DixiCon2016 - May 27th-29th

[President Muffley]

Dear Online Community,

Last year I went to DixiCon and had a great time.
It's a fantastic little tournament and comes with a nice barbecue lunch!

Unfortunately I probably won't be able to attend this year. But I want to enrage the rest of you to consider taking the plunge like I did.

If you've never been to a face to face tournament before this one will help you get your feet wet before WDC later this summer.

You can find more information
here http://www.dixiecon.com/
and here http://www.dixiecon.com/id3.html

If you do decide to attend, let us know!
and please post an After Action Report On this thread!

Feel free to spread the word about this thread and this tournament among all the folks you are currently playing against in your online games.
Who knows you, might end up meeting them in person this May.

[NoPunIn10Did]

Thanks for posting about this!

I'll have to look into it; it looks like fun.

I only wish I was better at bluffing in person. I tend to do okay online (not great necessarily, but okay), but I'm pretty convinced it'd be hard for me to fool anyone in person.

[President Muffley]

Don't worry about doing well. As long as you have a good attitude you should have a really good time, no mater the outcome.

If it helps try playing it strait; some people consider being as honest as possible and building trust to be the more effective strategy.

Diplomacy is not an easy game for me either; that's why I like it so much.
My Face to Face game suffers from my general nervousness and my online game always suffered from my terrible writing. My ARR from last year is barely readable! (I exaggerate only a little).

As a plus, if ALL of your games end up being spectacular failures, DixieCon has an "award" called the Hammer.
Its a gavel engraved with the words *I GOT HAMMERED AT DIXIECON*.
I "won" it last year.

[NoPunIn10Did]

As a plus, if ALL of your games end up being spectacular failures, DixieCon has an "award" called the Hammer.
Its a gavel engraved with the words *I GOT HAMMERED AT DIXIECON*.
I "won" it last year.

That's pretty fantastic.

[NoPunIn10Did]

I've signed up, and I'm planning to attend (at least for part of the time).

If there's time and interest, I'm going to try and run a variant game of 1812 Overture that Saturday evening.
(http://www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=413&t=51563)

[NoPunIn10Did]

Well, I'm back from Dixiecon. It was fun (and tiring).

Day One:

• In Round One, I quickly learned that face-to-face Diplomacy is an entirely different beast than PBEM or online.
• Judging sincerity is easier, but it's also easier to screw up your moves when you can't analyze the board for as long.
• I made huge tactical mistakes in the first turns of the first round and was eliminated in 1904.
• Being England against a France-Germany alliance also didn't help, particularly with an indifferent Russia.
• I played a 3-player game of Puerto Rico later that evening and won, which helped me rebuild a bit of my self-esteem.

Day Two, Morning & Afternoon:

• Round Two was far less disastrous for me.
• I was Italy, and I successfully joined an Austria-Russia alliance to defeat Turkey (who had been France the night before).
• There was this awfully behaved France on the board. I'm not sure exactly why, but he pitched the most massive hissy-fit repeatedly over several turns. The whole room was echoing with his cursing. It was comically immature, especially for a man likely in his 50's or 60's.
• So, naturally, the rest of us (Russia, Austria, England, and me as Italy) worked together to eliminate him from the board.
• The game ended in a three-way draw that I technically wasn't a part of, but I was fine with that.
• I felt quite satisfied in that game's result. Vengeance was brought for the night before, and punishment was meted out to today's poor sportsman.
• Turkey, Russia, and I joined what ended up being a 5-player game of Puerto Rico after. I won that round as well, though I discovered a number of rules that I'd learned incorrectly.
• The moral of this story might be that I'm better at Puerto Rico than Diplomacy.

Day Two, Evening:

• That evening, after a tasty BBQ supper, I ran a variant game.
• We used the 1812 Overture variant that I've been working on (link to PBEM playtest spectator thread).
• I went a bit overboard and had a huge map printed out. The whole thing was 4 ft. by 6 ft., and it took up several tables.
• The playtest completed three years. They were about to start into the fourth, but it was getting late, and they called a 3-player draw.
• I got some useful feedback for the variant, particularly for USA and France.
• The players seemed to have fun with it, but having it late in the evening, after a full day of Diplomacy, might not have been the best choice.

Final Thoughts:

• I was unable to attend the third day, but I hear that it went well.
• It was reassuring to see that some of the people who defeated me went on to get some of the top rankings overall.
• I didn't get a chance to play against her, but a soft-spoken teenager (or maybe early 20's?) managed to get Best Austria, Best England, and 3rd Overall.
• I was glad to see somebody compete at that level from outside the usual demographic. We really need more women to play Diplomacy. Anything that stays a boys' club tends to have issues in the long-term.

[DQ]

Great to read this AAR! As someone who has been to Dixiecon probably 15 times in the last 16 years, I can't speak highly enough of the general character of the attendees. Occasionally you do get someone who pitches a hissy-cow, but they are in the minority.

Hooray for more PBeM players coming to play f2f!