of this in photo editing software which is then shared with players. It is not currently a game that you can play online although four games have been facilitated on vDiplomacy's Wiki (although the Wiki is not up at the moment) (45 mins 20 seconds)Kaner goes on to discuss one of the more recent games which he GMed. The players included  Guros, bozo, Sandgoose, DoubleCaps, Blockstone and raro (apologies if we got any names wrong!) To allow for messaging between players a standard Diplomacy game was created so players could communicate with each other in the usual Diplomacy style (47 mins 10 seconds)Being fighter pilots you can fire to attack other player's planes. You can fire straight, fire left and fire right. Depending on the distance between players the amount of damage varies - the closer you are the greater the damage eg if immediately adjacent one hex you do 3 damage, two hexes its only 2 damage and if three hexes away it is only 1 damage. (47 mins 45 seconds)Kaner also encouraged players to send in short sentences which Kaner would edit into the layer image. This allows for classic fighter pilot commentary when you're being followed by a fighter (48 mins 30 seconds)During the game Kaner encouraged the players to take on the persona of famous fighter pilots (51 mins 30 seconds)Players can land back on their landing strip to regain health points, but can be shot in the ground. Once you've run out of points you literally blow up in an explosion (much to Amby's amusement after a few drinks) and you're out of the game (52 mins)If a player approaches the edge of the board they need to turn. If you don't you fly off the board and die. If you NMR you just move forward three steps (53 mins 20 seconds)In each turn you can fire three times. This can be once in each of the three moves or could even be three times in just one of your three moves that turn (54 mins)Kaner describes how when he was kicking around the idea of Sopwith at vDiplomacy that Oli was open to the idea of coding it up to run on php. But then he got busy and it didn't happen (55 mins 15 seconds)Kaner discusses how he thinks it'd be a great game to have run next year for people interested (57 mins)Amby feels now that Kaner's explained it and shown it (see Youtube video below) it now makes sense to him and not just crazy shit (57 mins 30 seconds)Finally Kaner comes back to Aces - after each game you get a certain number of points. If a few of these games were played by a single player who gets high points they could become an Ace, allowing them to perform the Immelman turn, flipping around to go the opposite way  (58 mins 20 seconds)Kaner first found Sopwith back in the old Diplomacy 2000 days where it was run alongside email Diplomacy games (58 mins 50 seconds)If players are interested in a game they should PM Kaner on webDiplomacy or vDiplomacy (handle for both is kaner406) (59 mins 40 seconds)Venue: Pub crawl - Brew then John Mills Himself, Brisbane Drinks of choice:Kaner - Irish Black Lager by Black Hops Brewery from the Gold Coast, Queensland, AustraliaAmby - Girraween Estate Cabernet Sauvignon from the Granite Belt, Queensland, AustraliaDon't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

The guys after quibbling about what episode this is, start talking about how Kaner’s new hipster beard is a clever ploy based on Diplomacy principles to get his wife to allow him to keep his moustache. For any new listeners, Kaner and Amby get together and record these in a bar for a bit of atmosphere. So power on past our usual chit-chat as it doesn’t take long to get into Diplomacy talk:Kaner gives an update on the Bourse game that has now started (see podcast episode 3 about the Bourse variant) and how he’s finding his GM role really interesting. Amby explains how he’s making the same mistakes again. (3 mins 20 seconds)Amby then goes on to talk about a Who Controls America game to coincide with the 2016 election. According to the game result, its actually the Republicans, Corporate America and the Underworld who really control America. (6 mins 30 seconds)This gets Kaner talking about the election discussions in the webDip forum. (7 mins 45 seconds)Amby discusses how he feels he’s in too many games at the moment, but it’s nothing compared to the effort Kaner’s had to put in to GM the Bourse game (10 mins 45 seconds)The guys then start discussing various strategies players can employ in speculating on Bourse currencies (13 minutes 20 seconds)Amby mentions that while he tried getting a Google Translate game up on vDiplomacy with so many special rules games happening, no one seems to be signing up. Kaner suggests giving it a crack on webDip before Amby reminds him it probably wouldn’t have a good chance due to the 2016 webDip World Cup starting up (16 mins 30 seconds)Speaking of which Amby announces he’s participating in this under Team Eurovision - listen to find out why that name! (16 mins 50 seconds)2012 WebDiplomacy World Cup Championship interviewKaner brings up how Amby’s technology failed in recording the 2012 webDip World Cup championship, but Amby came up with an alternative anyway (18 mins 10 seconds)Kaner says he plans to put the interview up on Youtube and put some images into it to make it easier to understand (21 mins 30 seconds)Amby then kicks off his interview with Goldfinger0303 (Austria), JECE (Russia) and Leif Syverson (Germany) (24 mins 35 seconds):What