An Annotated No-Press Game

Douglas Massey

I recently finished a no-press standard Diplomacy game, called academy3, on the USIN judge. During the course of the game, in which I played France, I kept a running commentary of the action, with my humble opinions about the game. When the game ended, I submitted it as what may be the longest EOG statement ever: some 2500 lines and over 100 kilobytes long.

When my brother Charles first introduced me to PBEM Diplomacy, he suggested that I first get the help files from the judge and familiarize myself with some of the terminology of the Judges and the quirks of playing a game through that medium. He then suggested that I print out the summary of a recently completed game, with its End Of Game statements, so that I could see what a game looked like from an observer's point of view -- without having to wait six months for a new game to progress from opening moves to conclusion. Thus armed and ready, I plunged into the hobby.

Now -- coming full circle -- I offer my own set of End Of Game statements, thinking that it might be useful for newcomers who don't understand some of the caveats and subtleties of no-press Diplomacy (because this game served to point out quite a few of them). Observing a no-press game is a good place to start as a judge newbie, because you can see and know everything that the players do. Break out your Diplomacy board, set it up, and follow academy3 move by move. See if you agree or disagree with my analyses. Try to pick out the mistakes made by me and the other players. I think that this game is fairly representative of a traditional PBEM game, with a twist at the end!

France's End of Game Statement (with Maps)
Germany's End of Game Statement
Turkey's End of Game Statement
Italy's End of Game Statement
Russia's End of Game Statement

Doug Massey
(masseyd@btv.ibm.com)

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