Diplomacy Games

Interview with Noam Brown from Meta

The guys interview Noam Brown from Meta about all the things you don't know about Cicero. Plus a good old Diplomacy chat.

Intro

• The guys introduce the show and venue. Amby explains his screw up pre-recording (0 mins 10 secs)
• Amby asks for listener's feedback on the Christmas show and they discuss their drinks (6 mins)

Interview with Noam Brown from Meta

• The guys start introducing today's interview with Noam Brown from Meta about the work they've done teaching their artificial intelligence (AI) agent Cicero into playing a very strong communicative game of Diplomacy (10 mins 30 secs)
• Amby mentions where you can learn more in other videos about Cicero: DBN, Meta's own videos and CaptainMeme's Diplostrats first and second videos (12 mins 30 secs)
• The guys begin the interview with Noam and discuss his early days experience with the game (14 mins)
• They discuss why Diplomacy was chosen to explore with AI (17 mins)
• Noam talks a little more about his pitch as a Meta employee and what benefits he put forward to the organisation (20 mins 40 secs)
• They discuss awareness of Diplomacy among team members (23 mins 55 secs)
• Noam talks about prior AI research and how it related to the research project (25 mins 30 secs)
• Kaner asks about what type of computing power is needed to run Cicero. Amby asks whether people could play against Cicero (28 mins)
• Kaner asks whether Cicero learns from games it plays and asks about Novel techniques used with Cicero (31 mins 45 secs)
• Amby asks what happens when humans play randomly against the bot and how it interrupts that (46 mins)
• Amby asks about when in the research process did the project team identify not lying works better (47 mins 30 secs)
• Amby goes onto query if someone could take off the "training wheels" to make Cicero lie (55 mins)
• They discuss why Cicero puts an emphasis on some locations on the board that some players ignore. He goes onto asking about Cicero's understanding of stalemate lines and other learnings from Cicero (56 mins)
• They go onto discussing the conversation style of Cicero and how players interact with it (1 hr 1 min)
• Amby asks about how Cicero responds to the reactions of human players. They discuss what Cicero would do if everyone wanted to be its ally (1 hr 3 mins 30 secs)
• They discuss why the named Cicero was chosen (1 hr 6 mins)
• Amby asks about the peer review process of publishing the paper to Science.org and Noam's thoughts on the media's reporting of the story (1 hr 7 mins)
• Amby asks about whether there are any plans to have Cicero publicly play in a leading tournament (1 hr 10 mins 50 secs)
• He asks if there's anything Noam would approach differently if he was starting the project now (1 hr 12 mins 20 secs)
• To find out more Noam encourages people to visit Meta's page on the project and again, CaptainMeme's video (1 hr 15 mins)
• The guys return and give their thoughts on the interview, plus Kaner's awesome question he didn't ask (1 hr 17 mins 30 secs)
• They talk about the idea of how Cicero could play and win the World Diplomacy Championship (1 hr 20 mins)
• Kaner discusses playing the meta game, how Cicero needed to learn to play differently against humans and playing the game with "the truth" (1 hr 24 mins)

Diplomacy Chat

• Amby wants to explore the idea of playing a face to face game by being as open and honest as possible (1 hr 28 mins)
• The guys move to Newstead Social and order some new drinks and how they compare in a mid game. Kaner describes a wine he's recently had (1 hr 32 mins)
• Amby talks again about getting a face to face game on - spoiler alert... it actually happened! (1 hr 41 mins)
• The guys talk more about their plans when attending WDC 2023. Find out more at the WDC Bangkok website (1 hr 45 mins 30 secs)
• The guys start wrapping up the show (1 hr 55 mins)

Venue: Green Beacon Brewery and Newstead Social, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Apple cider by Green Beacon Brewery and Your Mum's Fav lager by Young Henry's

Amby: Windjammer IPA by Green Beacon Brewery and West Cape Howe tempranillo from Margaret River in Western Australia

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

*** Remember if you know something about how WordPress works and can help the guys, get in touch!!! ***

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.

 

The 2022 Christmas Diplomacy Trivia Show

The guys celebrate the festive season with Round 2 of Diplomacy Trivia, some Christmas gift giving and much, much more.