kept these guys going for 104 game years (26 mins 15 seconds)JECE explains what the previous record was (27 mins 50 seconds)Leif and JECE discuss the impact of Italy leaving the game (31 mins 30 seconds)Leif discusses his approach to dominating the board as Germany in the 1940’s (32 minutes 50 seconds)The guys then go onto discuss the change in dynamic with TheHangedMan coming in as the Italian replacement (34 minutes 20 seconds)Leif and Goldfinger discuss their victory conditions (38 mins 40 seconds)The guys discuss how the tournament worked (40 mins 30 seconds)We go on to discuss the 2016 webDiplomacy World Cup and how it varies to the 2012 tournament  (43 mins 10 seconds)To what extent the guys stopped playing other games during the championship (47 mins 30 seconds)What strategies the guys employed in the championship final (48 minutes)The impact of Leif’s NMR and real life (50 mins 45 seconds)Lessons on communicating in a public press game… and how the guys broke the messaging system of webDip! (51 mins 45 seconds)Final thoughts from the three players (53 mins 05 seconds)We return back to Kaner and Amby and what our hosts took away from the interview (1 hour 1 min 20 seconds)How Russia’s strategy to balance the stalemate line blew away Kaner and Amby, and how you can apply that thinking to other Diplomacy variant boards (1 hour 4 mins)The guys encourage you to drop by the shownotes for Episode 5 and leave your comments (1 hour 6 mins 30 seconds)Useful info: Kaner's Youtube video of the game animated season after season: And don't forget to also check out (as mentioned in the interview) captainmeme's incredible analysis of the highs and lows of each player's game. Note: due to the various technical constraints (and user error by Amby) the interview was recorded in Mono rather than Stereo. And because we’re such cheap bastards and edit this on freeware, the whole track had to be stepped down to Mono. So apologies if it doesn’t sound as good as our other episodes. Venue: Brew, Brisbane Drinks of choice: Kaner - Four Pines Pale Ale from Sydney, AustraliaAmby - Don Ramon Tempranillo from Campo De Borja, SpainDon't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

This episode was recorded back-to-back with episode 3's discussion of Rinascimento and Bourse. As a result we'd already had a number of drinks. And then we drank some more. So in this episode apologies in advance as the guys get a bit pissy while discussing the wonderful world of Diplomacy. This probably explains why Amby gets rather excited when he discovers from Kaner the "Finished" button within each variant's page. Kaner reciprocates saying he learnt about the archived maps from within any game from Amby. World War IV - the mother of all variants Kaner and Amby get into this amazing map that makes this variant one with both the most players (35 or 36 depending on the version you play), and due to the number of territories and SC's its also often one of the longest maps to play:Hats off to Tom Mulledy for creating the variant for the original 35 player variant and Tom Reinecker for the 36 player World War IV (version 6.2) variant.Amby kicks things off talking about how "drool-worthy" the map is. But yet hates the game: because he never wins. Amby laments amongst the 3 different versions he's played 6 or 7 games but has only survived once. Every other time he gets eliminated.Kaner points out with the number of players understandably your odds of winning fall dramatically and your chances of getting shafted go through the roof.Kaner finds the original 35 player map very "empty", especially in the middle east. WWIV v6.2 is now overwhelmingly the most popular iteration. Even better Kaner's World War IV Sea lanes version.That said, they both agree that when you start a WWIV game, you always feel, "This is it... I'm going to conquer the world!"Kaner explains why there's the two versions between the WWIV map. Tom (User ID Tomahaha) contacted the then vDip mods about the site using an older version. Kaner then helped out with porting that map across to vDiplomacy.The guys talk about the technical aspects of how the games come together on the site with two maps: a true map (with no more than 256 territories) and then a separate layer with the names and SCs on it.  But with the size of WWIV there's an additional map to help run the variant, which is really fiddly.Amby digresses about how the Regatta's toilets disappointed him. During a quick comfort break between recordings he noticed that it didn't have a mirrored wall for releaving yourself, as reported by the BBC on the internet. Amby thinks this could be a result of a more recent renovation done since the 2011 Brisbane flood (confirmed in this article - scroll to the bottom for the wacky picture of how the urinal used to look/work!)With dunny talk out of the way, Kaner brings up the common problem in both WWIV maps of sea-based territories forming strong stalemate lines that prevented solo wins.Kaner discusses his ideas of creating "overseer" zones at the heart of an original large sea territory, and then splitting the remainder of a sea territory into smaller sea territories. These overseer zones allow for fast navigation, but also play a critical part in supporting activity around them. These changes eliminate the issue in the past of too many strong sea-based stalemate lines. This is obviously good if you get sick of