Diplomacy (game)
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Created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in 1959, Diplomacy is played by seven (or fewer) players, each of whom controls the armed forces of a European power: France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Turkey or England (as the standard board incorrectly names the United Kingdom) in an effort to win possession of a majority of strategic cities and provinces marked as "supply centers" on the map. (The rules allow for games with five or six players, closing parts of the standard board, but these are used only in casual play, and are not considered standard Diplomacy in tournament, postal, or most forms of online play.)
Diplomacy differs from most war games in several ways: All units move simultaneously, with players writing down their moves during a negotiation period, and all moves are revealed and put into effect simultaneously. All units are of equal strength, and combat resolution contains no element of randomness -- no dice are rolled and no cards are shuffled. The result of a move depends on the support or opposition of the units in neighboring spaces, making social interaction and interpersonal skills, the formation and violation of alliances, and calculated lying and backstabbing, crucial parts of the game play.
The game ends when one player gains control of more than half of the continent, or by agreement among all surviving players.
Diplomacy has been published in the United States by Games Research, and Avalon Hill, and Hasbro, and is currently a registered trademark of Hasbro's Avalon Hill division. Diplomacy has also been licensed to various companies for publication in other countries. Since the 1960s, Diplomacy has been played by mail through fanzines, and more recently, through e-mail and on the world wide web, adjudicated by computer or by a human gamesmaster.
In its catalog, Avalon Hill advertised Diplomacy as John F. Kennedy's#redirect and Henry Kissinger's favorite game. Dr. Kissinger described it as his favorite in an interview published in a games magazine.Games & Puzzles magazine, May 1973. Walter Cronkite was also reported to be a fan of the game.#redirect
Basic setting and overview
The board is a map of Europe showing political boundaries as they existed at the beginning of the 20th century, divided into fifty-six land regions and nineteen sea regions.
Each player other than Russia begins the game with three units (armies and fleets); Russia has four units (two armies and two fleets) to compensate for its larger area and number of neighbours.
Only one unit at a time may occupy a given map region. Thirty-four of the land regions contain supply centers, corresponding to major centers of industry or commerce (e.g., "London," "Rome,"). The number of supply centers a player controls determines the total number of armies and fleets a player may have on the board, and as players gain and lose control of different centers, they may build and remove units accordingly. At the beginning of the game, there are twelve "neutral" (unoccupied) supply centers; these are all typically captured within the first few moves, allowing all the powers to ramp up their military strength. Thereafter the game becomes zero sum, with any gains in a player's strength coming at the expense of a rival.
Players who control no supply centers are eliminated from the game, and victory is achieved if a player controls eighteen of the thirty-four supply centers.
For the most part, the regions on the board are named after the general regions (e.g. "Bohemia") or countries (e.g. "Finland"); however, home supply centers (i.e. supply centers that are occupied at the beginning of the game) are named after the relevant cities (e.g. "Rome," "Vienna"). The exception is that of "Tunis," which despite not being a home supply center is still named after a city. If the convention was correctly followed, it would be labelled "Tunisia", and indeed is on some variant maps. The original style is nonetheless an accurate recreation of early 20th century European diplomatic language, as "Tunis" was then inclusive of both the city and its adjacent hinterland.
The standard board also errs in referring to the United Kingdom as England. This too, however, is in accord with the prevailing diplomatic practices of the early 20th century. The European diplomats of the time often used "England" interchangeably with "Great Britain," "Britain," or "the United Kingdom."
Further, Albania only existed as an independent entity from 1912 (during the First Balkan War) onwards. In 1901 (the traditional first year of the game), the country was still part of the Ottoman Empire - referred to as Turkey.
Game play
Diplomacy is turn-based - movement turns, alternately designated "Spring" and "Fall" moves, by convention begin in the year 1901. Prior to each movement phase, there is a negotiation period in which players entice, wheedle, bluff, cajole, and threaten each other in an attempt to form favorable partnerships. Secret negotiations and secret agreements are explicitly allowed, but no agreements of any kind are enforceable.
After the negotiation period is over, players secretly write orders for each unit and these orders are revealed simultaneously and simultaneously executed. Choice of orders include "move" (to any space adjacent to the unit's current location), "support" (assist the move of a different unit moving into a space adjacent to the unit's current location), or "hold" (do nothing). Armies may only occupy land regions, and fleets may only occupy sea regions and land regions which border the sea. Fleets and armies in combination can execute the move "convoy," which allows transport of an army across either one (or multiple) bodies of water to a distant land square. One Fleet per sea space traversed is required if multiple bodies of water are to be traversed.
