The guys pick up discussion on 1 vs 1 games following last episode's technical difficulties and look at the Cold War and Duo games they're playing against each other. Then its an unexpected journey down the rabbit hole of recent events at webDiplomacy before discussing how Diplomacy sites could better structure themselves for longevity. Then Kaner talks about his recent "Africa" variant game. Enjoy!
Amby does a mea culpa on why last episode had so many technical difficulties (2 mins)

1 vs 1 variants - part 2
The guys discuss how they've been playing against each other in two 1v1 games: Cold War and Duo. In the Cold War game Amby as the USSR convincingly beat Amby as the USA (3 mins 30 secs)
Kaner discusses the battlefronts for the Panama Canal, Europe and around Australia and Indonesia. Amby reminds Kaner how its important to familiarise yourself with each variants special rules (4 mins)
In Cold War there are in fact land bridges between Australia-Indonesia and Indonesia-Philippines (5 mins)
Kaner discusses he made a few misorders and was taken by surprise when Amby convoyed into Alaska (5 mins 30 secs)
Amby discusses how the map used is a very different perspective of the Earth and can be confusing in Europe on which territories are connected (6 mins 20 secs)
Set just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, to achieve game balance this variant by Safari misses out on historical accuracy eg East and West Germany, Japan, Saigon and Alaska start as neutrals (7 mins 20 secs)
Amby discusses his thoughts on maybe how the map could be improved for better historical accuracy, before Kaner points out how it'd probably detrimentally impact gameplay (8 mins 30 secs)
The guys talk about their cut and thrust experience before wrapping up the end-game (14 mins)
They go onto discuss how there never was a dull moment with this variant with many offensive opportunities available. Kaner gives his thoughts on playing the variant with victory conditions requiring taking all the SC's (15 mins 30 secs)
Amby discusses his thoughts of a bigger Cold War game set around 1983 on the WWIV map, aiming for gameplay balance while maintaining historical accuracy. Amby talks about how in Dip there's a proxy between cities and military strength. In real-life there would've been more territory controlled by the west this could give them too much of an advantage.  They both give their ideas on how to balance this out with guerilla units for the initial opening year (17 mins 30 secs)
The guys then move onto their Duo game with Amby discussing how he's really enjoyed this game with each of them taking the lead at various times. That said Kaner suggests he doesn't have high hopes and can see himself being flanked in the west (23 mins)
Kaner gives his thoughts on the territory naming and how they don't necessarily intuitively match up between the map abbreviations and their names in the drop down order menu (25 mins 30 secs)
Amby chastises Kaner for his piss weak excuse about mis-ordering (26 mins 30 secs)
Following on from last episode's interview with Devonian and the concept of "lanes of attack", Amby discusses how he now comprehends his argument (27 mins 20 secs)
The guys give their final thoughts on the Cold War and Duo maps, and the special rules in Duo (28 mins 45 secs)
Amby concludes how much he likes the Duo map as he felt constantly on his toes, meanwhile Kaner slams it (30 mins 30 secs)
The guys agree to take a break from 1 vs 1 games for a bit, due to their over-commitments (32 mins)
After discussing their recent games together, the guys touch on their Mate Against Mate game and that they should've held off on that variant on the podcast until Australia Day (26 January.) Amby gives a big thumbs up to the Australia Day ad for the Australian Lamb Corporation who've cleverly branded lamb as being the food of choice on this public holiday (33 mins 40 secs)


Goings on at webDip
Kaner mentions that webDiplomacy are removing Known World 901 after only a short gig -