Arelith Diplomacy - A game for untrustworthy swine

[Scurvy Cur]

Okay, I am floating this out there to see if there is any community interest in playing Diplomacy (either the Avalon Hill original, or one of the fan-developed variants) through a web client. It is a game that I find to be tremendously fun, requires 7 players for the classic variant, and can be safely run with as little as 10-15 minutes of attention every day.

The game itself is deceptively simple, but played with the right group of people, can be about the most fun I think I've ever had with a grand strategy board game. It takes all my love for Risk, and removes the frustrating part where the game is decided by crashing two large armies into one another and seeing who the dice favor. Because there are no dice, just strategic positioning, tactical maneuvering, negotiations, and, of course, filthy, dirty, shameless treachery.

A quick synopsis of game play (and the client itself) can be found Here.

And a few thoughts and observations on some of the more advanced nuances gameplay can be found Here and Here.

The latter two links will also bring you to strategy guides for each of the playable nations, however I would strongly advise that the advice is given assuming that most other players are experienced and thus fairly predictable in their priority. It's been my observation that what an experienced player may consider in his or her clear best interest varies wildly from what a newer player will consider his or her clear best interest, and that neither is necessarily wrong, depending on the inclinations of the other players at the board. Knowing all the "best" moves is a useless thing if your neighbors are going to throw caution out the window and muck up all your best predictions.

I will warn you ahead of time that if you are the sort of player who is going to take it personally when you are expressly lied to and outright betrayed, you may want to consider giving this game a pass.

If there are interested parties, let me know. If we get 7, I'll set us up a game. If there is a large enough body of interested people, I will even start keeping statistics on successful players and successful countries, because math is fun.

[Kuma]

[...]strategic positioning, tactical maneuvering, negotiations, and, of course, filthy, dirty, shameless treachery [...]expressly lied to and outright betrayed[...]statistics[...]

You had me at hello.

[SpymasterGend]

You had me at hello.

And me at H...

[Dinosaur Space Program]

Man, I really suck at this game. But I'll give it another shot!

[Irongron]

I used to love that game, alas I just don't have that kind of time to spare.

[Scurvy Cur]

If you ever get the urge, Irongron, you're more than welcome to join in. Slower paced games can run on about a turn per day, which makes it possible for people around the world to have time to negotiate and plan orders without needing to parcel out a 6 hour chunk of time to play the whole game in one sitting.

[Dalenger]

Sorry the the hijack, but another game that might interest you is Defcon. Extreamly simple game (there's only 5 units and 3 types of buildings in the entire game), but I've spent many a hour plotting with my "allies" to in the end get surprise! nuked by Mexico. Great game.

[Scurvy Cur]

Alright, I've gone ahead and preemptively started the first game.

The link to it is here, and I gave it a week to fill.

Game is set up for non-anonymous players, scoring by points based on centers held at the end of the game (so there is incentive to keep fighting for a 2nd or 3rd place finish). One day per turn, allowing for plenty of time to pay only casual attention to the game. Countries are randomly assigned at game start.

The password is Necromanceries