games with stalemate lines, but will drive you nuts if you love creating good strong stalemate lines.The guys discuss though that these changes appear to have had an impact on more sea based powers like Oceania, exposing them to greater naval threats.Kaner then gives his strategy about the importance of building continental strength quickly and then turning your attention to projecting naval power into the sea lanes. Amby shares his experience of doing the opposite: concentrating strongly on land-based strength but in doing so leaving himself open to naval attack, and ultimately elimination. So pay attention to Kaner's suggested strategy!That said Kaner goes on to say though that while strategy is an important component, fundamentally your relationships with players tends to be the determining factor.Kaner gets into the sexy talk and discusses how winning a WWIV map would be like ten orgasms at once.In WWIV the scale of the map lends itself to more than just an opening game, mid-game and end-game, with multiple opening games and mid-games.Kaner recommends in the early game to create a couple of local alliances in your continental block.When it comes to continental blocks the guys note that Africa and South America either quickly get their shit together, or totally fall apart. North America usually gets its act together quickly, Asia becomes a knife fight and in Europe one player usually quickly dominates.Finally the guys reflect that once you've played WWIV there's no way you can ever again play the World Diplomacy IX variant on webDiplomacy. Google Translate Diplomacy - when you feel like an entertaining game of Diplomacy Next after yet some more drinks the guys move onto Google Translate Diplomacy.Amby mentions how with his recent efforts to learn Spanish on Duolingo, he created a forum post looking for people wanting to play a game only played in Spanish with four other players putting up their hand.Amby discusses how when you're learning a language you can obviously only call upon the words you've learnt, without quickly having to cheat and turn to Google Translate for help.The game called Juego en español (literally "Game in Spanish") saw ScubaSteve play fantastically, a good showing by Gunmaster G-9 and surprisingly Dr. Recommended getting knocked out early and gnomius later being eliminated.  Amby felt some players were very competent in Spanish, or hid it well. The only downside he felt as someone with very basic Spanish skills was the amount of time taken to read messages and formulate responses.But it got Amby reflecting on the time vDiplomacy created a Google Translate variant and game for Diplomacy, intuitively called "The language of the country immediately after the", although Kaner wanted to call it "The Meat Commission" as we discuss in the podcast.Mapu originally suggested the idea. When discussing it originally in the forum there were a number of ideas thrown around for how this could work eg start in your language and then translate 4 or 5 times, through to Kaner's suggestion to use something like Akuna's Bad Translator (note: this service has changed since the original competition and is no longer offered).The forum discussion then went on and ended up agreeing that you'd start with your own native language, translate it into one of three obscure languages that were within pre-World War 1 player's borders or nearby (eg France couldn't use French but could use Basque, Breton or Arabic - due to their colonies, England couldn't use English but could use Welsh, Irish or Hindi - again due to colonies, Russia could use Mongolian, Belorussian or Finish etc). Then you would translate this into an agreed totally different language such as Chinese traditional or Hebrew which would then be posted to players.Some of the choice postings came out after a number of translations - major major language warning!Amby acknowledges that he and Kaner were aiming to have a fun entertaining game although some players were playing it straight down the line.Amby goes on to say that he'd often check translation options between the three languages to see what worked best; either keeping it as clear as possible or as entertaining depending on what you wanted to achieve.Kaner suggests his brilliant idea on having a Google Translate meets Extreme Personalities game, and seeing player's interest in the forum. Likewise seeing from the forum whether players want to follow the same translation process used in the initial game, or do a 34 translation versionAmby brings up how the game often felt like the Youtube video by CDZA using Google Translate to twist the lyrics of the "Fresh Prince from Bel-Air" theme song.The guys acknowledge that while they still haven't yet had our webDiplomacy 2012 championship winners on for an interview, hopefully it'll happen soon. Then maybe we'll look at the Extreme Personalities in an upcoming variant.Kaner also says he'd like to cover off the Sopwith variant very soon. So stay tuned! Venue: Regatta Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice:Kaner - Yenda Hell from New South Wales, AustraliaAmby - The Stag Shiraz by St Hubert's from Yarra Valley, Victoria, Australia Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

Dan Philip, president of the Black Coalition of Quebec, tells Carmel Kilkenny why he thinks the name of a mass grave, known as "Nigger Rock" in southern Quebec, should not be changed.

