Interview with Bradley Grace

The guys interview Bradley Grace about his love of Diplomacy. Plus they discuss a great new variant devised on a mini bus in rural Thailand and their online games.

Intro

• The guys introduce themselves, the bar and their drinks for the evening (0 mins 10 secs)
• They discuss what life's like now back in Australia, instead of their super chill selves in Thailand. Ken talks about some of the places he visited in Thailand after Kanchanaburi (4 mins 30 secs)

Interview with Bradley Grace

• They start introducting the interview for today's episode with Bradley Grace. Gavin flags they had tech issues recording the interview, so apologies there's a small break and then another 30 mins of the interview didn't record for some reason (8 mins 45 secs)
• Ken begins the interview and asks Bradley about how did he come to WDC. Bradley also discusses how he first got into Diplomacy (11 mins 30 secs)
• For some reason Zoom crapped itself so soon in the interview, but then we come back (14 mins 15 secs)
• Bradley talks about his virtual Diplomacy championship top board experience and his stories on gameplay (16 mins 45 secs)
• He talks about his main lesson: be 10% less aggressive (21 mins 30 secs)
• Bradley and Ken talk about their discussions from watching the WDC shadow top board. They discuss Diplomacy as a spectator sport (23 mins 30 secs)
• Bradley talks about the repechage round which determined whether he or Edi Birsan made the top board. He then gives his views on how he would've done on the top board as Germany (26 mins)
• He asks Gavin why he built an army as Turkey in winter 1901 rather than a fleet (29 mins)
• Ken asks if Bradley had a favorite game he played at WDC (30 mins)
• As flagged the 2nd part of the interview wasn't recorded (sorry - you just missed half an hour of gold). Gavin flags our next Patreon episode has a great WDC discussion recorded involving Chris Brand, Jamal and Bradley (37 mins)

A great new variant?

• On the way back from Erawan Falls in Thailand on a mini bus, Gavin and Ken came up with the idea for a fantastic new variant, an alternate history variant set during the Spanish-American War, where a broader war occurs including Britain, France, Holland and Portugal. The variant involves conflict across 4 diffent theaters of war and different power dynamics across the quadrants to create balance across the board (43 mins 15 secs)

Around the grounds

• Ken discusses a couple of the few games he's in at the moment (1 hr 4 mins)
• Gavin talks about two games he drew in - an Ancient Mediterranean game and an Imperial game (1 hr 6 mins)
• He then discusses an American Conflict game he was eliminated in (1 hr 12 mins 30 secs)
• They talk about trying to get a face to face game happening locally. Ken discusses the new 6 player Greek city states map he purchased at WDC (1 hr 13 mins 30 secs)
• They begin wrapping up the show (1 hr 15 mins)

Venue: Antico, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Ken: Stone & Wood pale ale Gavin: A glass of Italian montepulciano (missed the name of the vineyard when ordering)

Just a reminder you can support the show by giving it 5 stars on iTunes or Stitcher. And don't forget if you want to help pay off the audio equipment... or buy the guys a drink, you can also donate at Patreon, plus you get extra podcast episodes!

Lastly, don't forget to subscribe so you get the latest Diplomacy Games episodes straight to your phone.

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