December
2016
By Douglas Kent 911
Irene Drive, Mesquite, TX 75149
Email: diplomacyworld@yahoo.com or dougray30@yahoo.com
On the web at http://www.whiningkentpigs.com/DW/. Also be sure to visit the official Diplomacy
World website which can be found at http://www.diplomacyworld.net.
All Eternal Sunshine readers are encouraged to join the free Eternal Sunshine Yahoo group at https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/eternal_sunshine_diplomacy/info
to stay up-to-date on any subzine news or errata. If you don’t like the sign-up process just
send me an email and I will send you an invite which cuts through the red tape. You should also join the Eternal Sunshine
Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/270968112943024/
Check out my eBay store at http://stores.ebay.com/dougsrarebooksandmore
My book “It’s Their House; I’m Just a Guest” is
available in softcover and Kindle from Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1501090968/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER
Welcome
to the latest issue of Eternal Sunshine, as we continue to run down to a
fold. See you in January!
XENOGOGIC : A Journal
of dip&DIP
December, 2016
LOOKING BACK TO LOOK AHEAD, AND LOOKING AHEAD TO LOOK BACK
By Larry Peery
While most people think of “We Are the Champions” as the international anthem
of sport, I’ve always thought the Freddie Mercury – David Bowie 1981 classic
“Under Pressure” was a better choice for Dippers, particularly those who
publish, editor and write the hobby’s media.
When I realized I had two days until the next ES deadline I knew I had to, in
one Dipper’s favorite phrase, “Cut to the chase!” (Do you remember who used to
say that all the time?) This issue of XENO is the catch from that chase. So the
issue that I had originally planned as a look back at 2016 instead has become a
look ahead to 2017. Is that being two-faced? If so, I should be doing it in
January, right? But by the time January gets here I’ll probably be too sick to
even think about the future.
So, here’s a look at some of the items current in the freezer, in the refer, on the stove, in the oven or even in the slow
cooker waiting for the New Year to roll around. Generally speaking the
items at the top of the list are the newest ideas and those at the bottom are
the ones that have been around a while. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean
the ones at the bottom are complete or almost complete and vice versa.
All of that will be explained in “A Year in the Life of a Hobby Old Fart
Reduced to a Single Day,” or for short “Peeriblah Peerisonified.” This
topic was suggested by a hobby newbie who had the nerve to ask me “What exactly
does a hobby Old Fart do?” I’ll show him!!
“Yes, 17 Intelligence Agencies Really Did Say Russia Was Behind Hacking,” was
suggested by an article I read somewhere recently that made its way to my
Facebook page (Shameless Doug Kent-like plug here.) which looks at why
Intelligence Agencies seem to lack the intelligence that intelligence agents
seem to have. Eric Snowden is a good case in point, I think.
“Monopoly in London, anyone?” is a promo piece and sop for Toby Harris in the
hopes that he’ll persuade Jean-Louis Delattre to let me have Belgium if I make
it to WDC at Oxford next year. It’s also a comparison of the US and British
approach to the game we all grew up playing on our way to building our own
Trump Towers.
“Terry Tallman: Diplomacy’s Rasputin?” should give hobby old timers pause to
think. Normally speaking or writing ill of the dead is considered bad form but
among Rasputin’s historians it-s a no-brainer choice. Comparing Terry to Gregor
may seem like a reach but the more you get to know about both of them, the more
you’ll see the only difference was the opals they found on the bodies of the
Romanovs when they dug them up.
“John Wooden as a Diplomacy Motivator.” Not a
question, but a fact. Wooden could motivate anybody given an hour or two. Given
a whole school year he could produce an NCAA champion. Do his ideas carry over
to Diplomacy? Could Dippers from them? I think so and I’ll show you why I went
to UCLA to visit his shrine and his daughter went to USC to play basketball.
“Gordon, Still and Mesny” is about three Englishmen who helped keep the “Rah,
Rah, Rah for the King” in the Raj as the Queen/Empress and kings/raj soldiers,
mercenaries, diplomats, explorers, etc. in The Empire that Merchant Ivory only
dreamed of. How they’d stack up as Dippers against the like of Tobby,
Matt and what’s his name remains to be seen.
“The Russian Navy Grand Cruise of 2016” is unusual in that it is very much a
work in progress, even though the Russian fleet has been sitting off the coast
of Syria for weeks. It’s a fascinating look at the modern Russian Navy,
especially when compared with the epic voyage of the Russian Baltic Fleet to
Tsushima that took 18 months and ended in a half-hour sea battle that wiped out
the Russian fleet. All of this (and there’s a lot to it since the preliminary
manuscript is at 137 pages right now) came about because I was curious how many
game seasons it would take to get from St.Petersburg n.c.
to Syria. You’ll find out, I hope, before the Russian fleet gets home for
Easter.