Since only one unit can occupy any particular game space, conflicts (such as two armies ordered to enter the same space), are resolved according to rules determining how much "support" a unit has for its movement. When two units attempt to occupy the same region, the one with more support wins. The greatest concentration of force is always victorious; if the forces are equal a standoff results and the units remain in their original positions. If a supporting unit is attacked (except by the unit against which the support is directed), the support is nullified, which allows units to affect the outcome of conflicts in regions not directly adjacent.
Occasionally these conceptually simple rules result in situations which are difficult to adjudicate, or even paradoxical. Therefore the official rules contain comprehensive details and examples. Also, one person may be designated as Game Master to execute moves and adjudicate disputes.
After each Fall move, occupied supply centers become owned by the occupying player, and each power's supply center total is recalculated. At that point players with fewer supply centers than units on the board must disband units, while players with more supply centers than units on the board are entitled to build units. Units may only be built in that player's "Home" centers, that is, those centers with which each Great Power begins the game. Therefore, a player may not build units in any captured "neutral" center or in another player's "Home" centers.
The boundaries on the Diplomacy map are those of 1914 (in most details--Montenegro is anachronistically subsumed into Austria-Hungary), not 1901, but labeling the seasons from Spring 1901 makes it easier to count the turns.
The Great Powers
Britain: A powerful sea nation with two fleets to start with, Britain can easily commit itself to a war with either Russia, France or Germany. Its isolation means that it cannot expect reprisals immediately, but needs to be careful not to take on more than it can properly handle.
Germany: Sandwiched between Russia, Austria-Hungary and France, Germany is a difficult nation to play. It must therefore often commit to alliances, like for example with Austria-Hungary; this is good for both parties because it means they both have one fewer enemy.
France: A very promising nation with Iberia to the west, France can often find itself in an alliance with England or Germany or face an alliance from the two.
Italy: Considered by many Diplomacy players to be the most difficult nation on the board, Italy is faced with a very troubling situation. France to the west and Austria-Hungary to the east mean that after Tunisia, Italy must attack another nation to grow.
Austria-Hungary: Another very difficult nation to play, Austria-Hungary has more neighbors than any other player (except Russia) and with only one fleet-building home supply center, often finds itself forced to be a land power. They often get drawn into a conflict in the Balkans (home of four neutral supply centers) and then find themselves with no friends.
Russia: A very exciting nation to play, Russia is larger than any other nation and although they have four neighbors, they begin the game with an extra unit. Because of the large land area and several fronts, the possibilities for Russia are endless, leaving a good Diplomacy player with several options.
Turkey: Much like England, the Turks find themselves in a corner of the board and have few options in the beginning. Like England, they are likely safe from a home invasion, but in order to invade, Turkish armies and fleets must travel far from home.
Strategy
Because numerical superiority is crucial to success, alliances are vital in Diplomacy. Each country is initially roughly equal in strength, so it is very difficult to gain territory except by attacking with the support of a neighbor. The excitement of the game is less in the tactics than in negotiation, coalition-building, and intrigue. Each player's social and interpersonal skills are at least as important to the game as the player's strategic abilities.
Diplomacy commands a respect among aficionados of multiplayer games similar to the respect accorded to chess among two-player games. Most multiplayer games can't help but involve coalition-building to some degree, but only in Diplomacy is the negotiation so critical and so multi-faceted. The game can't be won by going it alone, except in a last mad dash of aggression from a strong position. In the mean time one makes compromises and promises to one's allies while spreading fear and misinformation among one's enemies. And the attacking of one's allies (or the "stab") has a central role in the culture of Diplomacy. A stab can be crucial to victory, but may have negative repercussions in interpersonal relations.
All of the countries on the map have a real chance for success if played properly. Each power requires a different style of play. Italy and Austria-Hungary are often thought to be the weakest countries—Austria-Hungary because it has many neighbors and can be eliminated early, Italy because it has a hard time expanding. However, if they survive and prosper through the starting phase of the game, their central position can be a great advantage. England and Turkey are generally considered to be the easiest to defend. Under Calhamer scoring (where an outright victory is worth one point and participants in a draw split the point equally) Russia and France typically score the most points, Italy and Austria-Hungary the fewest.
There is a natural buffer of spaces without supply centers between the western and eastern halves of the board. Therefore the first few turns of a game usually break down into fighting amongst the western powers (England, France, Germany) and eastern powers (Russia, Austria-Hungary, Turkey) for dominance in their areas followed by a break out based on the results. Italy is a wild card with a relatively weak position, though if it commits to an alliance in either of the two threesomes, the alliance can be pivotal.
In some circles cheating is not only allowed, but also actively encouraged. Players are allowed and expected to move pieces between turns, add extra armies (the so-called "Flying Dutchmen"), listen in to private conversations, change other players' written move orders and just about anything else they can get away with. In tournament play, however, these forms of cheating are generally prohibited, leaving only the lying and backstabbing which is prevalent wherever Diplomacy is played.
