Return-Path: <Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com>
X-Origin: The Portal System (TM)
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.dipl-l
Date:         Sun, 23 Aug 1992 20:48:49 PDT
Reply-To:     Eric_S_Klien@CUP.PORTAL.COM
From:         Eric_S_Klien@CUP.PORTAL.COM
Subject:      Chapter Eight

Issue #276 of ELECTRONIC PROTOCOL:

*************************************************************************
                            Mommy, Mommy...

                   I hate my aunt!  Shut up and eat!
*************************************************************************

Chapter One contains:

BAGHDAD, BLITZKRIEG II, KING'S GAMBIT, PASSCHENDAELE,
DRAGONS, BLACK OCTOBER, OPERATION DESERT STORM, THE SOMME

And is published by uunet!cti1!rlister or rlister@cti.com/Russ Lister

Chapter Two contains:

BATAAN, BOADICEA, CONAN, CROATIA, CUBIT, DAGGER, DIEN, DRAM,
EMU, EYLAU, FONTENOY, GIGGLES, HASTINGS, IONA, KHAFJI, MARENGO,
OSIJEK, PARIS, PORTNOY, QUEBEC, TIBERIUS, VEGA

And is published by loeb@geocub.greco-prog.fr/Daniel E. Loeb

Chapter Three contains:

SQUALANE, BRUSILOV OFFENSIVE II, CULLODEN, GANDALF'S REVENGE,
GOODBYE BLUE SKY, MASTERS OF DECEIT, PANDORA, NOW AND ZEN

And is published by mad-2@kub.nl/Constantijn Wekx

Chapter Four contains:

DEADLY DAGGERS, MONTREUIL-SUR-MER, FIRE WHEN READY, THUNDERDOME,

And needs a publisher.

Chapter Five contains:

YALTA

And needs a publisher.

Chapter Six contains:

BERLIN WALL, HIROSHIMA, GENGHIS KHAN, SEA LION

And is published by barry@brahms.udel.edu/Barry Fausnaugh.

Chapter Seven contains:

RIYADH'S RECKONING

And needs a publisher.

Chapter Eight contains:

TIBERIUS, BETELGEUSE, IRON CROSS, GUERNICA, TEUNISGEK, WOLF BLITZER,
THE COMMANDERS, THE SUTHERLAND CONFLICT, NOW AND ZEN, TRUST ME!

-------------
Chapter Eight
-------------

Table of Contents:

Fleet Quiz answers
Fleet Quiz winner!!!
National zine polls part three: explaining the preference matrix
National zine polls part four: further thoughts on the preference matrix
Variants ideas from Per Westling
----

Here are the Fleet Quiz answers from
pl436000@brownvm.brown.edu/Jamie Dreier:

1. Which spaces have the fewest "fleet-like" neighbors? A space
has n fleet-like neighbors if it can be occupied by a fleet and
that fleet has a choice of n spaces to (try to) occupy on
its move. (I will count the space it occupies as one of the
spaces to which it can move, since it can hold.)

ANSWER:
StP, Syr, and Por have three fleet-like neighbors each.


2. Define a "second order fleet-like neighbor" as a space
to which a fleet can move in TWO moves. Thus, Mar is a
second order fleet-like neighbor of WestMed.

Which spaces have the fewest second order fleet-like neighbors?
(Again, include HOLD orders in your calculations.)

ANSWER:
Syria has only six (Syr, Eas, Aeg, Con, Smy, Ion)

3. Which spaces share the dubious second place distinction
for fewest second order fleet-like neighbors?

ANSWER:
Many have seven.
Sev, arm, rum have the Black and all its neighbors.
StP(nc) and StP(sc)
Tri and Ven have Adr and its 5 neighbors, plus Nap for
Ven and Gre for Tri.
I think that's it.

                          AIR LIFT

4. Suppose at the start of the game, all players cooperated
to move some given army anywhere it wanted to go. Which
army/destination would take the largest number of
moves? (This looks like an army question, but of course
it's at least as much a fleet question.)

ANSWER:
It takes the Turkish army in Smy 5 moves to get to Munich.
Oddly enough, the German army in Munich could reach Smyrna
in only three moves! Because its trek across land can be
taking place while the fleets are setting up....

                UNANSWERABLE FIRE
5. An army occupies space X, and a fleet occupies Y (count
different coasts as different Y's). The army can attack the
fleet, but for the fleet to attack the army would require
n moves. For which X and Y is n largest?

ANSWER:
Pie and Ven, in either direction, of course.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
c85perwe@und.ida.liu.se/Per Westling is a...

