Board Meeting

Board Meeting: Diplomacy

Diplomacy was actually created in 1959 by the great minds at Avalon Hill, but Hasbro/Avalon Hill re-released it in 1999. The newer version is the subject of this review. It is a game of pure negotiation, relying on your skill to make alliances and deceive your opponents in order to conquer the most territory in Europe. The game is set in World War I-era Europe, and each player takes control of one of the following countries: France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Britain, Russia, Turkey, and Italy. Players move their army and navy pieces around in attempts to gain more territory, and make deals and create strategy in between rounds.

The newest edition comes with nicely painted metal ships and tanks (matching the countries’ colors) to represent the military pieces, and the game board is very colorful and easy to understand. You’ll need paper and something to write with to put down your moves for each spring/fall round, as the game doesn’t come with such things, although it does contain maps for scratch pads and country tiles to help remember who controls what supply center.  I suppose you might use the maps for moves, but that might be a little crowded.

The game can get rather tricky to fathom in its later stages, and it’s a very intellectual exercise, as a player has to maintain his alliances and deals, watch to see if his opponents are allying or if his allies are betraying him, and strategizing on what supply centers to strive toward.

The game is the most fun when played with a full complement of seven players, although it can be played with as little as two players. It gets to be a really fun game for a group of board game geeks – even people you just talk into playing should get really into the game, as the biggest part of the play tends to be the human interaction.

Diplomacy is quite possibly my favorite strategy based board game ever, mostly because of the political element to the play. The great thing about the game is that pretty much anyone can learn how to play, as the rules aren’t all that complicated. A session of the game can get somewhat long, but as engrossed in the game as I get, I have never noticed the length. I once played a full game with a bunch of people from my floor during my first year of college that took weeks.  We would do spring move in the morning, fall move in the evening and the rest of the day was for conniving.  If you are looking for a good board game to play with a good sized group of people and you enjoy strategy games, stop here first.