Diplomacy (game)

Diplomacy is a seven-player strategy game set in the Europe of World War I. Each player controls the armed forces of one of the seven European powers: England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey. Each may win outright by gaining control of more than half of the continent. Otherwise the game ends only by agreement among all remaining players.

The game mechanics are relatively simple, although complex combinations can arise. The board is divided into 75 regions, 56 land and 19 sea. On each turn, each unit (army or fleet) may move to an adjacent region, or support an action in an adjacent region. There are no dice involved. The greatest concentration of force is always victorious, and if the forces are equal a standoff results.

The excitement of the game is less in the tactics than in negotiation, coalition-building, and intrigue. Each country is initially roughly equal in strength, so it is very difficult to gain territory except by attacking as part of an alliance. Before each move there is a negotiation period of fifteen minutes in which the players wheelde, bluff, cajole, and threaten each other in an attempt to form favorable partnerships. Secret negations and secret agreements are explicitly allowed, but no agreements of any kind are enforcable.

After the negotiation period is over, each player writes down his moves in secret. All moves are then executed simultaneously, which offers unique opportunities for betrayal. At the very time your ally is attacking your common enemy, you can be wheeling your forces into his unprotected flank for easy gains.

Diplomacy commands a respect among afficiandos of multiplayer games similar to the respect accorded to chess among two-player games. Most multi-player games can't help but involve coalition-building to some degree, but only in Diplomacy is the negotation so critical, so multi-faceted, and so fun. 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 comprimises and promises, one spreads fear and misinformation, and above all, one plots.

Unfortunately, it is difficult to organize a full face-to-face game. There must be exactly seven players, because there is no room for eight, and with six or fewer the game rapidly becomes stagnant and predictable. Also, there is no set time for the game to finish. A fluid game among experts may easily last five hours or longer. To overcome the difficulty of assembling enough players for a sufficiently large block of time, a vibrant play-by-mail and play-by-e-mail community has developed.

Diplomacy is a registered trademark of Avalon Hill.