You keep lyin’ when you oughta be truthin’
You keep losing when you oughta not bet
You keep samin’ when you oughta be a’changin’
Now what’s right is right but you ain’t been right yet
In addition to being a catchy jingle, Nancy Sinatra’s classic song is filled with great advice for Diplomacy players of all stripes. The song also comes to mind while reviewing the Spring 1901 moves from last Wednesday’s game at the Red Lion in Lincoln Square. Specifically, these orders:
Turkey: F Ankara to Constantinople
Russia: F Sevastopol to Rumania, F St. Petersburg to Finland
Germany: F Kiel to Holland
The Black Sea set of moves, of course, suggested a budding Juggernaut. But the Swedish set, at least to a couple of veteran players on the board, suggested German complicity and caused alliances to form that might not otherwise have congealed.
Those four moves weren’t the only odd ones. A couple of army movements also caused head-scratching. However, it was the four boats that played where maybe they “shouldn’t be playing” that served to ignite the “brand-new box of matches.” Guess who got burnt?
Game No. 380 ended by time limit after the Fall 1906 turn in the following center counts:
Austria (Jim O’Kelley): 7; 19.444 points.
England (Bryan Pravel): 7; 19.444 points.
France (Eber Condrell): 8; 25.397 points.
Germany (Brian Shelden): 0; 0.000 points.
Italy (Mike Morrison): 9; 32.143 points.
Russia (Renzo Downey): 3; 3.571 points.
Turkey (Brian MacWilliams): 0; 0.000 points.
Check out the supply center chart here. The current league standings, through our first four games, are here. The Brawl standings, through the first three games, are here.
It was great to see more new faces around the table. Downey is a student at Northwestern who plays online at webdiplomacy.net. Alas, he heads back home for the holidays and then off for an internship in the Spring. We hope to put him in touch with other hobbies.
MacWilliams is local and was playing his first game of Diplomacy ever. Hopefully it won’t be his last!
Eber is another online player. He’s a high school student who debuted with the Weasels at Opening Night in September. I’d love to see Eber, Jorge, Kevin, maybe the Hafner brothers, and a couple of other teenagers get together for a league game.
One of these days …
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Glad you were able to get the game to happen!
One of the people who signed up on Meetup went to the wrong Red Lion, but we had enough standbys lined up to make the game happen anyway. It was a good one, too, with two more new Weasels and another making his second appearance with us.
A couple of noteworthy things:
1) We finally got longtime lurker Anna Moorman to come out for a game … but she went to the wrong Red Lion! Doh! That happens every so often. We play at the one in Lincoln Square, 4749 N. Rockwell.
2) My favorite exchange of the game was with Russia in Spring 1901.
[b]Me:[/b] What are you guys doing in the Black Sea?
[b]Russia (Renzo):[/b] He wants to DMZ it. So … I guess I’ll move there.
[b]Me:[/b] That sounds good. So, what would you like to do about Galicia?
[b]Russia:[/b] … Do you want to DMZ it?
[b]Me:[/b] Uh, no.
😀