Voting recently finished for the trial events at the World Boardgaming Championships this coming year. Personally I didn't get around to voting (I signed up at the event last year and wasn't really sure how to vote without signing up again. I didn't care enough to figure it out so I just let other people decide my destiny.) 22 of the 25 trial events were events at last year's WBC so there isn't really a lot of turnover going on. 2 of the remaining 3 events are returning from minor absences. Goa is back after taking last year off and Diplomacy returns after taking 3 years off.
Diplomacy in particular is an interesting choice since how do you determine the winner? Some games will finish with one clear winner but often a Diplomacy game ends in some sort of stalemate. Apparently the last time it was an event they played 3 rounds and you scored points based on your finish in those rounds based on number of countries alive in the draw and number of supply centers each of those countries owned. I would imagine such a scoring system is rife with people backstabbing each other trying to whittle down the number of survivors in a draw... Then they add up your best 2 scores and advance 7 people to a final? I doubt I'll be willing to set aside time to play in 2 or 3 full Diplomacy games but I think it's a good event to have. Diplomacy is one of the truly iconic board games in my mind and it just feels right to have it at WBC.
Especially since the one truly iconic game they'd been running, Risk, has fallen out this year. I recently read through all of the event reports for last year's WBC and Risk didn't have one. The GM apparently didn't submit a report which killed the event off entirely for next year. If Risk wants back in then it'll have to get voted in as a trial for 2013. I normally read all the event reports each year and I don't really remember ever seeing a non-submitted report. I don't know if they purge them from the system eventually or get write-ups way after the fact or what. But there were FIVE of them this year. Egizia, Macao, Risk, Storm Over Stalingrad, and Stronghold. Egizia would have been a century event so it got bumped to trial status (it did get voted back in) and the other four were just killed off. It's sad. I like reading the event reports even for games I don't play and have no intention of playing so it's unfortunate that there were 5 no-shows this time.
At any rate, this year's trials... 24 have been events before. What's the 25th? Well, it turns out it received the most votes of any game which is pretty amazing. The game? A Few Acres of Snow. This game has quickly become my favourite game on Yucata. My record in the game is pretty good so far as well... 46-2. The two losses were both tied games where I lost the tiebreaker. (Apparently the French win a tie game.) Both times I didn't realize the game was even going to end, sadly, or I probably could have found an extra point somewhere on my last turn. Having it as an event at WBC has made me even more excited for WBC this year if that's even possible. I have a new goal... Win this event!
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