Jump to content

Anyone heard of Diplomacy (the board game)?


Platinum Azure
 Share

Recommended Posts

I played a couple face to face games with friends in college, but we settled on e-mail games for allowing a better (and more entertaining) way to communicate. I think the theory was also that it's less of a time commitment, because we'd just submit orders around three times a week. Turns out that's crap, though, as dhsu pointed out: it consumes your life even when you're not at the computer. It also turns out that playing a game that requires a lot of dissembling and treachery is not, in fact, a good way to keep in touch with old friends spread out over the country.

I don't remember any particularly entertaining stories, beyond the usual amusing indignation when things don't work out the way a power planned. I once stepped in at the tail end of a game that had basically come down to a standoff between Germany and Austria, with an emaciated Russia as a weak third power. Russia had been a newbie and something of a pawn of Austria's for a while. I managed to play Germany and Austria for WAY longer than I should have gotten away with, to the point where they proposed a three way draw.

Then there was the Youngstown variant game where my friend (Russia) and I (China) agreed to an ironclad alliance for a shared victory. This is sort of against the spirit of the game, and for good reason -- after we'd obliterated Japan (who had nobody he could turn to for help), like four other powers formed a globe-spanning alliance to take us down.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dhsu: Good stuff... incidentally, what's Remod? I've heard that thrown around a couple of times...

CarnCarby: Hahaha, brilliant. I haven't even played Youngstown.

It's good to see some people have heard of the game, but I'm a little disappointed not to see more tbqh.

I was actually pondering trying to start a game or two here, if possible. I'm not sure how it is that with orders due every three days it consumes your life (I play on a site where orders are usually due every 24 hours and I somehow don't let it consume my life), but if anything were to happen here I'd probably want to do something like having a diplomacy phase last for four or five days and retreats and adjustments filling out the last two or three in a given week... I dunno.

Of course, with the interest shown so far a game couldn't happen... Ah well, I can dream.

Incidentally, would either of you two be remotely interested in getting a game going here on OCR?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Well the way it worked with our game was that orders were due weekly, so people wouldn't even check the game except for every other day. Then we'd spend 3 days in negotiation, which resulted in last-minute orders on more than one occasion.

Anyway, Remod is the result of OCR previously having an unmoderated forum (or "UnMod"), that was summarily deleted without warning in a hotel room one New Year, which caused many of the former residents to regroup elsewhere - namely http://remod.cakearmy.org

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, YES!!!

I loved this game in middle/high school. There was an afterschool activity where we could play, and we had a lot of fun with it. The activity kind of disbanded my junior and senior years of high school, but for my Diplomatic History course we got to play that game for an assignment. It was awesome.

I'd love to play it again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I guess if you spend three days in negotiations that would kind of run your life.

Where I play it's more message-based, with people usually sending private press something like once a day on average (the more prolific communicators would do twice or thrice, or more if you're logged on at the same time as they are, but many would also treat the game like gunboat! always saddening). I guess my experience is just limited, though.

Does anyone here think they'd be remotely interested in trying to play here... if we get like five more?

EDIT: Holy crap I missed Pezman's post. My bad! I'm really glad to see you'd be on board. Now to get... um... a lot more people! w00t!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...