The guys after quibbling about what episode this is, start talking about how Kaner’s new hipster beard is a clever ploy based on Diplomacy principles to get his wife to allow him to keep his moustache.

For any new listeners, Kaner and Amby get together and record these in a bar for a bit of atmosphere. So power on past our usual chit-chat as it doesn’t take long to get into Diplomacy talk:

Kaner gives an update on the Bourse game that has now started (see podcast episode 3 about the Bourse variant) and how he’s finding his GM role really interesting. Amby explains how he’s making the same mistakes again. (3 mins 20 seconds)
Amby then goes on to talk about a Who Controls America game to coincide with the 2016 election. According to the game result, its actually the Republicans, Corporate America and the Underworld who really control America. (6 mins 30 seconds)
This gets Kaner talking about the election discussions in the webDip forum. (7 mins 45 seconds)
Amby discusses how he feels he’s in too many games at the moment, but it’s nothing compared to the effort Kaner’s had to put in to GM the Bourse game (10 mins 45 seconds)
The guys then start discussing various strategies players can employ in speculating on Bourse currencies (13 minutes 20 seconds)
Amby mentions that while he tried getting a Google Translate game up on vDiplomacy with so many special rules games happening, no one seems to be signing up. Kaner suggests giving it a crack on webDip before Amby reminds him it probably wouldn’t have a good chance due to the 2016 webDip World Cup starting up (16 mins 30 seconds)
Speaking of which Amby announces he’s participating in this under Team Eurovision - listen to find out why that name! (16 mins 50 seconds)

2012 WebDiplomacy World Cup Championship interview

Kaner brings up how Amby’s technology failed in recording the 2012 webDip World Cup championship, but Amby came up with an alternative anyway (18 mins 10 seconds)
Kaner says he plans to put the interview up on Youtube and put some images into it to make it easier to understand (21 mins 30 seconds)
Amby then kicks off his interview with Goldfinger0303 (Austria), JECE (Russia) and Leif Syverson (Germany) (24 mins 35 seconds):
What kept these guys going for 104 game years (26 mins 15 seconds)
JECE explains what the previous record was (27 mins 50 seconds)
Leif and JECE discuss the impact of Italy leaving the game (31 mins 30 seconds)
Leif discusses his approach to dominating the board as Germany in the 1940’s (32 minutes 50 seconds)
The guys then go onto discuss the change in dynamic with TheHangedMan coming in as the Italian replacement (34 minutes 20 seconds)
Leif and Goldfinger discuss their victory conditions (38 mins 40 seconds)
The guys discuss how the tournament worked (40 mins 30 seconds)
We go on to discuss the 2016 webDiplomacy World Cup and how it varies to the 2012 tournament (43 mins 10 seconds)
To what extent the guys stopped playing other games during the championship (47 mins 30 seconds)
What strategies the guys employed in the championship final (48 minutes)
The impact of Leif’s NMR and real life (50 mins 45 seconds)
Lessons on communicating in a public press game… and how the guys broke the messaging system of webDip! (51 mins 45 seconds)
Final thoughts from the three players (53 mins 05 seconds)
We return back to Kaner and Amby and what our hosts took away from the interview (1 hour 1 min 20 seconds)
How Russia’s strategy to balance the stalemate line blew away Kaner and Amby, and how you can apply that thinking to other Diplomacy variant boards (1 hour 4 mins)
The guys encourage you to drop by the shownotes for Episode 5 and leave your comments (1 hour 6 mins 30 seconds)

Useful info:

Kaner's Youtube video of the game animated season after season:

And don't forget to also check out (as mentioned in the interview) captainmeme's incredible analysis of the highs and lows of each player's game.

Note: due to the various technical constraints (and user error by Amby) the interview was recorded in Mono rather than Stereo. And because we’re such cheap bastards and edit this on freeware, the whole track had to be stepped down to Mono. So apologies if it doesn’t sound as good as our other episodes.

Venue: Brew, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner - Four Pines Pale Ale from Sydney, Australia
Amby - Don Ramon Tempranillo from Campo De Borja, Spain

Don't forget if you're enjoying the podcast please hop onto iTunes and give us a rating and a review so we can get the Diplomacy message out.

If you have any suggestions on what you'd like to see covered in an upcoming podcast, or something you'd like to see regularly covered, please contact us or leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks to Dan Philip for his rockin' intro to the Diplomacy Games podcast.

Fletch, Vaughan & Hayley Podcast - 2nd August 2022