Richard Weiss
Wins! All closest guesses from prior
turns have been put in bold and italics.
Excerpts from “Kings and Queens of England”
by
Paul Milewski
All page
citations are to “Kings and Queens of England” by Eric Delderfield,
in which we find out that the English had their own revolution long before the
French had theirs, and that today the Royal family is essentially a bunch of
krauts.
RICHARD I (COEUR-DE-LEON)
On his
way home [from the crusades] Richard was captured by the Duke of Austria, who
sold him to the Emperor Henry IV: so a crusade begun for the rescue of the Holy
Land ended with the sale of one Christian monarch to another. For fourteen months, until his ransom was
paid, Richard was imprisoned in a secret imperial castle, where, legend tells
us, he was found at last by his minstrel, Blondel. Never again did an English king leave his
realm to go crusading. [Pages 45-46]
HENRY VII
During
the reign of Henry VII, playing cards were first invented (1486): the portrait
of his wife, Elizabeth of York, has appeared eight times on every deck of
playing cards for nearly 500 years.
[Page 68]
HENRY VIII
He wrote
a book on the Sacraments in reply to Luther, for which he received the title of
“Defender of the Faith” from the Pope, a title since borne by all his
successors. [The title is still to be found on current British coinage, in the
forms Fidei Defensor, Fidei Def., Fid. Def., or just
F.D.] His full title was: “By the
Grace of God, King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and in
earth under God of the Church of England and Ireland; the Supreme Head and
Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.” [Page 69]
CHARLES I
Things
went from bad to worse. The Civil War
became inevitable, a struggle for supremacy between King and Parliament,
between High Church and Puritans. In
1642 Charles’ standard was raised at Nottingham, and the war began which for
four long years tormented the realm.
Very roughly the middle classes and tradesmen supported Parliament and
the nobility and peasant class took the side of the King. It is estimated that the parts of country
controlled by Parliament, including the ports of London, Hull, Bristol and
Plymouth, contained some two-thirds of the population and three-quarters of the
country’s wealth; with the annihilation of the Royalist troops at the Battle of
Naseby by Oliver Cromwell’s New Model Army in 1645, the end was in sight. A year later Charles
surrendered himself to the Scots, who handed him over to the English. Eventually, in 1648, he was arraigned before
a tribunal consisting of 135 judges, but he refused to plead. Sentence was passed by sixty-eight votes to
sixty-seven, and by one vote Charles lost his head, being executed in
Whitehall. [Page 90]
OLIVER CROMWELL
He became
Lord General of the Commonwealth and then, in 1653, Lord Protector, a position
which was a virtual dictatorship, even though in theory the nation was ruled by
a Council of State, comprising seven Army leaders and eight civilians. England and Wales were divided into eleven
districts with a Major-General over each.
Later Cromwell was offered the title of King, but the Republican section
of the Army so resisted the suggestion that he declined.
At his
death he was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey, but at the
Restoration [of the Monarchy] his body was gibbeted at Tyburn
and afterwards buried there.
His son,
Richard Cromwell, succeeded to his position, but was not a strong enough
character to settle such a divided nation.
Army and Parliament were unable to agree on a government, and the
Restoration in 1660 was more or less a transaction between Royalists and
Puritans against the Army—intended more as a Restoration of Parliament than of
the King [Charles II] himself. Richard
Cromwell had to go to France, but returned, and lived peaceably through four
reigns, dying in 1712 at the age of eighty-six.
[Page 91]
CHARLES II
He was
forever short of money, and was at the beck and call of France, from whom he
secretly accepted bribes. Dunkirk was
sold to France for £400,000; after a quarrel with Holland a Dutch squadron
sailed up the Thames and burned English warships at Chatham—an incident
regarded as high damaging to British prestige.
After
years of war and exile, Charles had hoped for an easier life: he married the
Portuguese Catherine of Braganza in 1662, glad of her dowry of £300,000 with
the naval bases of Tangier and Bombay, but he also had thirteen known
mistresses, including Lucy Walters (mother of James, Duke of Monmouth), Barbara
Villiers (later Countess of Castlemaine) and the
famous Nell Gwynne.
The Great
Plague of London and the Great Fire took place during his reign, in 1665 and
1666. The Habeas Corpus Act was passed in 1679. Politics were moving into a new age, and the
emergence of the two-party system, Whig and Tory, became apparent. [Page 93]
JAMES II (VII of Scotland)
(third
son of Charles I and brother of Charles II)
James had
embraced Catholicism openly when the Test Act was passed in 1673. The Act limited government offices to those
who subscribed to the Anglican sacraments; James, therefore, had had to
relinquish his position at the Admiralty.
