I don't think 10 days is long enough to send mail outside the US.

The difference is the time lag in communication. Everyone must send messages to each other without hearing back first. It's an interesting change of pace.

It's also a bit more realistic. Having unreliable and outdated intel while commanding your forces.

I just bought the postcards for this game, so I'm pot committed now.

I would be somewhat interested in doing this, although how much do you figure it would cost to send all the press throughout the duration of the game?? And with 10 day phases, how long would the game end up taking??

Assume 10 game years.

10 days per phase is about 25 days per year if we finalize builds/retreats. That's 250 days in real life.

4 messages per country per year is 280 messages. 34 cents per post card is $9.52 plus maybe $10 in basic cards.

your going to rely on U.S.P.S , your better off with carrier pigeon

I would definitely be in except I dont know if I could commit to a game that long with being in college and everything. If we start in September then the game would last until about mid-May at 250 days. It would be best if I ended in mid-April at the latest. Also, I would want a pause during Christmas Vacation. So I dont know if I would be able to commit to this right now realistically with the current time frame. If you dont get 7 players in the next week or two, I would be willing to try to make it work, and maybe we will finish in time or something. If you do get enough people, I would be willing to take over if someone ends up dropping out.

Sounds like fun. If you want to start one with players from outside USA, and therefore change phase lenghts to +- 15 days, I'd be in. But I guess it will be difficult to find players who would want to commit to a 350 days game (assuming 35 days per year - finalize builds/retreats without press)

I suspect most people will want to pause around Christmas.

I think even with 15 days, it will be hard to get enough press in sending mail across the pond. Plus, as you say, that's really stretching it for length of play.

Watch out everyone, abgemacht's going postal!

I'd be interested if I knew I would have a permanent address for the whole time, but alas, I'm looking for jobs in multiple states as well as finishing my last semester of college, so I'll have to pass even though it sounds fun. (Mailing bribes to influence orders would be great too. =D)

1) abge
2) Ipsum

^ Whom I guess I should say I know.

@Warden

If you're interested in playing, the address thing isn't a big deal. Just make sure to inform people when your address changes.

Perhaps you should used Federal Express Next Day delivery.
Sure its $20 a message but you can shorten your phases to 5 :)

It also would cut down an any stupid press!

Come on, guys, don't make me start advertising on DipRepublic!

I was thinking of some Smoke-Signal Diplomacy, as it would be kinda like Public Press, after all. Anyone up for that?

maybe it would be possible to have emails mimic the way postal mail work. Some way to have an email arrive only 5 days after it has been sent. That way you get the same feel but not the condition of being in the US.

I am also interested but cannot commit for at least a few weeks. I'm really reliable, though.

I like Braillard's idea, too. I have been wanting to get people I know to play a special everyone-knows game, like a one-day phase gunboat on the site but with in-person and texting and so on discussion, but I don't know enough people who want to play/I would want to play with.

ck, I'll happily wait a few weeks for you to join.

How about we plan to start Sept 29?

I already get a lot of emails. I'm really looking forward to getting diplomacy letters.

Yes, the end of September should work for me.

Great!

1 abge
2 Ipsum
3 ckroberts
4 Warden ???

1 abge
2 Ipsum
3 ckroberts
4 krellin
5 Warden ???

Bump

You are posting the same message again, please don't post repeat messages.

Well, to confirm, I can be a potential player then. It seems like it might be fun enough, and if 1-2 address changes during the game doesn't cause too much of an issue, then I have no excuse. ;)

Glad to have you.

1 abge
2 Ipsum
3 ckroberts
4 krellin
5 Warden

Does "That Dude Under the Bridge" count as an address?

I think this is an excellent idea! I can't play (being in Australia), but if you want to preserve anonyminity of addresses to usernames during the game, I'd be happy to distribute the addresses.

Thanks for the offer, but knowing where most of the player's live, I don't see how we can make this game anon.

Ah, of course. I suppose trying to make it anon would only disadvantage newcomers who perhaps don't know where everyone is from.

Yeah. I was thinking about how to make it anon. All you could really do is have everyone mail to a center location and have that person mail them the rest of the way. We'd probably need to extend the phases if we did that.

If you wanted to make it anonymous, I'd be happy to collect the addresses of those playing, and after determining starting countries, disperse the addresses for each country. Therefore, you'd address your mail to:

Dear Austria
305 Green Acres Rd.
Bowling Green, KY

and from

From Germany
Place address here
city, state zip

nm, saw your post, abge

@Tru

What do you think the turn-around for that would be?


Worst-case, I think it would mean it would take 6 days for a letter to reach its destination instead of 3.

I would simply shoot down the idea of anonymity.

Another option for those that want a quicker turn-around is to not permit talking during retreat phases or build phases which occurs in live games and everyone has 24 hours to finalize retreats and build orders which is *part of* the next series of 10-day communication.

This would prevent press from occurring during those times since letters take longer than 24 hours to travel. This means that there is a 20-day year instead of 25 days, so only 200 days for a 10-year game.

If someone is willing to GM, you can keep anonimity, save money, have a more reliable system, allow people to play worldwide and prevent people who live closer together from getting an unfair advantage, you can send e-mails to the GM specifying for which powers those e-mails are and he can forward them anonymously after a specific amount of time (the time it would take for the postal card to reach its destination, or whatever you want) has passed.

I can't think of a disadvantage unless you really want handwriting or something.

If people sent emails, you wouldn't even need a GM, you'd just all make fake email accounts.

Honestly, there is no appeal to PBeM to me. If I was going to play an email game, I'd much rather just play a 36hr game on the site. I already get close to a hundred emails a day, most of which I'm not interested in.

@ Tru

Yeah build/retreat need to be short. I'm thinking of everyone finalizing ASAP with a max of 24 hours. That should make each year a max of 23 days, but if people help out closer to 20. Building build/retreat into the actual Fall/Spring phase seems like it would be very hard to do on this site.

And I agree anon isn't worth it. Was just curious if it even could be done.

Also, in war people do get unfair advantages all the time. It was much easier for Germany and AH to communicate than England and Turkey. Unreliable communication is part of the appeal (to me at least).

The point of the GM would be that he delays the messages. It sounded like the appeal for you is not knowing what the other person is saying until days after he said it, which you can do with the GM and is certainly different from just playing a 36hr game on the site.

If getting/sending postcards, having an unreliable communication and having unfair advantages over people is appealing to you though, you should do that of course.

Oh, and spending money, I forgot spending money :-)

It's only like $20. That's cheaper than 2 movie tickets for a year of Diplomacy letters.

I do agree it sucks we can't play with people in Europe. If there's interest, y'all should try to get a game going. If this one goes well, we could ask for 2 week phases. That should give us enough time to send letters across the pond.

Actually.

Can someone in Europe pm me their address. Let's see what the lag time is.

One of my team of 9-year-olds alerted me to the above request.

Check your PMs, abgebob.

ooo, 9-year olds doing your bidding. I like it. I just have an 8 year old and a 4 year old doing my bidding, and even then it can be like pulling teeth to get em to do anything.

@abge: I see what you're saying. One thing you might consider is to allow 2 full weeks for press for the first year since far more press is sent in the first year than any other time. After 1901, drop back to 10 days.

Either that or you'll have to expect some awfully thick envelopes from those around the board with some pretty detailed stuff to consider.