Variants
There have been two commercially released variants of Diplomacy: Colonial Diplomacy (a map change and addition of a few special rules), and Machiavelli (map change and many rules changes such as money, bribery, three seasons per year, garrisons, random events such as plague and famine among others).
Additionally, many fans of the game have created a myriad of their own variants, using altered rules on the standard map, standard rules on a different map, or both. An index of over a thousand variants is available at the Diplomacy Variant Bank web site (see External links, below).
Tournaments
Diplomacy is played at a number of formal tournaments. In some cases, each game ends after a specified number of game-years, to ensure that all players can play in all rounds without limiting the tournament structure to one round per day. At other events, a game continues until a winner is determined or a draw is voted. Tournaments in Europe are generally played with a specific end year whereas tournaments in North America more often are played until someone wins or a draw is agreed. Some tournaments are centered on the games and have a highly competitive atmosphere; others have more focus on meeting and socializing with other players from the postal or e-mail parts of the hobby.
The World Diplomacy Championship (WDC) is held annually in different places in the world, to determine the World Champion of Diplomacy. WDC was first held in 1988 in Birmingham, England, and was held at two-year intervals before becoming an annual event. WDC's site rotates among three regions: North America, Europe/UK, and the rest of the world. Peery, Larry. "A History of World DipCon", on the Diplomatic Corps website. [link].
The North American Diplomacy Convention (DipCon) is held annually in different places in North America, to determine the North American Champion of Diplomacy. DipCon was first held in 1967 in Youngstown Ohio. DipCon's site rotates among West, Central, and East regions. Birsan, Edi, et al. "The DipCon Story", on the Diplomatic Corps website. [link].
The European Diplomacy Convention (Euro DipCon) is held annually in different places in Europe, to determine the European Champion of Diplomacy.
Over a dozen other countries hold national championship tournaments.
Many of the larger multi-game tournaments, such as the World Boardgaming Championships, Gen Con, and Origins, also host Diplomacy tournaments. On occasion, WDC or DipCon will be held in conjunction with one of these conventions.
Other ways to play
Unfortunately, it is difficult to organize a full face-to-face game. There must be exactly seven players, as standard-board variants for less than seven tend to be imbalanced and to become stagnant and predictable. Also, there is no set time for the game to finish. Tournament games among experts have lasted twelve hours, but even typical games will last four hours or more. To overcome the difficulty of assembling enough players for a sufficiently large block of time, a vibrant play-by-mail game community has developed, using either humans to adjudicate the turns e.g. [Redscape] or automatic adjudicators e.g. njudge. A great way to get into a game is via the queues available via the [Diplomacy Online Resources] page or the [New Game Openings]via the [Redscape Forum]. A web interface is in development, but there are already many excellent tools to help assist play, such as [floc.net] game pages and DipTool.
A popular web based game place is the [DpJudge] which hosts several Diplomacy games, and provides a web front-end for players and games masters on a number of servers.
Njudge and DpJudge game results are used to create JDPR, the Judge Diplomacy Player Ranking system.
[BOUNCED] provides an entirely web-based approach with a similar interface.
[Diplomacy.ca] has been running online Diplomacy via a BBS since 1985 and as a web site since 1999.
Despite the length of games, there are those that organize ad-hoc games, and there are also various clubs that have annual tournaments.
Diplomacy is sometimes played in high school history classes because of its realistic emulation of events and diplomacy between nations. It helps students better understand the politics involved in World War I and World War II.
Comparison with other war games
Diplomacy differs from the majority of war games in several ways:
- Unit movement is simultaneous, not turn-based - all players secretly write down their moves after a negotiation period, and then all moves are revealed and put into effect simultaneously.
- Social interaction and interpersonal skills make up an essential part of the game play.
- The rules that simulate combat are strategic, abstract, and simple, not tactical, realistic, or complex.
- Combat resolution contains no element of randomness -- no dice are rolled and no cards are shuffled. (Individual players may attempt to incorporate randomness into their choice of moves, as a strategy to prevent their opponents from outguessing them, a strategy suggested by game theory.)
History
Diplomacy was created in 1954 and released commercially in 1959. It has been published since then by Games Research, Avalon Hill, and Hasbro.
Since the 1960s, Diplomacy has been played by mail through fanzines. The play-by-mail hobby started in 1963 at virtually the same time by John Boardman in New York and Conrad von Metzke in San Diego independently without either one knowing what the other was doing at the time. Because of this it is truly impossible to know for certain which one came up with the idea first, although Boardman is often given credit as the founder of the play-by-mail hobby because his efforts, such as identifying each game played by mail with an official Boardman Number, led directly to the formation of other zines. More recently, it has become popularly played through e-mail, adjudicated by computer. Also many a game is played online with a human game master.