Intro

• The guys introduce the show, venue and drinks. They throw in a bit of weather talk (0 mins 10 secs)

 

• The guys introduce the 2022 Christmas Diplomacy Trivia game and contestants: reigning champ Markus Zijlstra/CaptainMeme, 3rd place 2022 WDC player Peter McNamara, variant extraordinaire David E. Cohen and podcast Patreon supporter and well known player Hal Schild (7 mins 30 secs)
• The trivia contest kicks off (8 mins 45 secs)
• The first question starts (11 mins)
• The visual for which country was not altered in the very last prototype of Realpolitik before it became Diplomacy is: (20 mins 30 secs)

 

• The next visual question relates to this board (23 mins)

• The contest round up with the winner declared (1 hr 5 mins)
• The guys return and give their thoughts on the contest (1 hr 7 mins)

Christmas gifts and Diplomacy chat

• Being Christmas the guys exchange gifts (kind of) (1 hr 12 mins)

• They talk about their plans for WDC 2023 in Thailand (1 hr 20 mins 30 secs)
• Amby shares his dream about the winner of WDC 2023 (1 hr 24 mins 15 secs)
• Amby asks Kaner if he plans to do a fact finding tour for his Southeast Asian variant of the Khmer kingdoms (1 hr 27 mins)
• The guys get some more drinks and describe them as mid-games (1 hr 29 mins 30 secs)

Around the grounds

• Kaner discusses briefly one of his new Europa Renovatio games (1 hr 32 mins 30 secs)
• Amby talks about the David E. Cohen Mandate of Heaven email game he's in where he's playing as Shu (Orange) (1 hr 33 mins 30 secs)

• Amby has been playing with ChatGPT to see how it can improve his Diplomacy game (1 hr 40 mins)
• The guys start wrapping up the show (1 hr 46 mins 30 secs)

Venue: Brewdog, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Hazy Jane Pale Ale and Gateway to Helles Pilsner from Brewdog

Amby: Brewdog IPA from Brewdog and Willie Smith's Organic Apple Cider

 

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

*** Remember if you know something about how WordPress works and can help the guys, get in touch!!! ***

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.

 

Interview with Stephen Agar on Dip zines, the Variant Bank and much more

The guys interview Stephen Agar, creator of the Diplomacy Archive for zines and the Variant Bank, on getting back into the hobby. Plus the guys talk cheese and languages. Oh and their games too.

Intro

• The guys introduce the show, venue and drinks. They grab some lunch and then return (0 mins 10 secs)

Interview with Stephen Agar

• The guys start setting the scene for their interview with Stephen Agar, creator of the Variant Bank and collector of Diplomacy zines around returning to the hobby (4 mins 15 secs)
• The interview begins with Stephen talking about running postal Diplomacy back in 1976 and his progression initially with the hobby (4 mins 30 secs)
• He starts talking about creating in 1999 Diplomacy Archive and Variant Bank. He goes onto discussing how he received 1000's of UK Diplomacy zines and how he's looking at providing them to the British Library (11 mins)
• He discusses rediscovering  aspects of the game from rereading and cataloging zines and how only about 10% of all zines are online (15 mins)
• Stephen goes onto discuss how he's inherited about 1,600 variants from the North American Variant Bank which aren't online (17 mins 30 secs)
• They discuss why interest in variants have reduced in the Diplomacy community compared to the 1960's and 70's (22 mins)
• He talks about the ingenuity and fun in variants like Abstraction, Multiplicity and light hearted variants like Vain Rats, Deluge and Geophysical Diplomacy (27 mins 30 secs)
• Amby asks what you'd typically find in a zine edition before progressing to a general discussion around views around how the community has evolved (33 mins 45 secs)
• Stephen talks around the passing of veterans in the community (44 mins 45 secs)
• Amby asks about what things were like in the postal Diplomacy scene (47 mins 30 secs)
• They talk a little around Richard Sharp and his book on the game (50 mins 15 secs)
• The conversation moves onto the physical nature of zines, Diplomacy folklore and the challenge of dealing with old web tech (53 mins)
• They discuss how people can contribute to Stephen's project (59 mins 30 secs)
• Stephen talks about stalemate lines and correspondence with Allan Calhamer and Stephen's 1959 edition of Diplomacy (1 hr 8 mins)
• Stephen asks if anyone is interested in a postal Diplomacy zine to reach out to him by email (1 hr 16 mins)
• The guys return to give their thoughts on the interview (1 hr 18 mins)
• Amby reflects on the difficulty of getting sufficient players for an email game, talking about the David E. Cohen game he's in and gives a thanks to David for creating the connection with Stephen (1 hr 30 mins 45 secs)

