January 1999

Volume VII, #3

Whole # 138

Chairperson: Kate R Slaminko, 14708 56th Ave S, Tukwila WA, 98168 206-242-7633
Editor: Eric C Young, 4784 Stepney Rd, RR#2 C#2, Armstrong BC, V0E 1B0 250-546-6943
Committeeman: Fred C Davis, 3210-K Wheaton Way, Ellicott City MD, 21043 410-461-1885
Ombudsman: Mike McCabe, 520 Sugarland Run, Sterling VA, 20164-1176 703-444-6190

SIG Business and Related Items

Mensa #E1
Confirmed: J Wilke, C Hanson, S Shacter, P Palumbo, S Hutton, S Pfitzinger; needed: one; possibles; none. This game is still to be GM'ed by Berry Renken.

Mensa #E2 - Slated to be GM'ed by Jason Wilke

Game Reports:
Mensa #46: This game has ended. We have not received the Game End Statements, nor a list of the players and their positions at the end.

Mensa #48: Spring 1910. The game is fairly well stalemated. England and France (Ray Grib, Jim Lewis) control 15 centres (7, 8) while a coalition of Russia, Tom Walsh (7); Turkey, Peter Kohnke (7); Italy, Eric Young (4); and Germany, Jim Grose (1) face them. Three different game ending proposals were defeated (5-1) with everybody blaming everybody else for their defeat. We'll see.

Mensa #50: The Batyville Gazette is still in hiatus. We still hope that Ralph will find the time to issue a report on this game.

Mensa #51: Fall 1906: Turkey, Dominick Schirripa (10), is pushing in three directions. He has met Germany, Jim Grose(5), in the middle of a consumed Russia, Sig Street(0), and is confronting Italy, Stefan Mudryj(4) in the Ionian and the middle of Austria. Austria, Tim Cummings(1) is now allied with Turkey in his offensive. France, Ray Grib(8), after suffering an NMR is pushing into the Mediterranean from the west and is continuing his offensive into German territory. England, Wayne Ball(6), is helping with the take over of the German mainland and has conquered Scandinavia. The Press has become quite vitriolic, particularly between Germany and Turkey. Given that situation, there seems to be no organized opposition to the Anglo-French advance.

Mensa #52: Spring 1903: After we described the opening as timid, this one has gotten into some fireworks. France, Tim Cummings (6), is quarreling with all his neighbours. He and England, Kate Slaminko (7), have joined in the MAO-Eng-Pic region, while Italy, Mike McCabe (4), is moving west in the Mediterranean that France has just vacated. Germany, James Baillie (1), never rebounded from his initial non-movement, and has just NMRed. Thus, his homeland is occupied by France, England and Russia, Judith Stevenson (7). Russia and England seem to be on good terms in the north, allowing the former to press hard against the Balkans. Turkey, Ginny Moore (5), is accommodating by throwing Austria back in that theatre's southern quarter. Austria, David Ditter (4), is thus hard pressed, but seems to have a friend in Italy, though they are not coordinated.

Editorial
The hobby is changing. In my own zine, The Tactful Assassin, virtually everybody that subscribes has an e-mail address. Most of them use it with fair frequency. Only two of my players send in their orders in an envelope and one likes the fax. Thus, twenty plus people send in their orders electronically. This has cut down the NMRs to virtually nil. Even if someone is late, I can e-mail them the night of the deadline and have orders the next day to finish off the zine.

Of more import is the ease of communication that e-mail engenders. We used to have to wait for the zine to arrive, one week gone out of the four/five between deadlines {we still do this}. Then we'd write and mail our letters, one to two weeks. Our allies would have to guess whether they should be the first writer or the responder. Either way, one to two weeks elapse for the response to come back. On four week turn-arounds, time's up; on five weeks you have just enough time to get something in, maybe.

Now we can send off a note to our allies and have a reply the same day, or at least within two or three. We can go back and forth three, four even a dozen times in working out our strategies and tactics. Coordinating moves is a foregone conclusion, if you have e-mail. But! What if you are England and you know from prior play that Germany and France are strong players, but neither has e-mail? Russia and Italy both have e-mail but you're not sure you can trust them. The normal thing is to pick one of France or Germany and go after the other. You know that coordination with either of them will not be as immediate/good as it would if you could e-mail them. Do you seek an alliance with Italy or Russia, or both, against the closer neighbours, because you know that you can always work things out easily over the wires? Clearly, if Germany had e-mail and France didn't England would be pushed to ally that way {and, if both did things would be normal}. But, if an unnatural alliance is easy, while a natural one is difficult, how do you make up your mind?

Personally, as a player in a game which does not include any SIG members, I have chosen the unnatural alliance based mostly on the communication issue. The natural alliance player, with whom I had been allied, sent in contingent orders one turn which attacked me. He subsequently pulled back, but the semi-stab was bourn in the light that he and I could not communicate adequately. That bit of mistrust tipped the scales from him towards a player with whom six series of messages had flowed between turns.
I pose the questions:
-Is e-mail an unfair advantage for players in a game?
-Should games have restrictions; i.e. everybody or nobody has e-mail in a game?
-In games were everybody has e-mail, should the deadlines be shortened to perhaps two weeks, to return a bit of uncertainty to communication and hence the moves?

Let's try to have a dialogue on these issues.

KATE’S SECTION

NEW AND EXCITING NEWS
We now have a website. Kudos to Lisa Shea who webmastered the thing into existence and educated me a whole lot at the same time. Bookmark this: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Battlefield/8949/diplomacy/index.html

The information at the site is pretty bare bones. I’d like to ask the membership to write some extra stuff to post here. I’d specifically like to see a paragraph on "Why play MENSA Diplomacy?" with the emphasis on the Mensa part. If I could get a views from you I will try to blend them into some cohesive statement, or two, or three….. I’m open to suggestions for other material to include. Of course, your suggestions would have a lot more weight if they included the actual material. I feel the point here is to be introductory and interesting, not to hash out old issues or pontificate on the nature of the human state.

I continue to collect E-mail addresses, and will publish them (hopefully) in the next issue. Please don’t assume I know yours if you haven’t actually sent it to me.

Since this is all the news, and I am committed to printing two sheets of paper anyway, I am going to fill the rest of this will jokes. The Diplomacy group of Mensa disavows all responsibility for the good taste of the following material.

Jokes Omitted

Diplomag is the quarterly newsletter of the Diplomacy SIG, a Special Interest Group of American Mensa, bringing hobby and SIG news to Mensans interested in the game of Diplomacy. The SIG arranges games for its members, including Play By Mail and e-mail games. For SIG game openings, contact the Chairperson. Each player game will be hosted by a Mensa GM in their zine/flyer. Membership dues are $5/yr or $9/2yr. Diplomacy is a board game copyrighted by The Hasbro Company. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the author. The Mensa Diplomacy SIG and American Mensa, Ltd have no opinions.

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