           __  __  __  __  __  __  __  _____  _____   __
          |  ||  ||  ||  \|  ||  \|  ||  ___||  _  \ |  |
   ****   |      ||  ||      ||      ||  ___||     < |__|   ****
          |__/\__||__||__|\__||__|\__||_____||__|\__||__|
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Here are our Fleet Quiz winner's answers:

A reply to the ***FLEET QUIZ*** of Chapter Eight EP #274

Without looking at the map
1.  Portugal:  Portugal, Spain and Mid Atlantic.  Spain should be
regarded as one space for this purpose even though it has a sc and a
nc as a fleet in Portugal can't swith place with another fleet in
Spain (costal crawl disallowed) as two adjacent provinces can't swith
units.
    Syria:  Syria, Smyrna and Eastern Med.
    StP nc:  StP nc, Barents and Norway.
    No more.

((He is exactly right here.))

2.  Syria:  Syria, Eastern Med, Ionian Sea, Aegan Sea, Smyrna,
Constaninople giving 6 spaces.
    No more.

((He is exactly right here.))

3. Sevastopol:  Sevastopol, Armenia, Ankara, Constantinople, Bulgaria
ec, Black Sea, Rumania;  7 spaces.
   Rumania:  See Sevastopol.
   Armenia:  See Sevastopol.
   Ankara:  See Sevastopol.
   StP nc:  StP nc, Barents, Norway, Skagerak, Sweden, North Sea,
Norwegain Sea;  7 spaces as well.
   No more.

((Jamie agrees with him on Sev, Arm, Rum, and Stp.  They disagree
over Ank.  I think Jamie is right here.))

4. I would guess that it would be to move Army Liverpool to Syria.
This is done by the following:
  SPRING 01  England F Lon->ENG, A Lpl->Wal, F Edi->NTH
             France F Bre->MID
             Italy F Nap->TYRS
     Austria F Tri->Alb/ADR
     Turkey F Ank->Con, A Con->Bul
     Russia F Sev->BLA
  FALL 01    England F ENG->MID, F NTH->ENG
             France F MID->WES
             Austria F ADR/Alb->ION
             Turkey F Con->AEG, A Smy->Con
  SPRING 02  England A Wal->Smy Convoyed by lots of fleets
  FALL 02    England A Smy->Syria
So it isn't hard for English armies to reach coastal spaces (from Smy
you can reach Armenia, so Sev is 5 steps away).  How about an area in
the inner part of Europe?  Budapest?  Well, convoy to Albania instead
of Smyrna and Budapest is reachable by land (Alb->Serbia->Budapest).
Other inner parts may be reached by A Lpl->Yor->Den (C Nth)->Lva (C
BAL)->War->Ukr or Lva->Mos->Sev or Den->Pru->Sil->Gal.  So the
farthest is A Lpl->Sevastopol, 5 steps.

((Both Jamie and Per have given 5 step answers.  Perhaps they're both
right?))

5. X = Livonia, Y = StP nc, n = 4

If I win I wouldn't mind a subscription to Diplomacy World.

((Both Jamie and Per have given 5 step answers.  Perhaps they're both
right?))

Per Westling should confirm that his address is "c/o Lindh, Drabantg 11
S-583 46 LINKOPING, SWEDEN" and let me know if the one year subscription
to Diplomacy World will be a renewal or a new subscription.
Congratulations, Per!

I received the following from pl436000@brownvm.brown.edu/Jamie Dreier,
the winner will get a one year free subscription to the Diplomacy
magazine of their choice:

                     DEEPLY TROUBLING QUIZ

******
Call a given space with a given type of unit (on a given coast, if
relevant) "Potentially Deadly" to a unit in some other space IFF
there is some configuration of pieces on the board and some
set of orders such that the dislodgement of the second unit
depends on the orders given to the first.

E.g., a fleet on the north coast of Spain is Potentially
Deadly to an army in Gascony, because there is a configuration
and set of orders (namely, f MAO - Gascony) in which Gascony
will be dislodged if and only if Spain orders support for MAO-Gas.

Ok? Now, call a given unit in a given region (and coast)
"Deeply Troubling" IFF it is Potentially Deadly to EVERY
space on the board.

That's the set up. Here's the question.
How many unit/space pairs are Deeply Troubling?
(You needn't give the actual number if you can describe
in some other illuminating way which unit/space pairs
are Deeply Troubling. Or for that matter, if you can
describe in some illuminating way which one's are NOT.)

And, more difficult, can you prove it??
*****

I received the following from amt5man@sun.leeds.ac.uk/Mark Nelson:

    NATIONAL ZINE POLLS PART THREE: EXPLAINING THE PREFERENCE MATRIX
    BY MARK NELSON

SECTION ONE: What is A Preference Matrix?

