In diplomacy, like with many similar games, a good start is usually to pick one person that everybody fries. This is either the guy everyone thinks is most likely to win, or the most annoying/prominent. Don't announce you'll sink subs. Just do it. Then use the aggressive event to get everyone else t...

heh. Last night, I put a server up with something like (will stay up) or (no shutdown) in the title, and in under 2 minutes, I had a full house.

You know, the repetitive, plaintive and unproductive whining of a small minority of kids who just don't get it is starting to annoy me.

At this point, I'll draw your attention to the title of a Minutemen album:

"The Roars of the Masses Could be Farts"


Thank you

The PC was the dominant gaming platform before that because it was what people had, and in 1985, the difference between "good" graphics and "bad" in any game that any gaming company could afford to produce were negligble. When the IBM PC was released, the Apple ][ beat it as a g...

Macintosh pioneered the "we will do our best to hide the actual operation of the machine from you" philosophy. If you doubt me, think back to the original Mac notion of a desktop -- where objects on a desktop could reside on the hard disk, the floppies, or god knows where. Still, there are...

I often find that the person who uses the bombers most effectively generally has a good shot at winning. SRBMs can be launched from far enough away that a fighter intercept from a land airfield isn't much of a threat. Much more bombers are lost to naval engagements and AD silos. You have something l...

Nuking fleets isn't terribly effective, but it can be satisfying. Another tip. At DEFCON 4, you can see the enemy's fleet positions, and you know where the engagements are going to be. So put only half your units down at DEFCON 5; then when you spot the enemy's fleet, if he's got a bunch of battlesh...

Heh, guys: it is intentionally there. This is a game dynamic. Allies share strengths but are exposed to each other's weaknesses. Some of you guys remind me of the quote: "Next time you stab me in the back, have the courage to do it to my face!" Game theory comes in though. If you're playin...

I love it when they have the subs set on "active sonar" and parked off your coast. Just orbit some bombers overhead and when they surface, sink 'em all and transmit on text: "Your spurs". I'm waiting for the guy who then pops his other subs up on the other side of the continent, ...

Yeah, I don't get your problem. Bombers have a combat radius that is far bigger than their radar radius, or your radar radius. So he sends a swarm of bombers your way, and the first one that makes radar contact with your fleet allows all the others in range to start firing. As your ships sink, you l...

Part of it comes from the training system. You start out playing against a computer, and you start by dropping to 1x whenever you need to do something. In a group, really, there are very few times when you need to drop to 1x. Still, I like playing with that option, and that is the way I prefer to pl...

I was left wondering what the connection was between backstabbing and quitting/shutting down servers. Well, they are all actions that are possible within the program, but that have a negative social effect on the players. The difference is that backstabbing occurs within the game, whereas quitting o...

What to do when you're on the short end of a diplomacy stick (2-4): A) First strike everybody. In a regular configuration, 20-25% of each country's population is in one city. If you catch them at the right moment, you can rack up a ton of points. B) a 4-person strike takes lots of coordination, for ...

and I'm assume bsg_ep305_full.mp3 is a local weather website.

A lot of it is in execution. Silos in AD mode are _Very Good_ at defending themselves. AD sucks at deflection shots. Incidentally, silos have a limited rate of fire. Yeah, that's an obvious point. But here's an application with a fighter that might help: ahead of the massive strike, skirt the edge o...