Adaptation
Hasbro released a computer game version of Diplomacy in 1999, without much critical or commercial success largely because of the poor quality programming of the computer run players, generally considered to be worse than that of the 1984 Avalon Hill computer version of the game. There were also considerable flaws in the adjudication routine, leading to erroneous turn results. Paradox Interactive released a new computer version in 2005. However, neither of the computer games supported voice chat, thus undermining the possibilities for complicated alliances. Voice chat was added to the Paradox game in a later patch.
Notes
See also
- Allan B. Calhamer
- Lepanto opening - one of the best-known Diplomacy openings in existence.
- Play-by-mail game
- Slobbovia - a Diplomacy variant
- Starcraft Diplomacy (Starcraft custom map based on the board game)
External links
(Alphabetical lists, categorized by primary purpose when sites are multi-purpose)Official Site and Hobby Services
- [Diplomacy] - official page on the Avalon Hill website
- [Diplomacy Archive] - hobby-wide repository of FAQs, rules editions, scoring systems, links, and articles including Allan B. Calhamer's [essay on inventing Diplomacy]
- [Diplomacy Tutorial] - a beginner focused game rules tutorial
- [Diplomacy World] - hobby-wide webzine with articles; post-2004 issues are at its [Yahoo! group].
- [Diplomatic Corps] - hobby-wide liaison, connecting groups and hobby services from many nations
- [Diplomatic Pouch, The] - hobby-wide player database, tournament results, player rankings, resource archive, webzine, and online play.
- [DipWiki] - hobby-wide Wiki for all things Diplomacy related.
Variants To Play
- [Diplomiscellany] - site containing the Model House Rules, articles on gaming philosophy, homepages of several variants, and more
- [Speed Diplomacy] - variants include Treaty Ports (China 1900) 8-player and Europa (Europe 1901) 7-player,with Realpolitik files, deluxe maps and icons, and The Whispering Gallery player forum with archived games.
- [Variant Bank] - listing more than 1,000 variants, many with rules or maps, or links to the variant sites
Software To Play
- [Crockford Diplomacy Map] - made for computer play, can be used as conference map
- [Diplomacy AI Centre] - for automated play using the Diplomacy AI Development Environment (DAIDE)
- [floc.net]- a site devoted to presenting the map layouts of 48 different diplomacy servers.
- [jDip] - Open Source computer version of the game in Java
- [Njudge] - an automatic email Diplomacy adjudicator program
- [Palmpolitik] - Diplomacy for a PalmOS PDA
- [phpDiplomacy] - Internet based implementation of Diplomacy, written in PHP.
- [Realpolitik] - an Open Source computer version of the game, highly popular for internet play.
Where To Play
- [18 Centres] - French pbem and Hobby site with a FTF result database
- [BOUNCED] - site featuring automated judging and mapmaking for several variants
- [Casus Foederis] - site offering multilanguage Diplomacy play
- [DAANZ] - Diplomacy Association of Australia and New Zealand
- [Diplodocus] - Brazilian site hosting online games and more
- [Diplomacy.ca] - games, tournaments, player rankings, forums, Standard & Gunboat, online results, automated processing.
- [Diplomacy Online Game]
- [Diplomail] Russian website, human judges, negotiations by email and in the Diplomail Forum; Standard and Variant games; FtF games in Moscow.
- [Diplomatie Online] - French site, playable online and accepting all variants. tournaments, player rankings, archives.
- [Diplored] - Spanish language Diplomacy community
- [Finnish Diplomacy community]
- [German Diplomacy Association] with a FTF database
- [Lepanto] - mostly German Diplomacy Games
- [Ludomaniac] - German pbem and Hobby site, one of the largest communities in the world
- [Norwegian Diplomacy Association]
- [Objectif] French website, human judges, negotiations by emails.
- [Oxford University Diplomacy Society] - site about the organisers of the annual Diplomacy Tournament at OxCon
- [Primavera de 1901] - Brazilian site with help for starters on online playing and helpful links
- [Redscape] - games, tournaments, player rankings, extensive player forum for maps, variants, strategies and general discussions.
- [YuDip Hall of Fame] - Serbian pbem and Hobby site, Hall of Fame for Serbia and Montenegro players
- [Weltkonflikte] - German pbem site for World Diplomacy Games WWIV and World 2200 Variant, Welsh (Gymreig), 1939.Blitzkrieg and the Jihad2 Diplomacy Variant
Media Attention
- ["World Domination: the Game"] - article in the Washington Post, Nov. 14, 2004
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