   In Part One of this series we presented a history of the UK Zine
Poll and examined how the idea of a National Zine Poll had spread
into other diplomacy hobbys.  In Part Two we surveyed some of the
different methodologys that have been used over the years.  In this
part we explain in more detail the hows and whys of using the
Preference Matrix.

   As we showed in Part Two the earlist Zine Polls were run using an
average votes system.  Before we can show why the Preference Matrix
is a *Good Idea* we first show some of the problems that a Poll based
solely on Average Votes has.

   Almost all of the faults with the Average Vote system stem from
its subjectiveness.  How good does a zine have to be to receive the
top mark (normally 10), how bad does it have to be to receive the
bottom mark (1 in the UK, 0 in North America). Does a vote of 5
represent an average zine, and if so what is an average zine?

   And what does it mean if I give one zine 2/10 and another 4/10?
Does it imply that I consider the higher ranking zine to be two-times
better than the lower ranking one?  Does the differential I use
between zines indicate anything?

  How should you vote? If 5 represents an average zine should you try
and make sure that the average of all the votes that you cast is 5?
If you see only one or two zines then it's likely that you think that
these are going to be great zines and vote them high marks.  What
happens if you see more zines?

   In fact several Zine Poll Custodians have released figures which
show two interesting things:The more zines you vote for the lower the
average of the votes that you cast and that zine-editors cast lower
votes than non-zine editors.

  These phenomena are relatively easy to explain.  The more zines you
see the more likely it is that you see zines which do not
particularly enjoy/which you do not rate as being outstanding.  Hence
you will cast low votes for these zines.  Traditionally zine-editors
undertake wide-spread trading and see more zines than non-publishing
voters.  Additionally zine-editors are more critical of rival
publishers and pay more attention to content/lay-out and the such
like and mark zines down.

  One think that was discussed in the First Part of this article was
"what is the purpose of a Zine Poll?"  If the purpose is to find
which zines the hobby prefers then one serious problem with a
methodology based upon average voting is that a zine with a small
number of enthusiastic subscribers could easily win the Poll.  Hence
the average voting method is not method to guarantee that that the
ranking of zines in the Poll corresponds to how the hobby as a whole
views them.

   Combining all this information we see that whilst the Average Vote
method has some merit, it is not perfect.  Can we get another angle
onto which zines people prefer?

   Earlier I asked if I voted twice as much for zine A as for zine B
does it imply that I consider it to be twice as worthy as the lower
ranking one?  One thing which it does show is that I prefer zine A to
zine B.  And because there is so much flucturation in what voters
mean by the numbers which they attach to the zines that they vote for
perhaps we can gain something useful by just considering their
*preferences*.

   The preference matrix does this.

   When a voter lists 5 zines on their ballot paper they are telling
you their preferences.  They are saying that the they prefer the zine
at the top of their ballot to all other zines, that they prefer all
other zines to the one at the bottom.  It doesn't matter that the
votes may be 10-9-8-7-6 or 10-7-5-3-1 or 10-7-7-6-6-2, whatever the
value of the vote the voter is given us a indication of whether he
prefers Zine A or Zine B.

   How do we calculate a Preference Matrix?

   Suppose there are N zines in the Poll. Let us chose two particular
zines, A and B.  Then on every ballot paper that contains zines A and
B there are three different outcomes: Either Zine A will appear
before Zine B, Zine B will appear before Zine A or the two zines will
appear at the same place on the ballot in which case they draw.

   So by going through all ballots which contain both zines we can
arrive at a Win-Draw-Loss table which will tell us how many times
Zine A beat Zine B, how many times Zine A and Zine B drew and how
many times Zine B beat Zine A.

   At it's simplist level we can say that if Zine A has more `wins'
against Zine B then it has `loses' then Zine A has beaten Zine B, in
the sense that more people Prefer Zine A to Zine B.

  We can do these comparisons for each zine in the Poll, that is to
say that we can compare every zine in the Poll to every other zine in
the Poll and to see if voters express a preference for one zine
against another. If there are N zines in the Poll then there are (N-
1) + (N-2) + (N-3) .... + 1 distinct preferences that can exist.

   If there are N zines in the Zine Poll then the Preference Matrix
is an nxn matrix.  Along each column or row, there will be (N-1)
entries (obviously you can't compare zine A to zine A!). We may label
each entry in the matrix with the unique reference (i-j) where for
entry (i-j) we are comparing zine i to zine j.  Each entry (i-j) will
contain three numbers (k-l-m) as described above.  We refer to the
label (i-j) as an Index Pair.

