Make Deals, not War! (Diplomacy)

Member Name: TheChocolateLady

Product:	Diplomacy
Date:	19/07/07 (115 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Teaches strategy, deductive reasoning, planning, and, of course Diplomacy

Disadvantages: Not easy to learn, but once you do... its worth it!

When my son was 13, he got this game as a present from his grandparents (after he had asked for it)! This should be recommendation enough for a game that doesn't have banging and shooting and blood everywhere. Furthermore, it is a BOARD game. No video, no play station, and no computer - this game is played on a table with other human beings. And, believe me, even though it is a military strategy game, this is a addictive game.

The idea of the game is to (of course) take over the world. Now, usually there are dice and lots of chance involved in these types of games (i.e. Risk), but not here. Here you have to decide by writing down your moves on a page, and then, the players' trade papers and read off the moves. When conflict comes, the battle is won or lost depending on the sum total of armies in the two areas - not by a throw of the dice, so there's no chance involved here.

The game has three parts to it. The first part, the diplomacy part, where you decide between the players who you want to align with and who you want to get rid of. To make this most effective, it is best to have as many players as possible. The next part is the movement part where you write down what moves you want to make, like what country is going to attach whom, which are called conflicts. Then you hand your moves over to another player to read out your moves and make your attacks (moving your pieces). If you move where there is another persons' piece, they have to retreat to another area that belongs to them (or an empty one) that boarders on where they were. If there is no other place to move, they lose their 'army'. When all the conflicts are finished, you count up the number of areas you have pieces on and based on that get reinforcements and start all over again. This sounds a lot more complicated than it really is, but the rules explain everything so I wouldn't worry about that.

What really makes this game interesting is the "deals" you can make. For instance, my husband and son made a pact and ended up almost completely removing me from the game (not nice, but who cares, right?)! The whole idea is that the players have to think, take everything into account and even make logical assumptions about how another player may or may not move. Based on that, you place your pieces so that you can get the best results on the next round. In short, you have to use deductive reasoning, and – of course – diplomacy to win this game. Of course, politics is a dirty game, and you will also need to learn the fine arts of subterfuge and double-dealing. For instance, if you see one player is weak in a certain area, you can pretend to make a deal to work with them, while also dealing with someone else to have them attack that person first so it will be easier for you to take over those same areas yourself. Yes, that's teaching you how to lie, but we all know that politicians are liars, and we all know that all is fair in love and war – this being the latter.

The best part of this game is that it's all done with your brain, on a pretty board and without any real violence. I'd say that to master this game properly, you'll need some of the same skills you would use in Chess, which teaches you to think ahead and make decisions based on possible scenarios. Of course, this isn't a game you can play with little kids, and the box says it is for age 12+, which makes sense. Personally, I think that this would appeal mostly to older teenagers as well as adults. I found this a very interesting game and if it sounds good to you, why not go for it... what have you got to lose? (Well, just the world, actually.)

Thanks for reading.

Davida Chazan © June 2000 (for Ciao), updated July 2007

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Technical Stuff:

Diplomacy was developed by Gibsons Games UK, (http://www.gibsonsgames.co.uk/boardgames.shtml). That site instructs you to buy Diplomacy on-line via Mail Order Express UK (http://www.mailorderexpress.com/gibsons/gibsonssh op.html) for £19.99.

I've also seen this sold on eBay from only £1, as well as on Amazon's marketplace, but the only one they had available (at time of writing this review) was going for a hefty £29.90, so I suggest you shop around!
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Summary: Military Strategy Game - wihtout bloodshed!