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At the risk of coming off as a bit of a geek, I cannot help but compare my new situation to that of a take-over position player in a game of Diplomacy: Everyone seems genuinely happy that the long delay is finally over; they appear to think that you, the newcomer, must somehow be in a small way responsible for things getting back into motion and in turn express their gratitude; all sorts of new friends come out of the woodwork and make future plans that involve long term commitments of joint teamwork. You put your best foot forward and try to as quickly as humanly possible gather up the required information of where things stand and what needs to be done, and then you do them to the best of your abilities. In short, you get into the happy spirit of things and hope that so long as you keep your head up, you will be able to live up to the expectations earned by your predecessors, and that once the moment has passed that you do not end up with a gang of bloodthirsty peers jointly crushing you from all sides and fighting over the spoils. Such has been my happy fate to date as the new editor (without, of course, the bloodthirsty peers). It goes without saying that without Manus, The Zine just would not exist. Over and above this, many people have rushed forward to wish me the best of luck with the filling in of what is undeniably a rather large pair of shoes (so big that it will take two people to fill them). They have gone out of their way to help get things back on track: Everyone has been quick to respond to any questions about their articles when clarification was required; some have entirely rewritten lost articles; others have burned the midnight oil and pieced together articles because it had to be done. Several people have made generous offers to get me articles for the Spring 2004 Movement issue which to date is still desperately in need of more articles. I must say that I am grateful for this; it makes my job rather easy. I am happy that Manus has given me a chance to give back to the hobby in this way. I am hoping that I can follow up on this outpouring of good will from everyone by doing my best to live up to the expectations of the readers and authors alike. As the quality of work is for the large part due to the authors who have put together these most excellent articles, my duties so far are rather simple: These are checking spelling and grammar, putting things into HTML format and getting them online on time, and haranguing people to please write more articles and then to please get them to me before the deadline. I think that through the use of good communication skills and of good organization skills, two practices honed through my involvement in the Diplomacy hobby, I will accomplish these tasks. OverviewAs I am not one of the authors, I can say with some modesty that I think that we have some great articles. They cover a wide range of topics including analysis and strategy, variants, tournament reports, and puzzles. It is safe to say that there is something here for everyone. On a more social side of the hobby, we have articles of what has passed and what is yet to come: For North America, one can read Edi Birsan’s piece on DipCon XXXVI or Larry Peery’s preview for DipCon XXXVII. For Europe, we have two Peery pieces. One covers last year's Euro DipCon XI in San Marino, Italy, and the other forecasts this year's up and coming World DipCon in Birmingham, England. For those who enjoy a more technical read concerning Diplomacy and its variants, the full range of the spectrum is covered: Edi Birsan gives a good overview of triples in Diplomacy. Chris Dziedzic and Bill Leake discuss the potential of a Franco-Germanic alliance in 1900. Frank Mayer discusses unique characteristics of each power within the Payola variant. José Luis Fernández Valoni discusses considerations for playing Russia within no-press games. Three articles step back and take a wider, more philosophical look at the hobby: Will Abbott uses a theological approach to theorize about Diplomacy and military board games in general. Ray Setzer, on the other hand, discusses the psychology of being eliminated. Eric Hunter simply crunches the numbers and discusses the winning possibilities of each power. Last but not least are the fun articles. David Cohen’s solution to “Death at the Calhamer Club” is one of these articles. I’m certain that some people here have been waiting for this for some time now. I know that I have. In another article, Edi Birsan introduces a simple card variant that makes misordering impossible.
Enjoy The Pouch!
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