Socrates
14-03-2004, 00:33
Here I'm gonna write a short presentation of the game, for those who really don't know what's so special about it, or who haven't heard of it.
DIPLOMACY
Diplomacy is a board game that involves strategy, tactics (not too much), intelligence... and diplomacy skills ! This is THE game where human relationships are so intense, so much that you should disconnect from your real personnality while playing, otherwise you'll end up hating your friends (I mean it !). Of course there are different levels of addiction, but once ingame the addiction can be pretty intense.
The game is played with 2 types of units, land and naval units (far less than Civ3), on an historical map of pre-WWI Europe. The map consists of many territories, either land and sea territories, and each one of them can be occupied by a maximum of one unit at a time. Some of the land territories contain a "center" (or city), which is related to the number of units on the map : each player basically owns as many units as centers. The other territories don't have a center, and so can't be used for gaining units.
The game can be played with from 2 players (very boring and uninteresting as for "diplomacy" of course) up to 7 players. This is the maximum because there are 7 great nations involved in the game, which are : France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy and Turkey. Each nation starts with its 3 national centers (4 for Russia), and will try to gain more units by controlling other centers. Other than those national centers, there are 12 "neutral" centers waiting to be conquered (like the Netherlands :D ).
The game is played through turns ; turns are coupled in groups of 2, springs and autumns. Adjustment of units is only made after the autumn (end of year). Each turn is processed like this :
- people talk : this is the diplomatic round, the essence of the game, everyone can talk with whoever he wants, about what he wants, and make every kind of agreement with anyone, be it for real or for fake ;
- players write their orders secretly : this requires clean writing ;
- orders are "solved" on the map : the fun part is that all movements, attacks, confirmation of alliances or break of treaties (someone said "backstab" ? :D ) are discovered altogether in a general round of solving ;
- defeated units are "solved", and players adjust their units (end of year only).
What is so special about Diplomacy is that it is all about trusting and backstabbing. No randomness at all, period. The game is played through turns, but on each turn all players make their moves simultaneously. Here is a basic list of "moves" for units :
- stay ;
- move (to an adjacent territory) ;
- defensive supply ;
- offensive supply ;
- ship ferrying (for naval units only).
From this list (I hope I didn't forget one there) comes all the mess of the orders solving round ! It leads to some complicated situations, but rules were set up so that every set of orders have one and only solution.
In fact, the only way to "win" a battle is to come with a numerous advantage on the battlefield. If a enemy unit stands on a territory that you want to take, you'll have to get 2 units attacking the territory, but you'll have to decide which unit "attacks" (moves) and which unit "supplies" (on offense). The defending unit will have to retreat in case of a "2v1". But if a 2nd enemy unit supplies the 1st (on defense), then the situation is a "2v2" and so it's stalled. You'll then need a 3rd attacking unit etc... When you attack a supplying unit (on defense or offense), this unit sees its supply order cut off ; this is a common way of gaining a numerous advantage. Of course, what makes all of this interesting is that the supply can come from your units or other players' units... And there comes the backstabbing... or the n-th turn of solid alliance.
Even though rules are rather simple, situations are sometimes complicated and so I won't describe them all here. You already have here a basic illustration of what happens in the game. Units each have one order per turn, and can move to an adjacent territory only (except for ferried units). This makes the map look like a map where generals discuss about what's really happening on the battlefield, moving wooden units, or maybe just making plans. Quite nice actually...
Ususally, the goal is to control 18 out of the 34 centers (IIRC) at the end of a year. Don't be fooled, it's hard to achieve this in a 7-player game, and in fact many games stop before it's done (some situations can be somewhat "locked"), and so the winner would be the player who controls the most centers.
Well, enough for this short presentation. I hope I'll convince some more players to play, other than those who already know the game and wish to give it another go here. All the rules can be found on the Net, I believe. We'll search nice places to point people to someday.
