Reveilled

In preperation for starting the game, I've opened a new thread in Pen and Paper, here. It contains the house rules and the starting map. Could we transfer discussion there?

Standard Rules and Map, with the following house rules: 1. Do not decieve the GM. This includes but is not limited to forging moves from another player. 2. Do not attempt to decieve the GM. 3. Orders must be submitted by the deadline set. If no orders are recieved, all units hold. 4. If no orders are recieved for three turns in a row, the player will be ejected from the game. 5. If invalid, ambiguous or poorly written orders are submitted before the deadline, the GM will email the player asking for clarification of the orders. The player will have until one hour after the deadline to respond, after which the individual orders in question which are ambiguous or invalid will be voided. 6. Should you wish to announce something to all players, it should be done through your nation's press. This is done by posting on this thread while emailing the contents of your press release to all players and the GM. 7. Players may submit to the GM press releases which will be edited to protect to anonymity of the sender and then forwarded to all players (including the original sender, to preserve anonymity) and posted in this thread. 8. The GM reserves the right not to send anonymous press which he finds inappropriate, for reasons including but not limited to it being overly slanderous. If you wish to slander a player, do it yourself. 9. Do not cheat. 10. What happens in the game, stays in the game. Do not, under any circumstances whatsoever, carry a grudge from a betrayal game onto these forums. We want the game to become popular on the forums, not banned bacause players are causing disruption. 11. By Playing the game, you implicitly agree to the above House Rules and the Standard rules of Diplomacy. GM: Reveilled Email: revCAPSeilled at gmail dot com (Remove the CAPS and make it an address) Players: England - Archmonarch - archCAPSmonarch at mail dot com France - Baley - kryoxCAPSer at yahoo dot co cot uk Germany - Kaftan - joCAPSar at linuxmail dot org Austria - Aishur - iaminnocentCAPSbystander at hotmail dot com Italy - jaguars4ever - monoCAPSceros100 at aol dot com Turkey - metadigital - m3t4CAPSd1g1t4l at yahoo dot co dot uk Russia - EnderWiggin - enderCAPSandrew at gmail dot com ---- Fall 06 Orders: Germany: NMR Italy: F Con H F Ser H F NAf-MAO F Spa(sc)-Por F GoL-Spa F WES S F GoL-Spa F TYN-GoL A Mun-Bur A Mar S Mun-Bur A Pie S A Mar A Tus-Ven A Tyr-Mun Russia: A Ber-Kie A Bul H A StP-Nwy A Sil S Italian A Tyr-Mun A Kie-Hol A Pru-Ber A Sev-Rum F Den-Hold F Ank-Hold F Edi-Cly F Hol-Bel F Bel-Pic F Nwy-NTH Positions: France: A Gas F ENG F MAO Germany: A Ruh Italy: A Ser A Mun A Pie A Mar A Bur A Ven F Con F WES F NAf F GoL F Spa(sc) F Por Russia: A Ber A Bul A StP A Sil A Kie A Hol A Sev F Den F Ank F Clyi F Pic F Bel F NTH Map: http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/6875/di...yobs1f063nq.gif Deadline for W06: Tuesday 23rd August, 12:00 UTC --- Table of Previous Years --- Thanks Imageshack for hosting all images in this post.

Well, if everyone else is as quick, we could be ready to start by Saturday

Nope! Welcome to the game! Well, that's it! We have all our players. Email me your preference lists (a list of the countries in the order you'd like to play them) and we'll begin to get started. The way I will assign the countries is to randomly select a player, assign him his first choice, then select another player, assign him his first choice, and so on. If a player's first choice is already taken, they get their second choice, or their third choice if it too is taken, etc. etc. You can assign multiple countries the same level of preference if you wish, and if more than one is not taken, I'll just assign randomly from those. You might want to do this if say you wanted France if possible, and didn't care who you got if you couldn't get them. Note that submitting a list with all the powers listed equally means you'll get a random one, while no list at all means you'll get the power no one else wanted. Suggested format would be something like: 1. England 2. France 3. Austria 4. Russia 5. Turkey 6. Germany 7. Italy Email me at revCAPSeilled at gmail dot com Just remove the CAPS and make it an address. Damn Spiders.

