Interview with Chris Martin on the Diplomacy Academy

The guys are back to drinking face to face as Australia starts coming out of Coronavirus lockdown. They interview Chris Martin about his Diplomacy Academy videos on Youtube. Plus they discuss Kaner's big points draw in EU IV and more.

Intro & news

• Isolation is starting to lift in Australia as the guys introduce their venue and drinks for the episode (0 mins 10 secs)
• They discuss the pronounciation of the vDip player ingebot, who stabbed & killed Kaner in his public press State Your Business Divided States game. Amby discusses ghee. Kaner asks about Amby's quarantine beard (2 mins 45 secs)

Interview with Chris Martin about the Diplomacy Academy

• The guys introduce the interview with Chris Martin (5 mins 30 secs)
• Chris discusses his year long break from Dip, before coming back strong this year with a strong focus on his Diplomacy Academy at Youtube (6 mins)
• Amby asks about Chris' views on the creative impact of Coronavirus on the hobby (8 mins)
• Chris talks about the use of Backstabbr, Discord and other tools in games run by the Chicago and Minneapolis Club and now DixieCon (10 mins)
• Amby asks about what its like commentating on Diplomacy games. Chris mentions the DixieCon live streams will be available afterwards for round one and two (13 mins 15 secs)
• Chris talks about the hardest things about commentating live games (16 mins 20 secs)
• Amby asks about Chris' plans for his Diplomacy Academy videos and discusses some of the most recent videos (18 mins 30 secs)
• Chris talks about how he records the videos (21 mins 30 secs)
• Amby asks what aspects of gameplay with Coronavirus does Chris see continuing once we enter the "normal world" again (24 mins)
• They talk about online players coming to these hybrid tournaments (27 mins 30 secs)
• Amby asks about the various awards in the background of Chris' videos (29 mins)
• Amby asks if Chris plays much now. He goes onto to discuss stabs and what experienced players pick up, and how Chris then applies this to content for the Diplomacy Academy (32 mins)
• Kaner discusses the geography of the board and how it impacts movements. Chris gives his thoughts about this and variants (39 mins)
• Chris encourages listeners to become Patreons of the podcast (41 mins)
• Amby asks about other Diplomacy content creators and where Chris sees a gap in the market if you wanted to give back to the community. Chris gives his thoughts (42 mins 30 secs)
• The guys start to wrap up the show (46 mins 30 secs)
• After the interview the guys give their thoughts about what they learnt from Chris (47 mins 20 secs)
• The guys mention they recorded a bonus interview with Chris now available for Patreon listeners, including what Chris has learnt in recent years from other players (49 mins)
• They fill in Covid-Safe paperwork and talk about the government app (50 mins)

Diplomacy chit chat

• Kaner welcomes two new Patreons to the show, although they didn't nominate which Cabinet position they wanted when we're elected President and VP (51 mins 30 secs)
• They're back to mispronouncing ingebot's name and Kaner's game with him. They touch on Amby's soloed Divided States game and why he has that handle (53 mins)
• Amby recently went away camping and asked Kaner to sit his games. They discuss Amby's difficulty working out how to give Kaner access with the Country Switch tool (55 mins 45 secs)
• They walk through how to do this on vDip. The same functionality may also be on webDip - they're not sure (57 mins 45 secs)
• Amby asks listeners on webDip, playDip or Backstabbr to let us know how to country switch on your platform using the comments section (1 hr 3 mins)

Kaner's EUIV game

• The guys turn to Kaner's now finished EUIV game where he played as Hungary and got a great draw score (1 hr 3 mins 45 secs)

• Kaner outlines his early gameplay goals, focusing on eliminating Venice, he discusses how surprising countries grow in this variant (1 hr 4 mins 20 secs)
• He discusses how his position evolved (1 hr 6 mins)
• Kaner discusses his "where to next" moment - remember in vDip you can see previous maps by going to the Archived Maps section, or follow this link to make it easy! (1 hr 10 mins)
• The guys discuss a brief phallic moment on the map. Can you spot it? (1 hr 13 mins)

• They discuss the rogue unit behind Kaner's line and the amount of effort to squash it (1 hr 15 mins)
• Kaner discusses the new Savoy player who took over a CD position who stabbed deeply into Denmark (1 hr 19 mins)
• Amby flags how Kaner has now drawn two big maps and got a big points boost. He gives a shout out to the main players in the game: Orange, Xenon Radon, Cosmopterix, Steampunk Shogun (1 hr 20 mins)
• Kaner now is coming 48th in the vDip Hall of Fame - although he has dropped a little since recording (1 hr 26 mins)

Wrapping up and other stuff

• Amby flags how Erik van Mechlen (see our earlier interview) now has a Diplomacy audio book that is now available. The audio book is called Diplomacy Conversations: How to Win at Diplomacy or Strategy for Face to Face, Online and Tournaments (1 hr 26 mins 45 secs)
• The guys wrap it up (1 hr 29 mins)

Venue: Red Hook, Brisbane

Drinks of choice:

Kaner & Amby - Newtowner Australian Pale Ale by Young Henry's from Sydney, Australia

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 improve the audio equipment... or get the guys more drunk, 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.