Now you can use this thread to ask questions about the game, but as a newbie only. If you know the game quite well, please ask questions in the general topic.
DIPLOMACY
Diplomacy is a board game that involves strategy, tactics (not too much), intelligence... and diplomacy skills ! This is THE game where human relationships are so intense, so much that you should disconnect from your real personnality while playing, otherwise you'll end up hating your friends (I mean it !). Of course there are different levels of addiction, but once ingame the addiction can be pretty intense.
The game is played with 2 types of units, land and naval units (far less than Civ3), on an historical map of pre-WWI Europe. The map consists of many territories, either land and sea territories, and each one of them can be occupied by a maximum of one unit at a time. Some of the land territories contain a "center" (or city), which is related to the number of units on the map : each player basically owns as many units as centers. The other territories don't have a center, and so can't be used for gaining units.
The game can be played with from 2 players (very boring and uninteresting as for "diplomacy" of course) up to 7 players. This is the maximum because there are 7 great nations involved in the game, which are : France, Great Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia, Italy and Turkey. Each nation starts with its 3 national centers (4 for Russia), and will try to gain more units by controlling other centers. Other than those national centers, there are 12 "neutral" centers waiting to be conquered (like the Netherlands :D ).
The game is played through turns ; turns are coupled in groups of 2, springs and autumns. Adjustment of units is only made after the autumn (end of year). Each turn is processed like this :
- people talk : this is the diplomatic round, the essence of the game, everyone can talk with whoever he wants, about what he wants, and make every kind of agreement with anyone, be it for real or for fake ;
- players write their orders secretly : this requires clean writing ;
- orders are "solved" on the map : the fun part is that all movements, attacks, confirmation of alliances or break of treaties (someone said "backstab" ? :D ) are discovered altogether in a general round of solving ;
- defeated units are "solved", and players adjust their units (end of year only).
What is so special about Diplomacy is that it is all about trusting and backstabbing. No randomness at all, period. The game is played through turns, but on each turn all players make their moves simultaneously. Here is a basic list of "moves" for units :
- stay ;
- move (to an adjacent territory) ;
- defensive supply ;
- offensive supply ;
- ship ferrying (for naval units only).
From this list (I hope I didn't forget one there) comes all the mess of the orders solving round ! It leads to some complicated situations, but rules were set up so that every set of orders have one and only solution.
In fact, the only way to "win" a battle is to come with a numerous advantage on the battlefield. If a enemy unit stands on a territory that you want to take, you'll have to get 2 units attacking the territory, but you'll have to decide which unit "attacks" (moves) and which unit "supplies" (on offense). The defending unit will have to retreat in case of a "2v1". But if a 2nd enemy unit supplies the 1st (on defense), then the situation is a "2v2" and so it's stalled. You'll then need a 3rd attacking unit etc... When you attack a supplying unit (on defense or offense), this unit sees its supply order cut off ; this is a common way of gaining a numerous advantage. Of course, what makes all of this interesting is that the supply can come from your units or other players' units... And there comes the backstabbing... or the n-th turn of solid alliance.
Even though rules are rather simple, situations are sometimes complicated and so I won't describe them all here. You already have here a basic illustration of what happens in the game. Units each have one order per turn, and can move to an adjacent territory only (except for ferried units). This makes the map look like a map where generals discuss about what's really happening on the battlefield, moving wooden units, or maybe just making plans. Quite nice actually...
Ususally, the goal is to control 18 out of the 34 centers (IIRC) at the end of a year. Don't be fooled, it's hard to achieve this in a 7-player game, and in fact many games stop before it's done (some situations can be somewhat "locked"), and so the winner would be the player who controls the most centers.
Well, enough for this short presentation. I hope I'll convince some more players to play, other than those who already know the game and wish to give it another go here. All the rules can be found on the Net, I believe. We'll search nice places to point people to someday.
Now you can use this thread to ask questions about the game, but as a newbie only. If you know the game quite well, please ask questions in the general topic.