Across the Board

Across the Board is a blog about playing the game Diplomacy online.

A representation of the Diplomacy board at the start of the game.

The game of Diplomacy is a game of deception. It is based in the pre-WWI era; each of the seven players, representing seven major powers, compete to dominate Europe. It is won when one player owns the majority of the supply centres on the board.

Well, that's about as simple an explanation as can be expressed. What I haven't talked about is the skills required: persuasion, manipulation of players, strategy, and honesty and deceit in (approximately) equal measures.

It's a highly skilled game with (generally) simple rules. It isn't a war game, although it looks like one and the pieces are military units, armies and fleets. It's a game about diplomacy, about getting your opponents to help you win.

Yes, "about getting your opponents to help you win". You read that right. You're facing six other players, all aiming to win the game; how are you - how is anyone! - going to succeed without the help of others?

Although Diplomacy was designed as a game to be played across a table, between family and friends, over a number of hours, it has since developed into an organised hobby. It is played at tournaments, usually held at conventions; it has a world championship, continental championships, national championships, and regional championships. It is played by email and on websites.

Each form of play has its differences. One of the things a dedicated player will find is that the form in which you are playing affects the way you play.

A regular, face-to-face game between family and friends is very different to a game in a tournament, even though both versions are played face-to-face (f2f). Tournaments feature a number of games, often played over a weekend; games need to finish in time for the tournament to finish on time! And tournament games are scored; this often means that they are played with different objectives from a regular game.

Over the internet (remote play) the game is different again. These games are longer but it is possible to play them to the end. Rather than lasting for hours, they last for months. And you can also play in online tournaments. You'll find that many online games are scored in some way or another, and scoring always has an impact on how players adapt their game play.

This site will mainly focus on playing the game online. There will be other articles, I imagine. One of the topics which interests players, for instance, is scoring in tournaments, and any articles on this subject will have a f2f application.

However, the strategy articles, the discussions, etc, will mainly be about playing the online variant of the game. That is the point of the blog; the reason for writing it.

There are plenty of places to play online. If you aren't involved yet, or are looking for other places to play, simply do a search. You'll find many sites that way.

I play on one site, and you'll find that I mainly feature that site in my writings. However, Across the Board isn't about favouring one site over another. I'm not saying a certain degree of bias won't ever be detected in posts (mine or others) but there won't be any deliberate favouritism. I have rules about that here!

I hope I won't be the only writer involved. I hope others will share their thoughts on this great game. If you're one of them, see the guidelines based on the springboard website to the blog.

That'll do for now.

Any thoughts, comments or expressions of interest are welcome.

Heathley Baines (Nibbler),

Editor.