Diplomacy

First published in 1959 by Games Research, and continuously in print since then--now in a handsome edition from the Avalon Hill division of the Wizards of the Coast division of Hasbro--Diplomacy is both a superb game worth experiencing today, and a design of considerable historical importance.

Most boardgames published prior to Diplomacy were multiplayer, but in most cases, players interacted with each other in rather minor ways. As illustration, consider Monopoly; there's very little you can do to hurt or assist another player, even though you are playing in the same universe.

Diplomacy was the first game in which alliances (and their natural corollary, betrayal) are core to gameplay. Each of the seven powers in the game (England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Russia, and Turkey) strive to conquer more than half the world (a majority of "supply centers"). Since the powers are roughly equivalent in strength, the only way to conquer an enemy is, effectively, by allying with other powers. The key to this dynamic is the "support rule," by which one army or fleet can "support" a move by another into a province--including moves by those of other players. Thus, players both have a compelling reason to combine, and an effective way to assist each other.

Naturally, every player strives to win--so your ally is ultimately your foe, particularly if he looks like becoming more powerful than you.

Diplomacy is played using simultaneous movement; that is, each turn, the players write down their orders, and all are revealed simultaneously, then resolved. This increases the tension (and the effectiveness of betrayal), because you can never be sure your ally is indeed supporting the moves you've coordinated with him--and instead, may be stabbing you in the back even as you rely on his non-existent support.

The game is played on a board that replicates the international borders of Europe in 1914 (though 1900 is the ostensible start date); it is not, however, a simulation in any sense. Rather, it is an abstract strategy game with no random elements that borrows some of the color of military conflict. Considered as a game of abstract strategy, it is a far shallower game than Chess or Go; within a decade of its publication, potential opening moves and their consequences were analyzed in depth. But of course, unlike Chess or Go, victory in Diplomacy does not go to the player who masters the game's strategic implications most fully--but instead to the player who can persuade, lie, and betray at just the right critical moment.

To put it another way, Diplomacy teaches critical life skills. If you are a master of Diplomacy, you have a long and rewarding career ahead of you in sales and marketing. I'm being sarcastic, but I am not joking.

Are there drawbacks to the game? Yes; for one thing, it plays best with the full complement of seven players (anything less almost isn't worth the trouble). For another, a full game will take 6 or more hours, which is a lot to devote to a game in this hectic era. For a third, it often devolves to a stalemate in mid-game (and many strategy articles have been written on containing a player who looks as if he might win by constructing a defensible stalemate line).

Perhaps the greatest drawback is, paradoxically, its greatest triumph; you may feel rather different about your friends once you've played Diplomacy with them. I've seen fist-fights break out over it, and have heard stories of marriages that foundered because of a game of Diplomacy.

Irrelevant personal anecdote: One year in the late 70s or early 80s, I forget exactly when, Ben Grossman and I ran the Diplomacy tournament at Origins. As trophies, we bought some lumber, cut it into lengths the same proportions as the wooden blocks then used for Diplomacy fleets, and spray painted them in the colors then used (so we'd have trophies for "Best Austria," "Best France," and so on). A month or two after the convention, we and a bunch of friends walked down the West Side Highway--an elevated highway that had been condemned but not yet demolished, closed to vehicular traffic but open to cyclists and pedestrians--late at night. We used the leftover spray paint to make graffiti on the tarmac.

We walked all the way down to the Battery, and as we neared the southern tip of Manhattan, we could see, off to our right, a vast field of sand, a rectangular addition to the island, landfill created with the excavation debris from the construction of the World Trade Center complex--and, in New York's era of economic struggle, not yet built upon.

That pile of sand is now Battery Park City. I live atop it.