"I didn't pick this game because I won it. Well, that's not true. I did pick
it because I won it. But, not for the reason you might think. When Gary Behnen,
Steve Cooley, or David Hood win a Diplomacy game it's no big deal. It certainly
isn't news. When Larry Peery wins one; that's news. If I can win a game,
anybody can win a game. So this one is for Everyman, not me. It's for the
fellow who has made the Top Board at six MidCon's, but has never won. If you
play long enough and try hard enough, anything is possible. I proved it."
Larry Peery, _World Diplomacy_ 4, Winter 1992.
Another game opening service was Robert Sacks' _Known Game Openings_. It was
active from 1974 to about 1989. Today, the old _Ponteverdia name lives on; Phil
Reynolds has been publishing the one page monthly since 1990 and it is the main
place for game opening announcements in the hobby. In the Summer of 1993 Andrew
York took over as publisher of _Pontevedria_.
The Second Golden Age started soon after Avalon
Hill started distributing diplomacy in 1979. Over the next few years some
of the best zines ever appeared: Brutus Bulletin, Europa Express, Fol Si Fie,
Retaliation, Voice of Doom, Whitestonia/Kathy's Korner and half
a dozen others. What separated these zines from their predecessors was not the
creative talent that went into their content, but the size of them. Some of
them ran over a hundred pages an issue. Advancing technology was reponsible for
this more than anything else. The xerox machine was still something of a
novelty in the early 1970s, and while available at a place of work it was still
prohibitively costly. But by 1980 the cost was low enough to allow publishers
to fill a subscriber's mailbox with a product that had long letter columns,
volumes of press, reprinting of commercial cartoons, etc. etc. So going into
the 1980s, zines got bigger. The Second Golden Age was shattered by the
Great Feud.
The extreme level of vitriol this feud generated is blamed by some for the
decline in the size of the North American Hobby over this period. The aftermath
was a black hole that few people care to revisit.
In the postal version the players are anonymous and press may, or may not,
be allowed. There are several different versions of postal gunboat depending
upon what the exact rules are on press e.g. black press, grey press or white
press option; is there a pre-Spring 1901 press turn etc.
Gunboat is an almost purely tactical exercise, it not only emphasizes
appreciation of the game mechanics as against the players' communication
skills, but also allows a face-to-face game to be played to the finish within a
relatively short time--perhaps a couple of hours. In postal play Gunboat is
sometimes run as a "Round Robin Tournament" where the seven players play in
seven games, one as each power, simultaneously. The first such tournament was
run by Vern Shaller in 1980-81 was won by Karl Shuetz.
It's worth noting that in 1980 the term wasn't in use and this variant was
not mentioned in Mark Berch's
"Lexicon of Diplomacy". Gunboat became very
popular in the US postal hobby in the 1980's (interest has now declined) with
many games and Round-Robin Tournaments started; the number of gamestarts was
over 100. The popularity of this variant stems from the laziness of most
players who would rather play in a game with no diplomacy and the fact that
this variant requires no special effort on the players' part to set up a map.
See Variant (KW).
The whole A-Z, in pdf format, is HERE
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