Back to the Drawing Board XI 2
Firstly, Jon questioned my treatment last time of the Fleet he had in Liverpool in Quinault River. I was not very
helpful in my reply. He submitted a press complaint, but in all ways showed his willingness to continue, even
though I said I wasn't going to change my ruling. Jon, please accept my apologies if I was rude or short in my
replies.
Secondly, Dave McCrumb submitted some commentary on my Flying Dutchmen note. That is in the letter col.
Thirdly, a player in one of the other Dip games submitted orders without specifying any units, simply moves
from one space to another. When I acknowledged his orders, I put question marks where I had expected the unit
designations to appear. Our ensuing discussion prompted me to haul out my Rules for Diplomacy ( © ©1976 )
and peruse it closely. Here is what I found:
- Section VII, paragraph 4: Mechanics of writing orders, reads, in part: .... An illegal order is not
followed, and the unit so ordered simply stands in its place. A mistaken order, if legal, must be followed.
An order which admits of two meanings is not followed. A badly written order, which nevertheless can have
only one meaning, must be followed.'
- Section VII, paragraph 7: Format, reads, in part: In each set of orders, the space each unit is in is written
first, followed by its order. It is convenient to make a list of your units and their spaces for easy reference
.... The first three letters of any space will almost always form an unambiguous abbreviation, except for
spaces beginning with "Nor." In this rulebook, the following abbreviations will be used: ....'
- page 10: Moves in a Sample Game: the very first order shown is: England: A Liv. Yor.' Now, that's
damning evidence if I ever saw any.
Ok. Jon, I was wrong; I've re-adjudicated Spring 1905 in Quinault River, which appears below. In addition, I'll
be adjusting the tool I use to enter moves into the computer. In future, I'll only enter the unit designator if one
is given. The software will put orders in the right place based on the power and the unit's space if the unit
designator is missing. If a unit designator is given, it had better match that in the computer for the named space.
If it doesn't, the actual unit will stand unordered, and the type of unit actually appearing in the order will be
flagged as a non-existent unit (NSU). Eventually, I'll write some code to scan your e-mails and enter all orders
automatically. Some of the logic will have to be a bit fuzzy' to handle situations like "Liv" and "Nor" when
that is NOT ambiguous in the context of which power's orders are being processed. The code will be quite
messy and bloated to handle the fuzzy logic, but I'll do it. Now, is everyone happy? Good. Glad to hear it.