New Press Variant?

So hey, I was thinking, and that's never good, because it usually
leads to coding.  My thought process got around meanderingly to the
existing TOUCH_PRESS rule, in which people can only communicate if
their units can support each other, and something made me think about
a possible polar opposite....  Anyway, as long as I didn't make any
mistakes, it means that a new press-variant is now available in the
test (but not yet the production) DPjudge.  So get a load of this and
tell me what you DPjudgesters think.

RULE HAMMER_PRESS -- players may not communicate with one another
whenever they have adjacent units, or when either player has a unit
adjacent to a supply center owned by the other.

So at game-start, Italy and Austria can't send press to each other,
for example.  And probably a lot of other avenues get shut down after
Spring 1901.

I think it might strengthen alliances like England-Turkey v. Russia,
Russia-France v. Germany, etc.  Or it might lead to a lot of "hey, can
you tell Austria this for me?" and thus a lot of "hey, Turkey told me
to tell you this" lies.

Maybe it's a dumb idea, and maybe it really handicaps Austria (who
doesn't realy need the handicap).  John Woolley was kind enough to
criticize it thus:

"...seems like one of those arbitrary silly-rules that has no POSSIBLE
interpretation in terms of the real-life situation.  If anything, it
should be easier to communicate when you're close.  But given the
six-month game turns, a government would have to be SUPERNATURALLY
ineffective to be unable to get messages around."

I responded saying that it is realistic in an unrealistic way:  "We
will break off all diplomatic relations with you if you are ever in
any position that could threaten or endanger our troops or cities."

Anyway, arbitrarily silly or not, if you guys don't laugh it back out
of the code, I'd be thinking of starting a new standard game (on the
test judge, obviously) if there is interest from seven of you in
wanting to try it out?

Stab you soon,
Manus

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