The Newbies' Guide to the Judge

(Long Form)

by Tim Miller
Based on the original short form guide by Andy Schwarz

Table of contents

I Introduction
II Registering with the Judge
III Getting help (from the Judge & the Internet)
IV Different types of press
V Finding a game & signing on
VI Observing & signing on as a replacement player
VII Press and negotiating
VIII Submitting moves
IX Judge etiquette
X Strategy
XI Miscellaneous & Credits

Appendix A: Common Judge Diplomacy Variants
Appendix B: A brief history of the Diplomacy hobby
Appendix C: Glossary of important terms

Part One: Introduction

Greetings, and welcome to the play of Diplomacy over Internet Judges. This guide is for newbies seeking an introduction into the world of e-mail Diplomacy played via computer adjudicators (Judge servers, hereafter referred to as Judges). Hand adjudicated e-mail games and Postal Diplomacy games are not covered in this guide. You can find more information about them in the Diplomacy FAQ. This is the long form of a guide originally authored by Andy Schwarz. His guide is still the best quick introduction to judge play. You can read it and then come back here to go over areas you didn't quite understand in more detail, or you can stay here and read this more in-depth guide to Judge play.

Before we go further, Diplomacy is a trademark of Hasbro Inc., which forbids publication of the rules online. This guide will not teach you the rules of Diplomacy, but will instead teach you to use the Judges to play via e-mail. You are encouraged to support the lawful owners of Diplomacy by buying a gameset from them.

Diplomacy is one of the most interesting games ever invented. The standard game is set in Europe at the start of the twentieth century. Players represent leaders of the seven great powers of that time; Austria-Hungary (commonly referred to simply as Austria), England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Turkey. The goal of the game is to conquer at least 18 of the provinces on the board designated as 'supply centers'. Players may also agree to end the game in a draw at any time. Players may negotiate with each other and work together in any way that they see fit. No player, however, is bound by anything said in negotiations. Each must decide who to trust and who to be wary of. The pieces represent fleets and armies, and there are rules which govern how they may move, what each may do, and what happens in the event of a conflict.

For the remainder of this guide, it will be assumed that the reader has a basic knowledge of the rules. I strongly urge newbies to Diplomacy to buy the rules and obtain a working knowledge of them. Diplomacy started out as a board game played face to face (FTF), but is now also played via snail mail, e-mail, ICQ, over the phone, and other ways. For a brief history of the Diplomacy hobby (in particular the Internet Judge hobby) please refer to appendix B of this document. This guide deals only with one particularly facet of the Diplomacy hobby as a whole, e-mail Diplomacy played over computer Judges. The Judge is an adjudication program written by Ken Lowe and improved by many others. It automatically forwards messages between players (press) and adjudicates orders. There are several Judges, and Judges pop in and out of existence over the course of time. For a list of current Judges and their e-mail addresses, visit the Openings List at the Diplomatic Pouch, the Internet home page for Diplomacy, located at http://www.diplom.org.

The judges are all run by private individuals, who give up thier free time to run and maintain them, and also provide the hardware on which they run. To comunicate with a judge you send email to its address. The judge ignores the subject line, and only takes notice ofthe body of the message, so all commands should be placed here. There is a large set of commands which it understands (more of which later) but any e-mail sent to a judge will preduce a responce, either an error message telling you what is wrong with you message, or a confirmation that the commands have been processed.

Although the Judge with its many commands can be very intimidating for a new player, it is actually quite easy to use. Please do not be put off by the apparent length and complexity of this guide, once you get started and gain a little experience, all of this will seem like second nature. This guide will teach you all the basic commands and teach you enough to get you started playing your first game. There is, however, no substitute for the Judge help files themselves. Send the message 'Get Package' (without the quotes) in the body of an e-mail message to any judge, and it will respond by sending you a list of help files, which you should keep for your reference.

Part 2: Registering on a judge

Before you may play or observe any games on a Judge, you must register on it.

There are two ways to register. First, you may e-mail your registration to each Judge that you wish to register on. This is done by sending the following form to the Judge with the information filled in to match your own.

REGISTER
Name: Your name here (CHANGE THIS OR FACE CONSEQUENCES)
Phone: (100) 100-1000 (CHANGE THIS)
Site: Your site (CHANGE THIS, etc.)
Address: Your street address
Country: This shouldn't be too hard
Email: make sure you type your address correctly
Level: Novice, Intermediate or Expert (PICK ONLY ONE!!!)
Birthdate: whatever your big day is
Sex: Male or Female (pick one)
END

Many people get confused about what to put in for site. You should put down the company you work for (or the branch of it you work for, if it is a big company) or what college or university you attend. Do this even if the computer you are playing from is at your house. Many players put 'home' as their site, which causes problems when two players who live thousands of miles from each other and both listed their site as 'home' try to sign up for a different-site game. In addition, please fill out the information completely. The judgekeepers are getting very tired of people sending in registrations with bogus information, and many GMs will not let you into their games unless you have a complete registration. Don't worry about safety. Your name will not be sold to anyone or put on any mailing lists.

The second way to register on the judges is through an HTML form at the Diplomatic Pouch (http://www.diplom.org/Email/registration.html). You have to fill in the same information, but the Pouch form automatically mails it to the Judges.

Please note that the judges do not share registration information so you will have to separately register on each one (remember, you can get a list of active Judges at the openings page at the Diplomatic Pouch).

Once you are registered on a Judge, you can play or observe in games on thst Judge. Chances are, a time will come when you will have to change your registration. If you simply need to add a new e-mail address to your registration, send a message to the judge from your new e-mail address with iamalso [email protected] in the body. This will link your two addresses together. You must also sign on to each game you are in and use the 'set address' command to change where the Judge delivers mail from your games.

You can also update the information within the registration if, for instance, you move to a new address or your skills advance from novice to intermediate. To do this, pull up a copy of your registration using the command whois [email protected]. Copy and paste the information, including your user number, into the body of a new e-mail message addressed to the Judge. Change whatever information that you want changed. Now, add the word 'register' on the line above the first line of your whois information and the word 'end' on the line directly below your registration information. Mail this off to update your registration.

