After 15 years, version 3.0 of the DATC!
The ultimate guide for adjudication and adjudicator programmers had to be updated after the new 2023 edition of the rules.The last 20 years has slowly changed things. E-mail judges has been replaced by websites that look like a command and control center (like this one). Being DATC compliant for adjudicator has become an obvious requirement, similar to the voltage of your wall outlet. There is less room for arguing and discussions like convoy path specification are something from the distant past. To avoid that the DATC started to look antiquated, it was trimmed a lot. Although all the info about the official rulebooks, back to the version of 1971 is still in and the same counts for comments of Mr. Calhamer.
Further in this new version:
- Test cases of section 6.J, for the civil disorder disbands are changed to the new 2023 rule. Distant must now be calculated to owned supply centers.
- Six test cases added, 6.B.15, 6.C.8, 6.C.9, 6.F.25, 6.G.19 and 6.G.20.
- Variants removed. There was a large section dedicated to Colonial Diplomacy discussing the Suez Canal and Trans Siberian Express rules. But this variant is not particularly popular and documentation about variants will never be complete.
- I changed my opinion about how convoying to adjacent province must be handled, leading to a different outcome for test case 6.G.8 and 6.G.11. But don’t worry, this is as relevant to actual play, as particle physics is for cooking a meal.
- Finally, the section for how to write an adjudicator has been totally rewritten. It is now more like the article in the Pouch, “The Math of Adjudication”. The algorithm for deciding on partial information has been improved and simplified.
It is uploaded to the Files section of the Diplomacy page on BoardGameGeek. The old location (a nineties style homepage) was not available anymore.
Lucas Kruijswijk