   At it's most simplest implementation the Preference Matrix will
tell us that for any of these N zines it won A Index-Pairs in the
Preference Matrix, lost B Index Pairs in the Preference Matrix and
drew (N-A-B) Index Pairs in the preference matrix.

   What now?  We can award a simple mark scheme.  Perhaps for every
Index Pair thata zine wins it scores 3 points and for every Index
Pair that it draws it scores 1 point.  Then we can total up all the
points that a zine has scored and arrive at a listing of zines which
is independent of the actual numbers voters accorded each zine.

SECTION TWO: The Preference Matrix and The Zine Poll

   There are obviously many different ways in which you score a
Preference Matrix.  For instance you could score 2 pts for winning an
Index Pair and 1 for drawing.  Or even 2 pts for winning and 0 for
drawing.

  One disadvantage of a Zine Poll run purely on a Preference Matrix
is that no indication is taken whatsoever of the actual value of the
votes cast, although this is also one of its strengths.  Although in
the past there have been instances when the Zine Poll has been scored
purely on the preference matrix nowdays the scoring of the Zine Poll
(both in the UK and North America) uses a mixture of average votes
and prefence matrix.

   But before explaining how to splice the average vote and the
preference matrix together there is another question to answer:
Under what circumstances should you use a Preference Matrix in a Zine
Poll?

   The essence of the Preference Matrix is that there are
"sufficient" voters who can make a comparison between zines on the
list.  That is to say that given any index pair (i-j) there are are
"sufficient" voters who see both of these zines.  To take one
extreme, if there are six zines in the Poll and twenty voters but all
ballots contain the name of one zine then it would be absurd to use
the Preference Matrix because no-one was casting any preferences.  At
the other extreme, suppose all twenty voters saw all six zines, then
for each of the 15 distinct comparisons there are twenty voters and
so meaningful results are being extracted.

   The question is, how many votes are required before a comparison
can be construed as being meaningful?  For instance comparisons which
are either 1-0-0, 0-1-0 or 0-0-1 are not particularly useful (this is
to say that only one voter sees the two zines in question).  How many
votes are required before a comparison is meaningful?  How long is a
piece of string?

   To some extent this depends on how many votes the zines in the
Poll are attracting.  For instance if each zine attracts 100 votes
then an Index Pair containing only 5 votes is not meaningful as it is
based on only 5% of the voters.  On the other hand if each zine
receives only 10 votes then an Index Pair with 5 votes is not so bad
(although not good).  Obviously there are no hard and fast rules
here.

   We have discussed above how many ballots are required before an
index pair can be meaningful.  There is the related question of how
many index pairs have to be meaningful before the Preference Matrix
is telling us useful information.

   For instance.  Suppose that there are 6 zines in the Zine Poll.
Then there are 15 distinct index pairs.  If 14 of these contain zero
or one preferences (so are telling us either nothing or not very
much) and the 15th contains 10 preferences then it isn't worth
running a Preference Matrix.  For a decent Preference Matrix you
require to have 80%+ of Index Pairs being meaningful.  (This 80%
value has been plucked from thin air, the true value is almost
certainly higher but not lower.)

   This boils down to resolving an important question about your
national hobby: Do people see a number of different zines or do they
tend just to see one or two zines?

   So we have seen that a preference matrix is only reasonable if a
large enough number of people are expressing a preference for most of
the zines in the Poll.

 PART THREE:  Splicing The Preference Matrix and The Average Vote
 Together

   Before covering this, we should explain in more detail why most
people are not in favour of vasing their Zine Poll solely on the
Preference Matrix.  There are two reasons.  Firstly it takes no
account of the actual numbers cast, it doesn't matter if you score
two zines as 10-9 or 10-3; in the end they both score up as a
preference for one zine over another.

   Secondly people who vote for a large number of zines have a
greater influence than those vote for a small number.  In fact a
person who only votes for one zine has *no* influence on the Zine
Poll because he casts no preferences.  When John Piggott ran the UK
Zine Poll one of the rules was that you had to vote for a minimum of
*two* zines.  This means that people who are more active in the Hobby
have a grater influence than those are not.  The feeling is that the
Zine Poll should try and include the votes of everyone who votes, and
the best way to do this is to combine together scores from an Average
Vote and from a Preference Matrix.  Now, how do we do this?

   Let us suppose that that there are N zines in the Preference
Matrix, and that you score A points for winning each index pair and B
points for drawing an index pair.  Then the maximum score that any
zine can obtain is (N-1)*A.

