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BELEAGUERED GARRISONVol 1 Number 1, 2005The e-zine for the discerning Diplomat
 Twenty years ago shops carried many copies of the game in its Avalon Hill version, and seemed to sell well. These days you cannot find copies of the game in the shops, and yet there are traces of names of South Africans who have played on the judges by email, and many must still have their old boards, and be playing still, at least in their memories.
Currently Diplomacy Tournaments are being scheduled for every South African Wargames Championships event, and many South African run Internet games are in progress, both with human moderators, and on the judges. Teams involving South Africans are playing in major Internet tournaments, Patriot Games 2002 and World Masters 2002. At least two club tournaments have been held this year, and who knows how many private games are in progress! Currently some 39 players have participated in games or tournaments ranked on the Embassy site. This number is sure to grow. The aim of this e-zine is to foster a sharing of ideas and news amongst South African diplomats. It provides a forum for exchanging ideas about the best openings, the best strategies, and for impressions and perceptions. All articles will be gratefully received, and acknowledged. Authors will retain copyright. As more and more players access this site, we hope that this e-zine will also lead to a better understanding of the Diplomacy scene in South Africa, its history and oddities. We will run regular columns on rule issues, tactical problems, strategy, and the history of the hobby in South Africa. It is hoped that readers will send in articles on their own memories of events, and that together we can piece together a picture of what is happening on the Diplomacy scene in South Africa, and what has gone before. Dorian Love
The Beleagured Garrison RuleIn the normal course of events, if a force is attacked with support, it retreats. And yet this is not always the case. You all know that two equally disposed attacks result in a stand-off. A attacks B with support from C. B attacks A with support from D. There is a stand-off. The beleaguered garrison is also the result of a stand-off of this nature, except that the attacked power, the beleaguered garrison belongs to a third power. Here is an example, with map.England:The nett result is that both attacks on Paris bounce because of equal attacks from another power. The French garrison in Paris, which would have had to retreat had any one pof the above attacks been launched in isolation, remains in situ because of the stand-off. This is known as the beleaguered garrison rule, and is useful to remember when faced with overwhelming odds. It is sometimes useful to get an ally to attack one to preserve the status quo!
Austria - Fall 1905Send in your moves, and we will see who achieves the best results. You are Austria, and it is Fall 1905. There are three empty Turkish SCs beckoning, but can you grab them all?! In point of fact, can you grab any??? :-)
The Wits Wargames Club (the early 1980s)This article reflects my own memory of events some twenty years ago, and consequently must be taken as a personal reminiscence, rather than an attempt to write a history in itself. I hope that others will contribute their rememberances, and that out of this a history will emerge.The Wits Wargames Club started in 1980 when I rather innocently asked another student in my Classics class, Colin Webster, whether he would be interested in playing some wargames. I do not remember why I asked him this, what made me think he would be interested. I guess he just seemed the type. In those days Colin wore a raincoat and tartan cap come rain, come shine, and perhaps it was this that qualified him in my eyes, for we hardly knew each other. In any event he was interested, and we were soon joined by some other acquaintances of mine, Eric Hercules Lazarides and David Lasker. As I recall we used to play Donald Featherstone rules with plastic Airfix and Atlanta figures. We also played Kingmaker and Diplomacy. The nascent club had no room of its own, but we used the roof of the Education Faculty Building, which adjoined the tiny office alloted to the Student members of the Education Faculty Council, which happened to include Eric, David and myself. We were joined by Abe Ableson, whose contributions to Diplomacy centred upon a firm belief that Tunis was geo-politically the most crucial SC on the board. So confirmed was he in this belief that he would refuse to play if he did not hold Tunis. This regardless of which power he was playing. In order to keep the game going, hostilities would often cease so that all powers could cooperate in setting up a convoy so that Abe could move a unit into Tunis! A constitution was written, and the Wits Wargames Club was born at the beginning of 1981. A few experienced, and many inexperienced wargamers joined at the beginning of that year, notably Alan Patrick and Bruce Gordon. Donald Featherstone rules gave way to WRG in its 5th, then 6th edition incarnations, and much of the focus of the club switched to figure-gaming. RPGs were also popular, although I have to say that Cess and Axel hardly inspired confidence in the human race. But then again, they seldom pretended to impersonate the human race! We also played boardgames such as Anzio and Squad leader, with our games being played all over the Senate House. We were given a shop-window style room at University corner at about this time, but thankfully this era did not last long. A proper club-room in the SRC building was granted in 1982. During this year Diploamcy took a back seat somewhat. However, it would have been at this time that Gavin Munro and Robert England played, if memory serves. These luminaries were very prominent in forming the Transvaal Wargames Union and the South African Wargames Union. Gavin was famous for his scrupulous, almost painfully honest play. I honestly can't remember what Robert was famous for (Diplomatically), apart from his cheese rolls at our wargame tournaments, which had to count as rank meta-gaming, especially as he pretended his mother had made them! Colin says he remembers the Wits Club running a Diplomacy Tournament, but I have no recollection of this, other than that we played a lot in those days, and I obviously did not win the tournament or I would have remembered it! This, somewhat cold club-room was burned down in a fire, allegedly started