Who are these instructions for?
© 1997 Nswad1@aol.com
These instructions are for all you who know the Diplomacy rules, but
don't know how to play it by email. I must emphasise that I will not
include the rules here, as they are copyrighted by Avalon-Hill. AH
allows us to use the name, map etc., so they really deserve that we at
least buy the rules.
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How is Diplomacy played on the net?
As you all know, Diplomacy is played in phases: Spring moves, Spring
retreats, Fall moves, Fall retreats and Winter adjustments. In email
Diplomacy it is a variable time between each phase. Most common is 48 or
72 hours between each move and 24h for the retreat/build. That is, the
24/48/72 hours before the deadline, you can communicate with the other
players. All orders are sent to a judge, and the communication also goes
through this.
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What is a judge? What does it do for me?
Diplomacy is played in at least 2 ways on the Internet. The first is
that one person is the Gamesmaster, and the players send him their
orders. This is not what I shall talk about
The second, and most used way, is to play on the so-called 'judges'. A
judge is simply a computer running a dedicated Diplomacy Adjudication
program. The players send the orders to this, and when deadlines are
due, the judge will then process the orders and solve the conflicts. The
players get the results, and the game continues. Usually, all
communication between the players also go through the judge.
In April, 1996 these judges were working:
USEF = judge@morrolan.igo.org (Electronic Frontier Foundation, David
Kovar)
USTO = judge@math.utoledo.edu (Toledo-Ohio, Michael Frigge)
USIN = judge@usin.atecengr.com (Indiana, Dave Kleiman)
CAMA = judge@cs.UManitoba.CA (Canada-Winnipeg, Arne Grimstrup)
USWI = judge@terracom.net (Wisconsin, Nathan Wagner)
YUBG = judge@galeb.etf.bg.ac.yu (Belgrade-Serbia, Dragan D. Vecerina)
ZAPT = judge@modintech.co.za (Potchefstroom-South Africa, Jannes
Haasbroek)
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1. Register
To be able to play games on a judge, you have to register with the judge.
Usually, you only do this once. To do it, you only fill in the form
below (your data instead of the one in the text), and send it to the
judge you want to register to.
Example: You want to register to the USEF judge. Send an email like
this:
TO: judge@morrolan.igo.org
SUBJECT: [Whatever you'd like to write. The Judge does not care]
As the message body you include a filled-in version of this form:
--------------------------------------------------
REGISTER
Name: Joe Shmo
Phone: (###) ###-####
Site: Players of Diplomacy Page
Address: 3123 johnston rd. columbus Ohio
Country: USA
Timezone: Eastern
Email: user@host.domain.edu, user@host.bitnet, host2!host1!user
Level: Novice, Amateur, Intermediate, Advanced or Expert
Birthdate: Dec 1, 1955
Sex: MALE, FEMALE
Package: Yes
END
--------------------------------------------------
Some notes to the form:
Email: Here you put your email address. If you have two or more
addresses you want the Diplomacy notices sent to, you list them up,
separated by commas.
Level: Well, pick your choice. Some games are limited to players in only
one or a few of these categories.
Package: If you write 'Yes', you will get a set of files from the judge
you register to. These files will tell you the details about available
commands you can send to the judge. I strongly recommend that you get
this package, as this step-by-step introduction only gives you a limited
knowledge.
I also recommend that you register to all judges at once. Then it's
done, and you don't have to think about it any more. PS! If you don't
want to get a lot of ´packages´, remember to set ´Package: ´ to ´No´S
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2. Looking for games.
Now you have registered to the judges, and you can start looking for a
game to join. I guess you will preferably want to join a forming game,
but you should also consider joining a running game which needs a
replacement player.
Note that when you join a game, you should want to complete it. Several
gamesmaster (me included) have started to blacklist players who jump out
of games before the game has finished. Such a behaviour ruins the game
for the rest of the players, and for the GM. So don't join more games
than you can handle. And stay in the game, even if you are not doing as
well as you hoped. If you have to resign from the game, tell the GM in
advance, and give him the reason why you have to quit..
To find new games forming, or games which needs a replacement player, is
easy. If you have access to WWW (Netscape, Mosaic, MS Explorer), the
easiest is to take a look at the 'Judge Openings List' at
http://www.ii.uib.no/~bjornts/openings/openings.html.
There you will find a list of all available slots in new and existing
games. The list is updated every two hours.
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3. Sign on to a game
Okay. As the procedures for joining a forming (new) standard game and
joining a running standard game as replacement player are somewhat
different, I will deal with these two situations separately. I will also
show you how to join a game as an observer.
(If you are going to join any variant game (gunboat or whatever), read
the 'info' or 'index' file you got from a judge when you registered.
(If
you did not get it, send the command 'get package' to a judge.)