  Now the maximum score that you can score in an Average vote is ten.
The maximum score in the Preference Matrix is likely to be not only
higher than this, but much higher than this.  In the UK a typical
preference matrix will contain on the order of 50 zines, with 3pts
for a win.  Hence the maximum score on a preference matrix will be
(50-1)*3=147.  Adding the average vote onto these scores is unlikely
to change the result of the Poll.

   So the first thing to do is renormalize all scores from the
Preference Matrix so that the highest score is ten.  If a Zine Scores
C then it's new score is C/((N-1)*A).

   In the past there have been different ways of combining the
Average Vote (AV) and Renormalised Preference Matrix Score (RNPMS).
It's perfectly possible to weight them equally, but at present this
is not done.

   In the UK the present Custodian uses 2*(RNPMS) + AV which gives
zines a total of 30.  Zines are then ranked in order of their final
score.  In North America the current custodian (Eric Brosius) uses
the formula: Final Score = ( 2*Modified Mean + Preference Score)/3.

   It is interesting to note that in the UK we emphasise the
Preference Matrix over the Average Score whilst in North America they
emphasise the Modified Mean over the Preference Matrix. We shall not
attempt to explain the reasons for these fundamental differences
here, a commentary on this appeared in (1).

Part Four: Some Advanced Features of and Comments on The Preference Matrix

   Running a Poll using Average votes is straight-forward and not
particularly time-consuming.  Calculating a Preference Matrix for a
small number of voters and a small number of zines is slightly more
time consuming.  Calculating a Preference Matrix for a large number
of voters and a large number of zines is *very* time-consuming!

   If you vote for N zines how many do preferences are you making?
(N-1) + (N-2) + (N-3) + ... 1 = quite a lot!  You can see that if
people start voting for more than 20 zines then it can take some time
to store that information.

   In the UK Iain Bowen has recently introduced two new innovations
to the Preference Matrix.  Firstly he scores all indices which
contain only one preference as a draw for both zines regardless of
preference.

   The reason for this is two-fold.  Firstly he does not consider
such pair-indices to contain meaningful information.  Secondly an
obscure fanzine which a low number of voters could do very well in
the Poll by winning  a large number of 1-0 preferences.  A
methodology which could allow a fringe zine to either win or do
particularly well is not considered to be sound.

   The other innovation re-defines the concept of winning an Index
Pair.  Traditionally to win an Index Pair you simply had to score
more wins than loses to the other zine in the Index Pair.  You only
drew the Index Pair if both zines had the same number of preferences.

  This can lead to strange results.  Suppose the Index Pair contains
the following preferences 1-20-0.  Twenty one voters, twenty say the
zines are equal but one says that he prefers zine A.  Should this
really count as a win for Zine A?  Iain's innovation is to say that
to win the Index Pair you have to have greater than 50% of the voters
giving you their preference.  So a 1-20-0 is a draw, as is a 10-4-6.

   Obviously this idea can be developed further.  Is it "fair" that a
10-4-6 scores as a draw but a 11-4-6 (one extra voter!) scores as a
win for one zine and a lose for the other?  Using the (k-l-m)
notation defined earlier we could instead do away with the concept of
winning and drawing index-pairs and instead define a score for each
index pair as follows.  Let A be the number of points for "winning"
an index-pair.

   Then a zine scores A*(k/(k+l+m)).  This means that one vote does
not dramatically swing your score from a draw to a win.
Unfortunately this system means that fringe zines with fewer
preferences may score better than zines with large circulations.

   Perhaps there is material on this topic for another article...

(1) Northern Flame 34 (March 1992)

NATIONAL ZINE POLLS PART FOUR: FURTHER THOUGHTS ON THE PREFERENCE MATRIX
                    BY ERIC BROSIUS

Here is how I would do preference scores if I were going to be a
TurboPhreak about it:

My feeling is that the Pref Score should measure how certain we are
about the fact that one zine is preferred to another.  This can be
computed using probability theory if we make some basic assumptions.
I'd start by breaking down all individual comparisons into wins,
losses, and ties.  For example, let's suppose we have 40% wins, 40%
losses, and 20% ties.  (I do not mean we break down the *matchups*
into these categories, but the *comparisons*.  I.e., if we pick a
random pair of votes on the same ballot, there is a 20% chance they
will be the same.)