Around the grounds

• Kaner announces he's about to win a Germany 1648 game which he thinks will be over by the time this episode goes out (1 hr 37 mins 50 secs)
• They talk cheese and languages (1 hr 44 mins)
• Amby discusses one of the games he's in and the guys can't remember which variant they both previously agreed to play (1 hr 54 mins)
• The guys talk about Daniel Lester winning the 2022 Web Diplomacy Championship and touch on the announced plans for 2023 WDC in Bangkok, Thailand (1 hr 59 mins)
• They start to wrap up the show (2 hrs 3 mins)

Venue: Greenglass, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Pipsqueak cider from Little Creatures, Freemantle

Amby: Château La Reyne Malbec from Cahors , France

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

*** Remember if you know something about how WordPress works and can help the guys, get in touch!!! ***

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.

 

vDip & webDip love match? An interview with Kestas

The guys interview Kestas about his suggested options for how vDip and webDip could better work together or possibly merge. Plus how their games are going.

Intro

• The guys introduce the show, venue and drinks (0 mins 10 secs)

Interview with Kestas on vDip and webDip

• Kestas is welcomed back to the show and starts by discussing his thoughts on how vDip and webDip could possibly work better together (4 mins 30 secs)
• He outlines some of the challenges for vDip and how webDip may be able to assist (9 mins)
• Kestas describes how he's testing the water with the community for their thoughts and feedback (15 mins)
• Amby gives a clarification on "vDip is dying", which was mentioned on the site in the context of its forum (17 mins)
• Kaner asks about if vDip and webDip were closer, could rapid variant development start again (24 mins 30 secs)
• Amby asks how would variants be brought across. Kestas discusses the options available (34 mins)
• They discuss if merges happened what needs consideration for vDip players who for one reason or another don't want to be part of webDip and former webDip players who may have been banned and subsequently moved to vDip (49 mins)
• Kaner asks about what the function of vDip is now and what the vDip community wants for the future (55 mins)
• Amby asks what opportunities there may be in the future for webDip which may be an incentive for vDip players when considering the proposal (59 mins)
• Amby asks about timeframes (1 hr 3 mins)
• After Amby had to wrap the interview up, the guys return to discuss their thoughts on the conversation (1 hr 7 mins 40 secs)
• Kaner summarises the four options on the table (1 hr 9 mins 15 secs)
• They discuss the gin menu (1 hr 22 mins)
• Kaner returns to discussing how functionality between vDip and webDip could be shared and their final thoughts on the topic (1 hr 25 mins)
• Kaner touches on what he and Kestas discussed after Amby had to leave and wrap up the interview. Amby asks what webDip people thoughts on the proposal also would be (1 hr 36 mins 40 secs)

Diplomacy chat

• The guys discuss David E. Cohen's Mandate of Heaven play test which Amby will be joining (1 hr 39 mins)
• Amby gives another shout out to the listener community for anyone with WordPress skills who can help either fix the DiplomacyGames.com template or help us migrate from the existing old template to a new one (1 hr 40 mins)
• Amby mentions they spent about 10 minutes talking about Mandate of Heaven back in podcast episode 105 (1 hr 44 mins)
• Amby mentions he's been playing with AI image creation using Diplomacy related themes and posts some quick ones created on the spot with Kaner, one Diplomacy & JFK themed and the other Harry Potter characters playing Diplomacy (based on Kaner's requested prompt). He'll do some better versions posted to our Twitter account (1 hr 44 mins 30 secs)

 

 

• They move onto Amby's drawn Zeus 5 game where he played as Italy. While he initially didn't like the variant map, he really started appreciating it after playing it (1 hr 51 mins)
• Next is Amby's A Modern Europe game where he's playing a position anonymously (1 hr 57 mins 30 secs)
• Kaner touches on his Rinasciemento game (2 hrs 1 min)
• They begin wrapping up the show, flagging what's coming up in the Patreon episode that will be out in a week (2 hrs 3 mins)

Venue: Dutch Courage Officers' Mess, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Stone & Wood Pacific Ale

Amby: Zilzie shiraz from the Barossa Valley, South Australia

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

*** Remember if you know something about how WordPress works and can help the guys, get in touch!!! ***

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.

