Sup Veeky Forums. Anyone here ever played Diplomacy?

Sup Veeky Forums. Anyone here ever played Diplomacy?

For those unaware, it's basically seven people playing the great powers of Europe right before WWI; your actions then lead up to WWI. Countries are Italy, Austria-Hungary, Germany, Britain, France, Russia, Turkey. No dice rolling, the game is played solely by moving pieces and supporting each other (enter the titular "Diplomacy").

In particular, I was wondering if anyone could look at some variations I made to the Colonial Diplomacy variant.

I have never heard of this game before today but I am fascinated by the concept and would love to read more about it.

Post away!

I was going to go to be soon, but I'll talk about it, leave my question and the map, and come back in the morning.

The game is played by seven people, each playing one country. In some variations and 8th plays the role of a Game Master. Another variant includes yet another player as Bolshevism, and another also includes Fascism. The game is played such that each turn is half a year. First a Diplomacy phase begins wherein the players scatter and discuss things with each other. Then, the orders phase begins, where they sit down an silently write their orders down; these orders are in reference to unit movements.

Because each unit has the same strength, you need to have units support each other to make any progress in your conquests. Hence the Diplomacy as you can't win by yourself. You need to wheel and deal and get the other players to support your aims.

The goal of the game is to get 18 (or 19) Supply Centers. Each country starts with 3 except Russia who starts with 4. The number of SCs you have is equal to the number of units you can field (Boats and armies put together). There are a number of neutral SCs at game start (IE, Spain and Portugal) but these get taken quickly. After a certain point (Usually the end of the first year) all neutral SCs belong to someone so it becomes a seven way zero sum game.

You can see on this map several key conflict areas: The Low Countries/Franco-German border, the Balkans, the entire border of Austria-Hungary, and Scandinavia. Italy is notably able to wage a devastating amphibious assault on either France or Turkey.

In the last game I played (With IRL friends) we only had six people. So, we did as the rulebook suggested and got rid of Italy. I personally feel this is a poor idea and instead Austria-Hungary and Germany should be merged as this results in France blobbing. Our Austria-Hungary was a friend of France's who, in hindsight, wasn't actually a good fit for this game (There's absolutely NOTHING wrong with that, it's not for everyone).

I, as Britain, made a parley with France: I wouldn't put boots on the continent in return for her never going north of the Mid-Atlantic with a fleet and would not contest her conquest of Italy. She obliged, only once bringing a boat back to the Mid-Atlantic, having sent three boats into the Mediterranean; I reshuffled my fleets away from Scandinavia and got her to stick to her word. Russia and I clashed in Scandinavia, and Germany and I parleyed over Denmark. I would eventually take Denmark from him after he sided with Russia and Turkey.

Russia and Turkey had allied in a move known as the "Juggernaut". Russia had begun to move west into Germany with the intention of gobbling him up shortly after I took Denmark from him. The game ended (after two separate four hour intervals) with Russia and Turkey beginning to turn on each other as I was poised to strike at France's rear the moment she began to move in.

The Ideologies variant has Bolshevism and Fascism rear their ugly heads; at any point, either of the Ideological players can pick a country, three Home Centers (The only SCs you can spawn units in), and then cut a country cleanly in half and take half of their units. This serves as a way to fit an eight and a ninth player in, or to bring players back from the dead.

yeah...Dip is not a game to play with friends. they wont remain friends for long

story time boys and girls

playing Dip at a buddies place one evening. 7 of us. The 2 roommates whos place we were playing at were allied together and were doing pretty good. then all of a sudden one of the guys backstabbs his buddy and grabs like 3 supply centers from him in 1 turn. the guy who got backstabbed grabbed his roommate and they went out on the patio for political discussion. of course all the rest of us see this as a huge game changer and we start to do our own discussions and wheeling dealings from this change of events. about 3 minuets later the guy who got backstabbed bellows out from the patio "FUCK YOU AND FUCK YOUR ARMIES", Stormed into the house-throws his pencil so hard at the wall it sticks into the dry wall and storms out.

he didnt come home for 3 days. The 2 got separate places after the lease was up

i dont think to this day they are as friendly as they were..and this was about 15 years ago.

I forgot to mention, the Game Master would read everyone's orders and then put the pieces where they'd go. This requires an extra person and sounds like it would take a long time so we'd just go in a circle enacting our orders and dealing with the conflicts. In theory, all orders occur at the same time (again, where the titular diplomacy comes in!) so the writing of orders acts as a way to keep everyone honest.

The game takes a long time and the next time we play it I'm going to suggest we spread it out over several days.

Out of curiosity I looked up variants, and one of them is Colonial Diplomacy; Britain, France, Russia, and Turkey return with the addition of the Netherlands, Japan, and China. The problem is Colonial Diplomacy has many more provinces and is slightly more complicated. It's also FAR less balanced; regular Diplomacy is balanced beautifully. So I, being a fa/tg/uy, made some changes.

