Summer Diplomacy

The guys discuss the cool Android app "Conspiracy",  recent Diplomacy variants being tested and talk shop.

Intro

• The guys introduce the NEXT Hotel Pool Terrace and Bar, discuss the weather, Kaner's take on the book about the Trump administration in "Fire and Fury" and move onto their drinks (0 mins 10 secs)
• Amby talks about his first ever time as tournament director for the 1066 tournament at vDip. He then goes onto discuss how the tournament is being organized and his thoughts on having access to the Mods area  (5 mins 45 secs)

Around the Grounds and general Dip chat

• Kaner talks about how he's going in his WWIV Sea Lanes game (13 mins)
• They think the background noises might be too loud and decide to go to another bar - that being said when Amby edited the podcast... it sounded perfectly fine! They then address Dr Recommended latest recommendation for them to sing more often (15 mins 30 secs)
• The guys move to Ryan's on the Park as the Irish Murphy's Bar had really bad acoustics. Amby talks semantics about what a "hotel" is in Australia (17 mins 50 secs) 
• The guys talk about their second lot of drinks and chat about their Christmas day (21 mins)
• Amby opens his Around the Grounds on his Pirates game. A player is dangerously close to soloing in this winner take all game. He discusses how the game is going  (24 mins)
• Next up is the Tournament of Time over at PlayDip. Amby goes onto discuss how this tournament is working and the current Ambition and Empire game and its use of the collaboration platform Slack to manage messaging. Amby's team member (Big Joe) is playing for the team as Denmark-Norway (29 mins)
• Kaner then discusses the free Android app "Conspiracy" which is pretty much Diplomacy for your smart phone. The guys give it a big wrap but also talk about how it could be improved particularly around the issues of community and people NMRing and CDing. Here's some screen shots from Kaner's game interface (32 mins)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• The guys talk about whether they should run some donation option for the podcast before some more drinks and belated tasting notes (52 mins)
• Amby discusses his now completed test game of "Punic Wars" at the Diplomail Lab playing as the Greeks. He discusses while he won, it was an incredibly challenging map and reflects on the knife-fighting game play of the Russian players (55 mins)
• Then he goes into discuss his role in the War of Austrian Succession play test also at the Diplomail Lab. Amby is playing as Piedmont-Sardinia and is also enjoying this map and variant. It follows pretty much standard Dip rules but in the first year players are limited in the number of armies they have even though they have more SCs that can support more units. That said if they retain their starting SCs they can build in the second year. Its got some wacky borders too. Amby discusses the "Borders" book Kaner gave him at Christmas (59 mins)
• Next its onto the Western World 901 variant being tested in the Diplomail Lab. Its based on the map by David E Cohen but is focused around Europe, north Africa and the north west bits of the Middle East. None of the guys are in this test game but they talk about the variant anyway before a second hat tip to Dr Recommended's singing suggestion, before a tangent about the new Star Wars movie before degenerating into an argument about Leia (1 hour 8 mins)
• Kaner asks Amby about how his variant development plan are going (1 hour 17 mins)
• Kaner gets very excited at the prospect of "Divided States" being released (1 hour 20 mins)
• After a brain lapse from Kaner he discusses the prospect of an American Civil War/Mexico variant on the Conspiracy app. Amby suggests perhaps it will be the Fall of the American Empire variant (1 hr 28 mins)
• The guys give a shout out to cjuric for his awesome review of the podcast at iTunes. They strongly encourage you to pop over to iTunes and give it 5 stars (1 hr 30 mins)

 

Venue: NEXT Hotel Pool Terrace and Bar, Brisbane followed by Ryan's on the Park

Drinks of choice:

Kaner - Mountain Goat Ale from Richmond, Victoria and the Little Creatures "Roger's" Pale Ale from Western Australia

Amby - Cape Mentelle Marmaduke shiraz  from the Margaret River, Western Australia and the Shottesbrooke grenache, shiraz and mourvedre (GSM) from McLaren Vale in South Australia

And thanks as always to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.