Rewatching this 8 years later (lol) I feel like Doug and Yeargin kinda dug their own graves here this season. G by his seemingly fundamental unwillingness to even negotiate possible cooperation with E, even though they both could have used each others help. And Austria (who was very much in need of an ally) by going out of his way to bait the one person who clearly was very happy to take an offer. Ofc easily said from the outside, with only partial information of the game and without knowing the history of these players but yeah... Rough turn for the Kaisers

Ready for another one

These are really amazing! I just got into Diplomacy and I really want to play a F2F game now. I'm learning so much. People should film more documentaries on Diplomacy games, it's vastly interesting and tense. I hope to see more analyses on tournaments like these, you do a great job!

Have you ever seen "The Revenant" I've seen the previews but it's too violent for me. Well, try and match that level of violence.

What’s the intro song called? It sounds very nostalgic.

great advice very inconsistent volume

Thank you, very entertaining video series! I'm sure if I were playing England, Doug had pulled me in his camp around 13.10

love the music

I like the series, but for people looking for high level of diplomacy gameplay, this is not it. Theres technical difficulties, the rules of the tournament are an absolute joke from a competitive standpoint, players dont know the rules of the game, players dont know how to write their moves, players dont submit their moves in time....

For a " world championship top board" this whole series seems like a joke. People forget about time, people forget how to write their moves, people dont know the rules of the game, and apparently the organizer has technical difficulties which causes players to NMR.

ABBA? SERIOUSLY?

Speaking as someone who came to diplomacy through the Internet and can't imagine committing to a 7 or 8 hour in - person game where one or two players are expected to be eliminated in the opening, I found it very illuminating to hear Edi's perspective on what Internet play has cost the game.

This has been so amazing to watch. Very helpfull in preping for my first face to face tournament.

...

Isnt the french move into burgundy equally if not even more so agressive (due to the support) than the german one? Wouldnt that rule out or at least damper the prospects of a german alliance with France as france borders munich? I'm new so I'm interested to hear peoples perspectives. I would see france as the bigger aggressor (not including the den to NTH sea, that was not clever).

Man, that "hard motherfucker" line at the end is the epitome of cringe. I'm hoping that guy laughed in his face and brought it up every game they played together afterwards?

The problem in this scenario is that Russia is just a bad player. You can read it out of his messages and out of his actions on the board. In my experience such bad players believe that they are really smart and take it personal when you don`t act the way they want. So most of the times it is best to find exits without them because they are pure dynamite. You can see this danger in all of Russias actions: Making threats without any power, breaking agreements but being mad when someone breaks an agreement with them, forwarding correspondence (a very big no-go) I lately played a game where I was allied with a player of a similar calibre. I realized that very soon but I couldn`t break out because it was a 3-way-alliance and I needed the third partner. So I kept my nerves and tried to control him as long as possible and always looked for a position to stab. He continued being the bad player he is (building fleets when armies were needed for the alliance, wanted my units away from his centers but placing his units close to my centers, reacting arrogant and egocentric in his messages, messing up the coordination of the alliance by doing what he wanted and not what was agreed). So when I got the position to stab I did it without the blink of an eye (It was after 7-8 turns, so about 4 years). So what I want to say with that is that I find it really hard to ally with really bad players. You can handle it for some time but you have to look for an exit strategy. So in this regard I like how England approached Russia --> convoying to Nwy, move into StP. Russia was unpredictable so you rather attack him than France (when France is a good guy as he seemed to be)

I really liked this analysis. The most important part you mentioned is knowing the history of the game. Because in gunboat there are also relations. Saying that I`m not convinced that Italy will attack Austria. He could also go for Smy next year and maybe set up an attack on Mun with Tyr-Boh + Ven-Boh. The reason for that is that I believe Italy does not strengthen his position when he gets Tri: 1. Turkey survives with a fleet in the Med which binds Italian fleets 2.Russia usually wins a 1-1 war versus Italy in the Austrian territory and on the Balkans So I assume a lot of Italian players would attack Tri just to get the dot but the value of this dot is very questionable. So I would rather stick with Austria. That means for Austria that an Russian attack is more likely than an Italian attack and I would probably move Tri-Ser. (Knowing that most average and lower players are just looking for the dots and probably both (Bud and Tri are under attack). So maybe I would gamble then with Vie s Bud-Tri and Bul-Rum expecting that Turkey would not leave Smy open (which very few Turkish players would do) All this leads to what I said at the beginning. To find the right set of orders you must know the history of the game and the information you need out of that are a) the relations between the countries, b)the playing strength of the players and c) if they are rather greedy or stick to alliances

OK, the "default" condition is that Italy has a better path to 18, unless Turkey and Germany ally. So Germany can be persuaded to accept a three way draw. Then Turkey goes back to Italy with a threat of allying with Germany, to possibly throw the game Germany's way, unless Italy agrees to a three way draw. The danger is that Germany and Italy agree to a two way draw. But Turkey has a credible threat of throwing the game either way.

