Pouch Deposits The Editor and the Readership

Well, here we have enother Diplomatic Pouch mail bag. Once again, there were lots of letters waiting for me when I took this assignment on. I've tried to pick out some of the more interesting ones for publication.

However, before we get to that, in the last issue David Cohen tossed out this trivia question:

In standard Diplomacy, what do these three and only these three provinces have in common: Norway, Denmark and Tunis?

although many people tried their hands at this, Mike Sandy answered correctly, with:

They are the only supply centers which are adjacent to more sea spaces than land spaces.

There was a second answer supplied by another reader which was nearly accurate in which they said "provinces" instead of "supply centers". This is inaccurate because North Africa would also need to be on the list.

Editor's Note: There were also several answers that attemted to get at whether and to what extent these provinces can be garunteed to be taken in 1901. It is true that England, Germany, and Italy respectively can force these three provinces, but you'd also need to include Bulgaria, Spain, and Portugal in such a list.

And right on cue, David has come through with yet another puzzle for us:

In Standard Diplomacy, what province on the board could possibly be occupied by more different units than any other in 1901?

As an example, Tun could be occupied by units originating in Bud, Nap, Rom, Ven and Vie.

Think you know the answer? Send your responses to [email protected]!

Mail Received Concerning
Why We See Things the Way We Do and Location of WDC in 2003 and Beyond

From David Hood ([email protected]):

Saw the Pouch article. Very clear thinking about this, but remember an important point: we are trying to predict the future by adopting your theory. It may well be that in four years the N. American hobby is a lot bigger than the European, or that it is much smaller with respect to Europe than it is now. We have all got to be flexible about this and be willing to adapt to any changing situations.
(Continued below)

David Norman's response:

I agree. The article does assume that the current hobbies keep roughly the same sizes, which may well not be the case. But because it not only states its conclusions, but also how those conclusions were arrived at, it should be fairly easy to look at the situation a few years down the line, understand how things have changed, and apply the same reasoning to the new situation.

Brandon Clarke's response:

Absolutely. That is why the article mentions that planning a full 9 year rotation (2 WDC's in Australasia) is not sensible, and that next time WDC goes downunder we will need to revaluate this whole thing again... it is because of the possible emergence of other continents wanting to host WDC that we impress upon Europe the desirability of having a three year gap now...

Obviously as the relative sizes of each hobby change the balance between how many WDC's each gets needs to change too. It probably takes about 5 years before anyone can actually see the change in the size of a hobby on a continental scale, so one cycle right now works out quite well in this respect anyway.

The important point is for everyone to try and see that the factors that affect the way we look at our own hobbies are not neccessarily as important to people from other hobbies, so it is not reasonable to expect them to neccessarily share your value systems... and therefore in order for us to try and have a meaningful exchange of opinions on where WDC should be held we need to make the effort to at least be aware of the other group's way of thinking and values.

(Continued from above)
The important thing for N. Americans to keep in mind is that WDC is not the defining event for Diplomacy that year - if we don't have WDC some year and wanted it, BIG DEAL! We still have Dipcon, which is always going to be the primary fcous whether it is combined with WDC or not.

- David Hood

David Norman's response: Or alternatively, you can take the European approach this year, of we haven't got WDC, North America has, so lets go over there and win it instead :-).

Editor's Note:

Ouch! :-)

Brandon Clarke's response:

And as intercontinental travel to WDC becomes more common, not having WDC in a given year will be seen as less of a hardship...Looking forward to seeing you ALL in Canberra 2002.

Oh and in case you haven't all heard... I came thrid at the Canberra Capers tournament over the weekend... which is almost certainly enough to see me become the first person to successfully defend the Bismark Cup... *HUGE smile*...It's not in the bag yet, but very close to it...

Editor's Note:

The Diplomatic Pouch would like to congratulate Rob Stephenson, who came from behind and won the New Zealand Championships and the Don Challenge to nudge out Brandon and win the Cup. Also congratulations are in order to Melissa Nicholson and Andrew Goff (3rd and 4th respectively), who played well down the stretch and made things interesting.

From Buz Eddy ([email protected]):

I want to thank David and Brandon for the comparative analysis of the three continental Diplomacy hobbies. I agree that the North American Postal hobby used the scoring philosophy that was adopted by many of the regional and national FTF events. Yet, I simply consider that reflective of the "competition SHOULD produce a winner" value. I believe the relatively mild protest against the "declining centers" victory conditions to be used at the 2001 DipCon emphasizes that value.

I want to touch on both of the points raised by David Hood. First is the size of hobby issue. The North American continental hobby is in infancy. The efforts in 2000 of Edi Birsan and others to pull together a North American continental hobby are showing results. Although the 405 players in reported results for 2000 may be dwarfed by the 5000 in e-mail, it does reflect substantial growth. The WDC happened to fall in the US in the year that the first major continental promotional effort was undertaken, and served as a focal point. Yet I choose to believe WDC appeal was only collateral to the success.

David Hood's point that WDC is perhaps not that crucial to the development of the respective continental hobbies seems self-evident. Of the 115 North Americans attending at Baltimore most would have attended if it was only DipCon. The other 290 players clearly would have played in their events.

That the WDC is not crucial to continental hobby development is not the point. WDC is a deepening cultural and gaming experience. Yes, continentally I can recall all of my encounters with Hood, Yerkey, Kobrin, Reiff, Birsan, Martin and others. But equally important are my games with Leif Bergman, Mark Wightman, Vick Hall, Thibald Constance. International gaming is important to me on an individual level.