 

Interview with BlueDog on rediscovering Diplomacy

The guys interview BlueDog, an old school Diplomacy player who got back into the game after many decades. Plus Diplomacy chat, entering the Australian Podcast Awards and more drinking.

Intro

• The guys introduce the show and an ongoing apology for the break in episodes. Before they go onto discuss what Kaner's reading, the venue and their drinks (0 mins 15 secs)

Interview with BlueDog

• The start discussing the interview today with BlueDog, an ally of Amby's in a WWIV sealanes game. Amby talks a little about Rulebook press (9 mins 30 secs)
• BlueDog discusses how he got started playing Diplomacy in the 1970's and only got back into it this year (2022 at time of recording) (14 mins 30 secs)
• They discuss having the parent-child dynamic changed (17 mins 30 secs)
• BlueDog discuss how his father, a World War 2 veteran and uncle got into the game (19 mins 30 secs)
• He goes onto discuss his experience with the online Diplomacy sites and his thoughts pre-internet about the game opportunities he envisaged (22 mins)
• BlueDog discusses how he got back into the game listening to the When Diplomacy Fails interview with Zack Twamley (this is also on Zack's feed.) He goes onto discuss how he'd forgotten some of the basics when coming back into the game (25 mins)
• They discuss playing against the bots at webDip (28 mins)
• BlueDog talks about playing large variant games (Divided States, Europa Renovatio) and liking players even though they eat up your SC's (31 mins)
• BlueDog and Amby discuss their game (BlueDog as Australia, Amby as South Africa). BlueDog gives lots of good advice for players (38 mins)
• They start discussing the end game (49 mins)
• BlueDog travels a lot internationally for his job. Amby asks how that impacts on his ability to play the game (52 mins)
• Amby asks about whether BlueDog would get back into playing face to face Diplomacy (55 mins)
• BlueDog asks about the demographics for who plays the game and the type of people they are (56 mins)
• They guys wrap up the interview and return to discuss their thoughts on the game (1 hr  0 mins 45 secs)

Diplomacy talk

• Amby gives a shout out to the first WDC for the first time since COVID at Carnage in Vermont. Amby gives an update on WDC 2023 in Thailand and that's still looking good (1 hr 4 mins 45 secs)
• Amby presents a Thailand Diplomacy challenge to Kaner (1 hr 11 mins 30 secs)
• Because Amby has been sick for a while he hasn't organised a face to face game in Brisbane. They discuss plugging into university board game clubs to get some Diplomacy games going (1 hr 13 mins)
• Amby is looking at putting in an entry to the 2022 Australian Podcast Awards. Kaner asks what category they should enter (1 hr 15 mins 30 secs)
• The guys grab some more drinks, Amby changes to wine and they order some Peruvian loaded fries (1 hr 22 mins)
• Amby has been playing with AI image generators like Craiyon, and starts talking about some of the AI generated images can be created based on Diplomacy game themes (1 hr 23 mins 45 secs)

Around the grounds

• The guys move onto discuss one of the Europa Renovatio games he's signed up for, and accuses Amby of being a CD stalker. They go onto discuss how different countries tend to go on this map (1 hr 34 mins 30 secs)
• They talk about favourite variants on vDip. Amby mentions Baron von Powell's College of Cardinals variant. They also discuss favourite variant rule changes (1 hr 41 mins)
• The guys wrap up the show (1 hr 51 mins)

Venue: Mongrel, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Rad Ale, Seeker Brewery in Wooloongong in New South Wales

Amby:  Hop, Skip & Jump Indian Pale Ale, Aether Brewery in Brisbane and Tscharke Shiraz from the Barossa Valley in South Australia

 

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.

 

Interview with Traci Brown on detecting deception

The guys interview Traci Brown, leading expert in detecting deception using body language. Plus two new variant maps are making the rounds. Kaner keeps on winning. And Amby screws up the tech.

