Guide to Diplomacy the Board Game
May 14, 2018 23:26:25 GMT
Frederick the Great, Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb, and 1 more like this
Post by Tolbethessar on May 14, 2018 23:26:25 GMT
I've wrote this guide on a different forum, but I'm posting here with a few bits edited out
*There is no technology research involved
*Each unit, whether it be an army or a fleet, is equally strong or weak as any other.
*Combat is decided by the rules of sorting orders out rather than dice rolling. No luck is involved throughout the whole game.
*Stacking isn't allowed. Each space can only hold one unit at a time. This is not Risk.
*All pieces makes their move at the same time
*Orders needs to be written and submitted to the GM privately and preferably before a pre-appointed time, rather than posted in the forum
*the GM will process the orders by the rules of how moves work, conflict, cancel, etc... then post the final result of the orders for all to see (unless there's a Fog of War variant, then the players gets their own results back from the GM in private)
*Each nation makes its own independent decisions on relations, wars, treaties. No factions. No artificial salt forced upon a player.
*treaties whether spoken or written has no legal binding except for the player's code of honor (or a lack thereof)
*The GM's main responsibility is to process the set of orders and to communicate with the players for deadlines and vacations
*If a player needs to be offline for a serious while, he may choose his own replacement and inform the GM or request a vacation hold to be placed on the game for a short period
*Communiques between players are highly encouraged, it's a vital part to be successful in Diplomacy. They are usually made in emails (private messages for this forum, really).
I quote from
diplom.org/Welcome.html
Okay, Diplomacy works like this in a nutshell... (I don't plan to list every rule in the rulebook, it can be found in the link below)
www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/diplomacy.pdf
Added link -Remember on page 23, rules# 1-12, are more commonly used, rules# 13-22 are more rarely used. So don't panic if you see "22 Rules to Help You Resolve Orders"
Basically every space on the map holds one unit max or is empty.
An army can move to any land space adjacent to it (inland or coastal).
A fleet can move to any sea or coastal space adjacent to it (but not inland).
No other type of troops involved.
You start with an A or F to signify what type is it. Then you always write down the province's name for the unit location first. Third, you write down the action (hold, move, or support).
For sake of simplicity, I'll use the European map of countries that we all are familiar with country names rather than provinces inside the country here.
Ok start with an army in Spain and Sarge Alligator want to send it to France.
A Spa - Fra.That's it. The army is not in Spain now, but in France.
You may use the first 3 letters of a map space (if clear and not confusing as to which place).
You submit that to the GM in private but let's hope you have more than just one army when giving your orders.
if you forgot to include a second unit that you do have, you can always send a new full set of orders (long as it's before the deadline) to overwrite the earlier set of orders.
Let say Colonel Hippo has an army in Belgium and he wants France too. He can try to move there but it will be happening at the same time with Alligator's order from Spain to France.
The GM will see two private messages from the two players.
A Spa - Fra.
A Bel - Fra.Both units will bounce back to their locations and fail to move into France. The results will be posted by the GM:
Alligator
A Spa - Fra.
Hippo
A Bel - Fra. Okay now if the reader is asking, wait... what if Colonel Hippo has a second army, can he have it in Belgium too? Nope, only 1 unit in a space max. But he could have it in Germany maybe if it's already there.
Okay good, maybe Colonel Hippo can move both armies to France and take it instead of bouncing.
He writes to the GM
A Bel - Fra.
A Ger - Fra.
Alligator writes the same order as before because he is doing only an example instead of wiping Hippo off the map in a real game.
A Spa - Fra.
The GM posts:
Alligator
A Spa - Fra.
Hippo
A Bel - Fra.
A Ger - Fra.What happened?!? Well simple enough, all units bounce each other. Even Colonel Hippo's units bounced with each other.
So the game of Diplomacy is so boring, everyone bounce and bounce? No. There's a reason for the support order. It doesn't allow the unit to leave its location but it can bring its strength to someone else who is targeting the same goal. The other unit must be able to move to the target just as the support unit can do. Let me show you a different Fall 1901 phase.