The question in my mind is the WDC 1 international event a year the best idea. Olympics go on a 4 years cycle. Chess and golf have many international events per year. Is 2003 WDC-Europe, and 2003 WDC -North America and option to be considered?

Buz

Mail Received Concerning
User's Guide to the JDPR

From Doug Massey ([email protected]):

Just read your article on the pouch. I think you did a nice job of (a) understanding the math and (b) summing it up in less than ten pages. :-)

There's one thing I'd like to point out, though. Your primary reason for going through all this was to determine what affect an outcome in a particular game would have on your rating. I'm not a big fan of folks playing games just for the sake of their rating, but I've been convinced that it does happen. The thing to keep in mind is this:

No matter what variant you're playing, who your opponents are, what the press settings victory conditions might be, it's ALWAYS a good idea, in terms of JDPR rating, to try to maximize your result in that game.

So you shouldn't be trying to determine if you need a 3WD or a 4WD to hold your rating steady. Instead you should be (if you're goal is to maximize your JDPR) trying to determine if the risk involved in going from a 4WD to a 3WD is worth it. Once you've figured your chances (let's say that you could stop right now and take the 4WD, or you could move forward and try for a 3WD, maybe fall back on a 4WD anyway, or maybe lose the game outright, with probabilities P3, P4, and Pl), just check to see if the risk is worth it:

Is P3/3 + P4/4 + 0*Pl > 1/4 ?

So if you figure your odds are P3 = 20%, P4 = 70%, and Pl = 10%, then

0.20/3 + 0.70/4 + 0 >? 0.25
0.242 < 0.25

So the gamble doesn't make much sense, according to your goal of optimizing your JDPR and the probabilities you've estimated.

There's lots of grey in those estimates, though . . .

Cheers,

Doug

Mail Received Concerning
Bruce Duewer's series on Machiavelli

From Brendan McClure ([email protected]):

Hello Bruce. I was the replacement player (Florence) in the game Brahms that we all agree cost you (and me) the victory? Remember you said "I didn't realize how badly florence needed a crash course in mach diplomacy"? Your EOG was basically an attack on my skills as a player. Well ever since then I've been paying attention to every single word you've said about Mach in the pouch, and it's payed off. After Brahms, I signed onto my second mach game (Galileo), first that I've played from the start, a no-press nodice mach game. I won as Turkey thanks to you.

From Brahms I learned that having lots of units (Austria) was better than having lots of money (You). Takling this to heart, I kept churning out units. I used the tactics you talked about in the articles to attack Naples and capture him. After that I eliminated and took over Florence; and the Papacy after that. I only used three bribes the entire game - one to disband Florentine Army Florence (eliminating him, enabling home area takeover), one counterbribe of a key elite unit (turned out to be a waste), and one purchase of Venetian fleet Lower Adriatic, so I could surprise convoy my army Ancona to Carniola for my 23th.

I cannot express how much I have learned from your articles. Genius. I think I gained 20 games worth of lessons between Brahms and your articles. Not only was my victory achieved in my first real mach game, it's my first solo among any game or variant against the general Dip community. Against the big names too - Jason Wilke, Robert Rehbold, Neil Barr....

I owe you big. Thank you so very much. You are the King of Machiavelli.

Brendan McClure

PS: I want to read that last article you promised! I can't wait until the next Zine comes out.

Mail Received Concerning
Eliminating the Paradox in Diplomacy

Editor's Note: Something that I noticed today which may be worth mentioning....If we consider newer editions of the rules to be more important that older rules, then it may be worth noting what could be considered a change in the 2000 edition of the rules.

In the 1982 version of the rules you have two different rules that apparently contradict each other. The first is the old Rule 10, which says that support is cut if a unit is dislodged. The second is the old Rule 12.5 which stated "If a convoyed army attacks a fleet which is supporting an action in a body of water, and that body of water contains a convoying fleet, that support is not cut."

In their excelent W1999A letters to the Pouch, authors such as Rick Desper and Ron Spade suggests that there is no paradox if you interpret rule 12.5 to take precedence over rule 10. Likewise, Manus essentially suggests doing the same thing, though he considers it to be a new rule, rather than an interpretation of existing rules. Simon, on the other hand, vigerously defends rule 10, saying that there is nothing in the rule book to lead one to conclude that it is a less improtant rule.

In the rules summary on the back page of the 2000 rules, we have the revised Rule 12.5, now called Rule 21. It states "A convoyed Army does not cut the support of a unit supporting an attack against one of the fleets necessary for the army to convoy.(This supersedes Rule 13.)"

Now then, Rule 13 is simply "Support is cut if the unit giving support is attacked from any province except the one where support is given". However, right on it's heals is Rule 14 (which is the 1982 Rule 10) which states "Support is cut if the supporting unit is dislodged."

One might logically conclude that since the rule book specifically states that Rule 21 supersedes Rule 13, but does not mention Rule 14, then it does not supersede 14, and we must continue to abide by it as best we can.....this does not lend any credit to Simon's proposal, but it might be interpreted to say that Manus' solution is unacceptable.

I half wonder if the Hasbro people simply want us to be left with the paradox....

Anyway, here's what the readers had to say this time:

From Steven Irrgang ([email protected]):