When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. -Edmund Burke
The alliances are beginning to form now. We see the Austrian and the Turk have joined forces against the Russian in the East, while the Russian seems to have formed his own coalition with the English/French alliance in the West. Italy and Germany remain lone wolves. Are they biding their time, watiting to see how the game plays out? Or has the table already been set and they are the main course? Given the moves that England and Austria made this season, it would appear the latter would be a safe bet.
Please remember, dear players, that your humble Game Master only gets to see what you submit for the blog. He is not privy to whatever conversations go on between you in private. The lack of press in this game has been disheartening, because it gives me no entertainment beyond following the moves. I know you are all thouroughly entertained by your negotiations, but since I don't get to partake, please entertain me with some good public press. I know you're worried about exposing yourself, but that's half the fun.
There are no retreating units this summer. So the Fall moves are due on Sunday at 8pm.
Remember, powers, what I always say.... Spring is for position, Fall is for conquest!
At the end of the Fall turn the Austrian has made good. 3 builds in the first year is no easy feat. He obviously had a little help in this endevour from France. I searched for a long time to see if there was anything written about this particular opening alliance and found nothing. These two players are playing off the book, people! Beware!
Italy played it safe and payed for his mistake. His neighbor to the East now has a new crop of builds to protect his once vulnerable homeland. Italy is the only country to not get a build this year, when now we see he could have easily had two.
Meanwhile Turkey and Russia, once apparently friendly, are now bumping heads. And France is conquering the Iberian penninsula. And the brits have made it on to the mainland.
Here are the adustments for this year, due TOMORROW, MONDAY NIGHT BY 8PM EASTERN.
Austria - 3 units may be built England - 2 units may be built France - 2 units may be built Germany - 1 unit may be built Russia - 1 unit may be built Turkey - 1 unit may be built Italy - No adjustments this year
Here is the press for this turn:
************************************************************************************ Russia welcomes all friendly countries in a call to arms against the Austrians. There hostility and unwillingness to negotiate will lead to their swift demise. -From Russia with Love ************************************************************************************
The game begins with some obvious alliances and some obvious con-jobs. The neutral SCs should get gobbled up pretty quickly.
I won't be posting the moves on the blog, just the maps. Everyone should have the jdip file in their email. Let me know if you want me to post the text of the moves here.
Also many players are now requesting two moves a week and bitching about the time that moves are due. If there is no objection, the Fall moves will be due on Sunday night at 8pm and the Spring moves are due on Wednesday nights at 8pm, with adjustments being due 24 hours from those due dates.
The press for this turn follows....
************************************************************************************ Turkey opens its arems to all nations and welcomes any and all diplomatic discussion with the friendly nations of Europe. We doff our Fezzes to you, and ask only for a peaceful coalition. ************************************************************************************ Did Peter get Russia again? ************************************************************************************
The great and noble people of Russia deeply regret the present turmoil amongst the European states. We are a united people who seek only peaceful coexistence with our fellow man. We encourage all nations to enter into peaceful negotiations with Russia.
Turkey your request to destroy Austria will only be met when you surrender the Black Sea to Russia. Austria beware that Turkey is plotting against you.
Russia ************************************************************************************
It's been a while since our last game, which ended around the beginning of November of last year. The victor of that game was Jay with an improbable single victory with England, a feat that was never recognized on the blog since we didn't turn in any post game press. I fear the feelings were just too hurt for people to bring themselves to recap the game this last time around.
That is why I've suggested blind diplomacy. Hopefully this will keep people interested in the game to the very end. Even if you are eliminated, it should interest you to find out at the end who you were negotiating with and who it was that stabbed you. Some of you will no doubt be foolish enough to expose your identities before the game ends. Please don't do this. It only makes it easier for players to deduce the identities of other players who want to stay anonymous.
I should also tell you that in addition to some regular players, there are also some first timers in this bunch. So if someone is telling you that they don't understand the rules or need some help, chances are they aren't lying. Then again, maybe they are.
As always, we will be using the rulebook at http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/rulebooks/2000AH4th.pdf to settle any questions. And I will be using jDip to resolve orders and process maps.
I STRONGLY suggest you download jDip if you haven't already so you can make sure that your orders work before you send them to me. Please send them in a formate jDip will recognize. It is not my responsibility to change your orders based on what I think you meant. I say this as someone who has been guilty of this in the past, so I know how easy it is to mess up. I will do my best to contact players to figure out any discrepancy in orders before I run them, but this is not always possible, so please get jDip and test your orders before you send them. And please also remember that often when your "allies" are telling you they must have sent the orders in wrong by mistake, they are LYING to you! I can not be put in the position to confirm or deny these things. I am impartial.
The moves will be due each week until players tell me they want to speed the game up. I'd like to make Wednesdays at midnight the due date to give people one week to work on this first move. The blog will be updated on Thursdays with results and press. I will notify players in advance if I can't update the blog. If people are ok with it, I can also ask Peter and Jim (who may or may not be playing) to update the blog in my absence if I can't do it. I will vouch for both of these guy's trustworthiness to do so without any funny business. And if any occured, you know I'd forfeit their game anyway.
A word on press...
For the uninitiated, in our games press means something different than what it means in other email games. We do all of our diplomacy over email, phone, skype, chat, etc rather than through press. However in this game players may choose to only negotiate through their anonymous emails. However each week along with the game update I will publish messages from other players to be broadcast to all other players. We call this "press."
Press in UWS games has served many purposes in different games. It is most often used to taunt other players, but it has more practical uses as well. It has been used to communicate with other players through code. It has been used to disseminate misinformation or to expose players who are doublecrossing someone.
There are no rules about press. I will post anything the players ask me to. You must send in your press with your moves. I hope players can find creative ways to utilize press given the blind nature of this game.
Player emails...
I will be sending you each an email with your email name and password. They are all gmail addresses in the form of POWER.uwsdip@gmail.com. I chose gmail because most of you use gmail already. Even if you don't, it is easy to change the settings on your power gmail account to forward all of your emails to your regular email.
I suggest as soon as you can that you change both your password and your security question before you start using the email for the game.
Again, you can contact any player in the game by emailing them at POWERNAME.uwsdip@gmail.com
Scoring
I'd like to start a scoring system at some point and thought maybe we could start doing it in this game. I'd like to use standard tournament scoring, but there is one problem, we'd have to have a fair distribution of GMs, meaning everyone would have to GM at least once in a round, which isn't likely to happen, or someone would have to GM an entire round, which is more likely but less fun.
Let me know if people are interested in some kind of scoring system and we can discuss it.
Just so you know, it works like this: http://dipl-o-matic.com/docs/scoring.php
You can email me at nycspies@gmail.com with any questions and with your moves and press each week.