Alligator
A Spa - Fra.
Hippo
A Bel - Fra.
A Ger support A Bel - Fra.The part of the order after the "support" word must match the other unit's move exactly to work. If the support in Germany says something different than the move from Belgium to France, then the support fails. What happens now with the Fall 1901 here, Sarge Alligator gets stuck in Spain. Colonel Hippo's German army stays in Germany but the Belgian move succeed with the support, so it ends up in France. It's a 2 vs 1 attack that succeed, not a 1 vs 1 vs 1 that failed the first time.
If Colonel Hippo doesn't want an army or fleet to move, he already got France and he's staying in there. But he doesn't mind moving his army from Germany to Holland.
He writes:
A Fra H.
A Ger - Hol.The H can stand for Hold, or Colonel Hippo could say "A Fra stays" either way.
Also what if Sarge Alligator uses a fleet in Mediterranean Sea to support an attack from Spain to France?
The results from the GM would look like:
Alligator
A Spa - Fra.
F Med support A Spa - Fra.
Hippo
A Fra H.
A Ger - Hol.The army in France is dislodged and forced to move somewhere else but the somewhere else must be empty for Colonel Hippo to evacuate. It's possible for Colonel Hippo to succeed in holding against the 2 vs 1 attack of Sarge Alligator's.
If he wrote a better order for his German army like this so
A Fra H.
A Ger support A Fra H.The support to hold matches the hold order exactly right. Colonel Hippo could have kept France in his hands. Poor guy, he lost France to Sarge Alligator.
Well there you go. This is the 3 basic orders of Diplomacy. It works with more units like 3, 4, or 5 etc so forth. A move is a move, and a hold is a stay. A support allows strengths of many units work together for a goal as a team. There's some more information to make things more clear but that's for when rules seems to conflict with each other but it's not that hard.
www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=321&t=21697
Added link, I looked up on Google for a good explanation for how to determine when a support is cut or not. This TENDS to be the thorny question of how someone can resolve orders. I understood it myself, but I find it hard to explain to someone else.
*There is no technology research involved
*Each unit, whether it be an army or a fleet, is equally strong or weak as any other.
*Combat is decided by the rules of sorting orders out rather than dice rolling. No luck is involved throughout the whole game.
*Stacking isn't allowed. Each space can only hold one unit at a time. This is not Risk.
*All pieces makes their move at the same time
*Orders needs to be written and submitted to the GM privately and preferably before a pre-appointed time, rather than posted in the forum
*the GM will process the orders by the rules of how moves work, conflict, cancel, etc... then post the final result of the orders for all to see (unless there's a Fog of War variant, then the players gets their own results back from the GM in private)
*Each nation makes its own independent decisions on relations, wars, treaties. No factions. No artificial salt forced upon a player.
*treaties whether spoken or written has no legal binding except for the player's code of honor (or a lack thereof)
*The GM's main responsibility is to process the set of orders and to communicate with the players for deadlines and vacations
*If a player needs to be offline for a serious while, he may choose his own replacement and inform the GM or request a vacation hold to be placed on the game for a short period
*Communiques between players are highly encouraged, it's a vital part to be successful in Diplomacy. They are usually made in emails (private messages for this forum, really).
I quote from
diplom.org/Welcome.html
The beauty of the game of Diplomacy lies not in the tactics of the movement of the pieces on the board, but in the fact that these movements are simultaneous, meaning that the orders of all players are executed at the same time on each turn. Whose moves succeed and whose fail are easily determined by the simple rules of the game which permit and govern the combination of multiple units to strengthen (or weaken) any single move or other action.
Crowning all this, however, is the fact that any player of the game is lost without allies. To play the game without receiving assistance from the pieces owned by other players and without lending assistance to other players' pieces is to set yourself up for failure. Indeed, the most important part of the game is the wide-open, free-for-all, promise-the-moon negotiations which occur before each move; negotiations which establish alliances, elaborate war plans, and backstabs.
Backstabs? Yes, because regardless of what a player promises to do before the turn, what he actually does is wholly determined by the secret orders he submits for his pieces.