Intro

• The guys introduce the show and an apology for the break in episodes. Before they go onto the venue and their drinks (0 mins 15 secs)

Interview with Traci Brown

• The start discussing the interview today with leading deception detection expert Traci Brown (2 mins 30 secs)
• The interview begins with Amby framing the context of today's discussion on body language and detecting fraud and lying (5 mins 30 secs)
• Amby asks Traci how she got into being a body language expert with Traci discussing her earlier cycling career (7 mins 45 secs)
• He goes onto ask what are the basic things someone should be looking for (12 mins 20 secs)
• Traci dispels some of Amby's thoughts on body language. Traci discusses the importance of establishing a person's baseline (15 mins 45 secs)
• Kaner asks how do you establish the baseline of someone's body language (18 mins 45 secs)
• Traci discusses the importance of maintaining a journal of your competitor's behaviors and the importance of paying attention to what people do (24 mins 15 secs)
• Amby asks about when players respond to you when they think you're up to no good. Traci also discusses mirroring (35 mins 30 secs)
• Amby asks about what behaviors you should follow to build trust (39 mins 15 secs)
• They discuss practicing regularly (42 mins)
• Traci discusses her 21 Day Body Language Makeover series of Youtube videos, fraud spotting and her book How to Detect Lies, Fraud and Identity Theft. Amby also mentions Traci's podcast, Truth, Lies and Coverups  (44 mins 30 secs)
• Amby asks if there's much variation between people's behavior online versus face to face (51 mins)
• They wrap up the interview. You can learn more at Traci's website, BodyLanguageTrainer.com (52 mins)
• The guys return and give their thoughts on the interview (52 mins 45 secs)

Diplomacy chat and news

• The guys discuss trying to get a local game happening (1 hr 4 mins 20 secs)
• Amby will soon be on holidays to Broome in Western Australia and then outback all the way back to Brisbane. This will slow down podcast episodes in October. Kaner suggests some game options while he's away (1 hr 6 mins 45 secs)
• The guys discuss the two new variants that Flame has created: Cold War Redux (a 4 player game) and Speed Europa (7 players on an updated Classic map) (1 hr 14 mins)
• They discuss firstly the Cold War Redux variant (1 hr 16 mins)

• The guys screwed up the pausing and lost a bit of their chat (1 hr 23 mins)
• They find where they were last up to and start that section again, this time going into more detail on their thoughts about Speed Europa (1 hr 24 mins)

• Kaner discusses how some visual improvements could make the map even better (1 hr 38 mins 45 secs)
• Kaner has soloed another game: Germany 1648, a Thirty Years War variant (1 hr 39 mins 45 secs)
• He discusses how having a this variant now as an interactive map makes it so much better. Amby talks about how he hacked the code in 1648 to do the two types of fleets in the Pirates variant (1 hr 43 mins)
• Amby discusses how Zach Twamley is currently doing a Thirty Years War podcast series. They go onto discussing a game against each other. Note: Amby won't create this until he's back from his outback trip (1 hr 45 mins)
• They discuss how Kaner is going in the rankings (1 hr 50 mins)
• Kaner starts discussing a new Europa Renovatio game he's in (1 hr 51 mins)
• Amby screwed up and failed to clear the SD card of the recorder, so they start closing out the show on his iPhone (1 hr 52 mins 40 secs)

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.

Interview with Joren on Diplomacy maps

The guys interview Joren, one of the Diplicity app's incredible map creators. They talk all things Diplomacy maps. Plus all the cool updates over at webDiplomacy will blow your mind. And Kaner picks on Amby's 1066 variant.

Intro & webDiplomacy awesomeness

• The guys introduce the show, the venue and their drinks. They then go through how the show will run this episode (0 mins 15 secs)
• Kaner introduces a new games engine introduced to webDiplomacy: a great new click interface, against bots and no account needed! You'll find it at play.webdiplomacy.net Thanks Andrew Goff for the hot tip (8 mins)
• Amby talks about his experience giving it a go (10 mins 45 secs)
• They discuss why vDip has interactive interface options but webDip didn't (18 mins 15 secs)
• They talk dumbed down bots before the batteries dies (20 mins secs)

Interview with Joren on Diplomacy maps

• They start introducing their interview with Joren from Diplicity, one of their incredible cartographers (22 mins 20 secs)
• The interview starts with Amby asks Joren how he got interested in maps (24 mins 35 secs)
• Kaner gives his perspective on Joren's maps and give thanks to trampolinebears Classic map. He goes onto explaining how he got involved in helping Martin Bruse with Diplicity (30 mins)

