Dave's Diplomacy Page

Contents

Introduction Inter-game strategy Game phases Pressing strategy Moves strategy Introduction

While I do have ambitions of taking over the world, this page is dedicated to a "board" game from Hasbro called Diplomacy, which simulates the "powdered keg" scenario of Europe at the break of the twentieth century. This game isn't perfect, but I prefer it over other strategy games, such as Risk and Axis and Allies, for several reasons:
  • It is deterministic: No relying on dice rolls
  • It makes sense: Units take time to build. One can't travel across the world in one turn. Bottlenecks in terrain show up. Et cetera.
  • The rules are simple: There's only 4 movement rules, and a handful resolution rules for the game-master.
  • The self-propagation of power is small enough that one needs allies, but large enough that one cannot trust allies who pull ahead too much.

    I've been playing Diplomacy only a little bit more than a year, so I can't claim too much "experience," but I've done relatively well for myself. It's hard to pull together 7 people in real life to play this, so I often play online at DPJudge

    Exactly how well/badly have I done? Well, that's hard to measure, because often games end in draws. So this is the self-evaluation scoring system I came up with:

    Everyone starts at 0 points.
    If you lose a game (i.e. eliminated), you get -1 points to your credit.
    If you're part of the winning crowd (i.e. alive at end of game), then you get +(number of eliminated people in game)/(numbers of winners). So, if you're solo winner of 7 person game, you get 6 points. If you're in a 3-way draw of a 7-person game, you get 4/3 = 1.33 points.
    To consider your "winning ratio," divide your score by the number of games you've played.
    My score and ratio:
    Not including games where the GM abandoned us and games that are still going on, I've been in the following games: pitchblack2(-1), standard6(-1), digitaldip003(+2.5), and strong_powers(+1.5), so my score is +2, and my ratio is 2/4 = 0.5. It's not great, but it's not too bad.

    Inter-game strategy

    What is inter-game strategy? Basically, how's using what happens in one game to affect how events unfold in another game. Now, most people pretty much have no inter-game strategy, and some inter-game strategies are strictly forbidden (for example "buddying"). The strategy I use is generally accepted to be OK, though it is frowned upon by a few players.

    What is it? It's reputation-building. Basically, I create a very distinct "style" by which I press, so that other players can recognize me immediately, even if I don't recognize them. For example, I start every press with "Hi" and end it signing "Dave." Then, during all my games, I play the honorable tactician, being loyal long-term allies and never stabbing. Then, eventually I'll get around to playing with some of the same people again, and when that happens, they will recognize me by my press and be more likely to form a lasting alliance. The only drawback to this strategy is that one would have to *ALWAYS* play the honorable tactician, which will drastically reduce the number of solo victories.

    Assume that there are two types of players, "Honorable" and "Machiavellian." Who would they want to ally with? The obvious answer in both cases is "Honorable," since the honorable player doesn't want to be stabbed, and the Machiavellian player wants an easy stab target without worrying about being stabbed himself. So by unequivocally declaring myself to everyone as an honorable player, I endear myself to all players, from which I can choose the most competent to ally myself with. So the question is: do I really want to ally with a Machiavellian player, even if he's good?

    The answer actually is Yes. Why? Because the first part of the game is to insure that you become a strong player towards the end, and for that you want a competent ally. Even Machiavellian players won't betray their alliances too early, because that would just expose them to the rest of the board that they can't be trusted. Ok, then what about the endgame? Being Honorable doesn't mean stupid. Even though you have no plans of stabbing your ally, you must always guard your borders with a little ingenuity so that a surprise attack from a trusted ally can do no more than 2 units of damage (preferably no more than 1). Assuming you do so correctly, it will be unlikely for you to end up loser even if you happen to find yourself allied to a stabber... you should be able to arrange things into a 3-way draw.

    Game Phases

    The Phases are completely artificially created by me, so don't hold to scientific accuracy.

    There are three qualitatively different phases of the game: Early, Mid, and Endgame. The strategies for each of these are different.

    Early game: This usually refers to the first 4 turns of a standard game, or 6/8 of a larger map variant (Imperial/Empires). The early game is characterized usually by a majority of powers expanding for neutral centers, with maybe minority of powers sacrificing a little of expansion for better positioning to attack an opponent. Intentions are easy to read at this stage. The most important advice I can give to a Dip player is to NOT BE TOO GREEDY in this phase. I learned this myself the hard way--grab 3 centers the first year and another 1 or 2 the second, and everyone will want a piece of you. This ends up in a "Crusade" scenario which is very bad for you, because you don't have the actual power with only 7/8 units to fend it off for long enough.

    Mid game: In my opinion, the mid-game is the most fun part of the whole game. Usually denoting turns 5-10, the mid-game sees the elimination of 1-2 weak powers, and sees the rise of 1-2 strong powers. Intentions are difficult to read in this phase, and a lot of "hidden alliances" declared from the very start are revealed now. There is a rampant rush to greatness, because in >80% of the time, the leader(s) of the board at the end of the mid-game will win at the end.

    Endgame: This part can be painstakingly boring to draw to a conclusion, although surprises happen once in a while. In general, the leaders at the end of midgame convene for a draw and work to eliminate the weaker players, or the single leader of the board in midgame stabs his allies for a quick gain and then goes against the rest of the world.
    Game Patterns

    Early game:

    England+France vs Germany:
    England+Italy vs France England+Germany vs Russia Austria+Russia vs Turkey Russia+Turkey vs Austria Pressing Strategies

    First, there are some general rules of thumb, which apply to dealing with people in real life as well as in the game:

    1. Sound decisive. Especially when you're not. Nothing exudes weakness more than the lack of ability to reach a decision--that decision can be retracted later, but there must always seem to be a plan, to inspire a strong following.
    2.