I'd then compute a function  P(n,m)  for each pair of integers  (n,m)
with - n <= m <= n.  Loosely speaking, this would represent the
chance that, given n  comparisons taken from the hypothetical
distribution,  wins - losses  would be less than (or no greater than)
n .  The larger  P(n,m)  is, the less likely it is that a zine could
achieve a  wins - losses  score of  m  by pure chance alone.  Thus,
the more certain we are that the result of the matchup is due to more
than just chance.  Note that I waffled above between "less than" and
"no greater than".  This was deliberate.  For symmetry purposes, I
don't want to prefer one to the other.  So in actual practice I would
compute  P(n,m)  on a "less than" basis and *also* on a "greater
than" basis, and I would add the two values.

Let's do a few small examples.  For larger ones, you'd need a
computer or a lot of patience.

If  n = 1,  we need to compute  P(1,1), P(1,0), and P(1,-1).  First

P(1,1)  =  [P(wins - losses < 1) + P(wins - losses <= 1)].

Let's do the easy one first.  P(wins - losses <= 1) = 100%, since you
can't do better than  1-0  on a single comparison.  The harder one is

P(wins - losses < 1)  =  P(a 0-0 matchup) + P(a 0-1 matchup)

                      =  20% + 40%  =  60%.

This means P(1,1)  =  60% + 100%  =  1.6 .


Now let's do P(1,0)  =  [P(wins - losses < 0) + P(wins - losses <= 0)]

                     =  [P(wins - losses < 0) + P(wins - losses < 1)]

                     =  40% + 60%  =  1.0 .

And similarly, P(1,-1)  =  0.4 .

How would this be used in the preference score?  Simple.  I'd add
P(n,m)  to a zine's pref score for a matchup composed of  n
comparisons if we had wins - losses = m.

For example, on a 1-comparison matchup I'd add  1.6  for a 1-0 win,
1.0 for a 0-0 tie, and  0.4  for a 0-1 loss.  These values are on the
same scale as the current Runestone raw preference score (i.e.,
before normalizing.)

I'll give further values of these numbers in the chart below.  These
numbers are rounded to the nearest hundredth.

P(n,m)

n | m = -3    -2    -1     0     1     2     3
------------------------------------------------
1 |                0.40  1.00  1.60
2 |          0.16  0.48  1.00  1.52  1.84
3 |    0.06  0.22  0.56  1.00  1.44  1.78  1.94

You can generate more of these if you want by writing a program.
Note the zero-sum nature of this process:  the two zines involved in
a matchup always split 2 points.

Would this be an improvement?  Yes, if you are interested in
accuracy.  But I don't think it would be an improvement if you are
interested in being able to explain the scoring system to those who
are interested.  It's just too complicated for most people to have
the patience for (remember, the values of  P(n,m)  would have to be
recomputed each year depending on the number of tied comparisons.)
And furthermore, the difference is not that great.  For a 1-0 matchup
on on ballot, we'd award  1.60  points instead of the  2.00  I award
now.  The bigger effect would be on a close matchup with a lot of
votes on either side---for instance, an 8-7 matchup on 19 ballots.
In these cases, the result would be very close to 1.00 for each zine.

Variant Ideas from Per Westling <c85perwe@und.ida.liu.se>

As of this moment all variants implemented for Judge is available on
all judges.  But this might not be the case in the future as there
are some attempts to implement other variants at other cites.

I think that is a good idea, but would like to see more of it.  I
suggest that some kind of variants should only be available at some
cites, and not all, so that the people interested to play in that
variant would be attracted to just that judge.

The central judge could either have all variants implemented
available or maybe have them archieved and include a pointer to there
that variant could be played.

Here are some variants I would like to see implemented:

* Captalist Dippy  [buy and sell currencies, the one with most
currenices after a season controls that power the next season]
* Fleet Rome  [like regular Dip but Italy starts with Fleet
instead of Army in Rome]
* Baseball Diplomacy  [you collect points for each inning, the
highest sum wins, an inning is a year controlling on power, the game
consist of 7 years so that each player get to control one power one
year]
* Intimate Diplomacy  [two player variant]
* Stab  [a blind variant, the only thing one sees (except what
ones units sees) is the failed orders]

All the above use the normal map.  There are some other with special
maps that could be implemented:

* Hardbop Downfall  [play Diplomacy in Middle Earth setting]
* Aberation  [maybe the best variant?]
* India 1501  [easy variant for 5 players, no fleets]
* 1885[a 9-player variant with Sweden and Spain as extra
powers, uses the Army/Fleets rules]
* Song of the Night  [the most known of all fantasy variants
(except maybe Downfall) in no special fantasy settings, uses Wizards,
Kings, Heroes, Magic Items, ...]
* Gilgamesh  [The German extended version of "Song of the
Night"]


As you can see, a lot of good variants.