Are you surprised? Have you seen how long this thing is? http://www.epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html All credit to Reveilled, but I don't think I could handle more than five minutes of that. Part of the problem is that it's so huge and contains so many measures. The supporters will pick out measures that are pretty reasonable, the opponents will pick out measures that are silly and badly written, and never the twain shall meet. (Still, it's probably better than the UK system, where anybody can be sent to jail indefinitely and without trial just because the Home Secretary thinks they might be a terrorist.) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> I don't understand how the hell anybody could have allowed that measure to pass through parliament. One would like to think that such a measure would have been voted down unanimously, but security seems to be king in the western world today, and silly things like freedom get in the way of that. A shame.

Well, okay, I'm reading it, but I have to wonder, didn't this act pass in congress with virtually no debate? Did the people voting for it actually read it? And do they perhaps oppose it now because they read it in full? Okay, Here's what I gleaned from reading it: This section here means that the FBI can request the records of anybody on any basis other than their speech. They need not be suspected of any crime, or suspected of terrorist links. If the FBI thinks--or say that they think--that something in your records would aid in a terrorist investigation, they can pull your records, as long as their supposed investigation isn't solely on the basis of the person they are investigating's (not necessarily the person whose records they are pulling) speech. I sure as hell don't like this. It strikes me as a violation of civil liberties and due process. As I understand it, the FBI already had the right to do this under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act anyway, and this section of the Act just opens this kind of search up to regular police investigations into American citizens. So, okay, I've read the thing, and I don't like it. I'd appreciate it if y'all would strike it down before I immigrate.

Not that a black bar would stop another country from reading the correspondence. Unless you wish to trust that other players will not read bars intended for them. But that's not such a good idea.

One of the problems with doing it on a forum is that everyone can see your negotiations with each other, unless you use PMs. What might be a very good idea is that we set the deadline for weekly moves for midday on a Friday, so I can resolve the moves and create the new map (there might actually be some software to do this) and then on friday evening, we can do adjustments and/or builds (depending on the game season), allowing us to get the short seasons done in a night, allowing more time for movement turns. Right now, though, what i need is sleep. Gute Nacht.

Useless info: The original AD&D module called Ravenloft was written by the same people who wrote the dragonlance campaign setting. Useful info: There is one place left in our diplomacy game. You know you want to.

Just one more person required, and then we'll be ready to kick things off.

Exactly. You're supposed to cut towards the elbow. Sorry. I'm in a strange mood tonight.

I think you're compensating for something.

It's a .pdf file, maybe that has something to do with it. Maybe you could try using "save target as"?

Should I interpret that as a "Count me in"?

In theory, we could do it with an instant messenger, but in practice, a hybrid of both an IM and email might work better if that is what you wanted to do. It would be far easier at least on my part if move orders were emailed to me rather than IMed, as in any case it takes time for me to adjudicate moves. Plus, if we were all online simultaneously, players might find it stessful attempting to talk to six people individually at once as well as talking in a general conversation. That could lead to someone accidentally writing their suggestion to stab another player in the wrong person's conversation, which wouldn't be very nice. What could work is this: People will Email me their moves, and I post the results of the moves, along with a map of the current positions in a thread here on the forum, as well as emailing them to all players. Further, any anonymous press* can be emailed to me, which I will post and email out. Named press can be posted on the forums. Since all players will have each other's email adresses, they can, in addition to emailing each other organise chats of their own in order to negotiate plans, or to make public announcements in the presence of everyone. The use of an IM could greatly speed up the pace of the game, allowing us to play a turn every few days instead of weeks. However, much like playing speed chess, that would mean you'd have less time to negotiate with everyone about each move. Compared to Postal Diplomacy, which has a rate of up to a turn a month, a turn a week is already breakneck speed. But you are the players, I'm just the GM. How you wish to play this game is your choice. *Press is what generally substitutes for the tabletop conversation after a move in face-to-face diplomacy. At least in the game we will be playing (unless players are uncomfortable with this idea), press can be named or anonymous. Basically, you can use your nation's press (through an email to all parties or a post on the forums) to make statements, announce knowledge of an enemy's plan against you, announce a formal alliance between you and another player, etc. etc. You can use the press in Geneva or Washington (through an email to me the contents of which I will post on the forum and in an email to all parties minus any identification) to announce something like captured enemy plans. For instance, if you as England discovered a plan by Russia to stab her alliance partner, Turkey, you could leak the information to the Washington Post, in the hopes of preventing Russia from acting on the now public plans. On the other hand, maybe Russia had no such plans, and you made them up in order to trick Turkey into a pre-emptive strike against her faithful ally.