• They discuss the aesthetics of the Cold War map (36 mins)

 

• Joren walks through the creative process in developing a map using examples that support David E. Cohen's Unconstitutional (39 mins)

 

 

 

• They discuss the meditative process of drawing maps and what software is used to develop (47 mins 30 secs)
• Joren discusses steps being taken for Diplicity to be available as an iOS app (50 mins 30 secs)
• If you want to support Diplicity in covering some of their costs for this project, go to Diplicity, click on the top left "hamburger" menu, then at the very bottom right click the "$" symbol (53 mins)
• Amby asks Joren what he looks for when deciding to embark on a new map. He discusses Unconstitional, Three Kingdoms and South America variants (58 mins)
• Amby then brings up when Kaner first shared Diplicity with him and the Vietnam War variant before discussing map cultural context (1 hr 0 mins)

 

• Joren talks about collaborating with variant creators and getting work in progress input on maps (1 hr 3 mins 45 secs)
• He touches on a Diplomacy variant community (1 hr 6 mins 30 secs)
• Joren gives his recommendations on how to make a variant and map in the Diplicity community. They talk about the learning curve (1 hr 8 mins 15 secs)
• Kaner asks about where people can find out more about participating in the Diplicity Discord community (1 hr 12 mins 50 secs)
• Kaner goes onto discuss some .SVG issues he's had in the past with graphical editing (1 hr 14 mins)
• The guys return and have moved to Exhibition, they give a drinks update (1 hr 15 mins 30 secs)
• They give their thoughts on the interview with Joren and what they got out of it (1 hr 19 mins 15 secs)
•  Kaner reflects on maps as a cultural lens (1 hr 27 mins 45 secs)
• Kaner geeks out on ceramic sake bowls (1 hr 32 mins 30 secs)

1066 variant talk

• Kaner has an issue with standing armies in the 1066 variant that Amby co-developed. Amby doesn't understand why there isn't a Classic variant with standing neutrals. They go onto discuss the different versions and tweaking them based on game results (1 hr 33 mins 45 secs)
• The guys begin wrapping up the show, with Amby reminding folks we're still looking for someone to give us a hand with our WordPress instance. Reach out of you can give us a hand (1 hr 48 mins 45 secs)

Venue: The Charles & Exhibition, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: 3 Bolt Pale Ale from Brisbane and Dreaming of Sunshine Californian IPA by Ranger Brewery

Amby:  Lino Ramble Vinaly Shiraz from the McLaren Vale in South Australia and Dreaming of Sunshine Californian IPA by Ranger Brewery

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.

Interview with Tejas Patel from DARPA

The guys interview Tejas Patel, who is DARPA's the project lead for SHADE: an AI research initiative using Diplomacy to better understand the nuance of communication intent behind actions. Plus the guys games and how does a famous UK Diplomacy player get himself a novice rank in Australia's Diplomacy association.

Intro

• The guys introduce the show, the venue and their drinks (0 mins 15 secs)
• They discuss getting how to get a French fleet into Tunis. Hint hint, they're wrong! (Spring 1901 MAR-GOL, PAR-MAR, NAP-TYR; Fall 1901 Convoy MAR-TUN (2 hrs 45 mins)

Interview with Tejas Patel from DARPA

• The guys introduce their thoughts on the interview with Tejas Patel from DARPA - Defense Advanced Research Project Agency - and why our podcast wanted to talk to him (5 mins 35 secs)
• The interview begins with Amby asking Tejas why DARPA chose Diplomacy for the SHADE project and what the project is about (9 mins 10 secs)
• Amby asks how Tejas first discovered Diplomacy and when he realised Diplomacy could be used for what DARPA wanted to research (13 mins 30 secs)
• Kaner asks how communication takes place in the game and how AI is used (17 mins 45 secs)
• Amby reflects on the way communication is done and what he initially thought the research project was doing with communication and action taking. He asks why structured data communication rather than natural language communication was chosen for the research (20 mins 15 secs)
• Amby asks about the project management methodology approach being used in the research project (24 mins)
• Amby enquires whether the Diplomacy community may be engaged to help the project (26 mins)
• He goes onto ask about how the project team's experience with Diplomacy (28 mins)
• They discuss whether the Potomac Tea and Knife Society have had any engagement with the project (30 mins)
• They go onto talking about the desired project goals (31 mins)
• Amby asks how the project could inform policy making and its potential future use from a military perspective. Tejas responds about transparency and the opensource nature of the project  (34 mins 30 secs)
• Kaner asks what does SHADE stand for. They go onto discuss other DARPA acronym project names (40 mins 15 secs)
• Tejas asks how the guys found out about SHADE, Amby mentions the Diplomacy/Shade article in Military + Aerospace Electronics magazine (42 mins)
• Amby asks how Tejas got employed by DARPA (44 mins 15 secs)
• Amby asks what are Tejas' favorite countries to play (45 mins 50 secs)
• Kaner enquires about the timelines for the project and the robot AI (46 mins 45 secs)
• Tejas says if you want to know more about DARPA to visit their website before the interview wraps up (49 mins 30 secs)
• The guys return and give their thoughts on the interview with Tejas (50 mins)

