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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,...
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How to Play Diplomacy (part 3): Corrections

Diplomacy  is a complicated game.  Now,  there's  an understatement! However, when learning how to play it, there is one source which can't be ignored: the creator of the game, Allan B Calhamer. http://englishharmony.com/ Calhamer's article Objectives other than Winning (first published in IDA Diplomacy Handbook, 1974) was mainly written to correct the aberrant ideas about scoring systems in Diplomacy. The system he was writing mainly about is known as the 'Strong Second' system, but it also tells us about play when any scoring system is being used. Calhamer's Design Diplomacy was designed to be played as a one-off event. It was designed to be played face-to-face, around a table with all players present at the board. As such, when the Hobby diversified with play-by-mail games, then play-by-email and websites, as well as when it was played as a tournament or league, the game became something different. Setting the game in these scenarios makes ga...
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How to Play Diplomacy (part 1): Introduction

Diplomacy is a complicated game. Now, there's an understatement! However, when learning how to play it, there is one source which can't be ignored: the creator of the game, Allan B Calhamer. Allan B Calhamer (7 Dec 1931 - 25 Feb 2013) https://haroonriaz.files.wordpress.com/ Having had a break from the blog for a while, thinking about what I wanted to write next and recovering properly from a broken femur, I have decided to come back with a series of articles on playing Diplomacy , but playing it properly. Rather than tips, hints, strategy discussions, etc (there're plenty of those elsewhere on the blog), this is about playing the game the way it was meant to be played. Now, I'll readily admit that this is my opinion. There is always going to be discussion about the way the game ought to be played. I don't claim there's a definitive answer to every aspect of the game, and the way you play is - or should be - somewhat defined by the context in which a ...
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