Venue: Soapbox Brewery, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner – Honey Porter by Soapbox, Brisbane

Amby – “The Rant” IPA by Soapbox, Brisbane

It’s Christmas! And the guys get very drunk talking Diplomacy. ‘Nuff said!

Intro and Christmas chat

The guys introduce the show, their drinks and the venue (0 mins 15 secs)

The guys introduce the show, their drinks and the venue (0 mins 15 secs) They quickly touch on their Presidential election campaign and introduce a new Hawaiian shirt plank and discuss Kaner’s new look (3 mins)

Kaner and Amby are planning to go to the next Melbourne Open tournament on 21-22 March 2020 (5 mins 50 secs)

They announce an official Queensland tournament, being run by Tony Collins. They discuss possible names for the tournament and land on The Canetoad Classic (6 mins 50 secs)

They talk about ideas for WDC 2021 and getting the word out about Diplomacy to ex-pats in Thailand. Kaner talks about when he ran a Diplomacy game when he was living in Thailand (11 mins 30 secs)

The guys grab another beer and talk home brew (18 mins)

They exchange Christmas presents. Kaner gives Amby a DMOL – Diplomatic Man of Leisure – t-shirt. Amby gives Kaner a pan with maps of Florida and the contiguous United States stuck to the pan (21 mins 20 secs)

Around the grounds

Amby discusses how his American Funboat and Undivided States games are going (30 mins)

Kaner reflects on the nature of the large map variants and how players can afford to lose units in their rear for much longer periods of time. Kaner uses the example of how Tiemcen has been able to sustain losses in the rear to sneak into Scottish territory (35 mins 30 secs)

Kaner discusses playing a country where you have no interest… or you don’t like the color, before moving onto discuss regional dominance in a game Kaner is in and also Cry God for Harry (50 mins)

They move onto their classic Fog of War game (56 mins 50 secs)

Amby talks about a real time Germany v Italy game he played at webDip against Roadhog. Kaner discusses how great players can think 4-5 turns ahead (57 mins 30 secs)

Amby talks about the pressure of the live game and how tight to the line he took it. He also discusses a misorder that made a big difference (1 hr 1 mins 15 secs)

Kaner gets more beers and they discuss how some players’ language when communicating in games online can come across very weird (1 hr 4 mins)

Newbie segment

Kaner discusses The Concise 33 Strategies of War by Robert Green. He suggests discussing the strategies in the book to help newbies. The land on Pick your battles carefully. They discuss avoiding two front wars or unnecessarily provoking players (1 hr 6 mins 15 secs)

They discuss how in their last face to face battle Sean as Germany didn’t pick his battle well. Kaner goes on to read a great passage from the book about penetrating your enemies’ minds (1 hr 13 mins)

Amby tells a joke (1 hr 17 mins)

They discuss going on a crusade (1 hr 19 mins)

Election and DMOL update

The guys put out a reminder you can get bonus show content if you become a Patreon supporter of the show for just $2 a month. But for just a dollar more ($3 a month) we’ll let you join our Cabinet when we’re elected to the White House. Just let us know when you sign up about your portfolio and how you can relate it to Diplomacy (1 hr 20 mins)

Kaner lets people know if you want a DMOL (Diplomatic Man of Leisure) shirt to get in touch with him – just use our contact form. Currently $40 Australian, which is probably about $30 US including postage (1 hr 25 mins)

The guys wrap up the show (1 hr 27 mins)

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don’t forget if you want to help improve the audio equipment… or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon or you can also shop at Amazon using our affiliate link . It costs exactly the same to you, but Amazon give us a small cut and it doesn’t cost you a cent more!

Lastly, don’t forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka “The General” for his rockin’ intro tune.