CHEATER! haha

Just clarifying...the only rules to abide by in this game are as follows;

Hey all,
Since all players have their idiosyncrasies when communicating and playing, there are a few rules.

RULE 1
This is WTA: all players commit to trying to WIN the game or get in the narrowest possible DRAW!!!

RULE 2
@MrcsAurelius handles the admissions.

RULE 3
The first three diployears you can't /sign/ your messages, you can however send a greeting. (I can tell who's who by their signatures.)

RULE 4
All country names are always capitalized, as are all terrain names and the beginning of a sentence. You commit to using the acronyms are listed below.

RULE 5
"To hold" or "hold" are both substituted by "h". Support is S, Convoy is C.

In case a unit is supported or convoyed, these moves come on the same line in [sharp brackets], comments are added in (normal brackets). X, Y, Z is for unknowns. Bounces can be put on the same line with a , seperation.

The following set convoys an army from Wales to Brest, protecting the convoying ship and supporting the move itself:

Wal-Bre [Eng C, MAO S]
Nth S Eng h (blablabla)

France can propose a bounce in Bur from either Paris or Marseilles as follows:

X-Bur, Mun-Bur
X=Par or Mar

OFFICIAL ACRONYMS
DMZ: Demilitarized Zone
ALA: Anti-Leader Alliance

First three letters of the terrain are used except:
Bot: Gulf of Bothnia
Lyo: Gulf of Lyon
Lvp: Liverpool
Liv: Livonia
MAO: Mid-Atlantic Ocean
NAf: North Africa
NAO: North Atlantic Ocean
Nth: North Sea
Nwy: Norway
NwS: Norwegian Sea
Tyo: Tyrolia
TyS: Tyrrhenian Sea

First letter of country is used except:
Italy: IT

How is that clarifying? That's copy pasting!

Does finally give me the chance to +1 my own rules though... :)

So, redhouse, list of those playing?

Did my post on this thread before Sandgoose's rather mysterious "CHEATER, haha" not come through? Ah well, here's the list:

1) Sandgoose
2) Bad85
3) LakersFan
4) Fasces349
5) gregoire
6) semck83
7) myself

oh my bad, missed it lol.

Well I wasn't sure if rules 6 and 7 were part of it. :) as dumb as that sounds.

who 'signs' their messages? I don't know if I've ever seen that.

I'm not sure I get the concept anymore haha

Some people just put the name of their country under a message. Believe it or not, I can tell a lot by these little things about who's who. Some people, as you mention, don't do this.
Since I was practically accused of metagaming in another game while I most certainly wasn't, I'm trying to eliminate even the appearance of metagaming and keeping the game as anonymous as I possibly can...

well I don't see how this keeps it anon...

About the acronyms, IT can easily be confused for It...
If I wanted to say:
It is red
I might accidentally type/be misread for:
IT is red
causing the response:
No, IT is green.
Making for a rather confusing conversation (of course the colour of Italy probably wouldn't come up in a diplomacy discussion, the word it may, even when not referencing Italy...).

Could we maybe change IT to ITL?

I would much rather 3 letter abbreviations for each nation:
GBR=England (to avoid confusion with the English Channel)
FRA=France
ITL=Italy
GER=Germany
A-H/AUS=Austria-Hungary
OTT/TUR=Ottoman Empire/Turkey
RUS=Russia

Thoughts?

Also another thing I noticed while typing this up.
I like most of the world outside the US use the following spelling conditions:
Colour not color
Honour not honor
etc. etc.

If we really are going to try to type using the same abbreviations and grammar rules, should we synchronize to one spelling convention as well?

If I really wanted to be sneaky, I could find out where each person lives and check back into the game to divide people into lists:
Sandgoose Bad and LakersFan spell it honor
While gregoire semck and redhouse spell it honour (made up the lists in this case)

Since in diplomatic discussion country a spelt the word honour, I know it would have to be gregoire, semck or redhouse. Narrowing down each country from 6 potential people down to 5.

Again thoughts?

You could, you know, just call it Italy. ;)

@tas: where playing a game with special rules were we all have to talk using the same abbreviations and stuff to make it harder to determine who is who.

Yeah I don't believe there was a rule that says you /should/ use the acronyms for countries right? Whenever there's an ambiguity just say Italy :) The only rule is that if you /would/ use an acronym, then IT or the one letter variant for others. Of course for terrains, you should always use the acronym, except when you say "let's meet in <Capital city of country A, B or C> " or something to encourage a certain alliance to form. But when you're proposing orders I really hope the "official acronyms" are used.

Ow and I'm totally in favour/favor of using US spelling, because I'm used to it (it being the standard in scientific publications).

I'm fairly sure that the rules don't state that you _have_ to abbreviate. That would just be silly.

Wow. Curious how to enforce these rules though :-).

Try me.

Haha just kidding. No I'm not going to enforce anything. I just hope everybody does their best with these rules to stay under the radar for the first few turns in particular; after that the choices of alliances and strategies is mostly determined by the experience obtained in the game itself and the strategical situation of the board, although I encourage everyone to maintain these rules all game.