Wow, I think I will. When's the deadline for registering though? I'd rather hold off as late as possible to make sure I won't be super busy.

Holy #@&%, Edi Birsan is going this year, I am *sooo* going!!

Does anyone here even know who Edi is, come on, who wouldn't want to meet him, to play him, to get beat by him?! ;-)

Too far for me. I'd love to get the chance to play against some of the greats, but until things settle down for me, I'll wind up sticking to Gen Con or someplace close.

I'll probably see you there MadMarx. Highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't been.

@MadMarx - Yes! I actually had the pleasure of playing face-to-face with Edi in my 2nd game ever. It was at the 2001 Armada Regatta in Denver. I was included in a 5-way draw as a 1 center Russia, Edi was England. Very nice guy, and he took the time afterwards to teach a new player some things. I have never been to any of the Seattle Tournaments, but I have played with several players from that area and they were all a blast to play with. You will have a great time!

I also got to watch "The Immaculate Concession" go down!

I emailed Edi once. He never responded. WACCon looks fun and is even on the right coast, but I will be on the wrong coast that week.

@MM I will be there again this year. I'm told it will be closer to the size and production value of previous years than 2010 was.

@semck You should be able to register on site during the welcome hour. But it wouldn't hurt to get in touch with Nathan Barnes to let him know you're coming so they know their numbers.

I might come, it sounds pretty fun. The only f2f games I've played have had 5 players and lasted almost no time. I'm also curious about the registration deadline, it would be really nice to be able to decide on the day of.

OMG the boys are coming to town!!! MY TOWN!!! I WILL SO BE THERE!

I'll be there as well.
And the following weekend at TempleCon in Providence,RI.
For all of you that can't make it to the one coast, you should definitely go to the other!

Lol @ MM:
"I have never been to any of the Seattle Tournaments, but I have played with several players from that area and they were all a blast to play with. You will have a great time! "
I'm sure you will, I'm sure you will.... Only nice guys there!

Hey, Wiz, my stories about WACcon were based on truth but I did exaggerate a bit for story telling purposes (at least that's what I keep repeating in my head as I cry myself to sleep each night)!

@Wiz and MM - I may be reading into the last couple posts incorrectly and apologize in advance if I am, but am I missing something? It seems as though I am being made fun of for some reason. I was just responding to MM's post about knowing who Edi Birsan is. I stated that I had the pleasure of playing him as well as a few guys from the Seattle area at one point, it was a good experience for someone new to the game. I was just trying to give a compliment to Edi and the guys in Seattle that I played with when they came to Denver( Matt Shields, Nathan Barnes).

See Game 6 - http://www.diplom.org/armada/2001/games/heat2.html

Josh, sorry if thst came across as making fun of you. Believe me, that was not my intention.
I was just making fun of MM's last year WAC experience. It had nothing to do with neither you, nor Edi, Nathan and Matt.

here's the background:
http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=675400

I e-mailed Edi once also. He never responded to me either. But I did get some of his campaign informartin some time later.

Wiz, no problem! MM-great story! Some FTF players take it way to seriously, at least in tournaments, but most of them are just there to have a good time. In the game where I was Russia and Edi was England, he was the only reason I was included in the draw to the dismay of the other players. He easily could have taken my last center resulting in a 4-way draw instead of a 5-way and a better score for that round, but he refused since I had obviously been targeted because I was new. One of my neighbors refused to talk to me, even in Spring of '01, other than to make it clear that I would be eliminated quickly. A couple years later I had an over zealous Austria threaten to hit me with a chair after I stabbed him. Later in the game, Austria and Italy had to be physically separated. Austria was claiming that Italy had attacked him solely because he was higher in some yearly ranking. It was hilarious!

WAC is awesome. Usually play a bunch of the games in this kind of swanky bar at the club. Good people, they usually end up comping a bunch of food. Just a fun time. Definitely worth it if you're in the area. You don't have to register in advance, but it's nice if you let Nathan know you're coming just so he can plan better. But drop-ins are totally welcome too.

I'll apologize on Edi's behalf for anyone he hasn't responded to lately. He was just super busy with campaign stuff last year, and wasn't really around for Diplomacy much. I think last year was the first time in a couple decades he didn't go to DipCon. That was also probably one of the reasons they never got a tournament together in San Francisco last year. Historically he's been great about responding to Diplomacy stuff.

Also - holy crap, Josh Beaudette! This is Matt Shields. I had no idea you were still playing! When was the last time we were on a board, like 2003?

Matt, yeah it's been a long time. I think that was the last time I played FTF, too long ago anyway. Glad to see you are on here! We should get a private game together of good players that we know. I will send you a PM.

Quick breakdown of Sum of Squares for anyone who wants to run into the tournament prepared:

Technical basics: Take the number of centers you own, square that. You square everyone's center count. All 7 squared scores are added up. Your score is your centers squared divided by everyone's summed square totals. Solos are awarded 100 .


Effectively: If you can't take and hold a dot, giving it to a small player and keeping it out of the hands of large players will increase your score. If you're 4 dots ahead of anyone else on the board, you're doing great. If you're 4 dots ahead, and everyone is still in the game, your score is getting to be huge (40+). If you and your ally have a perfect split of centers, your score wont be as big (30-40) and is capped at 50 for a 17/17 split (good, but you score 62 with the 12 in a 12/7/5/4/4/1/1 board)


My experience: This discourages two players resolving their sphere and gobbling up the rest of the board, because even if they end up with 11 centers each, they only run a score of 30-40. In that situation if you stab your ally and manage to take, say, 4 centers, you've probably doubled your score by adding only a few centers.

Timing is very important, alliance play is obviously still important in this game (IT'S DIPLOMCY), but you want to be sure you're hard to stab as the big guy, because everyone on the board has an incentive to take dots off the top player.

As the little guy, use the scoring argument to stay in a game that you would normally get eaten. The system also encourages you to play the other side of the board, try to keep as many people in the game as possible, it will help you in the long run.


You can see some examples of how games played out with this system here: http://windycityweasels.org/game-reports/wcw-2012-season

Registration is also now open for the 2012 World Dip Con in Chicago: http://windycityweasels.org/wdc

Does anyone have a sense of how many people typically attend WACcon and/or how many are expected this year? I went last year, but it was an off-year for some reason that escapes me (some big tournament in Paris may have had something to do with it?), there wasn't a game on Sunday, and I'm thinking there were only three boards, but my memory isn't so great.