An example should make this either. Suppose Joe Dipper moves from 123 Peach Lane to 789 Cherry Road. First he wouls pull up his registration from the judge using the command:

whois [email protected]

Joe's registration might look something like:

User: 9999 9999 999
Name:      Joe Dipper
Phone:     (999) 999-9999
Site:      ABC Inc.
Address:   123 Peach Lane, Anytown, USA 99999
Country:   USA
Timezone: Eastern
Email:     [email protected]
Level:     Novice
Birthdate: Jan 1, 1950
Sex:       Male
Package:   No

Joe would copy this into the body of an e-mail addressed to the judge, adding the word 'register' above it and 'end' below it and changing his address. This would look like:

REGISTER
User: 9999 9999 999
Name:      Joe Dipper
Phone:     (999) 999-9999
Site:      ABC Inc.
Address:   789 Cherry Road, Anytown, USA 99999
Country:   USA
Timezone: Eastern
Email:     [email protected]
Level:     Novice
Birthdate: Jan 1, 1950
Sex:       Male
END

Note that you must do this for each judge you want to re-register on. Do not simply mail the re-registration info from one judge to any others, for your registration number will be different on each Judge.

Part 3: Getting Help (from the Judge and the Internet)

There is a way to get help from the Judge directly as well as the Internet. You can get basic help by sending the command 'get package' (without the quotes) to a Judge in the body of an e-mail. The Judge will send back a long list of help files including how to send press (negotiations), how to send movement orders, how the judge deals with deadlines, and the Electronic Protocol house rules, under which many Judge game are run. You should read the EP house rules, the file on communicating with the judge, the file on deadlines, and the file on press carefully. You should also keep the index file handy for quick reference in case you have questions about using any of the Judge commands.

In addition, each judge has info files for all the variants of standard Diplomacy supported bythat Judge. In addition, there is a file detailing how to set up and be a game master (GM) for a judge game. You should not attempt to GM a game on the judge until you have played four or five games yourself and are thoroughly familiar with the Judge.

You can also get the Judge help files off the Internet at the Diplomatic Pouch. Go to the e-mail section for HTML versions of all the Judge help files. If you have further questions, please refer to the Diplomacy FAQ, and if you can not find your answers there, feel free to ask on the usenet newsgroup rec.games.diplomacy.

Part 4: Different Kinds of Press

Press is the Judge term meaning correspondence sent to one or more people in the game. When you send a press in a Judge game, you are usually sending out a diplomatic message to another power. Sometimes you send messages to the GM (Game Master) of a game or all powers at once (broadcast press) as well. There are several different types of messages you can send through the judge. Depending on the game you sign up for, all, some, or none of these might be available to use. Below is a definition of the basic press terms that the Judge uses:

White Press: White press is a message where the sender of the press is revealed to the recipient(s). This is probably the most common and straightforward type of press used on the judges.

Grey press: Grey press messages do not disclose the sender's identitiy. White press and grey press can both be allowed in a game, but in such cases white press winds up being used almost exclusively.

Partial press: Partial press messages are those which are sent to one player or a group of players, without being seen by all the players. The opposite of partial press is broadcast press, which is press that is seen by everyone.

Fake press: Fake press messages allow the sender and the recipients falsified. That is, partial press can be made to appear to the recipients like it was sent as a broadcast and vice versa. Virtually no games use fake press, and it will not be dealt with in the remainder of this guide.

The mechanics and syntax of sending press in a game are explained later in this document. Some Judge games are set up allowing no press whatsoever, and are described as no-press games. In no-press games players often use supports and convoys to convey their intentions, negotiating with the moves themselves. If you want to try your hand out at tactics without getting into the negotiations at first, these games provide a good introduction. Otherwise, I suggest that newbies pick a game with white partial press (DipPouch queue newbie games are created this way).

Part 5: Finding a game and signing on

Now you know all the basics that you need to sign on to an actual judge game. Several games are ususlly forming on one of the more popular judges at any one time. Alternatively, you can sign up for a game through the Diplomatic Pouch judge game queues. I describe how to use the game queues a little later in this section.

To find a forming game, visit the openings list at the Diplomatic Pouch (http://www.diplom.org/openings). You will see all of the public games which are forming or need replacements. You can also send the list command to a judge by sending an email to the judge's address with the single word "list" in the body of the message, the Judge will respond with a list of all the games on that Judge. Some will usually be forming or needing replacement players. The list entry of a forming game will look something like the following.

tim99     S1901M   Standard, 48 hrs, Moderated (afeal), Press WGP-
                             A Game for Newbies only!!!!!
                            Forming: 3 more players needed

The first entry on the first line is the game name, in this case tim99. Next comes the phase that the game is in. For all forming standard games, this will be S1901M, this will be S1901M, meaning the next move in the game is the Spring move for 1901.

Next on the first line is the variant. Standard Diplomacy is the game set in 1901 Europe that we all know and love, but there are several other variants played on the Judges. Until you are more experienced, the only variant you should be concerned about is gunboat. In the gunboat variant the identity of the people playing the other powers is not revealed until the end of the game, and can be combined with any other variant, eg the listing might say "standard gunboat". In the Judge Diplomacy scene the phrase Gunboat has a very different meaning to the one it has in the postal world, as private comunications between players are still possible, and are in fact hardly hindered at all by a lack of knowledge of the other players identity, as the judge will forward press to them automatically, so the setting gunboat can be combined with a game with any of the numerous press settings, (although no-press, no partial press games, and games with only grey press must be gunboat, for if the players knew each others' e-mail addresses, the point of these press variants would be lost). The reason the gunboat setting is used is that some players are concerned that they may be picked on by the others due to a certain noteriety they have achieved, not nessasarily through actual skill at diplomacy, or they may be concerned that events on other games in which they played may influence a current game. The only restriction with gunboat games is that you must not make any hints or provide hints (true or false) about your identity, nor try to guess the identity of the other powers, though you may assume any persona you wish, as long as it is clearly false, eg there is nothing wrong with claiming to be Tsar Nicholas the second of Russia, or taking on any name you wish for other players to call you, and some people find this very helpful. The only restrictions are that it should not be your real name, and you should not assume the same identity in two different gunboat games, or assume predictable identities. The first game that you play should either be a standard game or standard gunboat.

