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| - A Turn-Based Strategy board game, and one of the all-time classics, created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and first published in 1959. While playing the game, a practice of dealing honestly and fairly with your opponents (inside the rules of the game) can be described much more succinctly as "losing". Possibly the most intense board game experience ever created, it has incredibly simple rules, is still popular fifty years after its publication, and will break your tiny little mind. As an added bonus, there is a complete absence of any influence of random chance over the game: whatever happens, happens as a direct result of player decisions. Including stabbing you in the back, taking over your entire empire, and driving you out of the game, all because you believed the guy playing England wh
- Diplomacy is a live action role playing game where seven players take on the roles of the leaders of seven European nations, and then spend the next eight hours of their lives discussing polite ways to stab each other in the kidneys. Each player controls the armed forces of either Austria-Hungary, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Turkey, Italy or Russia, with which they plot and fight in perhaps the most polite of wars ever fought in history. This game is a favorite amongst megalomaniacs, as the goal of the game is to control more than half of Europe while at the same time preventing every other player from doing the same.
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| abstract
| - Diplomacy is a live action role playing game where seven players take on the roles of the leaders of seven European nations, and then spend the next eight hours of their lives discussing polite ways to stab each other in the kidneys. Each player controls the armed forces of either Austria-Hungary, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Turkey, Italy or Russia, with which they plot and fight in perhaps the most polite of wars ever fought in history. This game is a favorite amongst megalomaniacs, as the goal of the game is to control more than half of Europe while at the same time preventing every other player from doing the same. Diplomacy was first widely played with life size pieces, where most discussion was left out of the process. These games would take years as pieces were moved from province to province until they made contact with an opponents piece, where they would be bludgeoned together until only once piece remained or the other was sent running home. These early games usually ended in a long clean up phase where much blood needed to be mopped up and cities needed to be rebuilt. For a brief time the game was developed into a board game where close friendships were allowed to become things of the past. The game eventually evolved to email play, where writing became much more important, and the player who didn't quit was usually declared the winner. The game was created in 3000 BC, by King Sargon I of Sumeria, but later perfected by famed worldwide tournament winner Henry Kissinger.
- A Turn-Based Strategy board game, and one of the all-time classics, created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and first published in 1959. While playing the game, a practice of dealing honestly and fairly with your opponents (inside the rules of the game) can be described much more succinctly as "losing". Possibly the most intense board game experience ever created, it has incredibly simple rules, is still popular fifty years after its publication, and will break your tiny little mind. As an added bonus, there is a complete absence of any influence of random chance over the game: whatever happens, happens as a direct result of player decisions. Including stabbing you in the back, taking over your entire empire, and driving you out of the game, all because you believed the guy playing England when he said he was going to invade Tunis this turn. Originally designed as a game aid to teach people about diplomacy and the world situation before World War I, the game has been destroying friendships, making people pass out from stress, and ruining lives ever since. The basic form of the game (there are many variants) is a Take Over Europe scenario set in The Edwardian Era. Each of seven players, playing one of the key powers of Europe, has to gain control of 18 of the 34 available supply centres (named after cities or provinces) in order to win. Players move together (submitting their orders in written form to the adjudicator/judge) and each unit has equal strength. In order to take a territory from someone else, you have to have other units supporting your attack. Switzerland is impassable, while Kiel, Constantinople and Denmark can have a fleet travel through them if no-one is in there. The two types of units are armies and fleets, with fleets being able to convoy armies across seas and travel along coasts, while armies can go into landlocked territories, where many supply centers are. The game operates in a five-phase turn representing a year, starting from 1901 (games generally last between 5 and 20 years):
* Spring Movement phase
* Spring Retreat/Disband phase (ejected units move elsewhere, entrapped units are destroyed)
* Autumn Movement
* Autumn Retreat/Disband
* Winter Build/Disband
* You can have as many units as supply centres you control. To make new builds, you must have one of your "home supply centres". England starts with two fleets and an army, Russia with two fleets and two armies (although both its fleets have a hard time getting anywhere and its border is huge), everyone else two armies and a fleet. Lose all your supply centres, you have until winter to get one back or you're out. Has been often done by post. It's a popular email/forum game too, with some good banter known to occur. Between these moves there is much negotiation. Back-stabbing, lying, alliances etc. is positively encouraged and widespread. There are some actions though (i.e. altering your opponent's orders, impersonation in correspondence games) that are considered ungentlemanly. It is impossible to win the game without making allies, and even more impossible to win without subsequently breaking them. To bring an example of the convoluted nature of negotiations, it is not unusual for, say, France to engage in coordinated standoffs with Italy in order to fake a war with him, in order to satisfy Turkey, who demanded that France attack Italy in order to prevent Italy from attacking Austria while Turkey and Austria invade Russia together; the only reason France cares about what Turkey wants from him is that he and England are attempting to invade Russia's allies in Germany, and the Turkish invasion will distract Russia's attention and prevent him from opening up another flank with England. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to France or Turkey, Italy has already made a deal with England to hold off his attack on Austria until the conquest of Germany is completed, at which point he and England will turn on France. It Makes Sense in Context. It is also not unheard of for some bizarre game position to occur, In one forum game, Russia found itself in Spring 1905 with German armies occupying Moscow and St. Petersburg, Warsaw under German control, the only Russian-controlled home territory being Sevastopol and his Baltic Fleet parked in Berlin. In another face-to-face game, an Italian fleet somehow ended up invading Edinburgh. Diplomacy is an example of the simultaneous-resolution campaign-level type of TBS game, and shows both its benefits (very pure strategy, as each player has the same positional information available to him - diplomatic information is another matter, making persuasion all-important) and its drawbacks (the chance for endless negotiations). Also known simply as The Hobby. Not to be confused with the popular Warcraft fanfic.
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