Stay tuned for the rules of Capitalist Dippy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          CAPITALIST-DIPPY

                      by Lukas Kautzsch (1985)

Capitalist-Dippy (CD) contains two games, Dippy Stock Exchange (DSE)
and Diplomacy. The owner of the most shares leades units of this
country in the next season.

Now to the details:
At the beginning each players owns of each of the 7 currencies
(Kronen, Pound, Francs, Mark, Lira, Rubel, Piaster) 1000 shares and
no Swiss Franks (SFr, this is the base currency). The price of all
currencies is 1.00 SFr.

As usual in Dippy, a year is divided in 3 seasons (Spring, Autumn and
Winter), which are played in 3 or 2 rounds (Autumn and Winter
together).

In the first round of the game (Winter 1900) there is only action at
the DSE, in each further round there are military movements and
following orders at the DSE.

At the DSE the players can buy and sell currencies based of the
prices of the last round. Selling shares is limited up to 500 shares
of each currencies. You can buy up to your cash. The cash you got by
selling shares is converted to SFr and added to your cash. You can
save it for the next turn, or reinvest in other currencies. I.e.: You
own 1000 Shares of French Francs at 2.50 SFr, you sell 500 shares.
You get 1250 SFr. If you buy 735 Lira at 1.70 SFr, you have to pay
1249.50 SFr.

At the end of the turn the price of the currencies changes. For every
100 Shares of a currency which were more bought than sold, the price
raises by 0.01 SFr. Vice versa it falls by 0.01 SFr for every 100
shares, which were more sold than bought. The value of currencies can
never fall below 0.01 SFr (but see below). There is also no upper
limit of the price.

When a country runs out of supply-centers, this currency is in the
next turn without value and can no longer be traded with at the DSE.

The player with the most shares of a currency at the end of a turn
leads the units of this country in the next season. (When two players
are equal, the one who had the most in the last turn). The game is
finished at the end of the dippy-game which will be after Winter 1910
unless a power owns more than 17 centers before that.

The decision about victory and the places is not based on the leader
of the winning country, nor the value of the currencies in SFr. Only
the point value (victory points) of the existing countries, computed
as follow:

The number of supply centers is multiplied with every 100 shares of a
country. The amount for all exisiting countries is added to the plaer
amount. The player with the highes score win this game.

NMR-arrangment: If a player fails to give orders for the DSE, he
sells of each currency as many as possible up to 500. In the
diplomacy-part all units will hold.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

                         CAPITALIST-DIPPY II

                      by Per Westling (Dec 91)

This is a revised version of Lukas Kautzsch's _Capitalist-Dippy_
influenced by other similar variants like for example Douglas
Huskins' _Speculation_.
                                  Per Westling -- constructor (Dec 91)

1. Any number of players may participate in this game, but 10--15
is recommended. It's up to the GM if the players should be anonymous
or not.

2. Capitalist-Dippy (CD) contains two games, the Stock Exchange (SE)
and the normal Diplomacy orders. The owner of the most shares (of the
power's currency) leades units of this power in the next season. At
the beginning each players owns of each of the 7 currencies (Kronen,
Pound, Francs, Mark, Lira, Rubel, Piaster) 1000 shares and no ECUs
(European Currency Units, this is the base currency). The price of
all currencies is 1.00 ECU. ECU is used as this is just an abstract
measure of worth.

3. As usual in Diplomacy, a year is divided in 3 seasons (Spring,
Fall and Winter), which are played in 3 or 2 rounds (Autumn and
Winter together).

In the first round of the game (Winter 1900) there is only action at
the SE, in each further round there are military movements and
the following orders at the SE.

4. A round consist of the following actions:
 i ] Orders in the Diplomacy game
ii ] Financial Orders are executed at the SE
iii] Resignations and adding of new players
iv ] Determination of new prices for the currencies
v  ] Determination of Leaders of each Power

During Winter 1900 step *i* is skipped, and during the last round
(Winter 1910 or when a power exceeds 17 centers) only step *i* and
*ii* take place.

5. At the SE the players can buy and sell currencies based of the
prices of the last round. Selling shares is limited up to 500 shares
of each currency. You can buy up to your cash. The cash you got by
selling shares is converted to ECUs and added to your cash, but you
can use it the same round if you like. I.e.: You own 1000 Shares of
French Francs at 2.50 ECUs, of which you sell 500 shares. You get
1250 ECUs. If you buy 735 Lira at 1.70 ECUs, you have to pay 1249.50
ECUs. The 0.50 ECUs extra you won by this transaction is lost as the
fractions are dropped after transactions are finished.