by the right-wing Student Moderate Alliance. These were turbulent years politically! Colin left to serve his military service at this stage, and Diplomacy kind of faded from the scene again. When the student union floor was rebuilt, the wargames club was granted another, altogether sunnier room overlooking the swimming-pool. At this stage RPGs started to dominate at the club. AD&D, of course, Traveller & Call of Cthullu (sp?) all made sustained appearances. All sorts of odd creatures started invading the club-room, They masqueraded as club members, but tended to behave like trolls. The unspeakable Steven Kane replaced the unmentionable "Cess" Gill at about this time. Under Scott Sutherland, who took over as Chairman in 1983, the club was put on a sound footing. The club-room, which offered free tea and coffee, and sold beer, was always full! This environment encouraged games-play. No doubt many first-years owe their failure, and drop-out to the club. Keith Krut replaced Scott as Chair, confirming the dominance of RPG, in 1984, but it was Scott and I who revived Diplomacy, and one wall of the new club-room was plastered with maps of Diplomacy games in progress. Units were represented by coloured pins, and orders were resolved every afternoon when the orders box was cleared. It was at this time that my own reputation was forged, with many victories, often, I recall, as Russia. Scott Sutherland also fared rather well, and I cannot think of him as anything other than the Arch-Duke, so he must have played the red pieces more often than not. We were quite untroubled by opening theory, and I distinctly remember worrying about what exactly the Lepanto was. I even remember scouring the University library for exact information on this, to me, arcane term. Sorry, Edi! I do remember that we often felt that England and Turkey had enormous potential, which rather dates our efforts, I guess. My own approach to Russian play was to steam-roller all opposition in the belief that by the time anyone reacted you were probably unstoppable. Strangely enough, this seemed to work at the time. I cannot claim to be as scrupulously honest as Gavin Munro or Scott Sutherland, but I do remember that my guiding motto used to be "stab once, and to win!" Since my theme tune these days is sung to the tune of "Staying Alive!" I guess the confidence of youth has been replaced by an altogether more sober realism. Come to think of it, I was seldom sober in those days, the result of a club room awash with beer. The Avalon Hill Conference maps were stapled onto the club-room notice-board, and were adorned with colour-coded pins. Scott was very adept at painting, and the tiny pins had As and Fs on them to represent armies and fleets. These tended to wear thin, and the Black Sea in particular was often the scene of a keen forensic examination to determine if the fleet in question was more white than yellow, or yellow tahn white. Upon the result of this forensic investigation would often hinge an empire! Meanwhile, on the table a board was set up, and furious arguments were often engaged over what Italy should have done to avoid the loss of Tunis. Since Abe was no longer around, Tunis was just another town, but probably vital to Italian fortunes anyway. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, we never thought to document these games. We played mainly standard games, but did start a 3D variation in which several games were linked. A unit could move to another map (A Munich Board A - Munich Board C). All good fun. At this time, too, games such as Machiavelli and Dune, which have affinities with Diplomacy, were frightfully popular. I made an awefully good Bene Gesserit witch, by the way! The overall standard of play was probably never that high, but I do believe that, at the peak of its popularity in 1984/85 Diplomacy at Wits could have stood up to any examination. The memory of those games has stayed with me all these years, and I am convinced that when the history of Diplomacy in South Africa finally gets written, this little episode will feature prominently. Not least because one of the spin-offs of Diplomacy being played at Wits was when Colin and others from the Wits club started the South African Wargames Union, Diplomacy was written into the Constitution explicitly. The government then went on to recognise the SAWU constitution. The ramification of this move means that any organized expression of the Diplomacy hobby needs to fall under the aegis of SAWU control. Diplomacy is thus officially recognised as a sport in South Africa, allowing National teams to be selected, provided criteria are met. I left the country in 1985 as a draft dodger. To my knowledge Diplomacy was played during my absence, but not a lot. There must have been other groups playing, but within SAWU Diplomacy was not taken up with much vigour. In 2002, however, remembering, as I often did my glory days at Wits, I idly typed Diplomacy into a search engine, and discovered the PBEM hobby! I now challenge all the veterans of those years to write their own versions of events. I am sure parts of my memory will be faulty, for I have been uncertain about aspects of the chronology while writing this piece. by Dorian Love
The St Enda's Eagles Wargames ClubThe Eagles are a club in an inner-city school in Joubert Park, Johannesburg. The club plays mainly draughts and morabaraba, but Diplomacy has kicked off to a very promising start this year with some of the Eagles playing at Gauteng Championships, and with a club tournament in its first round.To date all our Diplomacy players are in Grade 8, and still learning the game. Three of our players played in the Gauteng Championships, and distinguished themselves by not looking too out of place! Neo Mohapi at one stage threatened to challenge for the lead in his second round game, and Dominic Aphane played a solid game, being our top-ranked player at the moment. The club tournament is being played with a move every day, and two games have currently started. As more games are played, more and more players are attracted to the tournament and a healthy waiting list system has emerged. The games are being run over the school intranet from this site. Realpolitik is being used as an adjudicating program. With such phenomenal growth, The Eagles must surely rank as the most promising Diplomacy club for the future. Dorian Love,
Teacher-in-Charge © The Embassy Website 2003, 2004, 2005
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