With Coronavirus still rolling, the guys interview kevdog8, rannjohnson and Dr Recommended on Amby's soloed Undivided States game - the biggest SC count of all time. Plus lots of current games discussed. As much fun as you can have at home during self-isolation!
Intro
The guys introduce the show from home with all pubs still closed due to Coronavirus. They discuss their drinks and Kaner's doomsday drinking den (0 mins 10 secs)
Amby talks working from home and Diplomacy. Kaner gives his take (2 mins 45 secs)
Amby asks what Kaner's been up to Diplomacy wise. Kaner discusses his new Diplomacy white board inspired from the Diplomacy Briefing (5 mins 40 secs)


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Amby puts on some tunes with DJ Luter One (8 mins 55 secs)


Undivided States interview
Kaner talks about the Youtube video he's made of the Undivided States map (below). You can also see each map as the game turns progressed on vDip. Amby (who soloed as New York) gives his thoughts on the video (11 mins 20 secs)

https://youtu.be/tnGzmgA_sbc
Kaner asks what were the songs Amby listened to while playing the game. They were:

The Last Night of the Proms version of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture:

Little River Band's Playing to Win (after Amby started thinking he had a chance of soloing):

They start to introduce the interview with the final players in Undivided States:  kevdog8 (Kentucky), rannjohnson (Florida) and Dr Recommended (Montana). ingebot was also in the final group of players (Hawaii) but wanted to put his post game analysis into a global message: (13 mins 50 secs)

Ok, so here's my thoughts on much of the game. I took over as Hawaii that had just killed California and took control of Southern half of the west coast North america. My main opponent off the bat was Texas, with an Arizona in between acting as a buffer state, and a stalemate lasted for quite a while until I launched an invasion of Mexico from two fronts, at which point I was also able to gather enough resources to kill off Arizona. With a bit of luck in northern New Mexico, as well as a very unfortunately timed NMR from Texas, this helped me breakthrough. Florida, who until then was sort of an ally against Texas, suddenly attacked me instead, not that I blame them, it's what I would have done if our mutual target suddenly collapsed and the spoils mostly went to the other party. As Texas shrunk further and became more compact, I decided it wasn't worth it to continue grinding down Texas, and turned my attention North to kill Idaho and Alaska, mostly to kill Alaska since it was clear they won't be going to hold back expanding New York, and thereby hold the northern straits in my hands, with killing my longtime ally Idaho more of an add-on thing (the success of this may have been part of why I attacked Florida with the add-on of Montana later). Florida and I made up to fight Kentucky together, I simply to defend AMR and in my mind didn't view it as aggression. During this time I also supported both Montana and Colorado to counter Kentucky. Therefore, in my calculus, myself+Florida+Colorado+Montana = coalition to stop Kentucky. As New York grew, however, this calculus changed, and given Kentucky and New York were allied, I decided that instead of trying to fight that alliance directly, why not act in a way that helps one part of the alliance in order to weaken the alliance. This led to my decision in Spring 2060 to launch an offensive along my entire front to kill Montana, Colorado and Florida to help Kentucky grow. After that, things became a slow grind, as my expectations didn't pan out, Kentucky failed to grow significantly, and as New York grew closer to the solo I sort of lost the will to fight, a few seasons I even forgot to enter moves around Alaska since entering moves for this game became part of my "daily routine" instead of a fun thing to do, I basically even stopped looking at what had happened the previous season since I no longer cared and I wouldn't have