After the variant entry, there may be a number (in this case 48 hrs.). This is the length of the deadline for the movement phase. If there is no number here, that means that the game uses the Judge standard of 72 hour movement deadlines.

Please note that games with three day deadlines often take a year or more to complete. If you can not make this time commitment, than e-mail Diplomacy is probably not for you. GMs usually will grant reasonable requests for deadline extensions for players who will be away from e-mail access for a week or two. In addition, please do not sign up for lots of games just as you begin playing, for you can quickly become overloaded. Sign up for one or two games at first, and if you enjoy playing in these, then go ahead and sign up for more.

Next comes the entry showing whether the game is moderated (i.e. has a game master), and if so, the first part of his e-mail address. You should never, ever, under any circumstances join a game that does not have a game master (abbr. GM). A GM is absolutely vital to ensuring that everything goes well in a game, making sure every player has a good time, and searching for replacement players if need be. Most judgekeepers require games on their judges to have GMs, and periodically without warning or recourse remove games that do not. To be safe, you should always make sure that any game you join is moderated.

After this comes the press listing with four fields, one for each of the for types of press, white, grey, partial, and fake. If a field is filled with a letter, that means that that type of press is allowed, if it is left as a dash, then that means that type of press is forbidden. For instance, in my sample listing above, the press entry is WGP-. This indicated that white, grey, and partial press are allowed in this game. If the entry read -GPF, then grey, partial, and fake press would be allowed, but not white press. If it read W--- then only white broadcast press would be allowed. If you are unclear on what these terms mean, please review the previous section.

On the second line of the game's entry is often a short comment sent by the GM about the game. In this case, it advertises that this game is for newbies (new players) only. You should try to join a game for new players only for your first game because GMs of these games set them up specially to help new players enter the hobby. On the third line of the game's entry (or the second if the GM has not set a short comment) are the opening(s) available in the game. In the example above, the game is still forming, and needs 3 more players to get started.

Alternatively, if leafing through lists of forming games confuses you or if you can't find a suitable newbie game to play in, you can sign up for one through the Diplomatic Pouch's game queues (http://www.diplom.org/email/queue). Here you can follow instructions to get in line to sign on for a game for newbies. You will be notified once your game is created who the GM is and what judge it will be played on.

Once you have found a game, either by looking through the list or through the game queues, you should always read the game's full listing by sending the command 'list gamename' (eg list tim99) to read any further instructions or rules that the GM has and to see the information about deadlines. A sample game listing is provided below. In this game listing, unlike the short listing above, seven players have signed up and the game has gotten started. Also, the move deadlines in the example are 72 hours instead of 48.

:: Judge: USEF Game: tim99 Variant: Standard
:: Deadline: S1901M Mon Sep 7 1998 23:30:00 PDT

Game 'tim99' order #001 (S1901M) has a deadline of Mon Sep 7 1998 23:30:00 PDT.
The earliest orders will be processed is Tue Sep 1 1998 06:09:43 PDT.
One or more players have not gotten their orders in.
Those who haven't gotten their orders in will be abandoned if nothing
is received by Thu Sep 10 1998 23:30:00 PDT.

The parameters for 'tim99' are as follows:
Move    clock 1410 min 12.00 next 72.00 grace 72.00 delay 0.50 days -MTWTF-
Retreat clock   -1 min 0.00 next 48.00 grace 48.00 delay 0.50 days -MTWTF-
Adjust clock   -1 min 0.00 next 48.00 grace 48.00 delay 0.50 days -MTWTF-
Access: Any-site, Level: Amateur, Moderated, Dedication: -10.
Variant: Standard.
Flags:   NoNMR, NoProxy, DIAS.
Press:   White/Grey, Partial Allowed, No Fake.
Winning Centers: 18.
Index:   0

This is a game for newbies with 72/48/48 deadlines. It is intended to provide a good introduction into the world of judge Diplomacy for the newbie players that have signed up.

The GM (me) is Tim Miller, who lives in Rockville, Maryland, USA. I have several house rules to ensure complete fairness and a good gaming experience to all the players:

#1 When you sign onto this game you are making a commitment to me and your six opponents to play it through to the bitter (or sweet) end. Dropouts will not be tolerated, and will be blacklisted from further games I run. If you have a valid reason for leaving the game, please notify me in advance so a replacement can be found.

#2 Compulsive lateness in submitting orders also will not be tolerated. It slows the game down and is a burden on everyone.

#3 Deadline extensions will readily be granted for up to two weeks. Valid reasons to request an extension are vacations, trips, overload of work, midterms, finals, family problems, death of a friend/relative. Extension requests should be sent directly to me via press to M.

#4 All players are expected to be familiar with the EP house rules. They apply in all cases except where explicitly contradicted above. The EP House rules can be viewed at:

http://www.diplom.org/Email/judge/rules.html

#5 All players are to treat each other and the GM with common sense and courtesy.

Good Luck,
Tim Miller

The following players are signed up for game 'tim99':
Master                 168 [email protected]
Russia     move            [email protected]
England    move            [email protected]
France     move            [email protected]
Austria    move            [email protected]
Turkey     move            [email protected]
Italy      move            [email protected]
Germany    move            [email protected]

Status of the Movement phase for Spring of 1901. (tim99.001)

Austria: Army Budapest.
Austria: Army Vienna.
Austria: Fleet Trieste.

England: Army Liverpool.
England: Fleet Edinburgh.
England: Fleet London.

France: Army Marseilles.
France: Army Paris.
France: Fleet Brest.

Germany: Army Berlin.
Germany: Army Munich.
Germany: Fleet Kiel.

Italy:   Army Rome.
Italy:   Army Venice.
Italy:   Fleet Naples.

Russia: Army Moscow.
Russia: Army Warsaw.
Russia: Fleet Sevastopol.
Russia: Fleet St Petersburg (south coast).

Turkey: Army Constantinople.
Turkey: Army Smyrna.
Turkey: Fleet Ankara.