“Doomsday & Nuclear Codes” was an interesting subject, I thought, and one I
designed a PMW game about in the 1970s. That effort got me an all-expenses-paid
trip to the Pentagon and a warning to “Never do that again!” from an irate Navy
captain who was well aware he was speaking to a very, very junior Air Force
ROTCer. But consider the changes coming to the Football’s possessor in January, it’s a very timely subject I think.
“Canada and China: a Study in dip&DIP” is another real life case study that
makes a great object lesson for a Dipper; whether playing a Big Power or a
one-center nobody. The lesson offered is simple and timeless, like one of
Comrade Peng’s dresses: diplomacy and Diplomacy are both as much about how
something is said as what is said.
“The Hundred Hours War” is my attempt to out Tolstoi Tolstoi. The manuscript is
now approaching 1,000 pages. All that to cover what might happen in a war
between the Koreas and their friends that just might break out by the time you
read this. I project the war will be decided by the end of the first 100 hours.
That might seem like a short time, but keep in mind that the Cold War would
have ended in 33 minutes if it had got hot. Can diplomacy prevent such a war?
What if Kim and Park sat down and played a game of Diplomacy and the winner got
the whole peninsula for its very own black dot?
“The Space That Was and the Space That Wasn’t” is all about the role of
Switzerland in dip&DIP. It was inspired by the efforts of
Hans-Christian Reichardt to find enough players to host a Diplomacy
event in Switzerland, in Winter, with suits and ties required! Check out
his posts on the FB Diplomacy in Europe site and send him some encouragement.
If not, a Toberlone bar or two will do. But seriously, the role of Switzerland
in both diplomacy and Diplomacy gets more and more fascinating the more and
more you think about it. I started with a “what if question” about that
Impassable space on the board and eventually realized that the real country is
a Dipper’s dream world.
“Monet and Mettel” brings together two of my favorite artists and two of their
works: one worth $81 million and bought a few weeks ago by a telephone bidder
who never saw it before buying it and the other worth, perhaps $30, if you’re
lucky. Still, there are lessons to be learned for the Dipper here. You just
have to dip your brush into the wet paint to reveal them.
Finally, “Onions and Diplomacy.” Yes, I’m serious.
This article will make you cry and serves as a perfect dish for any post-con
feed. The winner drinks Champagne, the losers eat crow, and everyone else chows
down on onion soup. Sounds like a EDC in Paris from
1993, right Xavier?
That’s it. If you can’t find something on that list that appeals to you let me
know and I’ll send you the peelings from my next batch of onions.
Hope you had a good Thanksgiving and have a splendid Beethoven’s Birthday, and
a blessed Christmas!
Where in the World
is Kendo Nagasaki?
End-Game Comments
Dane Maslen: I think it's fair
to say that I was surprised to win this game.
After rounds 1 and 2 I was mistakenly looking for a 19th century
politician or military man in Asia.
Although after round 3 I realised that this had been wrong, I had little
idea of what I should have been doing instead.
The round 4 report changed everything: I could rule out:
·
Quebec
City because I hadn't received the clue.
·
Rio
de Janeiro because the clue couldn't apply to all three people guessed in that
location.
·
Hanoi
because I had already been there in round 3 and not received the clue.
·
Bangkok
because the clue couldn't fit the person there.
That
left St John's as the most plausible location that at least two people could
know was correct, though Manila and Dublin were in principle also possible as
they had been guessed in both round 2 and round 3. From the round 5 guesses it's apparent that
just about everyone went through a similar process of elimination.
Based
on the assumption that St John's was the location, it seemed that I was looking
for a male (R3 clue) screenwriter (R4 clue) who died in the early 2000s (R3
clue) and had known Mickey Rooney (R1 clue).
I typed 'famous screenwriters' into Google and found myself looking at a
set of photographs, one of which was captioned not only with the person's name
but also '1906-2002'. It was Billy
Wilder, so I thought I might as well make him my guess, even though I couldn't
quickly establish a connection to Mickey Rooney. So, pure luck that I got
the right screenwriter.
Rick Desper: I had no idea
Billy Wilder lived that long! If I had,
I might have stumbled into that guess.
Let's go back to the beginning: I think I made my first guess on a day I
saw a trailer for the Pete's Dragon remake.
That put me on Mickey Rooney (imagine if I'd guessed Helen Reddy
instead!). So what are the odds that the
first wild guess would put me not only closest to the location, but also give
me somebody who knew "Kendo" in real life? So I tried to confuse the issue by putting my
second guess in Ireland, but Richard and Mark both made guesses in eastern
Canada, and one of them nailed the location.