Again, as you'll note, I didn't say science or the universe was an illusion. Lots of people can look at something in the same way and see the same thing. I would hold that, as useful as your philosophies might be from an ordered and scientfic stance, they are boring -- speaking from a discordian stance. Seriously, we should rename Occham's Razor the I'm-a-boring-stick-in-the-mud-who-insists-everything-has-to-make-logical-sense-and-can't -be-bothered-using-my-imagination-because-I-can't-prove-what-I-imagine Principle. I realise it's a long name, but it gets across the gist of the reason people use Occham's Razor in these arguments.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is better on the radio. But then, what isn't? :D <{POST_SNAPBACK}> The crap that passes for rock music these days? :D

If you wish, though getting an English Army to Sevastopol might be quite a challenge.

Well, it depends how long it takes for someone to win. At the rate of a turn a week, that means one game year every month if we also take a week for builds and adjustments, or less if we don't. A few months, then, I think. In a face to face game, it would last a few hours, but we don't have that luxury, what with living in different countries and all.

Yes, but it was also The Ottoman Empire and Great Britain. But in the game, they're referred to as I listed them. Alas, such is life.

We'll start when we get two more players. The way you choose your countries is to email me (preferably after we get the other two players, at which point I'll post my email address) a list of your preferred countries, so it might read: 1. England 2. France 3. Germany 4. Austria 5. Russia 6. Italy 7. Turkey So, if only you picked England as a first choice, you'd be England. If two players picked England, I'd flip a coin, the winner would get england and the loser their second choice, and so on until all positions are filled.

Actually, the Ottomans are pretty good, having the advantage of being a corner power. But the way selection would work is that everyone would send in a list of the powers in order of preference, so if you put the Ottomans at the bottom, you'd probably not get them. Here is a page with strategies that may help you decide on what powers you wish to play So, can I count both you and Baley in as players? That would leave only two.

There are three possible answers to this. The first answer, which we derive from our scripture, is "I don't know, man, I didn't do it." The second answer, which is more explanatory, is that it's a very good doctrine for a religion based around the worship of the goddess of Chaos. If our religion made perfect sense, it wouldn't be much good as a chaotic religion. The third answer, and much more elabourate and philosophical is this: The truth of a statement is not objective, but rather subjective. Imagine looking at the stars. Now imagine you had a large transparent piece of plastic sheeting with a grid painted on it. You look through the grid and see that the consellation Orion is in grid B9. Now imagine that your friend is standing beside you, and he also looks through the grid. However, because he isn't standing where you are, he sees Orion in grid A9. Which grid is Orion in? A9 or B9? So, by the same token, does the Earth go around the Sun, or the Sun around the Earth? Well, both are true. It's just that if you assume that the Sun goes round the Earth, it's bloody difficult to establish uniform laws of physics, so physicists instead take it that the Earth goes round the sun, because physics is easy that way. On the other hand, astrology is bloody difficult to do with the earth going round the sun, so astrologers do it the other way around. Basically, Science is a "grid" which you can apply to the universe to make it appear to obey fixed rules, but it would be silly to assume that the fact that that particular grid makes everything look so neat and tidy makes it the only right one. It may be the most useful one, but it's not the only right one. Science is not so much an illusion as a point of view. Well, sort of. Personally, I like the second answer best.

Well, we have another player, but we really need four more. Don't worry if you've never even heard of the game before now, that won't be a problem. The game itself, despite the seemingly large number of rules is really quite simple, and it'd be lots and lots of fun. I'm sure plenty of you would be perfect for our game, if only you'd join. Please? Pleeeeeeeeeease?

I think we only intertwine the two when we agree with the laws of society. When we disagree with the law, for whatever reason, we can see the breakers of that law to be good, or even heroes. For instance, the Founding Fathers all commited High Treason against the Crown of Great Britain; Lawbreaking in the strongest sense, yet the Founding Fathers are considered to be heroes of almost mythic proportions.