A Weekly Threat Assessment of the Diplomacy Community
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Podcast #60 - Interview with umbletheheep
I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to talk with Kaner and Amby from the Diplomacy Games podcast. We talked about the origins of The Briefing, my diplomacy background, and the current state of the online and f2f community. Listen Here.
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Cascadia Tourney Results
Chris Brand organized a great tournament this last weekend near Vancouver, Canada that featured 25 players. A special congratulations to Siobhan Nolen (current President of the NADF) for her win. Complete standings can be found at DipTV, and also be sure to checkout the Cascadia group for club games and future tournaments.
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I've started a new segment for our strategy section: The Champions Corner. Each tournament winner will be invited to share a particular move or strategy that they believe helped them to emerge victorious.
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What magic powers and jiggery-pokery took me from a 3 centre England in 1905 to an 11 centre England by Fall 1907? By way of explanation, I have a story.
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A few years ago, I decided to breed chickens. Little fluffy, beaky darlings to enhance our quality of life and teach our toddlers the beauty of nature. For all you city dwellers (like me), a chicken's gender is determined by the humidity of the incubating environment (Sod’s Law). I hatched six cockerels and one hen.
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I couldn’t decide which five men deserved to die. The group got increasingly “Stephen ‘psychopathic-and-demonic’ King,” to the point that no-one in our family could go outside for fear of death by chicken. It was Animal Farm with traumatized offspring. I came home one day to find they’d all killed each other in a mighty Chicken Blood Bath.
The final board of the 2019 Pastis tournament was a close re-enactment of the Great Pootle Chicken Massacre of 2011. We’d all played together before, so all carried varying degrees of baggage. Russia and Germany immediately banded against England, with cries of ‘Pootle needs to be contained.’ Russia telegraphed his Northern opening threatening his southern neighbours he’d throw the game to France and England.
I took Norway in 01 only to lose it to Russia the following year. I then sat on my 3 home centres for the majority of the game and tenaciously bonded to my French ally since Russia and Germany hated me and had made it their mission to run me out the game. I was pinned down, but I didn’t give up. Groo as Turkey was huge fun to communicate with. He could be persuaded to attack Russia and I knew Austria liked the excitement of chaos. He can’t resist random centre grabs off all his neighbours just ‘to keep things fresh.’ All useful diplomatic tools.
All of this worked! Austria and Turkey moved on Russia. Austria in fact moved on anything including Germany! The bullying, vitriol and threats of throwing turned the air blue. Chicken Massacre!
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1906 was known as “The Turning Point.” Russia had the year before approached me with a plan to throw the game and told me he was trying to persuade Germany to do likewise. He demonstrated his intent to do so when he moved out of Norway which gave me 4 centres going into 1906.
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With Russo-Germanic assistance, I then stabbed France for Holland and took Kiel and St Petersburg. I went into 1907 on 7 centres. I was being Pac-Man fed.
In 1907, I took Belgium, Berlin, Denmark and Sweden, giving me a board topping 11 centre finish. Not elegant, but effective. So? What won me the game?
- Patience, sitting on 3 centres and not giving up
- Staying tenaciously bonded to France until the 2006 stab for Holland
- Keeping up a gentle diplomatic offensive across the board encouraging an anti Russo-German tone
- Using the natural tendancy of the Austrian player to chaos
- Taking the risk and trusting that Russia-Germany hated Austria-Turkey so much they’d rather throw to England
Most importantly though:
“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. Man serves the interests of no creature except himself.”
~ George Orwell, Animal Farm
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February
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January
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Reach out it you have an idea or announcement you'd like featured
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