Octopus's Garden

Issue Eighty-Nine

18th April 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 continues to be a subzeen to Douglas Kent's Eternal Sunshine. 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 – 1903

The third 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 2 in the tournament is called "HENRY WILSON". Games in Octopus's Garden are all named after Vice Presidents of the United States. Wilson was originally called "Jeremiah Jones Colbath," with the forenames being those of an elderly, childless neighbour whom apparently his father hoped to secure an inheritance from. Being somewhat above such shenanigans, Henry changed his name by deed poll to something more neutral as soon as he came of age.

As a Republican member of the House of Representatives, he was Chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs and the Militia, and hence worked closely with the Lincoln administration during the Civil War. He was elected as Vice President in 1872, replacing the controversial Schuyler Colefax as President Grant's Veep for Grant's second four-year term. However, he had a stroke shortly after assuming office in 1873, and died just over 2 years later in 1875, leaving the post of Vice President vacant until the end of Grant's term in 1877. (There were no procedures for replacing a vacancy in the Vice Presidency, until the passing of the 25th Amendment in 1967.)

In the tournament as a whole, 1903 saw our first elimination, with AUSTRIA in Game 1 and Game 6 both being eliminated, whilst neutral Sweden in Game 5 is still proudly flying its flag. I'm sure that there some metaphor there about the futility of war and all that, but I'm not going to go there for the moment.

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: 4	Rus: 3	Eng: 4	Ita: 7	Aus: 0	Fra: 4
Player B	Aus: 0	Tur: 6	Ger: 7	Rus: 6	Eng: 7	Fra: 7	Ita: 4
Player C	Fra: 6	Aus: 5	Tur: 7	Ger: 7	Rus: 4	Ita: 5	Eng: 4
Player D	Ita: 8	Fra: 6	Aus: 4	Tur: 6	Ger: 5	Eng: 4	Rus: 6
Player E	Eng: 6	Ita: 4	Fra: 6	Aus: 4	Tur: 5	Rus: 7	Ger: 7
Player F	Rus: 4	Eng: 6	Ita: 5	Fra: 2	Aus: 2	Ger: 6	Tur: 4
Player G	Ger: 5	Rus: 3	Eng: 2	Ita: 5	Fra: 4	Tur: 5	Aus: 5
Neutrals	0	0	0	0	1 (Swe)	0	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 1903 : CMag 150 http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/gunboat/CMag150.pdf
Fall 1903: CMag 151 http://www.burdonvale.co.uk/gunboat/CMag151.pdf

That was Octopus's Garden #89, Startling Press production number 385.