6. The Financial Orders (FO) are transactions for the SE, and they
should be given in a format similar to this:

    Crowns   +500
    Pounds   +200
    Francs  -1000
    Marks     N/T
    Lira     +100
    Rubles   +750
    Piastres -500

Pluses (*+*) mean buy, and minuses (*-*) sell. "N/T" mean No
Transaction.

As usual a player can't sell more than 500 shares, or more than
(s)he's got.  If a player tries to buy more than (s)he can afford the
biggest buy order in the number of shares (randomly determined if
several) will be lowered until the FO is legal.

7. If a player resign all his shares and ECUs will be returned to the
bank without affecting the prices.

8. The GM may allow new players to enter the game, for example to
always have the prearranged number of players in the game. They will
be given shares of each _remaining_ currency to the value of 1000
ECUs. Fractions will be dropped and if possible ECUs will be given
instead. E.g.: A new player enters the game when the prices are 0.95
ECUs for 1 Pound, 1.10 ECUs for 1 Francs and 1.00 for the rest. This
players will get 1052 Pounds (cost 999 ECUs), 909 Francs (cost 999
ECUs), 1000 of each of the remaining currencies and 2 ECUs in "cash".

9. After the Winter adjudications (either separate or togehter with
the Fall orders depending on the House Rules) the GM will determine
which power that have changed their numbers of supply centers since
the previous adjudiaction. If a power has lost center(s) the GM will
place a sell order under the title "World Events" for 1,000 shares
(in that powers currency) for each center lost, and vice verse for
gains and buy orders.

10. All the amounts sold in each currency are added, giving the
(total) demand. All the amounts bought in each currency are added,
giving the (total) supply. If the demand or supply is less than 100,
it is raised to 100.

The new price (used for sales and buys in the next SE) is computed by
the following formula:
       newprice = oldprice * cube-root(demand/supply)

The price are rounded to two decimals, towards 1.00, i.e.: 1.323 is
rounded down to 1.32 and 0.973 is rounded up to 0.98.

A price may not fall below 0.01 as long as the power remains in the
game.

When a power runs out of supply-center, the currency of that power is
worthless and may not be traded with for the rest of the game,
starting the round the Fall/Winter season the elimination takes
place.

11. If there are two or more players with the most amount of shares
in one currency, the one of them who had the most amount in the
previous round will be the Leader of that power. If this is still
undecidable, the round before that will be determine among them, and
so on. If still undecidable, the most recent Leader will remain
Leader, or if the first round, random choice will be used.

12. The first time a player fails to send in any transactions for the
SE (N/T suffices to avoid this) the GM will sell 500 (or all if less
reamins) shares of each currecny the player posses. The player will
keep the ECUs from this sale. The player failing to enter any FO wont
be chosen as the leader of any power, regardless of the amounts of
shares held.

If a players fails to make any transactions for the SE a two seasons
in a row, the player will be regarded as resigning, so the GM wont
sell any of the players shares, but instead treat him as a resigner.

If a Leader of a power NMRs during the Diplomacy part, all the units
will hold (unless the House Rules dictates any other NMR arrangement)
and (s)he wont be chosen as the Leader for that power during the next
round. The player may be chosen as Leader for another power though,
if (s)he makes FOs during the same round as the NMR.

13. The game ends after Fall/Winter 1910 (or the year some power
reach 18+ centers). Draws are not allowed.

Victory is decided by the number of Victory Points (VP) each player
have. VPs are computed by the multiplying the number of supply
centers held by a power by the number of shares held in that currency
and divide this by 100. ECUs give no VPs.

E.g.: England finishes a game with 11 centers, Russia with 18 centers
and Italy with 7 centers. A player has 2523 Pounds, 1002 Rubles, 302
Francs and 3201 Liras. The Francs are worthless (France has been
eliminated) but the other currencies are computed into VPs in the
following way:
           2523*11 + 1002*18 + 3201*7
           --------------------------      =681.96
                      100

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

--
Per Westling              |
c/o Lindh, Drabantg 11    |  c85perwe@und.ida.liu.se
S-583 46 LINKOPING        |  In praise of Idleness -- Bertrand Russel
SWEDEN                    |
Fax: 105235, Home: 273054, Work: 104890  --  Add 013 or +4613 before.
Stuff regarding DPP may be sent to x90perwe@ida.liu.se instead.

Publisher comments:

I need scribes to type in articles.  I am also interested in people's
experiences with scanners.  I would like to know what brands of scanners
and OCR software are the best.  I am also very interested in finding two
players for a new 1914 game.

******************************************************************************
To join in the fun, send your name, home address, home and work phone numbers,
            and country preferences to Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com.
******************************************************************************
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU