Unfortunately for agreeable Austrian players, most Italians allowed into Trieste refuse to move out in Autumn, with horrific consequences for beleaguered Austria. Consequently, despite the overwhelming popularity of the Lepanto as an opening, the Key Lepanto itself is rarely seen.
If we considered the moves A(Ven)-Tri and F(Nap)-ION to be the stem
of the Key Lepanto then we have the following variations:
A(Rom)-Apu (Key Lepanto),
A(Rom) H, (Key Lepanto, Rome Variation),
A(Rom)-Nap (Key Lepanto, Naples Variation),
A(Rom)-Tus (Key Lepanto, Tuscany Variation).
Note that the A(Rom)-Ven move is known as the
Stab Lepanto. Devised by American player
Jeff Key. See Austrian
Openings (KW) and Italian Openings (KW).
Games were played to a 1912 limit in the team tournament and 1909 in the
individual, with individual scores from the team tournament counting towards
the individual tournament. All games were DIAS.
Winners are awarded 2 Primary Points and all participants in any draw 1
Primary Point each. The winner of the team tournament was the team with most
Primary Points (ties split by Secondary Points) and the winner of the
individual tournament was the player with the most Primary Points, again ties
being split by Secondary Points.
Secondary Points were based on what may be thought of as strength relative
to a potential win. Where n = supply centre count, 100 pts were divided
between the surviving players' in the ratios given by the following f(n) =
0.5*(n**2 + n) + 4. (Non-surviving players' shares were added into the
divisor although their share of the 100 pts was ignored: instead they
received 0.1 pt for each year survived.)
The practical upshot of the Secondary Point formula was that each gain in
SC count rendered a greater gain in Secondary Points than the step before and
thus a corresponding loss if any other player should make a greater gain in SC
count than you did. Thus in a 17-16-1 situation, the player with 17 ---
presumably stuck on a stalemate line --- would actually lose Secondary Points
were he to support the 16-player into the other's last centre. Essentially,
you lose out in Secondary Points unless you take the lion's share of any
victim's holdings. See Rating Systems (KW).
Eric's 'revolutionary' approach to running postal diplomacy -that no
NMRs are allowed - arose from his view that they
unbalanced the game too much and that it was better to hold the game over and
get a new player than to NMR the old player.
Publisher of Electronic Protocol and Protocol. Eric
was one of the winners of Avalon Hill's
Diplomacy contest that was run in 1989 in _The General_. See
Personalities (KW).
The full name of the award is "The John Koning Best Player Award" but this
is usually just abbreviated to The Koning Award.
David has also set-up an anonymous ftp site for large diplomacy files
(including this one!), the tap mailing list and in December 1993 became
joint list-owner of the dipl-l mailing list with
Nick Fitzpatrick.
See Personalities (KW).
The longest game is "Y'a plus d'saisons", in _Vortigern_ (1983FA),
which ended in 1936! See also Diplomacy Statistics (KW).
COMPU = Games played over Compuserve network.
In practice, however, the Lepanto is rarely pursued beyond Autumn 1901,
after which Italian players usually prefer to develop a more flexible
strategy. As an answer to the Juggernaut, the
Lepanto may be the best Italian opening, assuming as it does no grave threat
from Austria.
Alliance with Austria is essential, with a standoff in BLA in S01 very
desirable. Popularized by Edi Birsan, it is
probably the best known "named" opening. See also
Anti-hedgehog Lepanto,
Classic Lepanto,
Italian Openings (KW),
Key Lepanto,
Illyrian Opening,
Naples Lepanto,
Stab Lepanto,
Tuscany Lepanto and
Tyrolian Lepanto.
The association of Austria to this battle was by their close relations with
the Spanish monarchy, so it is not wrong to mention them. Moreover, the Spanish
Admiral who lead this battle was known as Juan of Austria, half brother of the
Spanish King Philip II, son of Emperor Charles I of Spain and V of Germany.
Of course the translation of this fact into the game of Diplomacy suits
perfectly with an Italy-Austria alliance.
Retyped by Mark Nelson (and proofread by Harold Reynolds) for distribution
in this document. A mammoth production. See also "Son
of LEXICON".
Timothy Ferguson:
To encourage play from all participants, are the losers
points divided by the number of games minus one half, that is:
Losers'Points(total) = Losers'Points(sum) / (NoGames-0.5)
This rule is included to allow players to play in as few or
as many games as they want. See Rating Systems (KW).