The violent anti-Catholic feeling which followed the Popish Plot in 1678
had made him very unpopular and he was persuaded by the King to go abroad. Charles, however, duly thwarted attempts made
to exclude James from the succession.
Within
six months of James’s accession to the throne, another James, the Duke of
Monmouth, illegitimate son of Charles II by Lucy Walters, landed at Lyme,
Dorset, and was proclaimed King by Protestant adherents at Taunton. A battle fought at Sedgemoore
crushed the rebellion at one stroke.
Monmouth was captured, the King refused a pardon and he was executed.
Religious
persecution began again on a large scale.
James committed every stupid error that was possible and for his
intrigue with the French King, his packing of Parliament with his supporters,
and the ruthless crushing of Protestantism, he became hated.
In
November 1688, William of Orange [of Holland], who had married Mary, the
daughter of James, landed at the head of a strong army at Brixham,
Devon, to start the “Glorious Revolution” at the invitation of Parliament,
which declared that James was no longer king.
At first the men of the West were slow to join William, having bitter
memories of the Monmouth Rebellion, but as he neared the capital men of all
parties rallied around.
James
fled the county, and the throne was vacant.
He made an effort to regain it later, but was heavily defeated at the
battle of the Boyne in Ireland and returned to France where he died. [Buried at St. Germaine in Paris] [Pages 94—95]
HANOVER to WINDSOR
During
the latter part of the seventeenth century, the question which dominated all
others was that of the Royal succession.
In 1689, the deposed James II (1685-1688) and his infant son James (b.
1687), were effectively excluded from the throne by Act of Parliament. The Act said that henceforth no Catholic, nor
anyone married to a Catholic, could be sovereign of England.
William
II (1689-1702) and his wife Mary II (died 1694) had no children. When the last of Queen Anne’s seventeen
children, the Duke of Gloucester, died in 1701, provision for the succession
had to be made. The Act of Succession,
1701, vested it in the nearest Protestant relatives of the Stuarts—Sophia, the
wife of the Elector of Hanover, and her descendants. Sophia was the fifth, and only Protestant,
daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia—James I’s only daughter. This Act deliberately passed over the
superior hereditary rights of the Stuarts, represented by the Catholic James II
and his son. The Hanoverian claim was
purely statutory—on the score of heredity the family had no real right to the
throne. (In 1910 it
was estimated that there were over 1,000 descendants of Charles I who had
hereditary precedence over Queen Victoria, her son and grandson.)
Sophia of
Hanvoer died a few months before Queen Anne
(1702-1714), and on 1 August 1714 Sophia’s son George became the first
Hanoverian King of England as George I.
Hanover was an offshoot of the duchy of Brunswick-Luneberg,
which had been governed by the Guelph family since the twelfth century; hence
the Hanoverian kinds were referred to in England as Hanoverians, as Guelphs or as the House of Brunswick.
The
accession of Queen Victoria in 1837 saw the separation of England from Hanover,
which had become a kingdom in 1814. As
the succession to the throne of Hanover was governed by the Salic law and therefore
could not pass to a woman, it passed to the nearest male relative, Ernest, Duke
of Cumberland, fifth son of George III; and to mark the change the German arms
were removed from the Royal arms of England, leaving them as they are today.
Edward
VII, the eldest child of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort, took his
father’s family name—that of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha—but popularly the Royal family
was still known as the House of Hanover or Brunswick. In July 1917, during World War I, King George
V announced that he had abandoned all German titles for himself and his family,
who would be known henceforth as the House of Windsor. [Pages 104-105]
VICTORIA
Queen
Victoria was the only child of the second marriage of Princess Victoria of
Saxe-Coburg to Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of
George III. Her father died when she was
eight months old, and his place was filled by her uncle Leopold of Saxe-Coburg
(later king of the Belgians).
In February 1840, the Saxe-Coburg influence upon her life was strengthened by
her marriage to her cousin, Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1819-1861). Tactless, serious, conscientious and very
German, Albert never endeared himself to the English people. There was no precedent, maintained the
Archbishop of Canterbury, for his being included in the customary prayers for
the Royal family; he was excluded from any official position in the political
life of the country; although he was made a British citizen, he was never
granted the titular dignity of an English peer; nor, until he and Queen
Victoria had been married for seventeen years (1857), was he made Prince
Consort. [Pages 122-123]
Acquire Game #2 -
“Juliet” – Eternal Sunshine
Players: Tom Howell,
Mark Firth, Andy Bate, Richard Weiss, Hank Alme
Turn 5
Hank
plays 1-E and buys 3 American.
Turn 6
Tom
plays 4-B and buys 2 Luxor.
Mark
plays 6-G. Festival is merged into
Continental. Andy receives $3,000 and
Mark receives $1,500. Mark trades 4
Festival for 2 Continental and retains 2 Festival. Andy trades 8 Festival for 4 Continental and
retains 1 Festival. Richard sells his 1
share of Festival. Mark buys 2
Worldwide.
Andy
plays 11-A and founds Festival. He gets one free share, and buys 3 Worldwide.
Richard
plays 2G and buys 2 Imperial.
Hank
is up!
Diplomacy
“Jerusalem” 2012A, F 12
England (John Biehl – jerbil “of” shaw.ca): F
Barents Sea Supports A Norway - St Petersburg,
A
Burgundy - Munich (*Fails*), A Finland Supports A Norway - St Petersburg, A
Gascony - Marseilles (*Fails*),
F
Gulf of Lyon Supports F Western Mediterranean - Tyrrhenian Sea, A Kiel Thumbs Nose at A Berlin (Holds),
A
Marseilles - Piedmont (*Fails*), F North Africa - Western Mediterranean
(*Fails*),
F
North Sea - English Channel, A Norway - St Petersburg,
A Ruhr Supports A Kiel, F Sweden - Gulf of Bothnia,
F
Western Mediterranean - Tyrrhenian Sea (*Fails*).
Italy (Mark Firth – mark.r.firth “of” capita.co.uk): Retreat F Ionian Sea - Tyrrhenian Sea..
F
Naples - Tyrrhenian Sea (*Disbanded*), F
Tunis Supports F Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean,
F
Tyrrhenian Sea - Western Mediterranean (*Fails*).
Russia (Richard
Weiss – richardweiss “of” higherquality.com): A Berlin – Prussia, A Livonia – Warsaw,
A
Moscow Supports A Livonia – Warsaw, F St Petersburg(sc) – Livonia, A Ukraine Supports A Livonia - Warsaw.
Turkey
(Geoff Kemp - ggeoff510 “of” aol.com): F Aegean
Sea Supports F Ionian Sea,
A Apulia Supports F Rome – Naples, A Bohemia Supports A Munich, A Budapest – Serbia,
A Bulgaria – Constantinople, F Ionian Sea
Supports F Rome – Naples,
A Munich Supports A Berlin (*Ordered to
Move*), F Piedmont Unordered, F Rome – Naples,
A Silesia Supports A Munich, A Tyrolia Supports F Piedmont, A Venice - Rome.
All Proposed Draws Fail.
Now Proposed – E/R/T, Concession to England
Please vote. NVR=No.
W 12/S 13 Deadline is November 25th at 7:00am my time
Supply Center Chart
England:
Belgium, Brest, Denmark,
Edinburgh, Holland, Kiel, Liverpool,
London, Marseilles,
Norway, Paris, Portugal, St Petersburg, Sweden=14, Build 1
Italy:
Spain, Tunis=2, Even
Russia:
Berlin, Moscow, Rumania,
Sevastopol, Warsaw=5, Even
Turkey:
Ankara, Budapest, Bulgaria,
Constantinople, Greece, Munich, Naples,
Rome, Serbia, Smyrna,
Trieste, Venice, Vienna=13, Build 1
PRESS
London (Apr 1, 1912): The Foreign
Ministry will support the Italian government to repel the heathen Ottomans and
strongly condemns the traitorous christian
schismatics of Russia for their perfidious lack of
opposition to their traditional enemy, the Ottoman Empire. One anonymous
official had a single word to describe the Russians,
he characterized them as "spineless".
Silly misordering Russian, who covets all
things Ukrainian, to GM: Why do you keep changing the
spelling of "Ukraina?" The maps and game board I have, yes very old,
show Ukraine spelled in the traditional Ukraina
style, with the A, showing female, as Ukraina means
"the forest." Thus, "The Ukraina" is redundant.
GM – Silly Somebody: If I knew what you were
talking about, I’d still deny all knowledge.
Torpid Tunis – maelstrom: Ahhh, was
expecting a separation of seasons there. Sorry about that.
Diplomacy
“Walkerdine” 2012D, W 07/S 08
Austria
(paul.milewski “of” hotmail.com): A Bulgaria - Serbia (*Fails*).
France
(Jim Burgess – jfburgess “of” gmail.com): Build A Brest, A Marseilles..
F
Aegean Sea Convoys A St Petersburg – Smyrna, A Brest –
London, A Burgundy Hold, A Edinburgh Hold,
F
English Channel Convoys A Brest – London, F Ionian Sea
Convoys A St Petersburg – Smyrna,
A
Marseilles – Piedmont, F Mid-Atlantic Ocean Convoys A St Petersburg –
Smyrna,
F
North Atlantic Ocean Convoys A St Petersburg – Smyrna, F Norwegian Sea Convoys
A St Petersburg – Smyrna,
F
Smyrna - Eastern Mediterranean, A Trieste Supports A
Budapest – Serbia,
F
Tyrrhenian Sea Convoys A St Petersburg – Smyrna, F
Venice - Adriatic Sea,
F
Western Mediterranean Convoys A St Petersburg - Smyrna.
Germany
(Steve Cooley – tmssteve “of” gmail.com): Build A Kiel, A Berlin..
F
Barents Sea Convoys A St Petersburg – Smyrna, A Berlin – Munich, A Budapest –
Serbia,
F Denmark Supports F North Sea, A Kiel Unordered,
F Kiel - Helgoland Bight (*No Such Unit*),
A
Moscow - St Petersburg, A Munich – Tyrolia, F North
Sea Hold, A Norway Hold,
A Rumania Supports A Budapest – Serbia, A
Sevastopol - Armenia (*Fails*), A St Petersburg – Smyrna,
A Tyrolia – Vienna, A Vienna -
Budapest.
Turkey (Civil
Disorder): Removes F Greece..
A Albania U, A Armenia U, F Constantinople U.
Deadline
for F 08 is November 25th at 7am my time
PRESS
Paul
pleads: I sure wish I knew what "play this out
properly" meant.
(JIM-BOB
to HANK):
Gee, you went all the way out? We will
miss you! Maybe there will be another
easy ending, maybe not, but only Paul has anything to say about it.
(JIM-BOB
to PAUL):
What do YOU have to say?
Dateline
Berlin:
Against all odds, the feisty little German army pushes it's way into the Balkans. But, I've got to say it:
they need a rest. Maybe some time in the Med? Is it nice this time of year?
Berlin-Constantinople: So, I'm thinking
"CD" is kind of a plea for help? You do want order restored, yes?
Austrian
Government in Exile-Berlin, Paris: keep coming boys! You're about to endure
one of the most embarrassing thrashings in all of history.
Black
Press Gunboat, “Fred Noonan”, 2013Arb32, S 10
France: F Barents Sea Supports F Norwegian Sea – Norway, F Brest -
Mid-Atlantic Ocean,
A
Burgundy Supports A Picardy, F Edinburgh - North Sea (*Fails*), F
English Channel - Belgium (*Fails*),
F
Mid-Atlantic Ocean - Spain(sc),
F Norwegian Sea – Norway, A Picardy Supports A Burgundy.
Germany:
F Belgium Supports F North Sea (*Cut*), A Holland – London, A Kiel – Munich, A Munich – Tyrolia,
F
North Sea Convoys A Holland – London, F Norway Supports F North Sea
(*Dislodged*, retreat to Sweden
or Skagerrak or OTB), A Ruhr Supports A Kiel – Munich, A
Silesia Supports A Warsaw (*Ordered to Move*).
Italy: Civil
Disorder. F Apulia U, A Budapest U, A Serbia U, F Tyrrhenian Sea U, A
Vienna U.
Russia: A St Petersburg Supports A Warsaw – Moscow, A Warsaw - Moscow
(*Fails*).
Turkey: F Ankara - Black Sea, A Bulgaria – Greece, F Constantinople - Bulgaria(ec),
A
Galicia Supports A Rumania, F Greece - Ionian Sea, A Moscow Supports A Silesia
- Warsaw (*Void*),
F
Naples Supports F Greece - Ionian Sea, A Rumania
Supports A Galicia, A Sevastopol Supports A Moscow,
F Smyrna - Aegean Sea, F Tunis Supports F Greece - Ionian Sea.
All Draw
Proposals Fail
Deadline
for F 10 Will Be November 25th at 7am My
Time
PRESS
(SWISS
OBSERVERS):
Yes, you all really DO suck, there had better be press
now!
(TURKEY
to GERMANY):
Italy NMRed and fell into Civil Disorder, we now need
to work together to take down France.
Here I come!!!
(FRANCE
to GERMANY):
Don't you dare think about moving into England.
With the loss of Italy, unless we do something quickly, Turkey is going
to win.
(RUSSIA
to GERMANY): So,
are you going to help me stop Turkey or not??? The time is now..
.
Diplomacy “Sweet Spot” 2013A, End Game
Larry Peery (Turkey): IT WAS
A TOUGH TIME FOR TURKEY
By Larry Peery
Intro
2013 – 2014 was a rough time to
be in Turkey or be a Turkey. In Turkey a country was torn by internal dissent.
In 2013A, a Sweet Spot became a bad after taste as the game wore on.