Ownership of supply centers:

Austria:   Budapest, Trieste, Vienna.
England:   Edinburgh, Liverpool, London.
France:    Brest, Marseilles, Paris.
Germany:   Berlin, Kiel, Munich.
Italy:     Naples, Rome, Venice.
Russia:    Moscow, Sevastopol, St Petersburg, Warsaw.
Turkey:    Ankara, Constantinople, Smyrna.
Unowned:   Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Holland, Norway, Portugal,
                 Rumania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Tunis.

Austria:   3 Supply centers, 3 Units: Builds  0 units.
England:   3 Supply centers, 3 Units: Builds  0 units.
France:    3 Supply centers, 3 Units: Builds  0 units.
Germany:   3 Supply centers, 3 Units: Builds  0 units.
Italy:     3 Supply centers, 3 Units: Builds   0 units.
Russia:    4 Supply centers, 4 Units: Builds  0 units.
Turkey:    3 Supply centers, 3 Units: Builds  0 units.

The first thing that you see is the Judge name, the game name, and the variant. Next is the date of the next deadline, and whether anyone has yet to put in orders or if someone has set wait (set wait is described later).

Next in the full listing are the parameters for the game. By far the most confusing part of this is the mass of numbers that describes how the deadlines are calculated. First notice that there are different parameters that govern each of the three types of phases (movements, retreats, and adjustments). The first parameter is the clock. This determines the minutes past >midnight the deadlines will fall. For the movement phase in this case, this is 1410, meaning that deadlines for the move phases will always occur at 11:30 PM Judge time (1410 divided by 60 equals 23.50 hours past midnight). For the retreat and adjustment phases, this parameter is set to -1, meaning that deadlines for these phases may occur at any time of day.

The min setting is often irrelevant and can be usually be ignored, certainly for your first game it will make no difference. It is the least possible time between two sets of orders being processed, assuming all the players get there orders in early.

The 'next' setting is the big one, the amount of time between deadlines. For the move phase this is 72, meaning there are at least 72 hours between the processing of the last phase and when orders for the move phase are due (this may be adjusted to fit with the clock setting and the days setting (described later)). For the retreat and adjust phases, this parameter is 48, meaning that retreat and adjustment phases will have deadlines occurring at least 48 hours after the last phase processes.

The grace setting shows you how long much time you are given after a deadline, before someone else is alowed to take over your position. If you miss a deadline you are sent a warning notice automaticaly, and start losing dedication points. If you do not send in orders before the grace period expires, your power will be listed as abandoned, and anyone can take over your position. DO NOT LET THIS HAPPEN! You will lost a position in which you have invested time and effort, you will have slighted the other players in the game who were counting on you to play out your position, and you will be assessed a 100 point reduction in your dedication rating on that judge. Repeated abandonments may result in your being added to the blacklist of chronic abandoners and GMs may not allow you to join their games.

The delay setting governs is the amount of time in hours between when the last set of orders is received and when the phase actually processes. For all 3 phases of this game, it is set to .5 or 30 minutes. This feature is intended to give the last person who sends in orders time to modify them and correct errors before the turn processes.

The days setting controls what days deadlines may occur on. If the letter for a day is in lower case, deadlines may only occur after noon on that day. Days for all the phases of tim99 are set to -MTWTF-, meaning that deadlines can occur any time on weekdays, but never on weekends.

Below the deadline parameters are the other parameters, the variant of the game is again stated. The access mode shows whether people must be from different sites, the same sites, or any site to sign onto the game. If you get blocked out of a game due to site concerns, you can appeal to the GM to let you in anyway because many Judges are overly harsh in determining sites. Next in the listing are the flags. These show if the game is set noNMR (which means that the turn will not process until all players have complete orders in), whether DIAS is enabled (meaning draws must include all survivors), and whether proxies are enabled, meaning a player may give conotrol of his units to another player. Below the flags entry, the game shows what types of press are enabled, the number of centers required to win, and the index, which is a measure of how far the game has progressed.

Below the parameters of the game may be a comment about the game set by the GM. This may include further information and/or the GM's house rules, which were too long to put in the short listing. Always read these comments carefully before signing on. After this comment is a list of all the players and observers signed up for the game, the current positions, and the current status of supply centers.

Once you have found a game that suits you on your own or through the game queues, you can go ahead and sign on. To sign on to a forming game send the following message to the judge (with modifications, of course, for the particular game you are signing up for).

signon ?gamename password variant
set preference AEFGIRT
signoff

On the first line you signon, putting a ? before the name of the game you wish to sign up for because you do not know what power you will be playing (after powers are assigned when everyone has signed on, you will substitute the one letter initial for your power here), the password you would like to use when signing onto your power, and, if the game you are signing up for is not a standard game, the variant name. Note that if you are signing up for a standard gunboat game, you must still write gunboat for the variant name. If you sign up for a gunboat game of the modern variant, you must write out both variants. Don't sign up for variant games unless you have some familiarity with the variant. I suggest playing a couple of standard games before experimenting with a variant.

Be careful to remember your password, for you will need it to sign on to the game in the future. If you forget it, you will have to ask the GM to tell you it.

On the second line, you put your preference list. This is the list of powers, in order, that you want to play. Write out only the first let of each power (A for Austria, E for England, etc.) If you do not submit a preference list, you will be assigned a power no one else put near the top of their list (usually Italy or Austria). If you have equal preference for two or more powers, enclose them in square brackets. An example would be:

set preference EFG[RIT]A

if you hate playing eastern powers and especially hate Austria, but really want to play England.

Put the 'Signoff' command on the third line. This command basically just tells the Judge to ignore anything afterward (such as a signature file). The 'signoff' command must be on a line all by itself with no spaces afterward.

You will get a response from the judge informing you if your signon was successful, or if it was not, the reason why. Congratulations, you are now signed on to your first Judge game!

Part 6: Observing & Signing on as a Replacement Player

If you're feeling a bit nervous about signing on to play a game and would rather take a little more time to learn the judge, you can sign on to a game as an observer. The format is the same as signing on as a player, except instead of the '?' in the first line, you put an 'o'. Obviously, you do not set a preference. For instance, if I wanted to observe a game called 'stabme' I would send the following message to the judge:

signon ostabme password
signoff

As an observer, you will be able to see all the broadcast press and turn results for a game, but will not see any partial press. You might want to observe a game that only allows broadcast press, for then you will be able to view all the negotiations. If the GM allows observer comments (and you should always ask the GM before commenting on a game as an observer), you may broadcast comments about the game. Most GMs do not like observers to give advice to individual players.

