The calm before the storm

With flooding forecasted and too long between episodes, the guys catchup online to talk PoppyCon, Ukraine, What the Dr Recommended and lots of Diplomacy talk.

Intro & Diplomacy talk

• The guys introduce the show, their drinks and their situation for the evening. They talk about concerns about flooding and pooh-pooh it, only for a couple of days later (after recording) for the rain to start bucketing down and flooding locally (0 mins 15 secs)
• They touch on interviews that were planned and haven't yet happened (3 mins 15 secs)
• Amby says he plans to go to the PoppyCon tournament, with Kaner shortly later saying he'd like to go too (4 mins)
• They then go to onto discussing about attending WDC 2023 in Bangkok (8 mins 45 secs)

Around the grounds

• Kaner asks how Amby's games are going. Amby begins talking about a Modern Diplomacy game he bought into and won. But there's disappointment in Amby's voice when he discovers its unrated so doesn't count (10 mins)
• Kaner does share there is a positive aspect of the game, still counting as a win. Amby outlines his win/draw/survive/eliminated percentages (11 mins 45 secs)
• After the shock to the system, Kaner asks on Amby's view of how he approached previous turns to apply to his gameplay (14 mins 30 sec)
• Amby talks about continuing to get hammer in his Imperial game before turning to a Modern Europe game where he stuffed up an attack that allowed his opponent to retreat to a more favorable position (17 mins 30 secs)
• He goes onto discuss his Divided States game, which started with 50 players and is now down to 14 players (22 mins)
• Last up is his Europa Renovatio game where Amby is hanging in as a middle power (24 mins 45 secs)
• Audio warning: Amby's mute function wasn't working properly so apologies for things he thought he was silencing: eating chips, dogs barking, bins being moved etc
• The guys move onto Kaner's games starting with his Europa Renovato game, which both guys feel is starting to head toward the end game (26 mins)
• They then discuss an early game Europa game with an awesome title: Four Heralds Winterkorn Bloodbath (30 mins)
• Kaner discusses the challenges of a forward retreating unit (34 mins 30 secs)
• They move onto a listener's request to do an update for What the Dr Recommended - the top players on a Diplomacy server (39 mins 30 secs)
• After not finding the player's name in the Top 100, they move from vDip to PlayDiplomacy (43 mins 30 secs)
• Amby picks up some news in the background about Russia invading Ukraine. Kaner gives an update that was actually old news, not knowing that the full scale invasion of Ukraine was on (45 mins)
• Amby asks how he views Putin as a Diplomacy player. Amby gives a shout out to The Rest is History podcast for their overview of Russian-Ukrainian history. They then go onto discuss their thoughts (46 mins 45 secs)
• They return to What the Dr Recommended after Amby logs into PlayDip to read (in their Australian accents) the top 25 players. Kaner gives a hint to the 406 in his user name (59 mins 30 secs)
• Amby asks why PlayDip has added a heap of online casino and crypto links to its footer (1 hr 4 mins 30 secs)
• They touch on David E Cohen's latest version of Mandate of Heaven and talk vDip Winning thread (1 hr 6 mins 30 secs)
• The guys start wrapping up the show (1 hr 13 mins)

Venue: At home

Drinks of choice:

Kaner: Kilkenny Irish cream ale

Amby: The Colonel and the Merchant shiraz cabernet from Langhorne Creek, South Australia

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Thanks as always to Dr Dan aka "The General" for his rockin' intro tune.