Background
As long as I live I’ll never
forget that summer day in 2009 when I pulled my trusty old Diplomacy board that
I’d gotten in 1965 and hadn’t used in years to look up something on a map I
thought I knew by heart. As I looked down at the board I realized that I
couldn’t see it. No blue seas or green or brown land spaces. No black lines. No
black dots. No nothing. All I could see was a white fog that obscured
everything. This lasted for several minutes. I finally stood up, shock my head,
and looked out the front door on what should have been a bright, sunny
afternoon. Instead I saw a sort of hazy mist filled with obscure shapes. Just a
few weeks before, feeling fine, I had found a doctor named Hai Le, originally
from Vietnam, down at Scripps and for my 62nd birthday I decided to give myself
a complete physical exam although I hadn’t been to a doctor since I was in my
forties. On the appointed day I drove down to the Clinic, parked the car, and
walked in. After a good hour of poking and prodding and asking questions Dr.
Le, who’d had a smiling cheerful look on his face when I walked in looked at me
seriously and said, “Mr. Peery, you’re a walking time
bomb.” He walked out of the exam room for a few minutes and then returned. He
asked if I had anyone with me and I said no. He asked how I’d gotten there and
I told him I’d driven myself. He wanted to know if there was someone who could
come and get my car. I thought he meant to drive me home and I said I could do
that myself. He looked at me again. “No, you’re not going home. You’re going to
Scripps Hospital in Encinitas. Now. The ambulance is
on the way.” I spent the next week in Scripps Encinitas while they did a
multitude of tests and various doctors came in and did more poking and
prodding. Nobody was telling me much but they all had that serious look on
their face that tells you that all those cheap hamburgers and rotgut have
finally caught up with you. What nobody had told me was that the reason I was
in Scripps Encinitas was because 1) They were afraid something really serious
might happen at any moment; and 2) They were waiting for a team of doctors and
an OR to become available at Scripps Hospital in La Jolla, their main facility.
After a week in Scripps Encinitas, the chief doctor that had been keep track of
me came in and gave me my first idea of what was wrong and what to expect. He
seemed concerned that I hadn’t had any visitors and my admission records showed
no family or emergency contacts. I explained to him that I had no family and my
emergency contact was on the other side of San Diego. He said OK and not to
worry about it, he’d take care of things for the moment. By then the ambulance
was there, complete with a ride along RN. They wasted no time in loading me up
and down the freeway we went. It seemed almost surrealistic to be on the inside
of one of those ambulances that I’d passed so many times on that same freeway
without even thinking about who might be inside or why.
Scripps La Jolla is a major
regional medical center and one of the best heart hospitals in the country. As
I lay in my private room on the 7th floor I looked out at the view that, under
other circumstances, would have been pleasurable. I could see the UCSD Library
building across the freeway, and the Torrey pines at the Golf Course where I’d
watched Tiger Woods win the local event in January. I realized that almost
everything I could see had been built in my adult lifetime, including the
building I was in. Soon the procession of doctors started coming in one by one,
like supernunneries in an opera by Bartok. I began to
learn that there was a definite pecking order to their appearances each day.
The first one to appear was the anesthesiologist and, as I learned later, he
was one of the most important members of the OR team and usually the biggest
cause of problems in a surgery. Most anesthesiologists don’t really want to be
one but it’s the fastest, cheapest way to becoming a doctor. They also tend to
be over-worked and over-stressed which leads to alcohol and other drug issues.
They often fail to show up on time, especially if you have an early morning
Monday surgery scheduled. Mine happened to be on Tuesday, but sure enough the
anesthesiologist was 1.5 hours late showing up and the entire OR team stood
around waiting for him. Eventually,
after a string of other specialists came in and introduced themselves
and briefly explained their role in what was to happen, the chief cardiologist
who would actually do the important work came in. He introduced himself, told
me that while it was a difficult procedure and I wasn’t in the best of shape to
go through it he had done that procedure some 400 times during his career and
he had confidence in his skills and his OR team. It wasn’t until he told me
that they were combining two procedures into one trip to the OR and it would
require a total of 14 staff and take somewhere between 12 and 15 hours
(Actually it took 17.) that I began to realize this wasn’t just another “Don’t
worry, Mommy will kiss it and make it better” situation. Finally, he paused and looked at me and asked
if I had any questions. I just looked at
him, wanly smiled, sand said. “I trust you. Let’s do it.”
17 hours in the OR. 24 hours one on one with a pre-ICU nurse, then another 24 hours in
the ICU, and then back to a private room. The next morning the LVN walks
in and smiles at me and says, “Mr. Peery, you’re
doing well. Do you feel like a walk?” I said sure. She disappeared and not
knowing what else to do, I proceeded to get out of the bed, wrapped a robe
around myself, and started off down the hall toward the other wing of the
floor. By the time the nurse, in a state of near panic, found me 15 minutes
later I was cheerfully telling some visitors what all the buildings they could
see from the view window were. My nurse walked up and said, “You weren’t
supposed to go this far and not without a walker and me. “Oh.” I said, and
turned around and walked back to my bed. Three days later I was home.
It wasn’t an easy recovery from
the quad bypass and carotid artery surgeries. There were missteps along the
way: another week in Scripps Encinitas with congestive heart failure. Then
there was a week in Tri City Hospital, just down the street from where I live,
due to a car accident that led to pneumonia. A false alarm
heart attack. And then there was the tongue problem. It seems funny now
but the doctors were concerned that I might have had a minor stroke during the
operation or, horror of horrors, they might have touched a raw nerve in my
throat which caused my tongue not to work properly. They did all kinds of tests
but came to no conclusion, telling me that if all went well it should go away
in four to six weeks. Well, eventually it did, but in the interim my diet and
eating habits changed radically and probably for the better. I could track the
consequences each day as I weighed. Going into the hospital for the surgery I
weighed just under 250. At my lowest during the tongue malfunctioning period I
had dropped to 187. I was still technically over-weighted for my size but I
hadn’t weighed that little since I was in high school. The doctors were happy.
All my signs were good. The 12 different meds I was taking were working, etc.
etc. By then almost two years had gone by. I discovered the reason for the
white out vision I had just before the surgery was because my brain was only
getting 30% of the oxygen it needed and consequently my brain was shutting down
non-essential services to conserve energy. Apparently being able to read a
Diplomacy board is not considered an essential service to a brain struggling to
survive.
Slowly I began to come back. I
was up and about doing things I hadn’t done in years. I resumed my writing and
other work, travelled a bit and felt better than I had in years. It was time to
open up that old Diplomacy board and take another look, and so I did.
From writing about the game and
hobby the jump to playing again wasn’t that difficult although I kept telling
myself I hadn’t played a game of Diplomacy in close to twenty years. But when
Doug Kent asks most people find it easier to say yes and give in then to say no
and then deal with his abuse So when he asked me to join what became
2013A, I agreed, partially because of his prodding and partially because of
Chris Babcock’s cajoling. I had met Chris while writing for TDP and he
suggested that he, I, and Heath Gardener, who I didn’t know, could make a good
alliance.
And so it happened.
You may be wondering why I went
to such length to tell this story about my hospital experience since everybody
knows the last thing anybody wants to read about it somebody else’s hospital
experiences. I did it simply to make a point, perhaps the most important point
I can make about this or any other Dip game: Watch for the Warning Signs. I
didn’t at the time and it almost cost me my life. That’s the real world we live
in.
In Dip it’s not quite a matter of life and
death although it might seem like it at the time, but the effect of making the
same mistake, not watching for the warning signs around you, can be just as
devastating. Sweet Spot was filled with many of these moments and I’m sure.
There are two kinds of warning signs you need to be watching for: the kind you
receive and the kind you send.
Warning signs are usually given
by one of the senses. We all have those: Sight, Taste, Touch, Hearing,
Smelling, the mysterious Sixth sense, and for Dippers, the Dip sense.
In the Beginning
The original players in Sweet
Spot were:
A – Fred Wiedemeyer:
Didn’t know him at all and that can be good or bad. In Fred’s case, although he
tried valiantly to change the tide he couldn’t do much to save himself when
Italy, Russia and Turkey decided to go after him.
E – Harold Zarr:
I didn’t know him at all and had little to do with him during the game. Had
things gone according to our plan he would have been the next player
eliminated. However, his determined defense impressed all of us enough that we
decided to include him in the final five way draw.
F – Melinda Holley: Melinda
played in some games I GM’d back in the 1980s.
Frankly what I remember wasn’t too good: Terrible orders badly written with
bizarre colored papers and ink. Still, she was a nice person and I hope she’d
keep England and Germany while Italy and Russia got into position.
G – Jack McHugh – I knew only
reputation as a ferocious fighter, so I hoped Russia and France would take him
down with England’s help if possible.
I – Heath Gardener – Didn’t
know him prior to the game but he seemed like a very nice guy and we hit off
well in the beginning, but he proved a high maintenance ally and I spent more
time reassuring him then doing anything else.
R – Chris Babcock: I knew Chris
from TDP but I’d never played in a game with him (Not that that was that big a
deal since I’d never played a game with any of these folks.) Chris was the kind
of ally you dream about having but then…
T – Larry Peery
- I like playing Turkey and when I do, all other things being equal I usually
try to get a strong non-aggression pact with Russia, take out Austria with
Italy and then see what’s going on with France as a potential ally against
Italy or as a target for Italy, thus keeping him (Italy) out of my hair while I
await developments in Germany.
At the Peak
Things went pretty much
according to plan in the early years and Italy, Russia and I worked well
together. I basically proposed to both of them that: 1) I would not attack
them; 2) I would not ally with either of them if they participated in an attack
on each other; 3) I would patiently wait in my corner watching what happened
and mind my own business while they expanded westward. It took some doing but I
think I convinced Russia of my sincerity early on. Italy was a bit more
difficult. He was always testing me and telling me not to do things I’d already
told him I wasn’t going to do.
France surprised me with her
aggressive play against England and Germany and she made better head way
against Germany than Russia did. Russia seemed to have problems dealing with
England, who fought tenaciously to defend himself, but he finally got moving.
By the end of 1902 Austria was
down to one new center and had a new player, Paul Milewski
who was an old timer that I barely remembered. England had four. France had
six. Italy was up to seven! Russia was at five, as was Turkey. Holland remained
unoccupied.
By then I was more interested
in the real world events going on in Turkey than I was in the game and my press
showed it. What was going on In Istanbul reminded me so much of what I’d seen
in Prague in 1968. It was like watching history all over.
With Austria gone, Germany going
fast, and England about to be pounded, I decided on a slight chance of my long
term plan. As I was more impressed by Russia’s play, which was excellence well
into the Mid Game, I begin to wonder if perhaps he could actually pull off a
solo win. I told him privately that if he wanted to go for it I would maintain
my neutrality and stay out of the battle between him and France and Italy,
hoping that the two of them would be at each other’s throats before they
realized he was coming after them. I could tell he was intrigued with the idea
of pulling it off but that he didn’t have the lust for the dots to make it
happen.
By the end of 1903 Austria was
gone, England was down to two, France gained three to go to nine, Germany was
even at four, Italy was up to eight, Russia was still at five, and I had gone
to six.
Over the Hill
The big change in 1904 was
Russia suddenly coming to life and picking up most of Scandinavia and occupying
two German spaces. France and Italy were facing off in the Western Med area.
Things looked interesting. The multiple draw proposals were flying fast and
furious which irritated me as I saw no reason for it.
1906 saw England pick up a
center to three. France was still at seven. Germany was gone! Italy was at
eight, Russia had gone to nine and Turkey stayed at seven. By this time most of
my orders involving any movement involved an Army wandering between Syria and
Armenia as I tracked the progress of the real world fighting going on in Syria
and Kurdistan.
Not With a Bang But With a Whimper
By 1907 Heath had dropped out
as Italy and been replaced by Hank Alme, who quickly
signed off on the French, Russian and Turkish plan for a four way draw as soon
as England was eliminated. By the end of the year England was at two, France
even at seven, Italy at eight, Russia at ten, having taken Denmark and Berlin.
Turkey continued at seven. Russia NMRed in the Winter
1907 and Spring 1908, another sign that interest was fading in the game when
the biggest player on the board NMRs. England continued his defensive moves and
tried to cause trouble where he could. France, Italy and Turkey pretty much
just stood and supported themselves.
Because of a change in the
House Rules a ten center Russia having two NMRs was put into Civil Disorder
after the Spring 1907 turn without a stand by being
called. The remaining players less England, decided it
was pointless to continue and informed the GM that they would vote for a five
way in the Winter that would include England, France, Italy, Russia and Turkey.
We included England because of his strong effort to defend himself anyway
possible and we included Russia, even though in Civil Disorder, as an
acknowledgment of his fine play. Once we told England we were going to include
him in the Draw he stopped voting against them.
End of Game Players
A – Eliminated
E – Harold Zarr:
Liverpool, London = 2, Even
F – Melinda Holley: Belgium,
Brest, Holland, Kiel, Marseilles, Munich, Paris = 7, Even
G – Eliminated
I – Hank Alme:
Naples, Portugal, Rome, Spain, Trieste, Tunis, Venice, Vienna =8, Even
R – Civil Disorder: Berlin,
Denmark, Edinburgh, Moscow, Norway, Rumania, Sevastopol, St.Petersburg,
Sweden, Warsaw = 10, 1 short
T – Larry Peery:
Ankara, Budapest, Bulgaria, Constantinople, Greece, Serbia, Smyrna = 7, Even
What If?
If the Draw Proposal in Winter 1908 had failed I was prepared to take action. Obviously the race would be for Russia’s
supply centers and it seemed to me from his final positions that the board
set-up favored me in that contest. I would have taken Rumania and Sevastopol
the following year and perhaps even Warsaw or Moscow. The challenge would be to
keep France and Italy from allying against me before I could build some fleets
in the Mediterranean (I had only one fleet at this point.). And there was always
the question of what would England do?