Namely, I decreased the number of provinces. All countries start with 4 units except China who has 5; Turkey, Russia, and France have 3 armies and 1 fleet, Britain, Netherlands, and Japan have 2 armies and 1 fleet; China has 5 armies and can only gain fleets by taking Hong Kong (which can only be reached by boat meaning China needs to engage in Diplomacy to get there and take it from Britain). France is the entity in Indo-China, the Netherlands is the one in Malaysia. Instead of requiring 30(!) provinces to win, you only need 20.

The big question I have is this: Where should Russia's boat start? In Vladivostok in the far east, or in Sevastopol in the west? The latter guarantees Russo-Ottoman conflict, whereas the former gives China a naval ally against Japan; but, because Japan's fleets can't reach China's interior SCs I feel the worry of Japan shitstomping China early is misplaced.

This is why you don't play games with children.

>2 armies and 1 fleet
2 armies and 2 fleets, excuse me. Also, I know I didn't label the provinces in that map, Vladivostok being the far east Russian province and Sevastopol being the var south west Russian province. Boats can go on coastal or water (But not interior land) provinces, you see.

Next time I play with my friends I'm going to begin the game with a preface:

>We all know the point of this game is to fuck each other over and wheel and deal, and we all know that we can't trust each other. Let's not let it impact our actual real life friendships and have fun with it. Plus, there's ways to bring people back in if you get shitstabbed and want back in.

Oh, user, you've been missing out! You have so many friendships to ruin!

I like having friends, so no Diplomacy for me.

I see that map is the Fleet Rome variant. By default Italy is actually supposed to have an Army in Rome, not a Fleet. This means that it's not really as good against France. Fleet Rome is also somewhat pro-Austria a variant since it means that Italy is in a worse position to defend against or attack Austria, while conversely it's in a much stronger position against Turkey, which is to Austria's benefit.

Saving this from page 10!

If you can get a good group together that actually cares enough to play it for the 5+ hours that it requires, it's one of the best board games. I can image it would be dreadful otherwise.

Yeah, I've played a few times. Played with Veeky Forums once on that pbem client, but everyone fagged out and conceded once I took a territory lead, even though I was massively overstretched and two countries cooperating could have blown it all up easily.

I don't play it irl anymore. I have a paranoid, neurotic personality in everyday life, so the thought of being betrayed makes me feel like I'm getting an ulcer. Also, I pretty much always betray whatever coalition I start the game with to preempt their certain betrayal (which I find out after the game wasn't going to happen), and I think most of my friends have wised up to that.

I've tried that. It didn't work with my group. There's no way to talk someone out of not taking in-game actions personally if they're the kind of person to do it.

I think with time I've become one of these people. I know that a game is just a game, but that doesn't mean the things you let out of the box in the context of the game are 'just game things.' People play games in part to enact aspects of themselves that they don't normally have avenues for in real life whether that be for practical or moral reasons. Even if it's ostensibly all in good fun, it's an unpleasant exercise to see which of you and your friends have it in them to be a cynical, double-talking scumbag when given the right pretext.

Played a few times with Veeky Forums (takes forever to find players), didn't do all that well - especially the last time

Pretty fun though

Looks cool, though Russia seems to have an really good starting position - obviously there's a clear threat from having 3 direct neighbours

I tried to setup Russia in the same way as Japan: Unable to strike effectively at China in a single year but still able to be a threat. Russia also has Korea to contest over rather than going right for the heart, plus it has Turkey in the west and Romania to contest over. I wanted Russia strong, but spread out.

It's worth noting that Colonial (and my version of it) has special rules. Russia can use the Trans-Siberian Railroad to move any Russian unit to any province in one move and can pass other Russian units if the province is past them. I already talk about Hong Kong. The arrows didn't show up on this map for some reason but you can also move armies from the three main islands of Japan, from the tip of Malaysia to Java to the island east of it, then from the two islands west of New Guinea to each other.

>PBEM
?

Yeah, I was thinking it looks really strong, but there's a mititgating factor that there's 3 countries that can move against it from the get-go.

Does France's fleet have a specific start? Seems very likely it could just wreck HK with impunity otherwise.

And what do you mean China can't get fleets without HK? Seems a highly arbitrary restriction

The French fleet starts in the province above the tip of Malaysia (Again, sorry for not including the names of the provinces!) with the intention of it either being able to move south to fuck with the Netherlands, East to get in on the Britain-China-Japan conflict, or west to engage in SEA and India, or even head deep south to Arabia.

Britain starts with a fleet in HK so if France does move east it can just stay parked there.

In the base game of Colonial Diplomacy China starts with no fleets; although it has two coastal home centers, it merely has armies on them. As you can only produce armies at coastal home centers, and as China has none (To prevent Japan shreking them too early) China can only produce fleets via the special Hong Kong rule.