Sometimes a player resigns or abandons a position in a game. Some of the abandonments are for legitimate reasons, and sometimes players are rude by abandoning weak positions. In any case, you can help out the hobby by never abandoning positions and by taking over abandoned positions to help other players keep their games going.

The listing for a game with an open position will look something like the following

stabme    F1905M Standard, Gunboat, Moderated(someone), Press W---
                                             a broadcast press only game
                                                 Opening: France (3/3)

You can see from the listing that the French player in this game has abandoned his position. The 3/3 indicates that France has three supply centers and three units. The game is broadcast press only, and is in the Fall 1905 movement phase. You should read the full listing to see if the GM has any special house rules and to get the full details about the board position.

To sign on to take over the French power, you would send to the Judge:

signon fstabme password gunboat
signoff

In this case you put an 'f' before the gamename because you know which power you will be playing. Signoff on the second line. The Judge will let you know if your signon succeeded. If it did, you can go ahead and start negotiating.

Part 7: Press and negotiating

OK, time for the good stuff, namely how to negotiate with other powers. By now you should be familiar with the four kinds of press, and know what type of press is allowed in the game that you have signed on for. For this section, assume that you have signed onto a game with white, partial press enabled (W-P-). If you have signed up for a no-press game, you should still read this section for when you do play a game with press.

As a word of warning, you should not use HTML messages to the Judge to submit press or moves, since these might accidently reveal your password to another player.

Once powers have been assigned, you may send broadcast press, which will go to everyone, including observers, or press to a power or group of powers. First, you must signon as your power:

signon pgamename password

Where 'p' is the first letter of the power you are playing, gamename is the name of the game, and password is the password you used when you initially signed onto the game. Then, on the next line of your e-mail, you can instruct the judge to send a message to a player or players, or send a broadcast message to everyone. It's usually a nice idea to broadcast a hello message at the start of each game, maybe with a few personal details if the game is not gunboat. To send a broadcast message, type on the next line of the message:

broadcast

Easy enough to remember, huh? On the next line of your message, begin typing your broadcast as you would a normal e-mail message. Once finished, type 'endpress' (as only one word, not two!) on a line all by itself, and then signoff on the next line. The endpress command tells the Judge that anything further in the message is not part of the press mesage. You can put orders or other commands after a press message, just remember to type 'endpress' correctly! A completed opening broadcast message from an Italian player in a game might look something like the following:

signon itim99 password
broadcast
Greetings fellow heads of state from Italy. We look forward
to a good and exciting game. Italian embassies throughout
Europe are now open for business!

King Umberto
endpress
signoff

Sending a private message to one or more players works about the same way. The only difference is that on the line where 'broadcast' was for the broadcast message, you would now put 'press to p', where p is the first letter of the power you want to receive the press. For instance, you would write 'press to A' to send press to Austria and 'press to AG' to send press to Austria and Germany. Send a press to the master with the command 'press to M'. Do not use 'press to GM' as this will send the message to both Germany and the master.

A private message from Italy to Austria and Germany might look something like:

signon itim99 password
press to AG
Guys,
Let's all agree to keep Tyrolia a DMZ. OK?

King Umberto
endpress
signoff

If your game allows both white and grey press, it's a good idea to specify the type of press you want to send, although one (usually white) will be the default. Find out the default by listing the game. Whichever press is listed first is the default. For instance, if the full game listing reads:

Press: White/Grey, Partial

white pressis the default

Press: Grey/White, Partial

grey press is the default.

Specify the color of your press by typing either 'press white to p' or 'press grey to p'. Specify broadcasts with 'broadcast white' or 'broadcast grey' on the line directly above your message.

Once you send a press, the Judge will send you a confirmation that the press was sent. If you do not get one, the Judge may be experiencing problems. Please see section 11 for further information about this.

Part 8: Submitting moves

Submitting moves is relatively simple. The judge recognizes standard format and abbreviations for moves. Standard abbreciations for the provinces are the first three letters of that province except for Norway (Nwy), the North Sea (Nth), the Norwegian Sea (Norwegian), the Tyrrhenian Sea (Tyrr), Liverpool (Lvp), and Livonia (Lvn).

write moves as:

A AAA-BBB
F CCC-DDD

write holds as:

A AAA HOLD
F CCC HOLD

write supports asL

A AAA S A BBB
F CCC S F DDD

A AAA S A BBB-EEE
F CCC S F DDD-FFF

The only deviance from standard form is the convoy order. For the army, you must specifically state the convoy route and write out all the provinces that the army will move through. You must also order all fleets involved to convoy, but need only specify the starting and destination provinces in the fleet orders. For instance, an Italian wanting to order a convoy from Apulia to Tunis via the Ionian Sea would write in his orders:

A Apu-Ion-Tun
F Ion C A Apu-Tun

A long convoy from Tunis to Syria via the Ionian Sea and Eastern Mediterranean would be ordered as follows:

A Tun-Ion-EMed-Syr
F EMed C A Tun-Syr
F Ion C A Tun-Syr

Input orders after a signon command. For instance, the message the Italian player sends to the judge with his Spring 1901 orders might look something like.

signon itim99 password
A Ven HOLD
A Rom-Apu
F Nap-Ion
signoff

You can also combine both moves and press messages into one e-mail, as in the example below.

signon gtim99 password
F Kie-Den
A Ber-Kie
A Mun-Ruh
press to F
I will not be moving to Burgundy this turn. Let's keep it a DMZ. OK?