In episode 3 we look at the Italian Renaissance variant Rinascimento. What's great about it, what's bad about it, and how based on recent Forum talk it can be improved. Then its onto a game inside a game (how very enigmatic), with the variant Bourse. Venue: Regatta Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice:Kaner - Dogbolter Dark Ale Reserve, Matilda Bay Brewing, AustraliaAmby - Punter's Corner Cabernet Sauvignon from the Coonawarra, South AustraliaThe guys discuss their history with the Regatta Hotel, with Amby once working in the drive-through bottleshop that no longer exists and Kaner regularly playing Backgammon there (who knew he played something other than Diplomacy!) The Italian Renaissance variant - Rinascimento Kaner and Amby both love this variant created by Emmanuele Ravaioli (Tadar es Darden). Here's what they have to say about this fun filled jaunt through the Italian countryside:Kaner talks about how Emmanuele got him into variant creation in the early days of vDiplomacy. Kaner discusses how he talked to Shep and Butterhead when they were playing games of Chaos and Octopus about the idea of combining the two together. After posting their thoughts in the forum Tadar offered to give him a hand, creating Kaner's first variant Chaoctopi. Kaner briefly talks about how this variant played on the Classic map works and the rule changes it spawned for many other variants.Amby brings us back to Rinascimento, talking about how he loves the look of the map and its historical setting. Kaner enjoys some of the weird rules such as Benevento's army not being able to move, the French and Turkish players starting with units but no SC's. Amby joins in with how access across the spine of Italy is often limited by mountain passes.And the guys forget to totally mention that to win not only do you need to reach 33 SC's but one of them must by the capital Rome. Nice work there.Kaner talks about how in his experience the Papal States get sandwiched, and why his favourite country to play is Geneva with its options on land and sea and how you can work with the nearby city-state players, middle and larger powers.  Amby reflects on his one-time surprising win as Turkey.Rinascimento is often recognised as one of the most unbalanced maps with mega players Venice, Naples and the Papal States, mid-size players Milan, Savoy and Firenze and micro players Sienna, Pisa, Ferrara, Turkey and France. It means smaller players really need to work hard in negotiating and working with other players to survive.Kaner reminds Amby how the points scoring system for Rinascimento is different to most other games to help make things fair eg a small player who survives can get a better share of the pot than a large player who scrapes home with the SCs they began with.How whoever draws the Papal States can never help themselves, behaving like the Pope.The guys discuss recent discussions in the vDiplomacy forum about creating variations to the Rinascimento variant. Decima Legio has created a number of images showing how this could work. The three ideas that seem to be getting traction are:Combining lesser states into more powerful states to balance things (although not historically accurate)Breaking up some of the bigger states and introducing other players such as the Barbary pirates, the Spanish, etc.Creating a chaos style version with everyone only having a single SC.Amby shares ancient discussions with Emmanuele on why France was included on the current map.Of course, for any changes to happen the new development site mentioned by Captainmeme in the last episode needs to get up and running first.Amby wraps it up with an entertaining twist on the colour scheme of the "Rinascimento" logo in the top right of the map, and shout outs to TheatreVarus' forum thread to start the conversation on improving it, Gopher27's take on diplomacy vs tactics and great suggestions from ScubaSteve, Hirnsaege, Ruffhaus and Ingebot.A variant inside a variant - Bourse Diplomacy Next after topping up drinks, we jump into Bourse - a game that can be played just by the players on the map, or them and anyone wanting to play via the forum, or even people just in the forum:Invented by Don Miller in the seventies, it essentially has two simultaneous games running: one on the map, the other offboard .In the offboard game every player starts with 1000 units of currency for each of the countries on the map. So if the Bourse was being played on the Classic board each player would start with 1000 French Francs, 1000 British Pounds, 1000 German Marks, etc. At the start of the game every currency is worth the same as every other unit (all equal to $1). From there you can buy and sell currency units. You can never sell more than 500 units of any one currency each turn, but you can buy as much as you want. Obviously you need to create a cash reserve through selling currency to then buy more units of another (or multiple currencies).Each sale of 100 units of a currency depreciates the value of that currency by 1 cent eg in the first turn if there's a net over all sell off of 500 pounds (France, Germany and Austria sell 500 pounds each [-$1500], Turkey and Russia buy 500 pounds each [+$1000] and Britain and Italy don't buy/sell pounds