Venue: The APO and then the Bowery, Brisbane.

Drinks of choice:

Kaner – Peroni lager from Italy and Little Creature’s Roger’s amber ale from Western Australia and Bulimba Gold Top ale from Brisbane

Amby – The APO Shiraz from McLaren Vale in South Australia and Paxton MV organic shiraz from the McLaren Vale also

 

So many variants, so many games and too little time.

Intro

• The guys planned to keep the “Shit Cake” theme going from last episode by going to a cake shop bar called “Cakes and Shit”, but it wasn’t that good. Instead they’re recording from the APO (1 min)
• They discuss their drinks and announce the Diplomacy Games podcast, playDip, vDip and webDip have been featured in an article by Jason4747 in the Diplomacy World quarterly magazine (1 min 30 secs)
• They digress a little and talk about playing Diplomacy by snail mail (7 mins 30 secs)
• Kaner has decided he’s no longer playing games with phase periods of 24 hours and less and explains why (9 mins)

Around the grounds

• The guys slowly and informally segue into Around the grounds with Kaner discussing his Western Known World game. In addition to the problems with 24 hour phases he felt a little screwed on not being able to transform units, which Amby agrees particularly with Denmark’s opening position (10 mins 45 secs)
• They move onto discussing the new variants rapidly popped out by Enriador at vDiplomacy including Canton Diplomacy, 1913 and Renaissance 1453. They talk a little about these new variants and their thoughts on them (14 mins 10 secs)
• Then it’s onto the next variant Enriador is working on – Machiavelli (22 mins 20 secs)
• Amby then starts lamenting about how he’s involved in too many games (23 mins 30 secs)
• He discusses the War of Austrian Succession game he’s currently in that looks like its wrapping up.  This variant has been developed by Safari (25 mins 45 secs)
• Amby then goes onto lament his terrible opening in the 1812 Overture play-by-forum game at PlayDip, which is part of NoPunin10did’s team based Tournament of Time (28 mins 30 secs)
• He goes on to discuss the communication impact of being away camping and trying to keep up with 1812 discussions while away and how Slack is used to manage conversations (33 mins 30 secs)
• Kaner discusses the sunset from where they are, before Amby shows some of the sunset photos he took while away camping, including a special guest appearing (37 mins 40 secs)

Original photo the guys discuss: sunset at Lake Moogerah	After Kaner’s comment, Amby shows him this pic from the Moogerah Passion Play

• The guys get back to Around the Grounds and discuss what happened with the cancelled Divided States game “United States of Insanity” (40 mins 15 secs)
• They discuss the retry of the game, although Kaner has been smarter by not overcommitting himself. Kaner then goes onto show he is crap at American geography pretty much east of the Rockies (44 mins 20 secs)
• Kaner discovers the player with Michigan has even less American geographic knowledge than him. Amby discusses a similar problem (51 mins 45 secs)
• Next it’s onto Kaner’s Divided States of ‘Murica game and how he’s going (52 mins 45 secs)
• Then its the guys’ gunboat Divided States game, Kaner complains everyone is ganging up on him and Amby talks about his new strategy that so far is working well (54 mins 30 secs)
• Amby gives an update as games master for the 1066 Tournament and a couple of complications he’s noticed (58 mins 30 secs)

• The guys move onto The Bowery and grab some new drinks – Kaner’s got a Bulimba Gold Top from Brisbane, Amby gives a couple of Australian beer stories and tries his Paxton MV organic shiraz rom the McLaren Vale, South Australia (1 hour 5 mins)
• Amby gives Kaner further US geography lessons before a Sesame Street throw back (1 hour 9 mins)
• Next up its Bourse time! (1 hour 11 mins)
• Kaner gives the analogy that organising Dip players to agree on how the Bourse will be run is like herding cats. Amby shares a video about herding cats before Kaner tells a cat story about Mrs Kaner (1 hr 13 mins)

• Amby thinks Kaner’s cat comments are part of a joke and starts delivering his own back log of jokes (1 hr 17 mins 45 secs)
• Back to Bourse for a bit (1 hr 19 mins 30 secs)

Amby’s new variant ideas

• Kaner drives Amby up the wall before they go around in circles before grabbing another drink (1 hr 28 mins 45 secs)
• They sort themselves out before Amby starts discussing his new variant ideas (1 hr 31 mins 30 secs)
• He starts by introducing how Mike Duncan’s Revolutions podcast series about the 1848 revolutions inspired him to consider an Italian variant based on Risorgimento (Italian unification) and how a well balanced variant could be created using the Renascimento map (1 hr 32 mins)
• Next up is Amby’s thoughts based on the Inward Empire podcast on a 1 vs 1 variant based on a slightly changed Divided States map based on the 1877 Great Strikes with a capital/establishment player vs a labor/working man’s player and how railways could criss cross continent. Kaner likes this variant idea and makes a good suggestion on the rail network (1 hr 35 mins 45 secs)
• Then its a 1 vs 1 “Operation Sealion” variant with Nazi Germany against the UK battling it out over Great Britain and the coastline around the North Sea and English Channel. They briefly discuss the concept of three unit types: armies, navies and airforce, before doing a bit of a prick tease about their upcoming interview (1 hr 41 mins 30 secs)
• Amby mentions all his other variant ideas backing up: Roman Crisis of the Third Century, Napoleon 1 vs 1 (France vs the Sixth Coalition), Ninjas vs Samurai, Ice Age, Global Warming and Two Tribes (1984 1 vs 1 Cold War) and introduces the idea of taking a step back from actually doing all the code. Kaner talks about his five player Solar System variant while making amusing gestures to describe how it’d work (1 hr 45 mins)
• Amby goes further into his plan to be more a creative ideas director and let other variant creators massage it a bit and bring it to life (1 hr 46 mins 15 secs)

Now the scene is set…

• Amby looks at what types of games players are in, and reflects maybe the guys should be spending more time on Classic Diplomacy games and strategy (1 hr 49 mins)
• They then suggest we go out to the Dip community on what works well for each of the seven countries during the opening, mid-game and end-game. Kaner argues with Amby about the Tyrolean/Alpine Chicken, before suggesting they go alphabetically and kick things off with Austria (1 hr 51 mins)
• Kaner gives a brief film review of “Ready Player One”. Kaner gives a shout out about Honest Trailers on Youtube (1 hr 55 mins)
• Amby discusses CaptainMeme’s Youtube video about the longest game of Diplomacy ever on his DiploStrat channel. It starts with a 9 minute video about this Pacifist Diplomacy themed game (1 hr 58 mins)

Patreon shoutouts!

• Both jason4747 and nopunin10did have both generously donated to the show using our Patreon account to help get better audio equipment you can donate too at Patreon and choose to donate for better audio gear or buying drinks! (1 hr 59 mins 30 secs)

The last couple of things

• Kaner brings along a recent copy of Foreign Affairs magazine where the editorial references the game of Diplomacy with a comparison between a player CD’ing and current US foreign policy (2 hrs 3 mins 45 secs)
• Amby discusses a book by Desmond Seward called Metternich: the First European and raves about Chapter 7 which sounds like the way a Diplomacy player approaches the board (2 hrs 7 mins)