The guys discuss Amby's attendance at PoppyCon in Melbourne with round the table interviews, tournament results and a live Wilsonian game of Diplomacy.

Intro & Diplomacy talk

• The guys introduce the show, the venue and their drinks (0 mins 15 secs)
• They give a quick run down of how today's episode is going to work this episode, and Kaner provides a pronunciation correction for the Mayans. Amby shares a partial Arkansas update, with the Twitter pic he shares from @TerribleMaps with Kaner  (4 mins 30 secs)

• They start to introduce Amby's experience at PoppyCon this year (10 mins)

PoppyCon

• The round table begins, with a brief discussion on scoring systems and Jamal Blakkarly's board solo (14 mins)
• They talk about playing on multiple boards at once (18 mins 30 secs)
• Allan discusses what's changed in the way players approach the game compared to 30 years ago and a discussion on draws (22 mins)
• Amby asks about people's thoughts on the new players to the game (27 mins 30 secs)
• The conversation merges into a general conversation around games on Day 1 (30 mins)
• Amby asks about the overall tournament metagame after Jamal's solo and Shane weighs in on his first game (35 mins)
• Amby asks Melissa about PoppyCon and venue hosting for a tournament. The round table discusses the challenges for tournament directors and SC based tournament scoring systems (39 mins)
• They discuss how players approach tournaments now (45 mins)
• The round table discusses the anonymous gunboat game played in the evening (not part of the formal tournament) where the scoring was how many SCs you ended with when the pizzas arrived and correctly identifying which player was which country (48 mins)
• Amby wraps up the round table discussion (52 mins)
• The guys get some more drinks and talk about the round table discussions (52 mins 30 secs)
• They throw to Andrew Goff as tournament director giving the final results for the weekend (59 mins)
• As part of local tradition, after the tournament results, Goffy awards the Best Shane Cubis Award (1 hr 4 mins 30 secs)
• He goes onto discuss the next tournament in Melbourne for November/December (1 hr 6 mins)
• The guys come back and Amby gives a further update on his games in the tournament. Here's the maps from towards the end of his games: (1 hr 7 mins)

Amby as Germany in game 1

Amby's second game as France

• The guys go onto discuss attending the next Melbourne tournament and trying to get some face to face games happening in Brisbane (1 hr 18 mins)
• Next up they introduce the final part of the PoppyCon recordings, a live Wilsonian/United Nations game where players competed over the table in an open forum for all negotiations on a very tight phase turn (1 hr 19 mins)
• Kaner gives a forewarning that with a heap of people talking all at once it can be a little difficult to follow what's being suggested around the board. Amby says he'll add some Backstabbr maps to show each turn's orders (1 hr 22 mins 45 secs)
• The game begins in Spring 1901 with:
  • Melissa - Italy
  • Casey - Turkey
  • Shane (Peter writing orders) - Germany
  • Goffy - England
  • Jamal - Austria
  • Rob - France
  • Allan - Russia (1 hr 25 mins)

• Negotiations begin for Fall 1901 (1 hr 32 mins 40 secs)

• Winter 1901 builds are added (1 hr 38 mins 30 secs)

• Spring 1902 negotiations begin (1 hr 39 mins 40 secs)

• Fall 1902 kicks off (1 hr  45 mins)

• Winter 1902 builds (1 hr 50 mins 40 secs)

• Spring 1903 opens to negotiations (1 hr  51 mins 45  secs)

• Fall 1903 rolls around (1 hr  57 mins 20 secs)

• And with Shane Cubis/Peter McNamara as Germany are eliminated a draw is proposed, followed by build orders (2 hrs  4 mins)

• With the draw not proceeding Spring 1904 begins (2 hrs  mins  secs)

• Fall 1904 rocks around (2 hrs 9 mins 40 secs)

• Winter 1904's centre adjustments occur (2 hrs 15 mins 30 secs)

• Spring 1905 begins before a 5 way draw is proposed and passed (2 hrs 17 mins)
• They discuss the game from the players' perspective (2 hrs 19 mins)
• The game ends and Kaner & Amby return with some further observations on the bar (2 hrs 22 mins 45 secs)
• They get onto talking about the Wilsonian game and their thoughts about recording people playing Diplomacy (2 hrs 25 mins 40 secs)
• The guys start wrapping up the show (2 hrs 30 mins 40 secs)

Venue: Frog's Hollow Saloon, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Gage Road Atomic hazy pale ale and Kosciuszko pale ale

Amby: Coriole Sparta shiraz from the Barossa, South Australia

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 pay off the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

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.