Combining with other players to defeat a common foe, secretly arranging peace with the enemy, and suddenly turning on your ally, who has trusted you and worked with you since the first move, is all part of the game. All's fair in love and war, so the saying goes, and in Diplomacy, one is often simply a mask for the other.
The final outcome of a game of Diplomacy is always the responsibility -- for better or worse -- of each player. Diplomacy offers a totally chanceless (there are no dice to roll, no tables to consult, no random events to deal with) competition of wits and wiles.Okay, Diplomacy works like this in a nutshell... (I don't plan to list every rule in the rulebook, it can be found in the link below)
www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/diplomacy.pdf
Added link -Remember on page 23, rules# 1-12, are more commonly used, rules# 13-22 are more rarely used. So don't panic if you see "22 Rules to Help You Resolve Orders"
Basically every space on the map holds one unit max or is empty.
An army can move to any land space adjacent to it (inland or coastal).
A fleet can move to any sea or coastal space adjacent to it (but not inland).
No other type of troops involved.
You start with an A or F to signify what type is it. Then you always write down the province's name for the unit location first. Third, you write down the action (hold, move, or support).
For sake of simplicity, I'll use the European map of countries that we all are familiar with country names rather than provinces inside the country here.
Ok start with an army in Spain and Sarge Alligator want to send it to France.
Alligator said:
Spring 1901A Spa - Fra.
You may use the first 3 letters of a map space (if clear and not confusing as to which place).
You submit that to the GM in private but let's hope you have more than just one army when giving your orders.
if you forgot to include a second unit that you do have, you can always send a new full set of orders (long as it's before the deadline) to overwrite the earlier set of orders.Let say Colonel Hippo has an army in Belgium and he wants France too. He can try to move there but it will be happening at the same time with Alligator's order from Spain to France.
The GM will see two private messages from the two players.
Alligator said:
Spring 1901A Spa - Fra.
Hippo said:
Spring 1901A Bel - Fra.
Zebra said:
Spring 1901Alligator
Hippo
Okay good, maybe Colonel Hippo can move both armies to France and take it instead of bouncing.
He writes to the GM
Hippo said:
Fall 1901A Bel - Fra.
A Ger - Fra.
Alligator writes the same order as before because he is doing only an example instead of wiping Hippo off the map in a real game.
Alligator said:
Fall 1901A Spa - Fra.
The GM posts:
Zebra said:
Fall 1901Alligator
Hippo
So the game of Diplomacy is so boring, everyone bounce and bounce? No. There's a reason for the support order. It doesn't allow the unit to leave its location but it can bring its strength to someone else who is targeting the same goal. The other unit must be able to move to the target just as the support unit can do. Let me show you a different Fall 1901 phase.
Zebra said:
Fall 1901Alligator
Hippo
A Bel - Fra.
A Ger support A Bel - Fra.
If Colonel Hippo doesn't want an army or fleet to move, he already got France and he's staying in there. But he doesn't mind moving his army from Germany to Holland.
He writes:
Hippo said:
Spring 1902A Fra H.
A Ger - Hol.
Also what if Sarge Alligator uses a fleet in Mediterranean Sea to support an attack from Spain to France?
The results from the GM would look like:
Zebra said:
Spring 1902Alligator
A Spa - Fra.
F Med support A Spa - Fra.
Hippo
A Ger - Hol.
If he wrote a better order for his German army like this so
Hippo said:
Spring 1902A Fra H.
A Ger support A Fra H.
Well there you go. This is the 3 basic orders of Diplomacy. It works with more units like 3, 4, or 5 etc so forth. A move is a move, and a hold is a stay. A support allows strengths of many units work together for a goal as a team. There's some more information to make things more clear but that's for when rules seems to conflict with each other but it's not that hard.
www.playdiplomacy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=321&t=21697
Added link, I looked up on Google for a good explanation for how to determine when a support is cut or not. This TENDS to be the thorny question of how someone can resolve orders. I understood it myself, but I find it hard to explain to someone else.
