So guys, what do you think of Diplomacy?

I own an original copy my uncle gave me. Its fun, played it once at a tabletop convention I went to. Much fun was had.

How long does it usually take ?
And are the online versions any good?

Do you have any pictures? would love to see how it's diffrent from my version.

I have played with/against tg with online risk, was fun

playdiplomacy.com got a lot of open games.

It's brutally tough, the most shiteating liars and backstabbers will win, you will hate your friends afterwards, even more so than Risk and Monopoly put together. No single player can be a gullible sap, he'll get steamrolled. It also takes something like 12 hours at worst. That being said, it's awesome. Some of the best negotiating I've ever had to do in a game.

>Yo, Ottoman, how bout we team up to take down Russia?
>I don't know, you might move into my sea if I move north
>truce man, Russia's growing too large. Germany ain't doing shit, we gotta team up before he wins the game
>ok.... But you have to support me or I'll be screwed

Reveals moves

> YOU MOTHERFUCKER

All that being said, the hardest part of playing diplomacy is getting 7 people to all play it. It takes a lot of mental fortitude and time commitment, and isn't the easiest game to push on more casual and lite board gamers

yo Otto Mann

True, see

Its certainly fun although I'm not sure I would call it a strategy game. Its almost entirely manipulation which is easily fucked up. I would suggest before you play to tell everyone to play to win and not be a spiteful cunt.

Soooo, anyone want a game?

Quite happy to set one up on playdiplomacy

Yeah man, i got time tomorrow :) i am a noob though.

Or you know, i can get started right now. But i doubt we will have 5 other players before tomorrow

>i am a noob though.
Me too, I just remember having a fun time playing Veeky Forums

>tomorrow
You know these games can take weeks if people are slow/in odd time zones, right?
(that said, if there's a premium member they could start a "live" game with really short deadlines at the start)

same guy btw

I know, just making sure you did not expect a live game.

Fuck it, it's here:

128593. Veeky Forums Plays Diplomacy
password: spessmaroon

Diplomacy is good fun. Playing it with (relative) strangers as opposed to playing it with people you've been friends with for a while actually produces really different experiences. However you play it, you get the same results though - you hate everyone else at the table and suddenly WWI seems like a good idea.

Well, as long as i do better than Austria-Hungary i'm happy.

I prefer edged weapons but it'll do i guess.

How viable is the Juggernaut strategy?

Human beings just aren't mature enough to play Diplomacy. There are rare exceptions, but you're not going to get 7 of them in one place for several hours. Even the top competitive players playing at tournaments with other competitive players, who know that everyone is there to win and nobody is their irl friend, get massively, comically, childishly butthurt about it.

It's a fun game, but I don't recommend it.

The Game of Thrones board game is at its base is identical to Diplomacy but with several fuck-you random mechanics.

Going through all my friends that game, I can only think of five of them that I'd want to play Diplomacy with and it's an almost a scheduling and geographic nightmare to imagine any of them standing in the same room. They're all cold hearted killers who are there to win; they may make sounds and joke around about being salty but they're totally not emotional about their game.

It takes fucking forever.

It can be fun, but imo isn't worth the time investment usually.

It becomes apparant to the rest of the board pretty fast, and they often join against it.

Is this it? I know it's not the original version but still

coolstuffinc.com/p/135137?gclid=CPLy7fSl5tICFUQdaQodnQsBXw

I got this version, the pieces suck. Just cardboard with a little gun or boat printe on it.

The board itself looks really good though, so maybe you could just use pieces from some other game.

pic related.

Get in here

still looking for people?

I saw someone say that you could use the pieces from risk to play. I'll have to snag it when I get paid next month

>Be related to almost everyone in Europe
>Be at war with almost everyone in Europe
It's a special kind of autism.
I also genuinely can't tell if the guy in the chair is George V of Nicholas II

It is most definitely a strategy game. You need to be thinking two steps ahead of yourself and your opponents in order to control crucial provinces while also dealing with international politics and the scuminess that comes with it. It is a condensed version of Europa Universalis pretty much.

The best player I've ever seen almost never lied. He was honest but played his cards very close to the vest. He was disciplined, a very sharp strategist, flexible, and clear-headed.

His style is hard to imitate, but I've never seen someone so effective in that game without blatant lies and trickery. It's a style worth cultivating, because that's how real legendary diplomats of history work. (And axe-grinding aside, Kissinger embodies this style, too. His book is worth reading even if you hate his guts.)

