Sabotage!

The guys get together for a good old fashioned Diplomacy chat, but things very much take a recurring theme of the name of the bar: Sabotage! They talk sitters, tournament rule "changes" (depending on your perspective) and alcohol sabotaging Amby's brain twice when trying to remember Diplomacy players' names.

Intro

• After introducing their venue and drinks, Kaner jumps straight into joke time (1 min)

Around the grounds

• Kaner asks Amby about his Crusades 1201 game and his attempt to get from one end of the board to Jerusalem. When this was recorded the anon game was still going but only 2 days later wrapped up. To make it easier to understand Amby was playing England in "Remove Kebab" (3 mins)
• Amby discusses the direction he gave his sitters when he went bush, and discusses the intended/unintended sabotage where the sitter ignored Amby's strategy, including this game and another. Amby had been attacking France in this gunboat game, but had made peace so they can all concentrate on the Ottomans. But his sitter ignored Amby's game plan and stabbed France taking a SC off him instead. He talks about his strategy at the end game of trying to get a draw against Ottomans, which was ultimately unsuccessful - congrats to Mephisto on the win  (6 mins 15 secs)
• Kaner talks about his secret fear about getting a sitter who can play better than him (9 mins 20 secs)
• Amby discusses the Punic Wars game "Old Med" where he was playing as the Helleni and got eliminated. This was a public press game. Amby discusses his strategy with Puni which fell apart very quickly (10 mins 40 secs)
• They discuss the default position of Dip players online always referring to each other as males. They ponder why this happens and would love to get the perspectives of a female online player abut this (13 mins 20 secs)
• They return back to Punic Wars where Amby discusses his next game plan, trying to split Puni and the Romani without success. He discusses how it is an uneven number of SCs so a two way draw is impossible unless a player chooses to NOT take a neutral SC, and Amby's attempts to sway Puni or Romani. Amby was ultimately correct as Puni (LovelyPinkEgg) who was ahead the whole game but got stabbed by Romani (nikhil) who took the winner take all victory (14 mins 30 secs)
• Kaner touches on the Known World 901 Tournament and asks how that is going. Amby discusses his views on the matter - a bone of contention in the vDip forum thread! (19 mins 45 secs)
• Kaner asks about the process Amby followed to find a sitter, and discusses the country swap tool vs giving login details to a sitter before becoming a little precious. Amby then discusses how he thought one of his sitters had changed his password to screw him over... sabotage! Or maybe not...  (21 mins 30 secs)
• They get another drink and after moving discuss how Amby thought the bar way have been Diplomacy focused being called Sabotage (26 mins 45 secs)
• Kaner brings up Amby's slipping rankings before coming up with a cunning plan for boosting your ranking (28 mins 30 secs)
• Amby brings up the Divided States game he was in where he initially did very well, only to now be eliminated. They move onto his other Divided States game (which is also anon) which he's doing not badly in... for the moment. Amby discusses how everyone, including his allies have started stabbing him like crazy (31 mins 15 secs)
• Amby mentions yet another game he's been eliminated from (also now just ended) - Foggy 81 where he played as Russia. Congrats to Dr Helmut Kohl - aptly playing as Germany - who won (35 mins)
• Then its onto Amby's suggestion for a new variant: Shadow Fog. A fog of war variant where the other players' units and SCs are all greyed out. In this variant idea you don't know who is who and who owns what, making it even harder to work out if another player is about to solo. Kaner suggests adding grey press into the mix  (35 mins 45 secs)
• After a new set of drinks they talk skate boarding (42 mins 30 secs)

Variant chat: Greek Diplomacy

• It's been a while since we had a focus on a specific variant, but its back! Kaner discusses Greek Diplomacy (44 mins)
• Kaner talks about the special rules: 4 coin bidding for SC's and what units can be built where. Amby gets distracted by Kaner's "300" efforts and a unique rendition of "Sweet Caroline" (46 mins)
• Kaner talks hacking the system and why he thinks two wrongs make a right (52 mins)
• Next he reminds Amby about the Chaoctopi variant (54 mins)
• They get back to Greek Diplomacy with the amount of sea territories and Amby questions whether armies should be able to traverse small bodies of water (54 mins 30 secs)

Forum etiquette

• The music goes quiet as Kaner brings up forum etiquette and forum thread management (1 hr 1 mins)
• The guys talk about assorted Dip issues (1 hr 7 mins)
• Some last minute jokes (1 hr 8 mins 30 secs)
• Amby makes it clear he's not going to WorldDip Con 2016 before the alcohol makes him forget Dip player names the second time (1 hr 10 mins 30 secs)

 

Venue: Sabotage Social, Brisbane.

Drinks of choice:

Kaner - Newstead Dark Ale from Brisbane, Australia

Amby - Schild shiraz from the Barossa, Australia

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