Diplomacy Games

1 vs 1 (Part 2), directions for Diplomacy sites & "Africa" variant

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.

1 vs 1 (Part 1) & interview with Devonian

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.

Diplomacy etiquette, Christmas & the variants Atlantic Colonies & Mate Against Mate

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.

Eliminations & the USA variant

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.

1066, big webDip news & many tangents

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.

Modern Diplomacy and Sopwith

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 variant

• This 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, Australia
• Amby - Girraween Estate Cabernet Sauvignon from the Granite Belt, Queensland, 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.

2012 WebDiplomacy World Cup Championship interview

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 interview

• Kaner 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, Australia
• Amby - Don Ramon Tempranillo from Campo De Borja, Spain

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.

World War IV & Google Translate Diplomacy

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 version
• Amby 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, Australia
• Amby - 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.

The Italian Renaissance variant Rinascimento & Bourse, a game inside a game

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, Australia
• Amby - Punter's Corner Cabernet Sauvignon from the Coonawarra, South Australia

The 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.

Fog of War, Mods and new development talk

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 Mods
• It'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 Mods
• Kaner discusses contacting the Mods where there are technical problems, where a player feels another player has crossed the line with their language
• The 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 faster
• Kaner 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 Turkey
• As 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 up
  • efforts 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 himself
• In 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 Australia

Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.