I guessed wrong about which of the two, but by then my mucking about
through the Golden Age of Hollywood probably made it clear that I was
close. Maybe I shouldn't have guessed
Ava Gardner in turn 2? I could have
really committed to the path of deception a bit more.
The
combination of the clues from turns 3 and 4 made me think it was a director/writer,
and somebody who knew Vincente Minnelli.
But Garland and Minelli died back in the 60s, so who could it be? I was so proud to discover Robert Altman died
at roughly the right time and had done a Mickey Rooney TV episode back in the
early 60s. It didn't feel like a great
guess (what was his connection to Judy Garland's personal demons?) but I had
nothing else. And really, anybody who
drank a lot could be said to have a connection to one of Judy Garland's personal
demons. I didn't know whether Altman
drank a lot, but maybe he did?
Jim Burgess: Doug, you are
still by far the best person running Kendo, with the best choices and the best
clues. I hope you run another game, but
you have not called for new games since you are going to the fold (which we all
regret). May I invite you at that point
to do Kendo as a guest GM in TAP? Think
about it.
On
this game in particular, I thought this was a great example of your great
clues. Yes, we all figured out it was St. John's (and really EVERYONE should have gotten
that... I don't know where Mr. Galt's head was!), but then only ONE person
grabbed the right person. VERY cool!!!
And
then Mark Firth, was he just tricking us out, or did
he forget in the middle where we were, I think the former, it did fool us for a
bit, but boy what a guess out of the blue to start, has that ever
happened? But still he didn't win.
Anyway,
I always love your Kendo games and will miss them!!! You're the best.
No openings at present.
Diplomacy,
“Milk and Trash”, 2015A, F 09
Austria (Jack McHugh
– jwmchughjr “of” gmail.com): A Ankara
Hold, A Bohemia – Munich,
F
Eastern Mediterranean Supports F Apulia - Ionian Sea (*Void*), A Rumania Supports
A Ukraine – Sevastopol,
A
Silesia Supports A Bohemia – Munich, A Smyrna Hold, A
Trieste Supports A Tyrolia,
A Tyrolia Supports A Bohemia – Munich, A Ukraine - Sevastopol.
England (Mark Firth
– mogcate “of” me.com): A Armenia Supports A Ukraine – Sevastopol,
F
Gulf of Lyon Supports F Tuscany - Tyrrhenian Sea, F Holland - Belgium
(*Bounce*),
F
North Africa - Tunis (*Fails*), F North Sea - Belgium (*Bounce*), A
Norway - St Petersburg (*Bounce*),
F
Tunis Supports F Tuscany - Tyrrhenian Sea, F Tuscany - Tyrrhenian Sea,
F Western Mediterranean Supports F Tuscany - Tyrrhenian Sea.
Germany (Jim Burgess – jfburgess “of” gmail.com): F Baltic Sea Supports A Prussia,
A
Berlin Supports A Kiel - Munich (*Void*), A Burgundy - Munich (*Fails*),
F
Gulf of Bothnia - St Petersburg(sc) (*Bounce*), A
Kiel Supports A Kiel - Munich (*Impossible*),
A
Marseilles - Piedmont (*Fails*), A Munich - Tyrolia (*Dislodged*, retreat
to Ruhr or OTB),
A
Piedmont - Tuscany (*Fails*), A Prussia Supports A Silesia - Warsaw
(*Void*).
Italy (John Biehl –
jerbil “of” shaw.ca): F Apulia Supports A
Venice,
F
Naples Supports F Tyrrhenian Sea - Ionian Sea, F Rome – Tuscany, F Tyrrhenian
Sea - Ionian Sea,
A Venice Supports F Rome - Tuscany.
Russia (Kevin Wilson
– ckevinw “of” comcast.net): A Moscow
- St Petersburg (*Bounce*),
A
Warsaw - Prussia (*Fails*).
Deadline
for W 09/S 10 is December 27th at 7am my time
Supply Center Chart
Austria:
Ankara, Budapest,
Constantinople, Munich, Rumania, Serbia, Sevastopol, Smyrna,
Trieste, Vienna=10, Build 1
England:
Brest, Denmark, Edinburgh,
Holland, Liverpool, London, Norway, Spain, Tunis=9, Even
Germany:
Belgium, Berlin, Kiel,
Marseilles, Paris, Portugal, St Petersburg, Sweden=8, Remove 1 or Even
Italy:
Bulgaria, Greece,
Naples, Rome, Venice=5, Even
Russia:
Moscow, Warsaw=2, Even
PRESS
JIM-BOB to KEVIN: Yeah, so are you
going to do anything? Why don't I just
see if Jackie-cakes wants a center....