Can home centres only produce the unit they start with then?

I'd say Russia's Fleet should be in Vladivostok, because even with the best will in the world getting it through the Black Sea, the Med, the Red Sea (assuming it can ahistorically pass through Egypt) and the Indian Ocean just so they can fight someone who isn't the ottomans isn't anyone's idea of fun.

Also long-ass Russian fleet journeys are not a good idea

I'm thinking about usibg this to generate history for my homebrew setting.
Basically take take the map of the setting and apply Diplomacy rules to it. How long does your average game and round take?

This screencap never fails to make me laugh. Are russians cursed by some sea witch or something?

In college I saw two players get into a physical altercation over a backstab. Austria and Italy actually had to be separated by the other players. After some time to calm down and some intervention by Germany they agreed to continue since we had all taken out the entire day to schedule time for the game and didn't want to end it like this.

Next turn it turned out it was all a ruse to cover a Key Lepanto.

I don't know I'd use an entire game (especially seeing as you do win), but that's a neat idea for generating history.

Each turn is about half a year, and takes as long as the diplomatic negotiations take.
So you can generate X years of history by having 2X turns, though the "combat" system isn't designed for any dramatic surprise victories or losses - that only happens when one side has a strict superiority (often thanks to allies)

I'd probably just set a cut-off point after X number of years and disregard the "win", because I'm mostly interested in how the map changes and who clashes with whom. My only worry would be that ot'd probably be too much war in too long a time if I wanted 100 or even 200 years worth of history, unless I let a round be a year or longer instead of six months.

Oh yeah, if you want 100+ years it'll take forever, and unless there's some other mechanics you'll spend far too long at war

You can move fleets from the Med to Red Sea by docking in Egypt then moving to the Red Sea the next turn, or if you own the core on Egypt you can do it in one turn going right from the Med to the Red Sea.

I also see what you mean about the fleet, the conflict isn't worth it; a smart Russia would just have the Ottomans intentionally kill the fleet anyways.

You can only have as many fleets as you have coastal provinces and can only produce fleets at coastal home centers. The way China is setup prevents Japan from utterly decimating China on year one whilst also giving the semi-ahistorical "China has no navy" thing. Given how few provinces Japan has I also don't want them getting annihilated by China (or vice versa) single handedly too quickly. I wanted to avoid an Austria-Hungary type country, if that makes sense. I feel that Sino-Japanese conflict should be brutal but not lethal without outside intervention.

1 round is half a year and if you count both orders and diplomacy is ~30 minutes. Eight hours gets you to the point where Europe is split into 3 or 4 big powers split relatively evenly.

...

I'm starting to think about writing a program that just plays with itself to get the first 200 years or so and then play out the last couple like a normal game. Maybe give the different factions affinities for alliances with a bit of random leeway and an affinity for betrayal, together with a simple memory for betrayals and held alliances. That way could also enforce years of peace or ceasefire between factions.
Would probably take too long and be pointless, but might also be fun

Sounds pretty difficult, seeing as you need at least 5 or so factions, and you need them to lie to each other

>you need them to lie to each other
Not that user, but the biggest issue is probably going to be getting the AI to A. communicate, B. evaluate communications it receives, C. change it's behaviour due to said evaluation and D. remember previous communications and compare them to the senders actions to determine a "trust" value to be used in step B.

The more I think about it, the more complicated it gets. I am kinda intrigued though. I'm finished up for the year so I'll start a half assed attempt to make a Diplomacy simulator.
I think I'll focus on getting the game itself working first, then worry about extending it with truces and alliances like suggests.
If anything comes of it I'll report back

If you do come up with something please post it to the BGG thread. As a CompSci enthusiast (too poor for real college) I would love to read about your implementations.

I second this.
If you really want to play, play with friends that you trust, not some randos and also be willing to sink in a considerable amount of time in both set up and play time.

Played it once with all seven players. We were new and only had one night to play, so we completed the game in an 8-hour frenzy. Nary a word was spoken as we wrote secret ballots and a lot of the game's subtlety was thrown out.

Had a good time--I adore the lack of randomness--but this is a game where play-by-post comes HIGHLY recommended.

Don't get your hopes up lad, my programming is pretty kludgy. But I'll try my best

>Next turn it turned out it was all a ruse to cover a Key Lepanto.

Now that's some next-level deception.

The game itself takes minutes to set up as long as everyone's familiar with the rules, though doing a rule explanation session is a bitch, especially because you have to make double-plus sure everyone is comfortable with them since a botched order or Austria suddenly asking for a recap on how support-cutting works after that brief private conversation with Germany can ruin everything.

The real setup challenge is finding six other people willing to commit an entire day or multiple sessions to nonstop paranoia and skullduggery.

I find it hilarious that it's easier to accommodate 8+ people in this game, yet having even just 6 screws everything up.

A Germany-Austria-Hungary merger may be a viable alternative for 6 people.