18:21 why should Hol - Kie fail? It looks supported by Ruhr while Den - Kie has no support

Such a great video! Thanx to Floridaman for finding this.

Can't decide if the creator is 27 or 54... Thank you for the video! I found it helpful :)

Really curious to see a video on how to defeat the "Kingmaker" play (ie a player A throwing all their centers to play C after player B stabbed player A). Have lost a few games in a row this way after well timed - well they appeared to be, stabs.

This is great Chris. Great breakdown and delivery.

I love these videos. I am anxiously awaiting your next video. I hope you have not burned out. Your Diplomacy videos really are the best.

"...And I'll stab you soon." Man, you have won your life right now. XD

i like international study now student I R

these videos are great!

#Blacklivesmatter

How does one avoid getting double teamed as Austria? I always see Austria divided up by Turkey and Russia and sometimes even Italy. I myself enjoy feasting upon Austria, especially as Turkey. What negotiation power does an Austria player have?

The Dice Tower did a great interview of have designer, Eric Lang, and talked for an hour about being anti racist in the board gaming community. I urge my Diplomacy players to view it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/poTOZWCHZ5Z3mtk

Well done, Hack

Thanks for sharing this.

Brandon asked a great question about what I meant by a personal connection and, after reflection, I feel that I should have phrased things differently. To clarify, I purposefully confronted myself with the emotional aftermath of police brutality and experienced a very deep personal reaction. I don't have a personal connection to police brutality and because I don't think anyone should have to have such a personal connection, I encourage other people like me, who come from a position of white privilege, to find an organization to support and help them make a difference. And if you're able, paint a sign and join a protest.

Dan Lester always looks away when he's talking to me... although he also almost always lies to me, so I cannot say Edi is wrong here.

Hey Chris, are you playing in the Boston Massacre online tournament? It's the first tournament I've entered into. I thought it would be awesome to play with/against you!

Side note I was having internet trouble all day and had missed communication and moves on both boards.

I was the Italian player on this board. I was excited how quick Austria accepted the Key laponto but he got cold feet after the army build in Venice. He felt bad for the spring 1901 stab so let me into Vienna in the fall but after that worked more with Russia. It was my understanding that England was a vet and wanted to help Germany, a new player, have a good score. It was a late night early morning for both England and France. France was so tired he dropped out in 1905. As the game progressed England and Germany would only accept a two way draw with themselves and Turkey and I just could not get things ironed out in order to stalemate them. The English player is from london and very tired as this point and said he was just letting Germany write his orders. Knowing I would go down anyway I started working with Russia to just dig out turkey and run away from Germany. Hiding out in Turkey and threatening a Germany solo finally got England to turn on him and we ended in a four way draw.

Russia here. First of, thanks Chris for doing these videos and Shabion and Brandon for the live commentary. It's nice watching oneself dying a brutal death over and over again. From a game perspective I quickly got the impression Turkey (Kristian Klyne) was at least two levels above the rest of the board and one charming son of a gun! (Italy even warned me of such at the beginning of the game). It was a pure joy to be stabbed repeatedly over and over again by him and he ended up a deserving winner as far as I'm concerned of the whole tournament... I believed his exact words around our 1903 call were "I've lied to you every single turn so far", yet all you could do was to smile and tip one's hat to him. What a player. I shall return stronger however

Welcome any questions about army Lvp :)

Fall 08 - it wasn't a mistake . I wanted Chris to take Greece .

Fall 05 - it was not a stab from Chris . We agreed on that earlier .

About strange moves in fall 04 - AEG convoy AEG to AEG , Gre convoy Gre to Gre . Genius moves , don't you think so ?

I was Turkey here . Any questions for me ? P.S. Commentary is very good ! Thank you a lot !

