Comments on Smyrna
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Okay, Smyrna isn't the end of the world. But you can see it from there. We call it "Syria". Syria's the end of the world - the space on the board that any Diplomacy player, at all costs, hopes to avoid being backed into. Take any other center on the board and there are strategic reasons for being there. Armenia? You can be positioning yourself for an attack on Sevastopol or, if your tastes swing the other way, on Ankara. Finland? You might be going for Norway, Sweden, or St. Pete. North Africa? A critical province along the stalemate line. About the only province on the Diplomacy board that would be more of an "armpit of the world" would be Iceland, and unless you're playing the Loeb 9 variant or some other variant in which Iceland becomes a non-supply center province you might be stuck retreating to (or, unless you're playing face to face against Doug Massey and his windup Hello Kitty doll is lurking there), Iceland isn't a possibility. Just about the only legitimate reason to ever wind up in Syria is if you're Italy and you're really into that Lepanto - convoying an army to Syria to add leverage might be helpful in attacking Smyrna. But if that's not why you're in Syria then we all know the reason you're in Syria. You're Turkey, and you're screwed. It's not like it's a real province anyway. We know why it's on the map. Alan Calhamer was drawing the map and wanted to give every Great Power six provinces in its sphere of influence. At least, that's what the thick black lines on the map are supposedly meant to indicate. Not that Germany can just walk into Prussia or Silesia, which supposedly belong to it, without seriously cheesing off the Russians. ("Don't mind us, we're not the Wehrmacht, sneaking in the back door of Warsaw. Just honest sauerkraut delivery guys and knife-sharpeners, that's us.") But that's by the by. Theoretically, each Great Power owns the provinces within its Thick Black Lines. It's only poor Turkey that gets stuck with five and don't tell me that Bulgaria constitutes a sixth area within the Turkish sphere of influence. If that's so, then Tunis belongs to Italy, and so on. Let's face it, Syria is a pretty rotten excuse for a province. What's it got? It borders on one supply center, Smyrna, and one other province, Armenia. That's it. Try and find any other province on the board that borders on only one supply center. North Africa, right? See any others? I sure hope there aren't others, because it'd make me look like a damn fool, but I just had a look and I don't see any others. Of course, I started out an hour ago drinking ouzo over ice (it was the closest I could get to something legitimately Turkish, in honor of Smyrna, but it always gives me the willies drinking something that changes color when you add it to ice), then switched to rye whiskey and ginger ale (on the grounds that it was an appropriate drink if you had Manfred Mann and the Earth Band performing "The Mighty Quinn" on the CD player), and now the Proclaimers are on the CD player singing that they'll walk 500 miles to be the one who "havers next to me", whatever that is, so I really can't authoritatively say much of anything, much less that Syria and North Africa are the only provinces on the board that border on only one supply center, but in my impaired state, it sure looks that way. And even North Africa has that classic real estate maxim going for it: location, location, location. It's got a Mediterranean seacoast, it's got an Atlantic seacoast, it's big, it's spacious, and you could get at least five or six Wal-Marts in there. Syria? You could squeeze a Bob's Bait and Tackle in there, assuming you had a thing for bait or a brother in-law who kept after you for a loan to get started in business. Is there anything to catch in the Eastern Mediterranean except for opportunistic Italian fleets? I'm not sure the bait business would really be all that profitable, but what do I know? Perhaps the Syrians love fish. Okay, scratch that idea. I just had a look on Google for "Syrian fish recipes" and here's what I found:
The recipe this was included in? Syrian fish hash. Mmm, Syrian fish hash. Just like Mom used to make. (Try the link if you don't believe me.) Okay, opening a bait and tackle shop isn't a good reason to seize Syria. What is? Well, we already mentioned having some leverage on Smyrna. I suppose if you're trying the Lepanto and have a fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean and want to add a little land-based force, convoying an army to Syria wouldn't hurt. But by the same token, convoying Candice Bergen, or her TV counterpart, "Murphy Brown", wouldn't hurt either. Why doesn't Scott Bakula ever attack Smyrna? That little guy who used to tag around with him on "Quantum Leap" would look pretty nifty in a fez, although if memory serves Fez is a city in Morocco, which in the game of Diplomacy would technically be part of North Africa, and you really don't want to get me started comparing Smyrna and Syria and North Africa again, so we'll just pretend that all residents of Arabic-speaking countries (and I'm not even completely sure that Smyrna counts. Do they speak Arabic, or Turkic, or what?) wear fezzes on a regular basis. If not, they should, anyway, I own two fezzes. No, wait, three. One is on a plastic sewer alligator who lives under the bunk bed in the guest room. We call him "Wellesley." The gator, not the fez. You can order one of the gators and one of the fezzes from the Archie McPhee company. A picture of Wellesley, with his fez, can be seen here if you're really morbidly curious. The second fez (also ordered from Archie McPhee) is currently being worn by a Ty company stuffed "Beanie Buddy" named "Snappy". She lives on top of our bunk bed with the other stuffed animals. We don't have any photos of her, but you can see what she looks like without the fez and you can use your imagination to imagine what she looks like with an Archie McPhee fez on. If our understanding is correct, having a fez-wearing crab in the house improves TV reception. No, we don't know why. The third fez is a full-sized genuine Moroccan fez I got at the "Morocco" pavilion at EPCOT, down in Orlando, Florida. EPCOT is this "Experimental Planned Community of Tomorrow" theme park attached to Walt Disney World, which apparently means, "The rides are boring, but we offer hourly parades of actors wearing weird costumes, and you get to enjoy all this without having to worry about coming down with diarrhea. Stay here in the happy shiny USA and leave diarrhea overseas, where it belongs." Or something like that. If you're still following my reasoning, everyone in Smyrna and beautiful Syria wears fezzes all the time. Even if they're not crabs or New York City albino alligators. Right now, the full-sized fez in question is sitting on my bookshelf. And, ironically, sitting atop it is another Archie McPhee item, the Archie McPhee propeller beanie. I don't know why. But in the long run, that's Smyrna and Syria for you. The back end of nowhere on the Diplomacy board. Laden with sewer alligators, bankrupt bait shops, and bad cover bands playing "The Mighty Quinn" on the bouzouki. Any questions?
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