Kaiser Bill
endpress
signoff

You should put your moves before your press messages so that if you mistype the endpress command, the person receiving the press will not see your moves. Retreat orders work just like move orders, and build orders work like you would expect them to. For instance:

build A Lon to build an army in Lonon

remove F Bal to remove a fleet in the Baltic Sea

The Judge will send back a confirmation of your orders after you send in the message. You should check this confirmation message carefully to ensure that your orders are complete, and that you have raised no error flags. An error flag is raised when you type something in your orders that the judge does not understand. If there is an error flag, but your moves are correct otherwise, simply signing on and signing off will clear the error flag. If one of your units reads no order processed, you must submit a valid order for that unit. Must Judge games are set noNMR, so moves will not process unless everyone has a full set of complete orders in. The judge will process orders as soon as it has received a full, error free set from everyone and the delay period has passed. If , however, you do not want orders processed until the deadline you submit the command 'set wait' to the Judge. This command instructs the Judge not to process moves until the deadline. To remove your wait, submit the command 'set nowait'. It is usually a good idea to submit preliminary orders as soon as possible with a 'set wait', and then remove the wait as soon as you have settled on your final orders. You may change your orders any time up to when the Judge processes them.

Part 9: Judge etiquette

Some newbies get confused and think that because Diplomacy is a game of lying and treachery, there are no ethics involved in its play. Nothing could be farther from the truth as Diplomacy is, after all, a game with rules. Also, it is a game played against other people, not some emotion-free computer AI. For this reason, it is important to play responsibly and politely. This section of this guide will point you in the right direction, but will not answer your questions about every situation. If in doubt about whether something is ethical, ask the GM of your game. If you have a non-game specific ethics question, feel free to ask it on rec.games.diplomacy.

The number one rule of Diplomacy ethics is to treat your fellow players and the GM as if they were standing in front of you. Many players, particularly in gunboat games, think that the Internet makes them invisible and that they will face no consequences for rude behavior. Even in a gunboat game, the GM knows who you are, and GMs are for the most part extremely intolerant of rude players who sling mean-spirited insults at them or other players. GMs and judgekeepers employ blacklists to ensure that troublesome players do not get back into games. In short, treat your fellow players and the GM with common sense and courtesy.

In that same vein, cursing is usually a no-no in judge games, although some GMs are more strict on this than others. Always try to be as polite and civil as possible in order to ensure that everyone has a good gaming experience. That's not to say you can not send an angry press to someone who has just stabbed you, but only that you should keep your comments within the framework of the game and should not stoop to slinging insults. It is, after all, only a game.

It is also very important to be on time with moves. Late orders can dramatically slow down games, and are a nuisance to all the players. Therefore, always be on time with your orders. You may not conduct negotiations if your orders are late. Similarly, always play out all games you join until the bitter (or sweet) end. Remember, games often take up to a year or more to finish. It is extremely rude to abandon a position just because you are losing. The other players will not appreciate having to waitto find a replacement. You should only abandon positions for a good reason (i.e. losing e-mail access, a major health problem, etc.), and in those cases you should try to tell the GM about it as far in advance as possible so that he may find a replacement. Abandonments are reported in Doug Massey's resignation record, which some GMs consult before allowing players into their games. Also you will lose 100 dedication points on that Judge each time you go abandon a position.

You must always play each game fairly to give each player an equal opportunity to do well. The EP house rules forbid automatic alliances. This means don't sign up for a game with your best friend and have an unbreakable alliance from turn one. Obviously, don't sign up for two or more different powers from two or more different e-mail accounts. This is cheating of the worst kind and, if caught, you will be banned from the judges. Cheaters are not fun to the other players, who are trying to play fairly. Quite frankly winning in these situations does not say anything about your skills as a Diplomacy player, only that you can win by cheating (well duh). Manyplayers also feel that playing each game fairly also means playing for the victory conditions. You should try to solo if at all possible, or if that is not possible, then to take part in a draw. Only if you are unable to accomplish either should you play for revenge against one player or try to throw the game to a particular player.

In addition, it is unethical attempt to attempt to deceive, hoodwink, or impersonate the GM, whose job it is to ensure the game runs smoothly and be an impartial arbiter. Deceive and trick the other players as much as you can, but not the GM. Trying can land you in serious trouble. Follow all rules that the GM sets out in the game listing, for it is your responsibility as a player to know these rules. If you have a dispute or other problem with the GM, the judgekeeper is the final arbiter.

Finally, although this is not an ethics topic per se, negotiations during retreats and adjustments is something that often confuses new players. In the FtF and most postal games, negotiations during minor phases are prohibited, mostly to speed up the game. On the judge, you may negotiate during minor phases unless the GM has set up a specific rule against it.

Part 10: Strategy

Here are some basic suggestions about the strategy of a Diplomacy game with press geared to the new player. I suggest that all new players peruse the strategy article archive at the Online Resources section of the Diplomatic Pouch , and read the strategy articles published in the 'zine. Especially good are the articles Lawyer/Diplomat, Caissa at the Diplomacy Table, and What's Your point, all written by Paul Windsor. You should also visit the "Library of Diplomacy Tactics" by Matt Self. For negotiating strategies read my article on negotiations in white partial press, divided into a part one and a part two. There are also strategies geared for specific countries, and you will probably want to peruse an article or two about the country you have been assigned.

Often new players wonder whether or not to roleplay in their press. Roleplaying can make a game more lively, but it is not necessary. Feel free to roleplay if you want to, but don't be disappointed if none of the other players is. Many players just pick a signature (ie King Umberto or Czar Nicholas) and don't roleplay much beyond that.

The most basic strategy advice that I can give is to negotiate a lot. A press game is ultimately decided by negotiations. Talk to all of the other powers every turn, especially the first. Try to get a sense of what is going on all across the board and make plans accordingly. Also, look for good allies during the first year. You want someone you can trust to a reasonable degree and someone who seems to know what they are doing. Similarly, respond courteously and promptly to all press, and make yourself appear to be a good choice for an alliance partner. Don't write hasty, two sentence responses, but explain your position and thoughts clearly. But remember, never trust your allies too much, and always look for good opportunities to stab (attack) an alliance partner when it benefits you.

The thing I advise a newbie not to do during the first year is lunge at any other power without setting up the proper diplomatic framework for such an attack. Sometimes the best course during the first year is to quietly pick up neutral supply centers and cultivate alliances. 1902 is usually when the attacks on other powers begin. First year blitz attack are often made without considering the ramifications of the action (do I really want to get involved in a long tough war with power X?) and its results. On the other hand, a 1901 attack by two powers on a third is a great way to seal a long-term alliance, and many prospective partners may insist on an aggresive start to an alliance. In any case, be very careful and think out the effects fully before launching any attack, particularly in the first year. Many newbies think only of the supply centers they can capture immediately rather than developing a viable, long term strategy for consistent growth.