Joining a forming game
Let's say you browsed through the Openings List, and found a game called
'First' forming on the USEF judge. You want to join this game, and
therefore send an email to the USEF judge (judge@morrolan.igo.org) with
this message body:
signon ?first mypassword
set preference fre
signoff
This needs some explanation. Let's take it line by line:
Line 1: The 'signon' command is always needed to sign on to a game. Not
only the first time you sign on to it, but every time you will send
messages in the game, or submit orders. The '?' indicates that you don't
know which country you are to play (the game has not started yet, you
know). 'first' is the name of the game, and 'mypassword' is the password
you choose. Remember that password, you will need it every time you sign
on to the game.
Line 2: In email Diplomacy, you don't get a randomly picked country. You
set a preference list, i.e. you list the countries in you would like to
play. In this example, the player would like to play France (f). His
second choice is Russia, and third is England. If he does not get any of
these, he will get any of the 4 remaining. (Of course, you can list up
all 7 countries in the order you like.)
Line 3: The 'signoff' command ends the message. You don't have to write
this command, but it's good habit. Nothing after the 'signon' command is
interpreted by the judge. If your mailer puts a signature to the end of
your mail, it's crucial that you remember the 'signoff' command in
so-called gunboat games. In these games players are anonymous, and if
you reveal your identity, you must resign from the game.
In summary, you have now signed on to the game 'first'. The game has not
started yet. You will get back a message from the judge, telling you
that you have been chosen to play a country in 'first', and you will be
told what preferences you have set. The judge will then notice you when
7 players have joined, and the game starts.
Joining as a replacement player
Taking over an abandoned power is at least nice to the other players in
that game. Usually (but not always!), an abandont country is a weak
position. But anyway, we assume you browsed through the Openings List,
and found a game called 'Second' on the USIN judge
(
judge@usin.atecengr.com) which needed a new Turkey. How to join it?
Note! The first thing you should do, is to check if someone has already
taken over the position. Send a message to the judge with the message
body:
list second
You will then receive a listing of the game, and can check if the Turkey
slot is still free.
Now, the slot is still free, and you want to take over. Send a new
message to the judge, with this message body:
signon tsecond mypassword
signoff
Line 1: The 't' indicates that you sign on as Turkey. You do not use the
'?' when signing on as a replacement player, simply because you now know
which country you will play.
Line 2: The signoff command
Joining as an observer
Maybe you will not play right now, but just watch a game. You can then
sign on to a game as observer, by sending the command
signon ogamename mypassword
signoff
The 'o' before the game name indicates that you sign on as observer.
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4. Sending press or broadcast
You have learnt how to join a game. We pretend you have joined the game
'first', which has started with you playing England. Now you want to
communicate with the other players.
First of all you want to send a 'broadcast', i.e. a message to all
countries:
signon efirst mypassword
broadcast
Hi everybody! This is King Edward from London! I shall kill you all!
endbroadcast
signoff
The command to broadcast messages is simply 'broadcast'. Then everything
appearing after this command is broadcasted until the judge sees the
'endbroadcast' command. (or 'endpress').
Now you want to send a message to France only, asking for his
friendship:
signon efirst mypassword
press to f
Don't worry about my broadcast. I want to be your friend. Let's destroy
Germany!
Endpress
The 'f' after 'press to' indicates that you send press to France. You
could also send to both France and Italy by using 'press to fi'.
Note that you can send several messages in one email, ie
signon efirst mypassword
press to f
Hi! Let's take Germany!
endpress
press to g
Hi! Let's take France!
endpress
signoff
However, I won't recommend you to do this (although I do it myself). If
you forget the middle 'endpress' command, France would get a message
like this:
Message from aplayer@some.site as England to France in 'First':
Hi! Let's take Germany!
press to g
Hi! Let's take France!
I don't think France would trust you very much after receiving such a
message...
So writing press is not difficult, is it? Of course there are a lot of
more tricky things you can do, like sending 'fake' press, i.e. send
press and set another country as sender.. To learn about this, read the
'Press' file you got from the judge when you registered. If you haven't
got it yet, send the 'get package' command to a judge.
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5. Submitting moves
Submitting moves is just as easy as anything else we have looked at. We
assume you are still in the game 'first' as England, and you would now
like to send your orders for Spring 1901:
signon efirst mypassword
A Lvp - Edi
F Lon - Nth
F Edi - Nwg
signoff
Your orders have been placed. To learn more about the rules which differ
from the standard rules, and to learn about the 3-letter abbreviations,
read the 'Rules' file you got when you registered to a judge.
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6. Well, what now?
Now you have learnt the basics of email Diplomacy. You can find a game,
you can sign on to a standard game, and you can communicate and submit
orders. To get more detailed knowledge, I advise you to read the files
you got when you registered to a judge (The 'get package' option, you
rememberS).
I also recommend that you browse through The Newbie's Guide to PBEM
Diplomacy, by Andy Schwarz. It contains some details you will not find
here.
Also remember that the best way to learn is to practise. Go find a game,
and play!
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