Back in 2009 I was playing a game with Brian Ecton. My Germany was on the decline -- I'd played the preceding game with the Austrian player and the tournament director erred and put us next to each other again. It was my turn to read the orders and Brian stepped out for a smoke. When I got to Brian's England, I intentionally misread his orders and put his army into disarray. He was a bit cross when he returned to the table.
> I intentionally misread his orders and put his army into disarray
I've never played Diplomacy before so take this with a grain of salt...but that seems like it should be against the rules. Or is it his fault for not being present when you read the orders?
"Each player secretly writes 'orders' for each of his/her units on a slip of paper. Each player reads his/her orders while others make sure that what they hear is what is written. A legal order must be followed. An order written by mistake, if legal, must be followed. An 'illegal' or ambiguous order or an order that is given an illegal order (or given no order) must stand in place. (The unit holds.) A poorly written order that has only one meaning must be followed." [0]
Assuming the rule version is the same, the rules may not have been obeyed: the written command should have preceded the spoken command. Clearly, the players wanted England dead ;)
Yes, it's in violation of the rules. However, the enforcement of rules is at the pleasure of the tournament director. In tournament play, you typically do not read your own orders. Each round, one player reads starting with his/her own orders. If the rest of the table thinks that you cocked up your orders, no one else is going to police it for you. Walking away from the table during adjudication is egregiously bad play. It's unlikely that the TD would have done anything about it.
In a match with Edi Birsan, someone misread my orders to my advantage. Should I have proactively corrected them?
Occasionally in the chaos of play, a spare unit will make its way onto the board. This is common enough that it's called a flying dutchman[0]. I've seen it happen at least twice in tournament play.
People can get nasty when a tournament is at stake. Once someone managed to lock himself in a garage and his opponents declined to let him out until after orders were due.
Do you recall what the criteria were for the awards in the bottom-right of that page? I'm especially curious what one would have to do to merit the title of 'Kissing Pigs' or 'Golden Pickle'.
I'll write to Conrad (the tournament director) and see if he can recall.
Edit:
'Drunk' was almost certainly meant literally.
'Golden Pickle' was awarded to Frank who had traveled from the Netherlands. I believe the criteria was "furthest distance traveled".
http://www.world-diplomacy-database.com/php/results/tourname...