Press

Send comments or corrections (only for the HTML version of this file) to Doug Massey (masseyd@valhalla.btv.ibm.com).

You can receive a copy of this file via E-mail by sending your local Judge a message with "get press" in the body.

There are various types of press in a game of Diplomacy. White press refers to messages sent to other players which indicates who it is from. Grey press is sent out anonymously and black press refers to messages that are sent from one person but forged to appear as though they came from another person. The adjudicator provides the mechanism to set a game as allowing either or both of white or grey press. The press messages can be sent to individual players or can be broadcast to all players, depending upon the parameters set for the game. Black press is really the same as grey press with another player's signature in the message, so no distinction is made by the adjudicator, however, press sent to individual people can be faked to appear as a broadcast message to all people or to an alternate set of people if the particular game allows such a thing.

The types of press allowed in a particular game are shown by the list command. The keywords are:

None:

No press at all is allowed, except press to the Master only.

White:

Only white press is allowed in this game.

Grey:

Only grey press is allowed in this game (however, press to the Master will always be sent as white press).

White/Grey:

Both white and grey press are allowed, by default press will be white (however, press to the Master will always be sent as white press).

Grey/White:

Both white and grey press are allowed, by default press will be grey (however, press to the Master will always be sent as white press).

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Observer any:

Observers and alternates can post press with the same restrictions as regular players. This is the default and does not show up on list output.

Observer white:

Observers and alternates cannot post grey press. In a game that only allows grey press from players, press from observers will show up as white press.

Observer none:

Observers and alternates cannot post press at all, except press to the Master only.

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No Partial:

Only broadcast messages to all players can be sent, press to individual players is disallowed, except press to the Master only. This option is only useful in Gunboat variants where the identities of the other players are unknown.

No Fake Broadcast:

Messages sent to individuals cannot appear as broadcast messages or vice versa, nor can messages sent to one group of individuals appear as though it was sent to an alternate group.

Partial may be Faked

Messages sent to individuals can appear as broadcast messages or can appear as though they were sent to an alternate group.

Partial Fakes Broadcast by default

Messages sent to individuals will appear as broadcast messages to all players unless otherwise specified.

Partial Fakes Broadcast

All messages whether broadcast or to individuals will appear as though they were a broadcast message to all players.

Note: If fake press is allowed in a game, press to the Master will not be faked, and you will get scolded if you try.

The set command can be used to establish which of these options is allowed. In moderated games only the master can use the set press command. By default games are White, No Fake Broadcasts for non- gunboat games or White, No Partial for gunboat games. For example:

set grey, partial fakes broadcast

broadcast [options]

press options

If no options are specified and the broadcast command was used, the message will be sent to all players.

[In other words, using the command press without any options will result in no message being sent. This is to prevent accidental broadcasts, which can result in your secret attack plans being sent to the entire game.]

The message can be terminated in one of four ways: the commands signoff, endpress, or endbroadcast appearing alone on a line, or by the end of the mail input. Note that endpress and endbroadcast are interchangeable (that is, a press command can be terminated by endbroadcast and vice versa); also that no space can appear after end in either case. If signoff, endpress, or endbroadcast appear at the beginning of a line with other text, they are not considered to be commands, and the message is not terminated.

If the message is terminated by signoff, then all other text in the mail input is ignored. If the message is terminated by endpress or endbroadcast, then the next line is treated as a normal command line, thus allowing normal commands to be mixed with press messages in any order, as well as allowing for multiple press messages in a single mail input.

The optional options are:

white -or- unanonymous -or- unanonymously

The message is sent out with your power and return address specified. This is only necessary if white and grey press are both allowed and grey is the default.

grey -or- anonymous -or- anonymously

The message is sent out with no indication as to the originator. This is only necessary if white and grey press are both allowed and white is the default.

to list -or- +list

The message will be sent just to the list of powers specified. The list consists of the single character identifier for the powers concatenated as a single word. Thus press to FRG would send the message to France, Russia and Germany in a standard variant game. In most variants the first letter of the power is usually the character (cf: India in the Youngstown variant is N rather than I since the latter is used to represent Italy). The special characters %OM are interpreted as Alternate, Observer and Master respectively in all variants.

to all but list -or- -list

As above except the message is sent to the complement of the list specified. Note that since all press that can be read by Observers is archived in the game's history file, a message sent press to all but r (for example) will be available to Russia by means of the History command. Use press to all but ro% to be sure that the message isn't archived.

[no]fake [broadcast]

The message is faked (or not) as a broadcast message to all players.

fake [partial] to [all but] list -or- fake [+/-]list

The message is faked as going to the set of people specified even though it may be a broadcast message or be a message sent to an alternate set of people.

Note that press fake to FRG will be interpreted as a broadcast message to everyone that is faked as going to France, Russia and Germany rather than a message going to France, Russia and Germany that is faked as a broadcast. If the latter was intended the keyword fake can be placed at the end as in press to FRG fake or the keyword broadcast must be specified as in press fake broadcast to FRG.

As an example in a grey press game allowing fake broadcasts, Italy might start off the game by posting the following press message:

press to all but G fake broadcast
This is Germany and I think you all are wimps. I bet I can win even if you all gang up against me.

-Kaiser Bill
endpress

Everyone but Germany would get a Diplomacy Notice message with a header that read "Broadcast message in game xxxx:". [Remember, however, that if Germany thinks to issue a history command, he can see this in the history archive. If this is undesirable, the command here should read press to all but GO% fake broadcast.] Then in the same (or a separate) message to the adjudicator (since there can now be more than one press message per mail message) Italy could issue:

press to R
This is Austria, boy that Germany sure is obnoxious. Let's go all out against him!

-Ferdinand
signoff

Russia would get the message with a header of "Message to Russia in xxxx:". Of course this trick wouldn't work if the game were White press since Italy's name would be in the header. If it were White/Grey Italy would have to throw in the grey keyword to get the effect, but even then (or if the game were Grey/White) it wouldn't quite be the same since if Germany really meant to be so obnoxious why wouldn't he just send the messages out as white press?

Press to the Master only is always allowed, no matter what the press settings are, so that requests for deadline extensions, or any other message needing the Master's attention, can be sent without having to resort to direct E-mail outside of the game. This can be very useful if a player and the Game Master are on nodes that cannot communicate directly, although both can communicate with the Judge. Likewise, the Master can always issue press commands, to facilitate communicating with the players (to announce that he's going to be unavailable for a while, to respond to a player's message to him, or to ask a player a question).

There are some commands that cause Diplomacy Notices to be sent out to all the players (eg: changing your return address in a non-gunboat game). If one of these commands has been processed and a partial, faked partial or grey press message is attempted, the adjudicator will send out the notice(s) as separate messages, to all players, and the partial, faked, or grey press will be sent as designated.