(In response to a question on how he won the GM award in 1992 after VoD
folded in 1985): After I folded VD in 1984, I finished out the Dip games in
Echo of Doom, which I ran for a few months as a subzine to Gary Coughlan's
Europa Express. Once those ended, I didn't run Dip games any more. What I did
do was start TRAX, a zine for the play of postal Empire Builder, which I ran
for two or three years, and then White House Mania, in which I ran Campaign
Trail by mail. At its height, WHM had nine games going, with six players in
each. Meanwhile, after 1989 I turned over the Runestone Poll to Eric Brosius,
who ran it for about three years. Eric allowed people to vote for zines and GMs
for games other than Diplomacy, which is how I managed to stay on the list for
that long.
In the northern variation, Russia opens A(War)-Lvn and A(Mos)-Stp and then
A(Stp)-Fin, giving up to three units bearing on Norway in Spring 1902 - but at
the expense of serious exposure on the Southern Flank. This may be acceptable
if Austria can be relied on to contain Turkey, but the lack of influence on
Rumania deprives Russia of the near certainty of a build. In the more cautious
southern version, therefore A(Mos) moves to Ukraine.
In Richard Sharp's rationalized system for naming
Russian Openings, the Livonian system refers to any Russian opening using the
moves F(Stp/sc)-Fin/GoB and A(Mos)-Lvn. There are two named variations: the
Galician Variation and the Silesian Variation.
At the time that Turnbull recommended this
opening, the common opening move for F(Kie) was to Hol; it was unusual for
Germany to move to Den. It was even more unusual for Germany to stand Russia
out of Swe. Hence, Russian players expected to take Swe in Autumn 1901 as a
matter of course. Hence the move to Lvn with intent to convoy to Swe is not as
strange as first appears. See Russian Openings (KW).
While in Boston, I organized a diplomacy discussion list
DIPL-L@MITVMA.BITNET and created a Hall of Fame
introducing a scoring system [(winners-losers)/winners points per winners]
which can be applied to most Diplomacy variants, and is designed to
encourage competitive play. After a long halt, Nick
Fitzpatrick took over the DIPL-L and Hall of
Fame and is applying my game scoring system.
My current (1993! -- HR) duties include managing a list of Spring 1901
openings used in all standard games on the JUDGE. I am also the founder and
director of the diplomacy programming project. As such
I have had two papers published in scholarly journals regarding my research,
and have written a diplomat interface which will allow humans and computer
programs to play with each other automatically. My students have begun to
implement many of my ideas regarding the DPP, and some initial prototypes have
been tested.
See Personalities (KW).
One of the longest PBM games has to be 1986AM in
Graustark. Begun in July 1986, when it ended in
September 1993 (as a 17-17 AT draw) it was in Winter 1939. End-game statements
were printed in _Graustark_ 624, 25th September 1993.
However the record belongs to Dan Shoham in the game Barney (93-059).
Dan writes: "With my one unit, I almost made 20 years. I was the last to be
eliminated, and have journeyed through Berlin, Munich, Marseillies, Venice,
Trieste, Budapest, Serbia, and Greece. I had the chance to see (and often
contribute to) the elimination of Austria, Germany, and France during my
tenure.'' Dan Shoham, [shoham@edu.mit.ll]
(1) 60 pts to the winner, or divided equally between participants in a
draw (rounded down in a 7-way).
(2) 'Positions' awarded: 1st 14, 2nd 12, 3rd, 10, 4th 8, 5th 6, 6th 4, 7th 2.
Average out for ties (participants in a draw are considered 1st equal,
others determined by supply-centre count then order of elimination/dropout).
(3) Add a tiebreaker of 1 pt per supply centre held at the game-end
(ignoring dropouts).
(4) Dropouts get a -15 penalty. (This incidentally means that standbys can
be rated).
(5) Games in progress are rated by considering each a 'potential draw'
between all surviving participants, using the latest supply
centre counts for (3).
Originally printed in Zeeby 46, January 1986. See
Rating Systems (KW).
1986 Dan Stafford: For leading the Dragonstooth Rating System through 1985.
1987 Randolph Smyth: For a career of excellent postal play. (Randolph is
one of the few people to have won a postal game with every country.)
1988 Dave McCrumb: For winning DixieCon in 1987 and being top-ranked in the
Dragonstooth Rating System.