The Might Have Been?
I mentioned at the beginning of
my comments about Warning Signs. As you may have noticed I didn’t use a lot of
examples of this game. I’m sure you, as you read the various statements and go
back and look at the game reports, can find many moments that were, in effect,
Warning Signs of things to be looked for. But there was one in this game that
no one could have anticipated because it all took place inside my head.
It all happened on a Fall turn late in the game. Everything between myself and my ally Russia had gone well. The deadline was
two hours away and I suddenly realized I hadn’t heard from him since the Spring results had been published. My peerinoia
went into over-time. Within 20 minutes I’d convinced myself that he was
planning a stab of me with Italy, who’d been making various threatening and
contradictory remarks for several seasons. I quickly decided I had to respond
to that perceived attack and wrote up an email with orders that would send my
Army in Syria into Armenia (or Armenia into Sevastopol, whichever was
possible), take Rumania and even make a grab for Galicia. In a single,
brilliant turn I figured southern Russia would be at my mercy. My finger was,
literally, inches, from the SEND button, when I suddenly realized that the
Warning Signs I had seen were all inside my head and that nothing in reality
justified that kind of thinking. So I backed up, rethought the situation and
decided that while such an action might be the best move for me in the short
run it would definitely be a disaster in the long run, especially if I’d
guessed wrong and Russia and Italy weren’t attacking. Now that would have been
embarrassing. So, my orders remain unchanged, Russia remained my ally, and Italy
went off to fight the battles going on inside his head.
Finally
my thanx to Doug for running the game and patiently
putting up with us all and, in particular, answering my almost endless and
sometimes stupid questions. Oh yes, and publishing all that
Peeriblah with only a few complaints.
My EOG statement was written shortly after the announcement of the
draw was made and without benefit of much reflection or going back and looking
at the moves, press, and such. As such it contains some things which were
incorrect. However, when I read Peter Paul Koch's recent story in TDP about A
Smyrna H, I realized that my opening moves in Sweet Spot were much more
interesting and unusual than I had realized. That has resulted in a 36 page
article on the subject of a single opening move, A Smyrna - Syria. Yes, three
words grew to 36 pages! Is that vintage Peeriblah or
what? Actually, it's mostly a lot of cut and paste. However, if you want an
understanding of what Turkey was doing in 2013A you need to read that article
which should be in the October or December issue of TDP. Look for it.
Woolworth
II-D “Coney Island” 2013Bcb19, W 07/S 08
Balkans
(Secret): Bld A Vie..A Bur S A Ruh-Bel, A
Par S A Gas-Bre, A Alb
S F Tri, F Tri S A Alb, A Ser
S F Tri,
A Swi S A Bur, A Vie-Tyr
England
(Secret): A Pic-Par, F Bre S F Mao, F Mao S F Bre(ret
Nao, Iri, Bob, Bas, OTB).
Italy
(Secret):
Bld F Nap..F
Por S Hao-Mao, F Mad S F Hao-Mao, A Gas-Bre, A Rom-Tus, A Ven S F
Tri,
F Wms
S F Hao-Mao, F Nap-Tys.
Russia
(Jim Burgess - jfburgess
“of” gmail.com): Bld F Stp(sc)..F Stp(sc)-Gob, F Bal S F Stp(sc)-Gob,
A Kie-Den,
A Ber-Kie, F Hel S A Kie-Den,
F Hol-Nth, A Ruh-Bel,
A Mun-Ruh, A Sev S A Rum.
Scandinavia
(Geoff Kemp - ggeoff510 “of” aol.com): F Wao S F Mao, F Ech S F Mao, F
Nth S A Den,
F
Swe S A Den, A Den H.
Spain (Civil Disorder): A Bel U.
Turkey
(Hugh Polley – hapolley
“of” yahoo.ca): F Ion-Cre, A Rum S Bul, A Bul S Rum, F Hao-Mao,
F Mor-Hao, F
Ems-Ion, A Tun-Alg.
Deadline
for F 08 is November 25th at 7am My Time
PRESS
Unknown
Player
- Is this A gunboat game without email? How many NMR this turn?
(THOSE
NOT PLAYING GUNBOAT TO HE WHO IS PLAYING GUNBOAT): Sorry, we waited as long as we could, but
those who actually are talking need to take out those not talking. The last Civil Disorder unit should come out
this year too.
(RUSSIA): Rather than
shooting myself, I decided to break out.
Let's see what this does.
(JIM-BOB
to GEOFF):
I really, really hope you're feeling better and getting some better access to
communication. To be fair, you really
weren't talking to us before that either.
Yes, I finally stabbed when you quite rightfully refused to stab your
English ally. The end should not be too
far off now.