Turkey here. First and foremost - this game was AWESOME! The RAT was just incredibly fun to plan and execute (and yes, it was organized from the very first negotiations). The ability of Bill (Russia) to analyze the board and put this thing together so quickly in '01...truly, a thing of beauty. As pointed out in the commentary, the RAT is a rare alliance to see out of the gate. What you see in this video was the result of a very particular diplomacy cocktail that I likely won't encounter again for a long time. So, how did it all come together? There is some vital context missing from the commentary that played a huge part in laying the groundwork for this alliance. Bill and I were also neighbors in the round prior to this one. He was Germany to my Russia, and we did not get along. At all. Bill is a world class player and I was a complete newbie. I was scared of him and couldn't trust him. The game ended in a rather disappointing 5-way draw. Afterward, I messaged Bill to say good game and to let him know I regretted not being more open to working with him. He was understanding and said he was glad I had fun, as that was the most important part. Lo, merely one hour later we found ourselves once again sitting in neighboring powers. Immediately, Bill said to me, "let's work together with Austria", and "yes" just seemed to me like the correct response. He started right off with suggesting destroying the Sev fleet. Despite the fact I'd only played in a few Diplomacy games, I'd consumed a lot of dip content online, so I was familiar with the opening theory behind the move. I knew it was in the "very fun and perhaps suboptimal" bucket of openings, but that was perfect for me in this situation. Winning the tournament was well out of my reach anyway, and having an excellent diplomat as my ally would make up for the slow play. Oh, and shoutout to Eric Mead and Nathan Barnes for teaching me in DiplomacyCast - as Turkey, agree to work with ANYONE who offers to 'let you out of the box', and figure out the rest once you're at 5 centers. That was good advice! As for Dan in Austria. Make no mistake, he played a fantastic game diplomatically. It's my opinion that the alliance would be more accurately described as a "Russia-tolerant A/T", as opposed to a RAT. Bill was the brains, but the trust between Dan and I was the strongest pairing out of the triangle. Our mutual trepidation with regard to cooperating with Bill was a great unifying strength for us. I lost count of how many times one of us would say "Well, I would do X, but Bill is a really great player, so I won't." Regarding the 1903 "misorder" of Rum -> Ukr -> Gal...I wasn't very aware of that taking place at the time, however it is my guess that that was quite intentional. I figure Dan requested that Bill take that route to Gal in order to free Dan from the fear of being stabbed by that army in the fall. Putting it in Ukr in spring meant it could get to Gal by fall without threatening Austrian centers! Dan was all about not trusting Bill. Lol. Siobhan was correct that the Austrian move Tri -> Ser in Spring '04 was paranoia - not aggression. He was beginning to worry that I would stab him (no doubt because that's what England/Russia wanted him to think...they pulled me into a 3-way chat and asked me to at one point...and it would have worked for 3 dots...). The subsequent bounce in Bulgaria was arranged once I addressed his move during fall negotiations. He confessed he was worried. The '04 build reveal is so fun to watch. Brandon's and Chris's reactions are priceless. Bill would later lament his greedy choice (fleet sev) during the post-game chat. The funny thing is, there was 0% chance of me building anything other than F Con at any point after '01. In my eyes, stabbing Austria was not on the table, and as such my entire future was a big horizontal stripe across the southern third of the board. I was going to be all fleets all the way, so stabbing me via builds like that was simply impossible to pull off in that game. 🤷‍♂️ Had Russia not forced me to reverse gears there, I could have steamrolled over France with Austria's help. Russia either waives or builds north, and the 3-way is all but guaranteed. Interesting to note that Dan would have placed 2nd in the tournament had we gone that route and he reached 10 or 12 centers. I could potentially have cracked into the top 10. There's a kind of fun reason for the "NMR" from Austria while Turkey walked into two of its centers. We had reached verbal agreement on the 4-way draw at that point. Most people just ordered supports/holds for good measure, but I figured "heck, it's spring, why not walk into some dots for a laugh?". Well...the draw didn't pass. So that was a little awkward. We actually went through 2 or 3 seasons with everyone saying they were voting the draw but it didn't work...until finally it did. Excellent, excellent game that taught me so much while also allowing me to be successful. Bill is a joy to play with, and I hope to play with him long enough to take those words back in the future. 😉 Dan, outstanding alliance play. I barely even had to talk to anyone else for the entire game, which was fine by me. I will say though, the French player was very, VERY clear in repeatedly letting me know that if I wanted to attack Austria at any point, he would help me. Would I have, though? And, would he have actually helped? We'll never know.