Diplomacy is a game of skill rather then
luck, in which each player represents a European power in the
late 19th century. Playing Diplomacy successfully will require
skilled negotiations and an ability to plan complex strategies.
I. Players
and Countries and the Object of the Game
II.
Diplomacy and Negotiations
III.
Supply Centers
IV. The Playing Board
V. Writing Your Moves/Move Order
VI. Battles/Conflicts
VII. Support
VIII. Cutting Support
IX. Retreats
X. Convoys
XI. Gaining and Losing Units
Basic
Rules
The object of the game is simple: the
team that gains the most Supply Centers by the end of class
wins.
A large part of Diplomacy is the
ability for players to make secret agreements and pacts. The
idea is to add another dimension to the game involving trickery
and deception. Any agreement made does not have to be kept,
in other words: lying, cheating, spreading rumors, trading
information and things like that are not only allowed but
encouraged.
Some places on the board contain black
circles which represent Supply Centers. There are 34 in all and
each one can support an army or a fleet (called units; these are
the only units in the game). The amount of units you have
fluctuates with the amount of Supply Centers you have.
The playing board (supplied in the map
you need to download for class) consists of countries,
provinces, and bodies of water. Countries are separated by thick
black lines and are subdivided into provinces. Every body of
water and every province is a space.
The units in Diplomacy consist of
armies and fleets. On a real playing board armies are
represented by squares or stars or whatever and fleets are
represented by long blocks or little ships or whatever, but on
the maps at this site they are both represented by a province
filled with the color of their respective players.
At the start of each game every
country has three supply centers, and three units, except for
Russia which has four. Every supply center has a unit in it,
whether army or fleet. The starting position is:
|
England (Dark Blue) |
F London |
F Edinburgh |
A Liverpool |
|
Germany (Black) |
A Berlin |
A Munich |
F Kiel |
|
Russia (White) |
A Moscow |
A Warsaw |
F St. Petersburg (sc) F
Sevastopol |
|
Turkey (Yellow) |
A Constantinople |
A Smyrna |
F Ankara |
|
Austria-Hungary (Red) |
A Vienna |
A Budapest |
F Trieste |
|
Italy (Green) |
A Rome |
A Venice |
F Naples |
|
France (Light Blue) |
A Paris |
A Marseilles |
F Brest |
There are twelve supply centers not listed
here which remain independent at the start of the game. (A
represents an army and F represents a fleet.)
Only one unit can occupy one province
or one body of water at once and a unit can only do one thing a
turn. An army can be ordered to hold, move or support while a
fleet can move, hold, or convoy. An army can move to any
adjacent province unless there is a unit in conflict with it and
a fleet can move into any body of water or coastal province that
is adjacent to it as long as it is not in conflict with another
unit. No unit may move into one of those unnamed islands or
anything else that isn't named. When a fleet is in a coastal
province it may move to another coastal province as long as
those provinces are adjacent along the coastlines.
Your team's moves are generally a
secret. If you submit an order that makes no sense then the
order isn't followed and that unit or those units just stay put.
If you make a mistake, too bad. Try to be careful when you
submit your moves (to me, in written form) because sloppiness
can obviously hurt you. Each turn lasts five minutes.
If two or more units are ordered to be
in the same space, none of them can. Likewise, if a unit tries
to move into a space but cannot another unit trying to move into
the space that the first unit tried to leave cannot enter. Also,
if two units try to move into each others spaces then neither of
them can move. These three situations are called stand-offs.
These rules apply to both armies and fleets.
A unit has the ability to support
another unit when its moving or staying still. If a unit is a
supporting a another unit in moving then the supporting unit
must be in a space adjacent to both the space where the unit is
and where its going. Put simply, to support you have to be
next to the unit and next to where its going. The letter
S represents support. For example a moving unit's orders could
be: A Try-Mun, and a supporting
unit's orders could be:
A Bur S A Try-Mun. A unit
can also support units of another country. That's always handy
and you can write it by inserting the name of the country after
the letter S, A Bur
S Russian A Try-Mun. A fleet can only give support
into a coastal province and an army cannot support into an
ocean.
When a unit moves it moves with the
force of one unit. But if it is supported it moves with the
force of itself plus all supporting unit. If a unit moves into
conflict with another unit and it has more force then the unit
it is "attacking" it can make its move and it dislodges the unit
that was there. A draw in force goes to the defender. This is
the principle behind attacking and gaining your 18 supply
centers which is the goal of the game. Here are some examples.
|
ENGLAND: F Den-Kie, F
Nth-Den, F Hel S F Nth-Den |
|
RUSSIA: A Ber-Kie, F Bal S
F Ska-Den |
|
Underlined moves fail. |
England cannot dislodge its own unit, but
its supported attack on Denmark is sufficient to stand off the
supported Russian attack on the same space.
|
FRANCE: A Bur Holds |
|
GERMANY: A Mun-Bur,
A Kie S Austrian A Boh-Mun |
|
AUSTRIA: A Boh-Mun |
|
Underlined moves fail. |
The German support for the Austrian unit
does not enable it to advance so as to dislodge a German unit.
What do you do if your about to be
out-forced in an attack? If a unit that is giving support is
attacked or dislodged then its support is undone or cut.
When a unit becomes displaced it must
retreat. A unit can retreat to any adjacent space with a few
exceptions. A unit cannot retreat to a space where another unit
is present or where the attacker came from or a space that is
empty because of a standoff. If a unit cannot retreat, it must
be disbanded.
Fleets have the ability to convoy
armies across bodies of water. The mechanics of writing convoys
the fleet are F (where
the fleet is) C A (Original Location)-(New Location)
and for the army being convoyed,
A (Original Location)-(New
Location).
Fleets can convoy foreign armies but can only
convoy one unit at a time and only once a turn. An army may be
convoyed across multiple bodies of water as long as there are
fleets convoying in every body of water that the army is passing
over.
The number of units a team has is
directly proportional to the number of supply centers that they
control. To control a supply center all the team needs to do is
occupy it during winter (after the fall turn, or every second
turn). Once a team has control they no longer need to stay on
that space, but you lose control if another team manages to
place a unit in the supply center during winter.
After the fall turn is complete every team must have the
same number of supply centers as units. If the team has lost
supply centers then that team must pick which units they want to
disband until the number is equal. If a team has gained supply
centers then they are allowed to build new units in their home
or original supply centers until they number of supply centers
and units is equal. If they have lost all their home supply
centers then they cannot build any units. Also you can't build
more units then you have have home supply centers.
1. Basic Rules
a. Unit
aa. Fleet
aaa. can move between bodies of water
bbb. can move into coastal provinces
ccc. can support an action into a coastal
province
ddd. can transport an army across bodies of
water (if attacked, convoy fails)
eee. cannot move across land
fff. cannot support & convoy at the same time
bb. Army
aaa. can move across land
bbb. can support other units
ccc. needs assistance to traverse bodies of
water.
b. Engagement
aa. each unit has an effective force of one (1)
bb. a defender is only moved by greater force
cc. a defender who is forced to retreat cannot
retreat to where he was attacked from.
dd. if equal force is applied to a zone, the zone
remains vacant.
c. Builds
aa. take place in Winter of each year
bb. can only take place in empty home supply
centers.