JIM-BOB to TURKEY: So had you wrote
so much when you were IN the game....
JIM-BOB to DOUG: I won't let us be
press-less especially since you are the kindest, caring person that no one
believes you to be....
GM – Boob: Lies.
.
Black
Press Gunboat, “Noah’s Titanic”, 2015Arb32, W 09/S 10
Austria:
Retreat A Prussia - Silesia..Build A
Vienna.. A Bohemia Supports A
Munich,
A
Galicia - Warsaw (*Bounce*), A Munich Hold, A Silesia Supports A Warsaw
- Prussia (*Disbanded*),
A
Trieste Supports A Tyrolia, A Tyrolia Supports A Munich, A Ukraine – Moscow, A
Vienna - Galicia (*Fails*),
A Warsaw - Prussia.
France: A Burgundy Supports A Marseilles, A Gascony Supports F Spain(sc), A Marseilles Supports F Spain(sc),
F
Mid-Atlantic Ocean Supports F Spain(sc), F Spain(sc)
Supports A Marseilles.
Germany:
Retreat A Munich - Kiel..
F Baltic Sea Supports A Berlin, A Belgium Supports A
Ruhr,
A
Berlin Supports A Prussia – Silesia, F Clyde -
Norwegian Sea, F English Channel - North Sea,
A
Kiel - Munich (*Fails*), F Liverpool - Irish Sea, A Livonia - Warsaw
(*Bounce*), A Prussia – Silesia,
A
Ruhr Supports A Kiel – Munich, F St Petersburg(nc)
Hold.
Italy: F Aegean Sea Hold, F Apulia - Ionian Sea, A
Greece Hold, F Gulf of Lyon Supports A Piedmont,
F
North Africa Supports F Western Mediterranean, A
Piedmont Supports A Venice, A Smyrna Hold,
A
Venice Supports A Piedmont, F Western Mediterranean Supports F Mid-Atlantic
Ocean.
A/F/G/I
Draw Proposal Fails
Now Proposed – A/F/G/I. Please vote. NVR=No.
Deadline
for F 10 will be December 27th at 7am My Time
PRESS
Paris to Berlin: A Bel-Bur? Are you trying
to throw this thing to Italy after all your caterwauling?
French Prez to Zee Pope: So Nice of you
to help a brother into the Mid! Now, would you mind
supporting me perpetually? Merci beaucoup!
By Almost
Popular Demand
The goal is to pick something that fits the
category and will be the "second most popular" answer. You score
points based on the number of entries that match yours. For example, if the
category is "Cats" and the responses were 7 for Persian, 3 for Calico
and 1 for Siamese, everyone who said Persian would get 7 points, Calico 3 and
the lone Siamese would score 1 point. However, the most popular answer in each
category scores zero points! The
cumulative total over 10 rounds will determine the overall winner. Anyone may
enter at any point, starting with an equivalent point total of the lowest
cumulative score from the previous round. If a person misses a round, they'll
receive the minimum score from the round added to their cumulative total. In
each round you may specify one of your answers as your Joker answer. Your
score for this answer will be doubled.
In other words, if you apply your Joker to category 3 on a given turn,
and 4 other people give the same answer as you, you get 10 points instead of
5. Players who fail to submit a Joker for any
specific turn will have their Joker automatically applied to the first category.
And, if you want to submit some commentary with your answers, feel free
to. The game will consist of 10 rounds,
with the 10th round being worth double points. A prize will be awarded to the winner. Research is permitted, but
cooperation or collusion between players is not!
Round 7 Categories
1. A character on
Seinfeld.
2. Something you see in
a courtroom.
3. A defunct department
store chain.
4. An insect.
5. A famous boxer (past
or present).
Comments By Category
Seinfeld
– Brendan
Whyte “Tempted to say The Drake.” Mark Firth “From a knowledge base pop of 1.”
Courtroom – Brendan Whyte
“Justice?” Mark Firth “Felt like saying guilt but that’s
more a feeling.”
Insect – Dane Maslen “I’m
hoping for ant or bee to be the top scorer.”
Boxer – Brendan Whyte “The Empress Dowager?”
Don Del Grande pulls the high score of 17 (out of a
possible 21). Current leader Andy
Lischett and Brendan Whyte hit the bottom with a score of 3.
Round 8 Categories
1. A character on The
X-Files.
2. A mode of public
transportation.
3. A song by Fleetwood
Mac.
4. A measure of weight.
5. A food associated
with Thanksgiving.
Deadline for Round 8 of By
Almost Popular Demand is December 27th, 2016 at 7am my time.
General Deadline for
the Next Issue of Eternal Sunshine: December
27th, 2016 at 7:00am my time. Hope to See You Then!