I think that THERE IS NO WAY IN FUCK THAT I AM TRUSTING YOU WITH BELGIUM, that's what I think.

Yes, but that's the point of the game. I don't get why you'd play a game deliberately based around fucking over the other players and then get mad at them.

>TFW WW1 was just a family brawl that got out of hand.

That's a short term strategy. If you expect to only play once against a group of people, then yes; lying, backstabbing, and going back on your word when your allies need you the most will most likely result in your victory.

Long term, however -- as in if you're gonna play more than once -- people will learn not to trust you and probably team up against you. The best long term strategy is instead to always keep your word, honor your alliances, and if someone else breaks their word to you; retaliate, make them pay but don't be ruthless, and immediately offer them a new deal afterwards. Let people see that you are trustworthy but not a doormat to be walked over, that they will have to pay for transgressions against you but that you're not without mercy.

remember to always make new players austria

It's a good game I never want to play again.

Why? Seems cruel

Also, 2 more players for guys

Yeah, still need 2 more guys

I'd rather play TI with expansions, to be honest.

And yeah, it made all my friends scream at me for about an hour, so "destroying friendship" is, although a little bit overblown, is not a myth.

>The best player I've ever seen almost never lied. He was honest but played his cards very close to the vest. He was disciplined, a very sharp strategist, flexible, and clear-headed.

THIS. This is exactly what experienced players will advise you to do.

I'm an oldfag, mid-50s, and have been playing Dip for a long time. I used to play it by MAIL. Not email, SNAIL mail. DIp is also why I first got online and I'm talking phone-handset-in-a-cradle-modem-to-access-dialup-BBS online.

Be careful of where you play online however. My 1st attempts had me trying to play with various cliques. They'd recruit the 2 or 3 people they needed to reach 7, then completely ignore the noobs and knock them off to play a 4 man game.

It's a very famous photo from the funeral of Edward VII with NINE reigning kings. The seated man in the middle is George V.

Standing L to R: Haakon VII of Norway, Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Manual II of Portugal, Kaiser Bill, George I of Greece, Albert I of Belgium.

Seated L to R: Alfonso XIII of Spain, George V of the UK, Frederick VIII of Denmark.

anybody ?

Italy needs a buff.

I'm no expert of the game, but I've heard that giving Italy a 2nd fleet in Rome instead of an Army gives them a ehole lot more flexibility at the start.

I prefer the Milan set up.
It's more realistic, it marginally buffs austria and marginally nerfs France. Really improves the game.

That's called a lepanto. You can do it even with the normal setup. It's been years since I last played, but basically you set it up with Austria Hungary such that the army Venice gets bounced and destroyed, but then Venice being empty you get to build a fleet there.

There's potential for a backstab, but it's usually in both parties' interests. Italy wants that fleet to pursue its mediterranean strategy. And with a fleet on the border, there's much less potential for Italy to use its border defenses offensively, so Austria Hungary likes having one of its flanks covered.

Some countries are definitely better situated than others. England, for example. But Diplomacy is self-balancing in the sense that players will gang up against opponents who they see as having an advantage. I've seen AH and Italy sneak up on people because their opponents wanted to handle what they saw as more dangerous problems first.

Fleet Rome definitely helps Italy...but it's also an extremely pro-Austria choice since it makes it harder for Italy to do anything to Austria, and therefore Austria doesn't need to worry about Italy quite as much, at least in the opening.

>That's called a lepanto.

No, the Lepanto is an opening, not a unit change. The Lepanto works with the normal setup of Italy having an Army in Rome instead of a Fleet.

Changing the game so that Italy has a fleet in Rome instead of an army is just called Fleet Rome, if it's called anything (which I don't think it is).

Any of you know where to get a good move simulator ?

Also we are still missing players for the online game

A similar mechanic with some extra bells and whistles at the cost of the sheer simplicity is the game of thrones board game. Same concept but with faction specific stuff and some English events, money, etc. As well as a turn limit. Not quite the same experience, but easier to get into the table, both because of its mechanics as well the theme

Just joined lad. Here's here's hoping I don't get Austria.

Game of thrones is lots of fun, but in my experience it makes for a very different experience. In Diplomacy you can and often must cooperate extensively with other players. In GoT, "alliances" and "cooperation" often means nothing more than "let's not attack each other". Still lots of fun though.

