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This is a board game I own and love but never get to play. I just thought I'd start a thread here to probe what kind of interest there is for this game. If possible it would also be fun to gather up some players and start a game online. I know there are more than a couple websites that let you play this game online.
Anyway, for the uninitiated:
Diplomacy is a game where you play as 1 of 7 great powers around the year 1900 in Europe. The game board is divided up into sea zones and provinces. Some of the provinces are victory points. And for each of these victory points you own, you get one army unit or one navy unit. Army units can only move on land or be transported by navy units. Navy units function much the same as Army units. They can move on sea zones and coastal provinces. So you will often have navies fighting armies on the coast.
As opposed to games where each player takes his turn, in diplomacy everyone takes their turn at the same time. This is done by everyone secretly submiting orders for each of their units. Afterwards, all the moves are processed together at the same time according to the rules.
The game in entirely deterministic. Actions are not decided by dice. Instead, battles are won by having a stronger attack than the other person has defense. This gets tricky, because one of the rules in the game is that within a sea zone or province there can only be one unit. The way to strengthen an attack or defense is to order a neighbouring unit to support that attack or defense. Battles will usually end with the losing party having to withdraw from the province to an adjacent one. Sometimes the army unit will be destroyed. However you will get it back shortly later because you still get to have as many army units as you have victory points.
So battles are not about killing armies, it's about gaining control of victory points. The game ends once one of the players is able to hold onto half of the victory points on the board.
Two countries working together will almost always be more powerful than if they stand alone. They can attack a country from different directions. That forces the victim to split his units to defend. They can also support each others attacks or ferry the other country's armies across the sea. But working together comes at a cost. If your alliance is successful enough, you will eventually need to turn towards your ally's victory points. Trust between the partners in an alliance is required but too much is a liability. If you let him take the first victory point with your help, how will you know you will get the next? How do you know that this is actually an alliance and not just manipulation to try to put your defenses in disarray?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomacy_(game)
EDIT:
PM Macavenger if you want to join game 3. Also try PMing Falcynn. I might try to organize another game sometime mid-august if there is still interest.
I'll just warn people that have never played before that it takes a while before you understand the rules. So be prepared to read the manual for an hour or two before actual play commences. And even then experienced players will probably see weakness in you and either decide you are easy to overrun or that you are too unreliable to make an alliance with.
Rules for the game can be found here in pdf format: http://www.diplom.org/~diparch/diplomacy_rules.htm
Games:
+ Show Spoiler +Game 1 results: + Show Spoiler +
Macavenger - Turkey - Draw
Musoeun - Germany - Eliminated
Falcynn - Russia - Draw
ShadowDrgn - French - Draw
stenole - Austria - Eliminated
Luddite - Italy - Draw
Cube - England - Eliminated
Game 2 results: + Show Spoiler +
InToTheWannaB - Turkey - Losing survivor
stenole - Austria - Losing survivor
Falcynn - Germany - Losing survivor
ShadowDrgn - Italy - Losing survivor
Luddite - England - Winner
Musoeun - Russia - Eliminated
MoltkeWarding - France - Eliminated
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Canada7170 Posts
This game is sooooo gooood!
A little long though, and I don't have that kind of time nowadays.
I guess for those who want a basic view of what type of game this is, it's kind of like Risk without the dice (that's a really loose description).
I absolutely URGE anybody who is into strategy type games and has some free time to check this out.
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I've only played the game a few times, but I loved it so much. Although I agree with mickeymoo in that games can get a little too long.
I'd be willing to play though if a game does get started here.
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I would totally be up for this.
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Looks interesting, but I'm not sure i'm willing to spend an entire night playing only one instance of one game. The rules sound interesting, having no dice and all. Are all 7 starting nations equally balanced?
The way they made everything 'realistic', (see video 4 above) even taking into account some canals that were built irl is kind of silly, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of abstraction if it means the rules are going to be a lot simpler.
Oh, and for the true diplomat, check out the game of Nomic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic). It leaves out the board and pieces altogether and only involves rules.
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Actually, if this was going to be played online, it would rather be a more "by-email" type of game where messages are sent and received and order deadlines would be something like 1 day apart. So there wouldn't be any sitting around waiting for everyone to finish their turn. The game would be maybe just 5 minutes per day over a period of time, depending on how many lies you want to transmit per turn. It's quite different than having everyone gathered around the board at someone's home. Because then a lot of time is spent waiting for other people to finish their secret negotiations in the kitchen.
