Archived from groups: rec.games.diplomacy (
More info?)
"Steven" <stevendot13atrogersdotcom> writes:
>"Genocide" <Genocide1230@gmail.com> wrote in message
>news:1116677436.976752.169380@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>> I am a newbie to playing Diplomacy online, and am going to start my
>> first game soon. About negoitating, should I use the press feature to
>> send my messges out, or compose separate e-mails to the players who I
>> am playing with?
>>
>> I am going to play on Diplomacy 2000 by the way.
>>
>I've never played on Diplomacy 2000, but I looked through the site to try to
>find an answer.
>http://www14.brinkster.com/dip2k/faq.asp#9
>This explains the concept of presses, which if I read it correctly says that
>presses are sent out at the same time as your orders. So to negotiate it
>looks like you will need to send out e-mails to the inidividual addresses
>(unless you are playing a gunboat variant).
Diplomacy 2000 is an arm of the British postal hobby, and thus it would
be useful to clarify some differences on the use of press and hobbies
and the like..... I seem to be the one with the most encyclopedic
knowledge on these things lately (I'm following closely about ten
separate hobbies now since I've made my latest little foray into
DipWorld), so feel free to ask.
Anyway, history on Diplomacy 2000. Tom Tweedy (original organizer)
and most all of the GM's are Brits and they started out in the
British postal hobby, which is now the largest postal hobby in
the world with the decline in the number of North American postal
szines. A number of the Brits decided to move in the direction
of web pages that had more of the feel of the postal hobby (which
in my view is a good thing) which means in part that they are very
encouraging toward PRESS sent out with results. If you want to
see some classic American styles of this, my newest games Flip Flop
and the very newest Spirals of Paranoia that FINALLY is going
are turning into a wonderful press monstrosity. I shouldn't have
to apologize for this, but "postalpress" (which is an option on
the Judges!!!) is not popular in this crowd, so I will defend it
yet again.
You see, Genocide (what a great Dip nickname!!), part of the way
you might want to influence ALL of the players at once is to write
things that they all see concurrently with the orders, precisely
at the same time. This press has the following characteristics:
the writer does NOT know what the actual results of the latest
moves will be, only what their own moves actually are (which may
or may not be what you told others they would be in advance);
this will be the first thing that other players read after the
results, before anyone else has the chance to negotiate or spin
things differently; it can encourage something closer approximating
literature, or at least creative writing as it gets "archived"
with the game. I admit that I myself have gotten lazy about this
in recent years. To write GOOD productive postalpress is hard.
But, as noted by Steven, this is completely different from
negotiation press (which you see referred to often here, as
implemented on the Judges, as partial press, or press to JUST
one person or a subset of players). Diplomacy 2000 is set up
so that you can do this game postalpress and send it in to be
archived in the game results, here is a randomly selected
item from the game Abyssinian (since my postal szine is
called the Abyssinian Prince, I couldn't resist looking in on
this game, the writer is Gary Bledsoe, whom I don't know:
Vienna Gamblers Weekly [Vienna, AUSTRIA]: The Austrian mob is currently
taking odds on an English survival. Originally the bookies had the line at
4:1 that the English would see 1907. Odds on the English seeing 1908 were
a staggering 10,000:1. One lucky peasant won 1 million potatoes [yes, our
economy is really that bad in Austria] for picking the English to make it
to 1908. When asked for comment, the peasant simply had this to say,
"Never count out those ingenuitive English. I needed a break so I could
feed my five kids and I thought who better to bet on. They were
imperialists once upon a time for God's sake. Hell, I am betting on them
to see 1909. I may not get the same odds but I can afford. You have to
stick with a winner."
For the record, the current odds for the English are a mere 100:1 in light
of recent events. One anonymous source within the mob is quoted as simply
saying "Brit bastards cost me a fortune."
--------
Here's an example from my own szine and the game Spirals of Paranoia,
where because of a resignation, there has been a huge amount of postal
press written EVEN before Spring 1901 results had been published.
This particular item is one of those published before any moves
were out, the author is Buddy Tretick AKA Bernie Oaklyn who is
famous for this sort of stuff:
(SMILING BERNIE'S HOUSE OF JIHAD): (a little guy in a green and purple
plaid suit strolls out onto the lot, comes into camera range and starts
smiling and talking, the suit looks like golf clothing on drugs, very bad
drugs)
"Hi, Smiling Bernie here at Smiling Bernie's House of Jihad. We are having
a special this week on Crusades! I know what you are saying to yourself,
`Bernie, How can I afford a Crusade to liberate the Holy Land in the
Spring of 1901?' And the Holy Lands are not even part of the game??? Here
at Smiling Bernie's House of Jihad we will work with you to free the Holy
Land EVEN THOUGH IT'S NOT ON THE MAP!!!!! How do we do it you ask???
"Here at Smiling Bernie's we don't let little details like the edge of the
board stop us from putting YOU in the dots you want. Pack up those units,
head east, and when you get to Turkey my boys and I will have figured out
a way to help you free the Holy Land from those infidel TURKS! Yes, you
heard me right! The real Infidel's are the Turks!!!
"Smiling B, you are asking me, how can the Turk's be the Infidels when
everyone knows the Froggy Peoples were sent hammed, spammed and freeze
dried by the boat load to fight in a lot of the same terrain GWyah is
stomping around today? We back our promises with my extremely LOW FIB
RATE!!!
"The Froggy at Smiling Bernie's House of Jihad and Waffle Barn is the most
honest Dip player this side of New York! We never fib so we can pass the
dots on to you!!!
"And unlike certain players from the Great White North we stand behind
every dot we promise you. Actually we stand behind YOU as YOU grab every
dot we ever promised you after you get to the south eastern corner of the
board. (By the way, while you are bent that way could you pick up that
soap???)"
I hope this helps....
Jim-Bob
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