Around the grounds

• Kaner asks Amby about his current games, spending his some talking about a standard Classic game he's bought into as Turkey (1 hr 4 mins 30 secs)
• They move onto a Known World 901 game of Kaner's that just finished where he was part of the draw, despite not being a strong power. He explains he got to that point (1 hr 15 mins 30 secs)
• Amby lets Kaner know the DAANZ (Diplomacy Association of Australia and New Zealand) master points have just been updated (1 hr 17 mins 30 secs)
• They discuss how Markus Zijlstra/CaptainMeme/DiploStrats managed to get in the DAANZ rankings as a novice player. Kaner goes onto discuss how Markus is interested in the next Bourse game, explaining how the Bourse game got unexpectedly wrapped up, with Amby being declared the Bourse winner (1 hr 23 mins)
• As a large group moved into where the guys were sitting, with all the extra noise they wrap up the show (1 hr 28 mins 30 secs)

Venue: Leonard's, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Ballistic IPA in Brisbane

Amby:  Parker Estate Cabernet Sauvignon from the Coonawarra in Victoria

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.

Happy accidents

The guys get into the new Bourse game, talk Amby's happy little accident, games and much much more.

Intro & Diplomacy talk

• The guys introduce the show, the venue and their drinks (0 mins 15 secs)

Bourse 2022

• Kaner kicks off discussions on the new Bourse game he's adjudicating and Amby is playing. Kaner reminds listeners if they missed previous shows what a Bourse game is (5 mins 45 secs)
• They discuss pumping up the value of currencies (9 mins)
• Amby discusses how he's previously approached the start of earlier Bourse games and how his opening strategy has changed (11 mins)
• Kaner reflects on Amby having a commanding position in the Bourse game (21 mins 30 secs)
• After ordering some more drinks, Kaner shares with Amby about the adjudication and checking who bought what (22 mins 30 secs)

Around the grounds & more Diplomacy talk

• Amby discusses the outcome of his Youngstown World War II game as Japan where he didn't expect at all to win, but somehow did (31 mins 45 secs)
• He goes onto reflect his strategy to try to win, but how he was constantly thwarted by England and Germany (36 mins)
• They discuss that it had an End of Game time limit and what happens when that is reached (38 mins 15 secs)
• The guys move onto Kaner's games focusing initially on his Known World 901 game which is coming to the tail end (44 mins 30 secs)
• They move onto his Europe Renovatio Winterkorn Bloodbath game (49 mins)
• Kaner discusses how borders are occupied or unoccupied in games (53 mins 15 secs)
• Amby advises he hasn't been able to get enough people to fill a board for a face to face game in Brisbane (56 mins)
• They talk about July as an option until they realise they're both away for big chunks of July, and discuss road trips (58 mins)
• Amby suggests Kaner playing a social game when he's in Victoria with his dad. Kaner talks stabbing his brother and his Dad playing Diplomacy in the navy (1 hr 4 mins 15 secs)
• They flag why there was no interview this episode (1 hr 8 mins 30 secs)
• They start wrapping up the show (1 hr 10 mins)

Venue: Dr Gimlette's, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Stone & Wood IPA

Amby:  An unknown McLaren Vale shiraz from  South Australia

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.

PoppyCon 2022

The guys discuss Amby's attendance at PoppyCon in Melbourne with round the table interviews, tournament results and a live Wilsonian game of Diplomacy.

