Octopus's Garden

Issue Eighty-Eight

1st December 2014

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Sub-editorial

HELLO, good evening and welcome to Octopus's Garden, the subzeen with its very own 7 x 7 Gunboat Diplomacy tournament. It is a subzeen to Jim Burgess' The Abyssinian Prince, which is currently a subzeen to Douglas Kent's Eternal Sunshine. This may or may not continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. It's produced by Peter Sullivan peter@burdonvale.co.uk. It's also available on the web at: http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/octopus/.

THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS – 1902

The second of our an annual (in game years!) summary of the latest state of play in the Octopus's Garden 7 x 7 Gunboat Diplomacy tournament.

Game 1 in the tournament is called "SCHYLER COLFAX". Games in Octopus's Garden are all named after Vice Presidents of the United States. Colfax, as well as being one of the highest-scoring Vice Presidents in Scrabble, was Ulysses S. Grant's Veep from 1869 to 1873, as part of the Republican takeover after the discredited administration of Andrew Johnson. He started his political career as a Whig, before becoming loosely associated with the Know-Nothing Party (possibly the most honestly-named party in American political history). He then joined the Republican Party when the Whigs finally collapsed, in the run-up to the Civil War. He only served the one term as Vice President, becoming embroiled in a financial scandal around the First Transcontinental Railroad. Although he wanted to run for Vice President again, the Republican Party went with a different, less compromised, candidate, whom we'll talk about next time.

In the tournament as a whole, 1902 saw quite a lot of pain for various Austrias. I know that, in Regular Diplomacy, the general rule of thumb is that Austria in the early years usually has to diplome for their life. In Gunboat, of course, even this isn't an option. The other noticeable thing, for me as a British g.m, was the tendency for England players to snaffle up StP from Russia so quickly. Which is a comparative rarity; in the Diplomacy games I've run, at any rate.

Current supply centre counts in each game are as follows:

Player	Game 1	Game 2	Game 3	Game 4	Game 5	Game 6	Game 7
Player A	Tur: 7	Ger: 5	Rus: 4	Eng: 4	Ita: 5	Aus: 1	Fra: 5
Player B	Aus: 1	Tur: 5	Ger: 6	Rus: 6	Eng: 6	Fra: 6	Ita: 4
Player C	Fra: 5	Aus: 5	Tur: 6	Ger: 6	Rus: 5	Ita: 6	Eng: 4
Player D	Ita: 6	Fra: 5	Aus: 5	Tur: 5	Ger: 5	Eng: 4	Rus: 6
Player E	Eng: 5	Ita: 4	Fra: 5	Aus: 4	Tur: 4	Rus: 7	Ger: 6
Player F	Rus: 4	Eng: 6	Ita: 4	Fra: 4	Aus: 3	Ger: 5	Tur: 4
Player G	Ger: 6	Rus: 4	Eng: 4	Ita: 4	Fra: 5	Tur: 4	Aus: 5
Neutrals	0	0	0	1 (Por)	1 (Swe)	1 (Swe)	0
Total	34	34	34	34	34	34	34

Full details of all seven games, for those interested, are in the three issues of that wholly remarkable zeen, C'est Magnifique, which can be found at:

Spring 1902 : CMag 147 http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/gunboat/CMag147.pdf
Fall 1902: CMag 148 http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/gunboat/CMag148.pdf
Winter 1902: CMag 149 http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/gunboat/CMag149.pdf

We had a slight hiatus over the summer, due to one resignation and one near drop-out. However, my plea for stand-bys had an excellent response, and we now have a couple of stand-bys, er, standing by in case of any further problems with the player roster. Which, I hasten to add, I'm not expecting.

That was Octopus's Garden #88, Startling Press production number 382.