The guys interview Zack Twamley, the host of the history podcast When Diplomacy Fails. They talk about parallels between the game and real life events. Plus Google Translate chat and their first Face to Face game in Brisbane.
Intro
Kaner and Amby start by forgetting to introduce themselves before celebrating their 50th episode at Gilhooley’s Irish Pub and running through their drinks (0 mins 5 secs)
They then discuss their upcoming guest, Zack Twamley, host of the history podcast When Diplomacy Fails (1 min 20 secs)
Zack recently completed an 85 episode series about the Treaty of Versailles and has name dropped the game Diplomacy a number of times on his podcast (2 mins)
Amby gives a quick run down about the Delegation Game that Zack ran which involved a lot of the same set of Diplomacy skills in drafting an alternate history Treaty of Versailles (3 mins)
The guys then throw to the interview (4 mins)
Interview with Zack Twamley from the When Diplomacy Fails podcast
Kaner and Amby welcome Zack to the show (4 mins 15 secs)
Zack talks about his recent holiday in Sicily. He discusses the books he took to read: Dan Jones’ The Plantagenets and Bernard Cornwell’s multi part series about the archer Thomas of Hookton. Amby touches on Kaner’s prior recommendation about Bernard Cornwell’s Arthurian series beginning with The Winter King (5 mins)
Amby touches on Zack’s show and his occasional name dropping about the game Diplomacy. Zack talks about his experience with the game in a caravan one holiday and how it was so unlike any other game he’d played before (6 mins 45 secs)
Amby asks Zack to give his perspective on what makes Diplomacy very different to any other games (10 mins)
Amby touches on the recent interview with Baron von Powell and the random element in Diplomacy being the players and their behavior (11 mins 30 secs)
Zack asks about a couple of Baron’s variants, Amby explains particularly 1900 and its more historical bent (12 mins 40 secs)
Amby asks Zack about what 2 or 3 players in history would make excellent Diplomacy players (16 mins 45 secs)
Amby quotes Zack quoting Colonel House in episode 73 of When Diplomacy Fails, talking about Lloyd George which sounds like a critique of a Diplomacy player. He goes onto discuss House’s thoughts about the main contenders in Paris after World War One (22 mins 45 secs)
Amby asks who was a poor Diplomacy player at the peace conference, Zack then discusses who was a surprisingly good player (26 mins 45 secs)
They discuss the similarities and differences between When Diplomacy Fails and Diplomacy Game (35 mins 30 secs)
Amby talks about Zack’s “The Delegation Game” and to what extent it turned out the way he expected (36 mins 50 secs)
Zack discusses which players of the Delegation Game he felt would make great Diplomacy players (41 mins)
Amby touches on Zack’s other job as a university lecturer discussing European politics. He queries the nature of Brexit and how it relates to the game Diplomacy (44 mins 45 secs)
Kaner asks about what historical similarities to Brexit are there (48 mins 50 secs)
The guys ask Zack where Diplomacy Games listeners can go to if they want to learn more about his show (57 mins 40 secs)
The three guys talk about an online collaboration game (1 hr 0 mins 30 secs)
Amby provides info to Zack’s audience if they want to learn more about Diplomacy Games, finding face to face communities and online Diplomacy sites (1 hr 1 min 20 secs)
The guys start wrapping up the interview (1 hr 4 mins)
Post interview chat
Kaner and Amby return post-interview and give a few apologies (1 hr 5 mins 15 secs)
They talk about how good it would be to get Zack in a game and set a goal for episode 100 (1 hr 6 mins 45 secs)
Amby reflects that in addition to this being episode 50, when this episode drops its been 3 years since the podcast started (1 hr 7 mins 45 secs)
Around the grounds
The guys start talking about their current online games. Kaner begins by discussing his three Reno
