Yorkshire Dipcon 2015

the Yorkshire Dipcon 2015 is the first edition of the Yorkshire Dipcon. It was organized by Graeme Murphy from the 19th to the 21th of june 2015

Why a Yorkshire Dipcon
The main driver for Yorkshire DipCon (YDC from now on) was falling attendances at UK based events that had resulted in the loss of the final days play at Manorcon 2013 because we could not get the seven players required to fill a single board. A meeting of some of the senior faces in UK face to Face Diplomacy had resulted in a degree of soul searching and some thoughts on why people weren’t playing at UK events anymore and this resulted in a number of potential actions that the UK Face to Face Diplomacy Group might take to halt this worrying trend.

Precon
The final run in to the event started badly. I met with the Top Honcho in Residence and Catering at the University to discuss the practical arrangements for the event. As I walked through the door and saw his face I knew there were problems. It transpired that the building contractors were still on site at the Lawns Centre and we would not be able to access the rooms for the Diplomacy games as they were not yet finished. Not only that but, with contractors on site the bar and refectory areas would also be unavailable. I looked out of his windows and thought the worst but Head Honcho’s don’t get to be Head Honcho’s without having a trick up their sleeves and on this occasion he rose to the challenge.

There were rooms available in the accommodation blocks that should be able to take the games; The University would provide a free hot meal on the Friday night and buffet lunches on the Saturday and Sunday. These would be for all attendees and not just for those staying in the accommodation. The University also agreed to send over a chef and an assistant to cook our breakfasts within the accommodation blocks now that we had lost the use of the refectory. The previously agreed arrangement where we could bring our own food and drink on site took care of the bar issue.

I arranged to meet someone up at the Lawns to look at the rooms proposed and, after this visit, decided that with the numbers due to attend these rooms would be fine and that the University’s offer more than made up for the loss of the facilities in the Lawns Centre.

Round 1
Round one saw David Wigglesworth’s experience prove too much for the rest of the board as he charmed his way to an imposing 12 centre win with Austria. Poor Simon Stansfield, with my plaudits about him being the feared Turk still ringing in everyone’s ears, drew the yellow pieces and was immediately pounced on by all his neighbours and the Italian. Stanny survived under extreme pressure until 1906, winning the Geoffrey Boycott Award for a Most Stubborn Defence in the process.

The results of round one were: Whilst round one was underway experienced players Graeme Murphy, Dave Simpson, Jeremy Tullett and Brian O’Farrell sat out, playing a game of ‘1775 – Rebellion’. A game eventually won by the Continental Army and the Patriots after an inconvenient peace treaty brought hostilities to a premature close.

The post-Diplomacy activities involved the drinking of copious amounts of beer and two simultaneous games of Spartacus. Needless to say a great time was had by all although how the Batiatus family managed to win so easily on our board I’ll never know.

The Diplomacy had gone well and the players new to the UK Face to Face Diplomacy scene had enjoyed every minute of it. So far so good.

Round 2
Saturday, just like Friday, dawned clear and hot with a bright blue sky over East Yorkshire and a host of hungry Diplomacy players gathering for breakfast. Full English and continental varieties were available with even the option of having both for those with a special sort of appetite. The food was prepared fresh in the room and was well appreciated by the ravenous hordes.

10am saw the start of round two and this saw the participation of some of the more experienced Dipsters who had sat out last nights round. 1901 saw an unusual opening with Austrian armies in Bohemia and Russians in Silesia. I suspected I had been done up like a kipper and the Autumn Diplomacy required an extra special effort to prevent an early German exit. By working with England however I managed recover and eventually got to 7 centres, pretty much at Russia’s expense, but an ill-considered build of a fleet in Kiel sent alarm bells ringing in Whitehall and saw a stab by the English at the same time that the other wolves gathered to feast. With some ill-considered moves and circled by enemies I went from my heady 7 centres down to 2 centres to qualify for the Yorkshire Pudding award. This was for the player who received the severest battering in a turn. I exited in 1907 and was pretty bruised. The game was won again by David Wigglesworth who had done well out of my demise whilst Jeremy Tullett’ Russia recovered from 1 centre back to 9 in display that would put a phoenix to shame.

The full board results were:

Round 3
With a short break for lunch, once again provided free by the University, it was time for round 3 and with two eliminations behind her it was time for Turkey to shine, Jeremy Tullett taking advantage of a disjointed opposition to finish just ahead of Brian O’Farrell’s 10 centre France. Owen Richards took the Mid-Summer Madness award in this game for what I believed was his decision to scupper a three way draw on 10 centres, giving the high scoring win to Jeremy instead. It has to be said that this was explained to me well into the early hours of Sunday morning whilst sat outside over a beer and I may have missed some of the nuances of Owens position at this time as he was clearly not a part of that draw and no one thought to offer him a reason to hold the line against Jeremy to force the three-way. Owen is however hanging on to his certificate and, in my mind, anyone to keeps centres out of the hands of Dave Simpson, deserves an award of some kind.