at all, the over all effect is a sell off of 500 pounds), the pound's value is reduced the following turn by 5 cents, down to $0.95.The same works in reverse in appreciating currency value.Changes to unit values are based on buy/sell orders in sets of 100 eg an overall net purchase of 300 Francs would appreciate that currency next turn by 3 cents to $1.03. But if the overall purchase was 299 Francs it would only increase in value by 2 cents.Critically when buying/selling you're not only betting on the currency, but on the currency's longevity on the board eg if Italy is eliminated and you hold 2000 Lira, their value drops to nothing ($0).This tends to see people investing in countries who are doing well on the board. But Kaner explains on top of what decisions you're making, everyone else is assessing the situation. He gives the example of Russia doing very well and as a result people buying up Roubles, while at the same time Germany is getting hammered by France people will be inclined to sell the Mark. This understandably drives up the value of the Rouble while the Mark's value drops substantially.Amby builds on this idea by adding a degree of deception. France in the above set of circumstances may decide to privately make peace with Germany and put in buy orders for Marks. This way France picks up the Mark at a bargain basement price, while taking the bet that making peace with Germany will see it recover and survive to the end of the game for a great return on its currency value.Kaner explains that in the original Bourse, players of the Bourse don't play on the board. That way the shenanigans above don't happen. But with so many map variants at vDiplomacy with lots of players, Bourse is usually played with just the onboard players. The example the guys talk about is the game Boursed 901 played on the Known World map.At the end of the game, every 100 units of currency you own is multiplied by the number of supply centres that country has.  Then you add these figures up and whoever has the highest figure wins.  Kaner is reminded how he in fact won Boursed 901 in the currency part of the game and second on the board.Kaner also clears up Amby's question on whether a player eliminated on the board can continue playing in the currency game; they can... and can go on to win that aspect of the game.Amby talks about his gameplay in Boursed 901, trying to manipulating currencies but finding that other players - particularly Kaner - were one step ahead and manipulated currencies better. Amby explains how a strategy of spreading your portfolio risk generally won't get you ahead in the game.Kaner flags how he's so jeered up about Bourse that he'll propose a new game on the vDip forum. The more players interested the bigger the map will be played.Amby and Kaner also discuss how many games are too many games to be committed to.Amby gives a shout out to G-Man who experienced all sorts of technical problems trying to comment on the Known World 901 game discussed in Episode 1. The guys reflect on how their enthusiasm and passion is making the podcast happen, despite their piss poor technical skills.Finally the guys discuss how feedback to date on recording in a pub has been surprisingly positive... listeners feel like they're catching up with mates over a few drinks. So I guess we'll keep our alcohol and bar themed tour for each episode!If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

In this episode we check out the Fog of War variant of Classic, talk about the role of Mods and what to bring to their attention and conclude with new development server talk that may get variants up and running again for the Dip community!  Apologies up front on how the ambiance gets louder and louder as more people arrive in the pub! If this pisses you off too much a) go have a drink or two yourself or b) let us know to go somewhere quieter! How do Moderators (Mods) work? Both Kaner and Amby have been Mods in the past for vDip, they discuss their prior experience and how it varies between vDip and webDip:vDiplomacy - link is in the top right. You can only see posts you have raised with the ModsIt's the place to bring up concerns about multi-accounting with fake accounts or suspected meta-gaming. Amby discusses how he suspected this occurred in a game and how he raised this with the ModsKaner discusses contacting the Mods where there are technical problems, where a player feels another player has crossed the line with their languageThe guys also digress blocking players, and why you'd do this - if they were obnoxious, or a player seems to CD too often, doesn't communicate well. You can block players by going into their profile page and clicking the smiley face, turning it into an unhappy face (the same functionality doesn't exist in webDip, only vDip)webDiplomacy - you contact the Mods differently.  