Diplomacy

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Diplomacy
Diplomacy Standard Playing Card
Diplomacy Standard Playing Card
Game data
author Allan B. Calhamer
publishing company Self-published (1959),
Games Research (1961, 1971),
Avalon Hill (1976),
Miro Company ,
Jumbo ,
Parker Brothers ,
Waddingtons Games ,
Gibsons Games ,
Asmodée Editions
Avalon Hill / Hasbro (1999),
Wizards of the Coast / Hasbro ( 2008),
u. a.
Publishing year 1959
Art Conflict simulation
Teammates 2 to 7
Duration 4 hours and more
Age from 12 years

Diplomacy is a board game by Allan B. Calhamer that simulates the European balance of power before the First World War . More important than strategic skill in this game are above all conducting diplomatic negotiations and skillfully negotiating alliances between the various players. Since there is only one winner, sooner or later players are forced to break the alliances they have made.

Calhamer gradually developed the game from the late 1940s; In 1954, Diplomacy was essentially complete; after that only subtleties were changed. After various large game companies rejected the production of Diplomacy, Calhamer had 500 copies produced at his own expense in 1959. In 1960 he transferred the production to Games Research , which published the game in 1961. Today Hasbro owns the rights to the game. In the USA, a new version came out in 2008 on Hasbro's Wizards of the Coast label .

Game flow

On a map of Europe , which roughly shows the political borders before the First World War, seven powers are vying for supremacy. The players embody the rulers of the great powers England , France , the German Empire , Austria-Hungary , Italy , the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire . The game board is divided into 56 land and 19 sea areas, so a total of 75 playing fields are available to the playing pieces. In the standard variant, the goal of the game is to gain control of at least 18 of a total of 34 so-called supply centers (VZ). Supply centers are specially designated playing fields that are exclusively located in the countryside (accordingly, around 60 percent of all rural areas are supply centers). The number of characters a player has in the course of the game is linked to the number of supply centers he controls: there is one unit per controlled VZ. If a VZ is lost, surplus units must be removed. As in chess, only one unit can be present on each playing field.

A Diplomacy game is divided into game years, with 1901 being the first game year. Each game year is divided into five phases: two movement phases in which the pieces can be moved on the board; two retreat phases, in which the units that were driven away during the previous movement phase can retreat to spaces that have remained free; and finally, as the last phase of the game, the setup phase, in which the number of supply centers controlled by each player is adjusted to the number of his playing figures. The playing figures are also called units based on military jargon , whereby there are two types of units: armies and fleets . If a player has more supply centers than units, he can "build up", if he has fewer, he must "dismantle". It is up to him which units a player dismantles; However, he can only set up new units in the so-called home centers. Home centers are the supply centers that are located on the territory of the respective great powers and all bear the names of large cities (e.g. London in the case of England, Munich in the German or Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire). Every player owns these home centers at the start of the game, i.e. before the first move.

What sets Diplomacy apart from many other board games is that each player's moves are not made one after the other, but rather simultaneously. For this purpose each player notes his moves and submits them for evaluation. It is important that the moves noted are only plans that can conflict (and consequently fail) with the plans of the other players. Accordingly, the players only find out after the evaluation whether their moves were successful. The evaluation takes place on the basis of around 20 not particularly complicated individual rules, which mainly concern the holding and displacement of units, but also regulate, for example, the convoy of armies across sea areas with the help of fleets. Since all units are equally strong and conflicts are not rolled, the possible moves can be traced at any time using the planning. Another special feature of the game is the ability to communicate with the other players before each movement phase. Since no player can win the game on his own, he is dependent on the support of other players. He receives this by forging alliances, by skillful "diplomacy", which gave the game its name.

Diplomacy variants

In the meantime, many variants of the game have developed. The variants are classified into the two categories of card variants and rule variants .

In a card variant, the rules of the standard game are applied to a modified game board. Changed standard cards are intended to eliminate alleged weaknesses, to transfer the game to a different game time or to another location, or to be able to play it with a different number of players.

A rule variant changes the rules of the game. So z. B. the starting grid varied or new or changed unit types introduced. Mixed forms of card and rule variants are conceivable and often common.

Some well-known Diplomacy variants are "Modern" (today's map of Europe), "Hundred" (Hundred Years War between England, France, Burgundy) and "1898" (game with a different starting line-up). The “Colonial” variant, which is based in 19th century Asia, was also available as a board game.

Diplomacy as a long-distance game

Since a relatively large number of players (7) are needed for a full game and negotiating is an essential component of the game, Diplomacy is ideal as a post game . The moves are sent by post or email to a neutral game master, who evaluates the results and publishes the result and the moves made. Since an average Diplomacy game lasts about ten playing years (1901–1910), several months usually elapse during such a long distance game in real time - depending on the time limits set. In addition to the evaluation by a game master, there is also special software that is only available online (so-called judges) that takes over the resolution of the moves. Judge games are usually faster because the software evaluates immediately after all moves have arrived and is active 24 hours.

Diplomacy as a computer game

There have always been publications of Diplomacy as a computer game . For the MS-DOS operating system there was a very simple implementation in 4-color graphics called DipGame in 1986 , which was only 50 kB. The game is still available on the internet today. There were various diplomacy games for the C64 , the most sophisticated one comes from Virgin Mastertronics from 1990. Another implementation as a PC game took place in 1999 by the company MicroProse . This version already had network support and had modern graphics. In 2005, the Swedish software house Paradox Interactive released a PC computer game called Diplomacy with single-player and multiplayer modes. There is also a conversion into a card for the computer game StarCraft (Blizzard Entertainment).

All previous implementations have one shortcoming in common. Since the negotiations between the players as the core element of the game make up the essential part of the game's appeal, all computer conversions stand and fall with the intelligence of the computer player.

Online games represent another option for computer-based gaming of Diplomacy. The moves and communication are carried out via e-mail or via a web interface . The evaluation of the moves is done either by an electronic game master or a human.

Championships

The German Face-To-Face Championships originally emerged from meetings of judge players and are now organized annually by the German umbrella organization DDB. He was also responsible for the 2004 European Diplomacy Championship with 79 participants and for the 2006 World Diplomacy Championship in Berlin with 133 participants.

The German e-mail championships have been held with partial rule changes (including time-limited games) since 2001. In autumn 2005 the DM tournament started for the first time in 2006/07 over an extended time frame of up to two years.

overview

  • DM 2001 with 133 participants. Winner: Uwe Höfker
  • DM 2002 with 143 participants. Winner: Jürgen Lutz
  • DM 2003 with 112 participants. Winner: Mark Hachenberg
  • DM 2004 with 176 participants. Winner: Jochen Englert
  • DM 2005 with 130 participants. Winner: Burkhard Pietsch
  • DM 2006/07 with 140 participants. Winner: Marc Jünger
  • DM 2008/09 with 146 participants. Winner: Frank Oschmiansky
  • DM 2010/11 with 123 participants. Winner: Felix Huebner
  • DM 2012/13 with 161 participants. Winner: Michael Huesmann
  • DM 2014/15 with 112 participants. Winner: Markus Päuser

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Invention of Diplomacy by Allan B. Calhamer 1974 (English).