Welcome to Three Moves Ahead. My name is Troy Goodfell. This is the official podcast of flash ofsteel.com. With me today is a smaller panel than usual. We have freelance writer Tom and Chick. Hello, everyone. If anyone needs a coffee, let me know. I'll run in there and grab it for you. And freelance writer Julian Murdoch. I don't feel small.

I feel at least normal size.

Sometimes I feel pretty large.

Or smaller than normal because our usual colleague,

usual participant, Bruce Garrick, is unable to join us tonight,

but hopefully he'll be back sometime soon. So how are we all this evening?

Not saving lives like Dr. Bruce, I guess.

No, we can't all be lifesavers, but

Tom and I like to think that we can save people from buying bad games.

There you go. There you go.

If I stop one person from playing Deus X,

my work will be done. Ooh, that's harsh. Not Stalling versus Martians? That's not even true.

I fully support people playing and enjoying Deus X. That was not true at all.

Stalin versus Martians, however.

You're right. That's actually one that I haven't played it, but I will join Troy in the crusade to stop people from playing Stalin versus Martians.

Even though it's now like six bucks or something.

And it's satire, so it's okay.

So is it worth the six bucks that it would cost to go to a movie?

It depends on the movie.

Hey, is there any diplomacy in Stalin versus Martians?

Nice segue. No, there is no diplomacy in Stalin versus Martians.

But today we want to talk about diplomacy in strategy games. How diplomacy is portrayed, the problems with portraying foreign policy and international relations.

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