Also remember that the name of the game is Diplomacy, not total and complete lying. Lies can help you when placed carefully, but lying and deceiving for its own sake, not part of a larger strategy, is a tactic that often hurts more than it helps.

Part 11: Miscellaneous and credits

Here are a couple of points that didn't really fit in the other sections:

Judges are not infallible. They occasionally stop working for a couple of hours, days, or weeks. If this happens, be patient. Do not flood the judge with test messages, for this often only makes the problem worse. Send only one test message if you think a Judge is down. Judgekeepers fix these problems as quickly as they can. If the Judge is likely to be down for more than a couple days, then the judgekeeper will usually post something to rec.games.diplomacy about it. It's a good idea to have the GM's e-mail address somewhere in case you need to get in touch with him while the Judge is down. Don't post messages to r.g.d asking whether a Judge is down unles you really suspect the problem is on your end. You can tell if a Judge is down by checking the Openings List and seeing if it has responded to the latest request for openings. If you go abandoned due to a Judge failure, speak to the GM of the game about rectifying the situation. Similarly, don't take over positions from a judge that has recently recovered from an outage. Many of these open positions are those belonging to players who could not get their orders in because of the Judge failure. Please give them a couple days to re-claim positions before attempting to take over any.

There is a system on the Judges that tracks a player's dedication. Each player starts with a rating of 0, gains 3 points for sending in orders on time, loses 1 point for each day that he is late, and loses 100 points for going abandoned. Some games are set up for people with high dedication ratings only, and these game usually run with fewer delays and abandonments. Another method of tracking dedication is Doug Massey's Diplomacy Resignation Record. This record lists the number of games a player has played in, and the number he has abandoned. Players with a particularly good record may join the Vermont Group, an exclusive club of dedicated players. Vermont Group games run with virtually no abandonments.

If you go abandonned through no fault of your own (i.e. your e-mail server crashes or you suddenly have a major health problem) and are replaced then you can petition the GM to get back your position, or at least have the dedication points you lost be restored.

There are three different ratings systems that automatically rate Judge Diplomacy players. The first is the EIDRAS system, which is an Elo like system. There is also Bruce Duewer's YARS system, and a modified version of this system that is zero sum. Games with non-standard settings, in particular NMR games, may not be considered by these ratings systems. For more information on these systems and ratings in general, visit the ratings system pages at the Diplomatic Pouch.

And now it's time to acknowledge the people whose help made this guide possible:

First I thank Andy Schwartz for authoring the original short form of The Newbies Guide to the Judge, and for giving permission to write this longer version of the guide.

Also,particular thanks to Manus Hand and Simon Szykman for helping to format this document and get it up at The Pouch.

Thanks to Stephen Agar for extensive help on compiling appendix B, A Brief History of the Diplomacy Hobby.

In addition, I am grateful to Ronald Lokers for a discussion which launched the germ of the idea that eventually became this guide.

And finally, thanks to everyone who helped proofread this guide; Gordon Aickin, Camiel Camps, Steve Corlew Alain Tesio, and Scott Rutter.

Appendix A: Common Judge Diplomacy Variants

You can find more info, rules, and maps for these and many other variants at the variants page at the Diplomatic Pouch.

Abberation: A variant that includes European nations that might have been major powers if history had gone just a little bit differently.

1898: A variant in which each of the great powers starts out with only one home supply centers. The other home supply centers must be captured before they can be used for builds.

Chaos: This is a 34 player variant in which each player starts out controlling one of the supply centers on the standard board. It is very chaotic, as the name suggests.

Chromatic: This unique variant features a map with the standard Italy, plus Tunis and the surrounding water reproduced five times, and these five Italies are rotated around a neutral supply center. The names of the provinces are changed to avoid ambiguity. In essence, this is a perfectly balanced variant.

Colonial: This variant was published by Avalon Hill before they were taken over by Hasbro. It is a solid variant, but poorly designed in some areas and slightly unbalanced. This variant is further weakened because the Judge does not support the Trans-Siberian railroad, making Russia very difficult to play. There are usually two or three games going at any one time.

Crowded: This variant is played on the standard board except the neutral supply centers have been organized into four new powers as follows. Balkans, consisting of Serbia, Greece, Rumania, and Bulgaria; Lowlands, consisting of Belgium, Holland, and Ruhr (now a supply center); Scandanavia, consisting of Norway, Denmark, and Sweeden; and Spain, consisting of Spain, Portugal, and Tunis.

Fleet Rome: This variant is identical to standard, except that Italy starts with a fleet in Rome instead of an army. This is meant to strengthen Italy, but there is some disagreement about whether it actually does.

Machiavelli: This is another variant formerly published by Avalon Hill. Set in Renaissance Italy, this game has regular Diplomacy movement plus advanced features such as famines, plagues, assassinations, and other such things. I recommend playing at least a few games of regular Diplomacy before trying this variant.

Milan: This is another variant designed to strengthen Italy. Basically a new Supply center called Milan is added between Venice and Piedmont. Venice is no longer a supply center and is re-named Venetia. Also, the souther border of Burgundy is brought further south to increase Italy's opportunity to move west.

Modern: Possibly *the* most common variant. Basically, it is an updated version of standard, featuring the major European powers (and Egypt) in 1995. Very well designed by Vincent Mous.

Payola: In this very entertaining variant, designed by Manus Hand, you do not order units to move, but bribe them to move how you want. Units will always perform whatever order pays them the most money. Any player may bribe any unit to do anything.

Pure: In this variant, there are seven supply centers, each controlled by one player at the outset. There are no other provinces, and a unit in one supply center may move to any other. The map is impossible to represent in two dimensions, unless provinces may intersect at single points.

Youngstown: This is a huge ten player variant that adds Asia onto the standard map. India, China, and Japan are added as powers. In addition, some of the regular powers have colonies in Asia. This variant is not played much, and it is subject to being bogged down in huge stalemates.