Sadly, starting positions are not fully balanced. Italy is said to have a poor starting position, mostly because lasting alliances come in pairs and no one wants to ally fully with Italy for tactical reasons. However, in a game like Diplomacy imbalances are balanced out by the 6 losing players trying to make sure the leader doesn't win.
On June 02 2009 08:04 aseq wrote:
The way they made everything 'realistic', (see video 4 above) even taking into account some canals that were built irl is kind of silly, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of abstraction if it means the rules are going to be a lot simpler.
Funny you should mention the canals. In every game of Diplomacy I've played, someone's misunderstood how the canal in Germany works. On some Diplomacy boards it causes more confusion than on others. That being said, I think the game itself is pretty abstract, far more than a game like Axis & Allies or Risk.
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Diplomacy is amazing, I haven't had a chance to play in a couple years. I'd totally love to get involved in an online game.
As far as balance, it's not perfect, but its plenty good enough for most purposes. I think the percentage of solo victories in recorded games runs from ~11 (Italy) up to ~17-18 (Russia). IIRC while Russia has the highest percentage of wins, they also have a very low representation in draws, so that kinda balances a wee bit and makes Russia rather all or nothing. I know Austria also has a low win rate, around 12% I think, probably because it tends to get sandwiched early. I think the other 4 are relatively equal. Turkey and England are good powers for newer players because they're difficult to destroy quickly. Germany and Austria are difficult to play for beginners because you're bordered by a huge number of other players, and you have to do some very careful diplomacy to make sure you don't get screwed early.
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i too would play this online, i havent played the game but am a fan of some of avalon hills' other games (axis and allies namely), if anyone wants to play im usually on TL IRC as cube or cube_
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I'd be up for a game 
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Haha I was thinking about making a thread like this to ask if anyone wanted to play just like Mafia, but then I realized that there wouldn't be much to discuss in the thread.
But yeah Diplomacy's a great game, it makes you so paranoid about other people haha.
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I haven't played this since 2000, but I'd definitely be interested if we had a workable method of playing online with one turn / day or so.
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phpdiplomacy.net hosts thousands of games of this. someone should organize a game on this site, i would definitely be up for it.
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There's a whole UMS diplo community if any of you are interested in playing a realtime starcraft version of Diplomacy. It's pretty fun and there are a lot of decently skilled players who play, though most pub games are pretty lame.
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On June 02 2009 10:47 integral wrote:
There's a whole UMS diplo community if any of you are interested in playing a realtime starcraft version of Diplomacy. It's pretty fun and there are a lot of decently skilled players who play, though most pub games are pretty lame. Are they anything like actual diplomacy? I only played a UMS diplomacy once and it was nothing like the board game, although it might've been just that version.
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On June 02 2009 13:12 Falcynn wrote:
Are they anything like actual diplomacy?
No.
Very fun, though. One of the deepest, highest skill-ceiling UMS games. I used to play a lot of diplo 7.7 before getting into melee.
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So there seems to be some interest here for an online game. I'm thinking phpdiplomacy.net is as good a place as any. You have to register, but that only takes about 30 seconds. So everyone who wants to start playing within the next 24 hours should send me a PM with their ID here on TL.net and. I'll add it to a list in the OP. Also, if there is a preference about which country to play, send that as well. Once we have 7 people, I'll start a game. If we get 14 people, 21 people etc, I'll instruct someone to start a new game so we have more groups playing at the same time.
I'll just warn people that have never played before that it takes a while before you understand the rules. So be prepared to read the manual for an hour or two before actual play commences. And even then experienced players will probably see weakness in you and either decide you are easy to overrun or that you are too unreliable to make an alliance with.
Rules for the game can be found here in pdf format: http://www.diplom.org/~diparch/diplomacy_rules.htm
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Making a bump so we can maybe get the 6th and 7th player we need.
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I recommend http://www.playdiplomacy.com for anybody interested in online games (rather than play by email). Never heard of phpdiplomacy before.
Anyway, I'd be up for a game if you've still got a spot open. Prefer Austria, England, or Italy. (Also sending this by pm.)
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Hong Kong1313 Posts
i'd be up for a game!! played it last year with some friends. Willing to play any spot.
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EPT