Go to Help and then email the mods. With a larger number of members on webDip, the moderators there tend to respond fasterKaner talks about how webDip is starting to add new variants before Amby shoots him down. webDiplomacy focuses far more on Classic games with around 80-90% of all games played on the server being the standard classic game.Variant focus - Fog of War We then turn our attention to the Fog of War variant on vDiplomacy:In this variant you can only see the territories immediately adjacent to your supply centres and your units. The show notes include an animated GIF showing how things would look as a game evolves as TurkeyAs you can't see where all the other players are, and what they're doing (only the ones immediately around you) it presents a significant challenge.This can be complicated further with a Gunboat game (no-press). Kaner talks about the subtle ways you can still send out subtle messages about working together and highlights the importance of checking the large map rather the standard small map. The supports don't render 100% correctly on the small map, but they do on the large map.The guys also talk about how in standard press games how you can lie and manipulate players with information - right or wrong - about areas of the map others can't see.Kaner talks about two recent Fog-of-War games he's recently played in - Cold Blooded Fog and Pompey . Kaner talks about how his loss as Germany was more a result of absolutely terrible game play rather than the map's fog-of-war element. But as Russia he had greater success getting a draw despite challenges of:subtle overtures to Germany being ignored (no checking of the large map again!)"partnering" with Turkey by sacrificing his southern front... whilst Turkey ignored this and kept eating him upefforts to make this message stronger by attacking Italy... only for Turkey to keep ignoring it!eventually getting French support with a Barents fleet support of St Petersburg to create a stalemate line, forcing Turkey to draw despite only being one supply centre short of a win - and Kaner only having 4 SC's himselfIn addition to playing Fog of War in classic, we talk about how it can also be played in the variants 1066 and Rat Wars (and why the technology behind coding Fog maps tends to limit the number of variants that use it)New development server talk Finally we talk about variant development and news from CaptainMeme (vDip mod and regular on webDip) that while the vDip Lab is pretty much dead, a new test server for development is being slowly created in the background. This is some really cool news that could see new variants created again that won't crash vDip. The guys talk about how this could impact on new variants, including suggestions on webDip on air support, Classic with neutral armies, Kaner's Mongolian variant and Amby's ideas on making a massive Cold War variant. In conclusion we tempt you again about having some of the main players from the webDiplomacy 2012 championship game being in episode 3. If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below. Venue: The Gresham Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice:Kaner - Four Pines Stout from Four Pines Brewing, Australia (although Kaner did call it "Ten Pints" in the podcast)Amby - Massolino Barbera d'Alba from Piedmont, Italy and The Gresham Shiraz from Western AustraliaThanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

Welcome to Diplomacy Games! In episode 1 we introduce the podcast and hosts Kaner and Amby and why we play Diplomacy online. Then we jump into discussing in detail the Diplomacy variant Known World 901. But for starters, a little about ourselves - Kaner and Amby. We discuss our background and experience with playing Diplomacy. We get into the early days of playing, from face-to-face to rather embarrassing first ever opening moves when playing online. We also explain why the podcast is recorded over a few drinks in a bar. Next up we give a bit of a high level overview of the type of things each of our episodes may cover, including:A "deep dive" into a variantFeatures/how stuff works on webDiplomacy and vDiplomacyAnything new that's happened on the  websitesAny threads of contention in the threadsInterviewsWe go deep into the variant Known World 901 by David E. Cohen, and on-boarded to vDiplomacy by Kaner. We cover:How at a 15 player variant it fills the gap between large 10 player games and massive 34+ player gamesHow Amby loves its historical nature and learns some history, all while continuously mispronounces players' country namesThe really cool transform option for changing armies to fleets and vice versa. Kaner talks about why he did this to improve gameplayWe then look at an example of the map in the game Vae Victis . Here Amby made it into a 6 player draw despite only having 4 supply centres. What strategies and tactics did he use to make it to the end?Kaner discusses how you can use variant statistics to better understand how to play the country you drawFinally we discuss the WebDiplomacy 2012 World Cup championship, a game that took three and a half years to complete. We're lining up a number of the key players to discuss this mammoth Diplomacy gaming effort in an upcoming interview. Visit our website for the show notes for this episode. Venue: Grand Central Hotel, Brisbane Drinks of choice:Kaner - Fat Yak original pale ale from Matilda Bay Brewing, AustraliaAmby - Rymill "The Yearling" Cabernet Sauvignon from the CoonawarraAnd a big thanks to Dan Philip for our rockin' intro music! If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us.

Dan Philip, Président de la Ligue des Noirs du Québec