Appendix B: A brief history of the Diplomacy hobby

Diplomacy was invented by Allan B. Calhammer, who developed the basic game over a period of several years in the late 1950s. The game we know today is a slight modification on that first attempt, and came into being in the early 1960s. During this time, Games Research International produced the game, before transferring the rights to the Avalon Hill Game Company. The game was also produced under license in Western Europe and Australia. Face to face tournaments were established, and continue into the present. The crown jewel at these Cons is the World Diplomacy championship, which is held annually, and is usually hosted by a well established annual tournament. The location rotates around the world, and any con may bid for the tournament. Other events are held all around the world.

At first Diplomacy was played solely face to face - that is with the opponents meeting over a board. Postal Diplomacy was developed in the United Stated in the mid-1960s. The first postal Diplomacy fanzine (or 'zine for short) was called Graustark, and was published by John Boardman. Boardman can be considered the founder of the Postal Diplomacy hobby. Postal Diplomacy caught on quickly, and soon spread beyond the United States to Canada, Britain, Australia, and elsewhere. The postal Diplomacy hobby reached its peak in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but has since declined due to a number of factors, including the emergence of e-mail play. Nonetheless, the postal hobby remains strong, and many who become hooked on the game via e-mail play go on to play postal games as well.

Diplomacy played via e-mail has existed for almost as long as e-mail has been available to the private consumer. There are several groups, such as the AOL Diplomacy group, the well-regarded CompuServe Diplomacy group, and the Cat23 group that have organized to run games over the web not using the Judge system. But it is the Judge system that defines a good portion of the Internet hobby, and has probably influenced more of its development than anything else.

The initial Judge code was written by Ken Lowe in the late 1980s as a project to test his understanding of the C programming language. The code has since been and continues to be improved upon by the hard work of several different programmers. Ken Lowe also set up and acted as judgekeeper for the first Judge, USWA. USWA carried the hobby for several years assisted by one or two other Judges, until it folded, causing concern that the Judge hobby would die with it. Fortunately, though, other hobbyists came through and set up Judges. Today, there are usually 7-10 Judges in operation at any one time.

The Internet availability of Diplomacy has allowed players from around the world to take part in the fun. In games I have been in there have been players from the U.S, Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, and even places such as Serbia and Taiwan.

The next major development in the hobby in general occurred in 1995, when the first issue of The Diplomatic Pouch, the world's first Diplomacy webzine, was published by Manus Hand. By the end of its first year, the 'Pouch had evolved from a simple webzine into the homepage for the entire Diplomacy hobby on the Internet, with resources for e-mail, postal, and face to face play.

Another major turning point for Diplomacy happened in July of 1998 when Monarch Avalon sold Avalon Hill, the U.S. makers of Diplomacy and the holder of the game's trademark, to boardgame industry leader Hasbro Incorporated. Hasbro later announced plans to re-release Diplomacy as a boardgame and computer game, as well as to support current forms of play. So, as a new millennium is reached, the future for Diplomacy in all its forms looks brighter than ever.

(Special thanks the Stephen Agar for information about the early history of the Diplomacy hobby. Check out his Spring Offensive website at http://www.spoff.demon.co.uk for more information about the early history of the hobby and the postal hobby in the UK.)

Appendix C: Glossary of important terms

Below are some common Judge terms as well as terms often used in negotiations.

DIAS: The term "DIAS" means "Draws Include All Survivors". In a game designated as DIAS, a surviving player cannot be excluded from a draw. In a NoDIAS game, a surviving player may give up his right to be included in a draw. In either case, unanimous approval of surviving players is required for a draw to be passed.

In a DIAS game, a player may cast his vote for a draw by issuing the command SET DRAW. He may veto earlier approval by issuing the command SET NODRAW. If at any time all surviving players accede to a DIAS draw, the game will be immediately terminated, and all participants in the game will be informed of the result.

The situation for NoDIAS games is a bit more complex. To vote for a NoDIAS draw, a player issues the command SET DRAW [drawlist], where [drawlist] is a list of the identifiers for the powers he wishes included in the draw. When a player gives approval to [drawlist] and [drawlist] includes his own power, he is also implicitly approving any subset of [drawlist] that also includes his power. On the other hand, when a player gives approval to [drawlist] and [drawlist] does not include his own power, he is implicitly approving any subset of [drawlist], and any subset of [drawlist] including his own power.

For example, if Austria issued the command SET DRAW AEG, he is approving the draws AEG, AG, AE, or A. Note that by including himself in his draw list, he is assuring that he cannot be excluded from a draw. If Austria issued the command SET DRAW FT, he is approving FT, F, T, AFT, AF, AT, or A.

If, under these rules, more than one draw is approved by all players, the draw including the most players passes.

In a NoDIAS game, SET NODRAW is equivalent to the command SET DRAW x, where x is the power issuing the command. This means that the player will only accept a concession to himself.

(originally by Simon Szykman).

DMZ: Short form of De-Militarized Zone. This is a term used in negotiations

Down: Term used to describe a non-working Judge. A downed Judge is one that is temporarily not working for some reason.

GM: Short for Game Master. This is the person who assists the Judge in running the game and ensures that things run smoothly.

Gunboat: Judge terminology for an anonymous game - that is a game where the identities of the players are kept secret.

Judge: An automated Diplomacy adjudicator that runs games over the Internet. The original Judge code was written by Ken Lowe.

JK: Short for judgekeeper. This is the person who runs and maintains a Judge.

NMR: Short for No Moves Received. If this flag is set, the judge will follow the rulebook's civil disorder rules if a player does not submit orders. Most Judge games are set noNMR, meaning that the Judge will not process the turn unless all players have submitted valid orders.

Opening: The Spring 1901 moves that a power makes and their follow-up. There are several standard openings for each power. Consult the Diplomatic Pouch strategy page and openings library (http://www.diplom.org/Online/Openings) for more information on openings.

Press: Any type of negotiations conducted over the Judge. Press can be either white or grey and partial or broadcast. Please refer to part IV of this document.

Stab: A surprise attack by one power on an ally.

Variant: A game that is played with any variation, simple or complex, on the basic rules of Diplomacy. Variants may include a new map, new special rules, or both. Hundreds of variants have been invented, but only a few are played on the Judge.

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