The results of round three were:

Round 4
Round four was delayed to allow me to go out and pick up another 40 bottles of real ale and a huge Indian meal for all the players. We eventually started at 21:00 with completion expected around 1am. This was a game that saw myself as England hold sway over insubstantial alliances with France and Germany. One in which I balanced the alternate demands of each to throw myself in on the side of one against the other. This balancing act saw me use German help to take over Scandinavia and Northern Russia whilst keeping France small. None of my immediate neighbours ever built a second fleet which helped me no end and, when the knife slid into Germany it was only at a point where I already had it poised to point it at France’s back. I finished the game on 11 centres and had only one army on the board at the end. My final turn stab of France saw me take Brest and Holland whilst my lack of armies made it easy for me to persuade Germany to take up exile in Moscow and Warsaw rather than try to recover any of the Fatherland. Elsewhere on the board Turkey had seen off Brian O’Farrell’s Austria and done enough damage to Italy to secure second place. The full results were: The late finish to the game, gone 1am, saw several players retire to bed, some disappear to play other games and four or five others raiding the fridge and moving outside to enjoy a warm mid-summers eve with a beer and a host of tales of how the day would have gone so much better if only…

Round 5
Sunday morning continued the pattern of the weekend with clear skies and a lovely warm day. Shame the Dipsters were going to spend most of it inside playing boardgames.

Round five saw David Wigglesworth leading, Jeremy Tullett in second, Graeme Murphy in third and Brian O’Farrell in fourth. There were more players wanting to play the Sunday session than places so, as TD, I stepped aside to play my new solo game ‘Codeword Cromwell’ whilst Andrew Jones and Simon Chandler, having also played all 4 games so far, were to spend the day thoroughly engrossed with games of ‘1812:  The Invasion of Canada’. This was the sister game of ‘1775: Rebellion’ and the lads from Warwick Uni finished several games whilst an exercise in meta-gaming took place on the Dip board with David Wigglesworth only countenancing a person winning the board if they would not threaten his position current tournament leader. This seemed to impact Jeremy Tullett who, if it looked like he would pass ‘The Wiggler’ found that David would look to take centres off him. Barring an outright solo win, no-one else was in a position to win the tourney. This then had the knock on effect that, out of gratitude for Jeremey’s support earlier in the weekend, David was very happy for Jeremy to take second place in the tournament, which required Mr Tullett to take second place in the game. (Are you following this ?)  With this in mind he made it clear to Russia that he would attack Russia, if Russia attacked England.

Meta gaming is the major difference with tournament play over a house game and I am pleased that some of the newer players (Andrew and Simon for instance) didn’t have their gaming experience affected by this, which, whilst I understand, I personally dislike, much preferring to play each game as a separate game without bringing in external factors such as tournament position. (I know, I live in La-La land and this is always going to happen but this doesn’t mean I have to like it!)

So, board 5 finished thus:

Final Standind
This meant that the final standings in the tournament were: The presentations were made soon after the tournament closed with 8 of the 11 participants having picked up one or more awards. It interesting also to see that a different country had topped the board in each round with only Italy and Germany missing out on a top spot.

With the Diplomacy done Jeremy disappeared off to the railway station whilst the rest of the players showered and changed for a trip to the Fair Maid public house 5 minutes walk away where they enjoyed several beers and an excellent meal, arriving back at the Lawns for more late night gaming that included Firefly and D-Day Dice. The sun was coming up when the games of Firefly finished so it was perhaps unsurprising that attendance at breakfast on the Monday morning was less than expected which resulted in more eggs and bacon for the D-Day dice players.

Postcon
As part of the tournament wrap up I issued each player with a feedback form. This was the first time I had organised an event such as this and I was keen to hear what their thoughts were, what they think went well and what not so well. I have yet to analyse the returns properly but the headlines were that the majority thought the venue and value for money of the event was good as was the accommodation itself. Players recognised that the change of venue for the games had caused difficulties and that these manifested themselves in the distance between the games rooms and the toilets and the size of the games rooms themselves. These are easily correctable next year.

All the participants said they would recommend YDC to their friends which was very encouraging and almost everyone quoted the friendly and relaxed atmosphere that the games were played in as one of the three things that they liked best about the event.

Planning is already in place for Yorkshire DipCon 2015 with the Lawns Centre and Ferens Hall already booked between the 19th and 22nd of June 2015.

The UK Face to Face Diplomacy Groups website (www.ukf2fdip.org) contains the full results from the weekend, pictures from the event and information on YDC 2015 as well as more details of future Tour of Britain events (Manorcon in July and Midcon in November) and current Tour of Britain placing’s. Pay the site a visit and perhaps come and join the UK Face to Face Diplomacy Group on Facebook!

All in all I think YDC was a great success. True, we could have done with a few more players but we did attract more than the numbers who turned up for Manorcon a year before and the feedback from players was so positive that it bodes well for the event next year when I look forward to welcoming you all to a bigger and better Yorkshire DipCon at the Lawns Centre, Cottingham, between the 19th and 22nd of June 2015.