There's still 2 spots left for anybody interested

avoid it if you want to keep your gaming nights fun!

used to play this a lot back in the day, fucking hate it now and will never play it again.

2 spots open for the game 24 hour deadlines on turns btw

C'mon Veeky Forums, don't you want to backstab each other?

You know what? Fuck it. Never read the rules and all I know about this game is from this thread but let's see how this goes. Just joined.

Glad to have you lad. Playdip has a pretty good rules summary, or you can find a pdf of the rules fairly easily.

I love Diplomacy, but i hate playing it online.

I don't like checking in on it. I don't respond to texts or calls for days on end and i have not had any social media since i was 19, i cant be bothered to moderate an online diplomacy game.

Fuck yeah, why not eh?

Just one more slot, then it'll be good to go.

You saying you don't check something just once per day?

>You saying you don't check something just once per day?

Yup.

But its less a issue of the once a day, as it is maintaining the once a day for extended periods.

I would rather play for 6-8 hours in a day than 6-8 hours over a few weeks.

Wish I had seen this thread earlier, would have loved to give it a shot

Thanks mate

It's still open, go to

Joined. I'm new so I'll try to ask some questions so as to not make a fool of myself. Good luck!

The game is full! Now everyone just needs to hit "confirm participation"...

Yep, looking forward to it

Done. Let's do it, nerds

I wish I had 7 friends

germany reporting

Russia reporting in

...

Ottomans here

Oh, shall we do as before and the first person on after the update post maps in-thread when moves are complete

Post screenshots?

That would probably add some to the fun of it, why not

i played in a couple online diplomacy games that were build around Italian city states in the 15th century. Everyone was so nice at the start but by the end I was getting some really angry messages from Florence and Milan. this game does things to people.

>The best player I've ever seen almost never lied.
This

I had my first game of diplomacy two weeks ago, with some people from my D&D group and two others. All but one of us was new to the game, which might have affected how things played out because no one played very aggressively except me (France), and the experienced player (England).

I made good relations with England and Germany early on, allowing them to go after Russia and Austria-Hungary respectively. This allowed me to gobble up three neutral centres - belgium, spain and portugal. Then I went after Italy, who I had pointedly avoided either threatening or offering assistance to. Italy only got one extra centre in the first turn, and since most of his forces were oriented towards Austria Hungary I demolished him fairly easily. Because I'd behaved impeccably towards Germany and England they didn't feel like getting involved.

Then England backstabbed Germany (because he'd stalled in Russia and needed extra centres), which gave me the excuse I needed to attack England. The game ended before I could kill him entirely, but I'd taken Liverpool and Russia and Germany were pushing back in Scandanavia.

The point being: I won that game by always being impeccably honest, and never making an ally out of someone who I planned to attack later. England wasn't happy with me for getting involved in his fight with Germany and Russia, since I had been an early ally of his. But because he'd already attacked Germany he'd opened the door. Let everyone else backstab each other - there will always be plenty of betrayals in a game; all you have to do is wait for people to make themselves a target by being dishonest, and you can have your cake and eat it too.

this is very true. you also cant win alone, especially if you're centrally located. you have to tie yourself to someone else. a lot of times this ends in a race to the finish with your ally, in which you tear each other apart, or avoid each other and one of you gets the silver medal

You need a good group and plenty of time to play it to its fullest potential. Also you need to be able to take a joke and realise that it's just a game, because otherwise this shit will ruin friendships faster than a hundred games of Monopoly.

But if the circumstances are right, then it's a fucking amazing game.

Sounds exactly like playing Dominions 4 multiplayer.

Yea, I've seen a few games where it's all fine until the last usurpation

>because otherwise this shit will ruin friendships faster than a hundred games of Monopoly.
I'd say the worst part about it is that you find out just how easy it is for your friends to lie to you convincingly. Even if you all understand that the stakes don't really matter and you're all just having a laugh, somewhere in the back of your mind you'll never quite forget that your friend totally convinced you that he was going after someone else while he was getting ready to stab you in the back.

All in all, it's just very stressful because it does require you to be duplicitous and selfish

...

Bump in the spirit of competition

France here. I think it would be fun to post updates here on Veeky Forums as the game progresses, just in case anybody's interested. Here's the spring 1901 starting position, just over 26 hours before the first orders phase.

Russia here. The turns will be faster after this, correct? 48 hours seems excessive.

you always wanted to leave extra time for the first turn. there's a lot of uh... how do you russians say... maskirovka going on?