Intro & Diplomacy talk

• The guys introduce the show, the venue and their drinks (0 mins 15 secs)
• They give a quick run down of how today's episode is going to work this episode, and Kaner provides a pronunciation correction for the Mayans. Amby shares a partial Arkansas update, with the Twitter pic he shares from @TerribleMaps with Kaner  (4 mins 30 secs)

• They start to introduce Amby's experience at PoppyCon this year (10 mins)

PoppyCon

• The round table begins, with a brief discussion on scoring systems and Jamal Blakkarly's board solo (14 mins)
• They talk about playing on multiple boards at once (18 mins 30 secs)
• Allan discusses what's changed in the way players approach the game compared to 30 years ago and a discussion on draws (22 mins)
• Amby asks about people's thoughts on the new players to the game (27 mins 30 secs)
• The conversation merges into a general conversation around games on Day 1 (30 mins)
• Amby asks about the overall tournament metagame after Jamal's solo and Shane weighs in on his first game (35 mins)
• Amby asks Melissa about PoppyCon and venue hosting for a tournament. The round table discusses the challenges for tournament directors and SC based tournament scoring systems (39 mins)
• They discuss how players approach tournaments now (45 mins)
• The round table discusses the anonymous gunboat game played in the evening (not part of the formal tournament) where the scoring was how many SCs you ended with when the pizzas arrived and correctly identifying which player was which country (48 mins)
• Amby wraps up the round table discussion (52 mins)
• The guys get some more drinks and talk about the round table discussions (52 mins 30 secs)
• They throw to Andrew Goff as tournament director giving the final results for the weekend (59 mins)
• As part of local tradition, after the tournament results, Goffy awards the Best Shane Cubis Award (1 hr 4 mins 30 secs)
• He goes onto discuss the next tournament in Melbourne for November/December (1 hr 6 mins)
• The guys come back and Amby gives a further update on his games in the tournament. Here's the maps from towards the end of his games: (1 hr 7 mins)

Amby as Germany in game 1

 

Amby's second game as France

 

• The guys go onto discuss attending the next Melbourne tournament and trying to get some face to face games happening in Brisbane (1 hr 18 mins)
• Next up they introduce the final part of the PoppyCon recordings, a live Wilsonian/United Nations game where players competed over the table in an open forum for all negotiations on a very tight phase turn (1 hr 19 mins)
• Kaner gives a forewarning that with a heap of people talking all at once it can be a little difficult to follow what's being suggested around the board. Amby says he'll add some Backstabbr maps to show each turn's orders (1 hr 22 mins 45 secs)
• The game begins in Spring 1901 with:
  • Melissa - Italy
  • Casey - Turkey
  • Shane (Peter writing orders) - Germany
  • Goffy - England
  • Jamal - Austria
  • Rob - France
  • Allan - Russia (1 hr 25 mins)

• Negotiations begin for Fall 1901 (1 hr 32 mins 40 secs)

• Winter 1901 builds are added (1 hr 38 mins 30 secs)

• Spring 1902 negotiations begin (1 hr 39 mins 40 secs)

• Fall 1902 kicks off (1 hr  45 mins)

• Winter 1902 builds (1 hr 50 mins 40 secs)

• Spring 1903 opens to negotiations (1 hr  51 mins 45  secs)

• Fall 1903 rolls around (1 hr  57 mins 20 secs)

• And with Shane Cubis/Peter McNamara as Germany are eliminated a draw is proposed, followed by build orders (2 hrs  4 mins)

• With the draw not proceeding Spring 1904 begins (2 hrs  mins  secs)

• Fall 1904 rocks around (2 hrs 9 mins 40 secs)

• Winter 1904's centre adjustments occur (2 hrs 15 mins 30 secs)

• Spring 1905 begins before a 5 way draw is proposed and passed (2 hrs 17 mins)
• They discuss the game from the players' perspective (2 hrs 19 mins)
• The game ends and Kaner & Amby return with some further observations on the bar (2 hrs 22 mins 45 secs)
• They get onto talking about the Wilsonian game and their thoughts about recording people playing Diplomacy (2 hrs 25 mins 40 secs)
• The guys start wrapping up the show (2 hrs 30 mins 40 secs)

Venue: Frog's Hollow Saloon, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Gage Road Atomic hazy pale ale and Kosciuszko pale ale

Amby: Coriole Sparta shiraz from the Barossa, South Australia

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.