1989 Marc Peters: For winning CanCon in 1988 and finishing 3rd at
DipCon in 1988.
1990 Gary Behnen: For his overall postal play in the previous year.
1991 Gary Behnen: For his overall postal play in the previous year.
(Awarded prior to winning the 1991 DipCon!)
1992 Gary Behnen.
1993 Marc Peters
1994 Jim Yerkey: 1993 DixieCon Champion.
1995 - Bruce Reiff
1996 - Mike Gonsalves
1997 - Mike Gonsalves
1998 - Sara Reichert (Harry Andruschak)
1999 - Frank Easton
2000 - Mark Fassio
2001 - Simon Bouton
2002 - Brian Dennehy and Cyrille Sevin (tied)
2003 – Yann Clouet
2004 – Yann Clouet
See Hobby Awards (KW).
In any game of Diplomacy, the first mistake occurs before the Spring, 1901 moves.
My further research indicates that the first mistake may in fact be the
decision to play Diplomacy! The investigation continues.... See also
Dumb Mistake,
Mistake and
Tactical Mistake.
Years number A E F G I R T Draw
1936 1 --- --- --- --- 1 --- --- ----
1926 1 --- --- --- --- --- --- 1 ----
1925 2 --- --- 1 --- 1 --- --- ----
1924 1 --- --- --- --- --- --- 1 ----
1922 1 --- --- --- 1 --- --- --- ----
1921 4 --- --- --- --- --- 1 2 1
1920 1 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 1
1919 1 --- --- 1 --- --- --- --- 1
1918 8 1 1 1 --- 2 1 --- 2
1917 7 --- --- 2 2 --- 1 --- 2
1916 15 1 2 2 2 2 --- 1 5
1915 10 --- 1 1 --- --- --- 3 5
1914 18 4 3 1 2 2 --- 3 3
1913 21 --- 4 3 --- --- 1 3 10
1912 44 3 8 4 5 2 4 7 11
1911 55 2 6 4 6 6 6 7 18
1910 63 9 6 4 14 5 7 6 12
1909 65 5 7 11 4 7 11 5 15
1908 65 5 4 5 5 4 10 7 25
1907 47 2 1 10 3 2 13 2 14
1906 22 3 1 1 2 --- 4 3 8
1905 16 --- 1 1 1 --- 9 --- 4
1904 5 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 5
1903 1 --- --- --- --- --- --- --- 1
average 10.4 10.2 10.9 10.3 10.1 12.5 8.9 11.6 10.5
GAME LENGTH NUMBER
NAPG Non-orphaned games* 1910.42 /pm 4.14
NAPG Orphaned games* 1910.32 /pm 2.90
COMPU Non-orphaned games* 1909.28 /pm 3.16
NAPG = North American Postal Games
* Data from Everything 85 (May 1992) through Everything 1991 (March 1995).
See Humour.
See Humour.
John Doucette:
Seven, unless they're named Loeb, then it takes nine.
It depends on the variant of the lightbulb.
Two, but it takes them a week to negotiate it.
Only one, if you give him Hall of Fame points for it.
One can do it, but it takes years, and a one-way lightbulb is much more
satisfying than a three-way one.
A: It doesn't matter how many you have to change the bulb, none will
trust the others to hold the chair steady.
(taken from a rec.games.diplomacy post, 26th May 1994.)
See Humour.
In Diplomacy to be a winner,
one must be a terrible sinner.
The teller of lies,
Grows to a frightening size,
While the virtuous only get thinner.
See Humour.
EP# GAME-NAME YEAR RESULT
93-080 primary 1929 I
93-069 rupert 1928 I
215 earwig 1927 F
216 fly 1925 AFR
246 gorilla 1924 I
190 pint 1923 FR
EP VARIANT GAMES
EP# GAME-NAME VARIANT YEAR RESULT
192 luzon Youngstown (Gunboat) 1940 A/F/In
93-035 offboard Youngstown (Anon) 1939 C
93-128 jurassic Anonymous 1936 E/F/I
139 hastings Britain 1935 E/F/T
93-121 hopeless Pure (Gunboat) 1935 A
94-065 woogie Gunboat (none) 1934 A
93-095 Shogun Youngstown (anon) 1932 A/C/E/I/J
124 dien Youngstown 1930 I
182 sumatra Yougnstown (Gunboat) 1930 A
93-041 heron Gunboat (white) 1930 E
The whole A-Z, in pdf format, is HERE
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