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Fafnir
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Does anyone here play a game called Diplomacy? Strictly speaking it's a board game, but it has a more prevalent play-by-e-mail version with slightly different rules. I'd be interested in exchanging strategies! In my current game (goth on USTX) I'm playing France and I'm just entering the mid-game with six centres.

If you haven't played, think of Risk. Now think of it set in Europe in 1901. With seven players - it can't be played with less under the official rules. Now remove all the luck. Yes, all of it. The starting locations and units are constant for each power and battles are won due to superiority of numbers.

The board is divided into provinces - similar to risk. Some of these provinces are supply centres', and some are not. You can win by holding 18 (out of 35, I believe) supply centres at the end of the year, and they let you build more units (more on that later) - the empty provinces are only useful for tactical advantage (again later). There are seven powers - Austria-Hungary, England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Turkey. Each starts with three supply centres and units, except Russia (which starts with four). All other powers (e.g. Spain, Belgium etc.) are represented as single provinces.

What makes Diplomacy really interesting is that everyone's orders are handed in and evaluated simulataneously. That means that someone else's orders can affect the success of your orders, and vice versa. This one factor makes it a very interesting game - at every moment, you're wondering whether such-and-such will betray ('stab') you this turn, and whether it might be a good idea to stab him first. You basically have to persuade everyone else to help you win at their expense, with the knowledge that they'll be doing exactly the same. I've put a brief explanation of the rules below, if you're interested. Check out The Diplomatic Pouch or ask me if you'd like more info.

The turn sequence is this:

Spring (movement)
Summer (retreats)
Fall (movement)
Winter (retreats)
Adjustment.

Each movement turn (Spring and Autumn/Fall), you must issue each of your units one order. There are four types of orders you can issue:

Hold - Just attempts to keep your unit in place.

Move - Attempts to move your unit to the targeted province.

Convoy - Can only be issued to a fleet. Allows the unit to use the fleet to move to another province adjacent to the fleet - for example, a fleet in the English Channel could convoy an army in London to Brest or Belgium. Note that a convoy is void if the convoying fleet is dislodged.

Support - supports a move from another province. The target province must be adjacent to the supporting province, and support fails if the supporting province is attacked (whether or not it's dislodged). You can also support a 'hold' move. The supporting unit itself does not move.

The success of a movement order is determined by simple weight of numbers. If a power attacks an occupied province (you can never have more than one unit inside a province) with one unit, the attack will fail. If the attacking power supports his attack with another unit, it will succeed as the number of attacking forces is greater than the number of defending forces. However, the defending power could cause an attack with two units to fail by supporting the province to hold.

If a power attacks an unoccupied province and another power tries to attack the same province, again the outcome is determined by number of supports. If both powers have the same number of supports (e.g. if both A and B move to C, or if A moves to E supported by B as C moves to E supported by D), the move fails - otherwise, the power with more supports gets the province.

If someone successfully moves to an occupied province, the unit in that province must retreat or be disbanded. The unit can't retreat to an occupied province, one where a bounce occurred last turn, or the province the attack came from. If the unit can't retreat, it's disbanded. Retreats take place after the movement turns - in Summer and Winter.

At the end of every year, in the Adjustment phase, every power's unit total is changed to their supply centre total - so they gain units if they gained supply centres or lost units, and they lose units if they lost supply centres. They can only place (or 'build') the units they gain in their original ('home') supply centres - e.g. Paris, Marseilles or Brest for France, and they can't build in an occupied province.

This may sound simple, but it gives rise to some rather complex situations - tactical as well as diplomatic! Give it a try sometime.

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01-03-2005 at 06:02 PM
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krammer
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Co-incidence... I was given Diplomacy for my birthday a month ago, having got a bit fed up of lots of the family board games, and got the chance to play it for the first time last week when all the relatives were here for Christmas.

As is the way the first time you play a new game it was slow and we got nowhere near even close to finishing in the 3 hours we played. I think that all the hassle with working out who goes where and does what each turn overshadowed any strategy we might have had, but it was certainly different to any other game I've played. Probably not going to be the most-played game I have, but you never know.

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01-03-2005 at 06:50 PM
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Fafnir
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That's why the play-by-e-mail version's more prevalent (I don't think I mentioned this, but it's also free). You get three or four days per turn, with a few days extra at the start of the game. It gives you a lot of time to think out your arguments, work out your tactics, and concoct some truly malevolent stabs.

It also doesn't start six hour gaming sessions! :) For a face-to-face game, six to eight hours is the norm.

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01-03-2005 at 07:01 PM
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stigant
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I've never played Diplomacy, but I love Risk. Unfortunatly, all my Risk playing friends have left town since we graduated from college.

I got a neat board game for christmas, though: The Settlers of Catan. Even my wife and sister-in-law enjoyed playing it. I highly recommend it. Its very strategic, without being a war game, and without being overly complicated.

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01-03-2005 at 07:11 PM
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Zmann
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Yay, I like board games. I've never actually tried Diplomacy, but I've heard good things about it. I used to play Risk, until I found a copy of Axis and Allies.

Axis and Allies is pretty much like Risk, just with more units. Actually, my friends and I don't play it like it's supposed to be played. The directions in the box say Japan starts here with these units, America starts here, etc. We play it more like Risk, where we get to pick where to go, generate money for how many countries we control, etc. It's really fun that way and, dare I say, more fun than Risk.

I also enjoy a good game of Settlers of Catan, although I can't get my hand on a copy. The only way I've played it so far is through this computer game: Sea3D. It's lots of fun, and you can even play it online. Maybe us DROD'ers could get a game going sometime.

[Edited by Zmann at Local Time:01-03-2005 at 09:51 PM]
01-03-2005 at 09:50 PM
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