The year is 1900. A nexus of twisting alliances and interlocking treaties has created a precarious geopolitical situation. Young powers are eager to test their mettle, old ones to expand their greatness. Tension mounts every day... and that's just from Skitzophrenik nagging me to run this thing.

As some of you may already know, Diplomacy is a classic board game about the Great War, taking place enough before it actually begins to make things interesting. What makes it special? First, there is only one piece of randomness involved: Which country you start as. Second, it's a game that encourages, nay requires, careful networks of alliances tempered with a regular dose of treachery and backstabbing. Third... How many board games that can destroy friendships, marriages, and even lives do you know of?

The rules are simple, for certain definitions of the word simple. You start off as one of seven countries - England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Turkey, and Russia. A map - http://www.diplom.org/Online/maps/map_c.gif - shows where each country is located, as well as what spaces it controls. Each country starts with three units, except for Russia, which has four. Units can be armies, which travel along the land, or fleets, which travel along the seas and coastlines. Each unit can take one of four actions per phase: Move, Support, Convoy, Hold.

Holding is the most basic action. A unit that holds does absolutely nothing - it does not move, nor does it give support, nor does it convoy. All it does is take up space in its current province. Note that units which convoy and hold also do this, so it may be better to pick one of those options.

Moving moves the unit from one province to any adjacent province which it may legally move to. Armies cannot move into sea provinces, fleets cannot move into non-coastal land provinces, or through land in a coastal province with two separate coasts, such as St Petersburg. However, both may move into and through Denmark, Kiel (it has a waterway), and Constantinople, as well as from Denmark to Sweden. Lastly, neither may move into Ireland, Switzerland, or Siberia (or Iceland, but who cares?). Movement ordinarily requires that the unit be the only unit in that province at any given time - if another unit is already in that province, it "bounces," and it wastes its action. If two or more units attempt to move into the same province, or attempt to trade provinces with each other, all "bounce," and are unsuccessful. However...

...Support assists an adjacent unit in its attempts to move into another province, or keep another unit from moving into its province. A unit may only support another unit's movement if it may move into the same province as the unit is supporting, and may only support it staying in its current location (be it a unit which is holding, supporting another unit, or conveying another unit) if it could move into the same province as that unit. Fleets, therefore, cannot support an army's move into a landlocked province, even if the army is adjacent to the fleet. Notably, however, units of one nation may support units of another nation!
If the number of units supporting a move are less than or equal to the number supporting the opposing action, then nothing happens - the moving piece bounces once again. However, if more units support the move than the opposing action, then the piece moves where it's trying to move, and the other piece is dislodged. If the losing piece was attempting to move, it bounces. If it was holding, then it must immediately move to an adjacent province that it could legally move to, provided 1) that province is empty, 2 )it was not left empty because of an unsuccessful attempt to move there, and 3) it was not the province it was just attacked from. If there are no such locations, then the unit disbands, removing it from the map.
Support can be broken, however! If another unit attempts to attack a supporting unit, and that attack comes from a different location than the space it is supporting, it is no longer able to maintain support. Number of supporting units decreases by one, with an appropriate effect on move attempts. This applies even if the unit attacking it does not dislodge it, or is itself dislodged.

So, as an example: If Austria and Italy are both attempting to move into Venezia, both bounce and their move fails. If Austria has a unit in Vienna support one in Trieste, Italy bounces and Austria's Triestian unit moves. If Germany supports Italy from Munich, however, then the two bounce again... unless France has a unit in Burgundy which it uses to attack the German unit, causing Germany's support to fail. This would apply even if Germany had a unit in the Ruhr moving into Burgundy with support from a unit in Belgium. However, the unit from Burgandy cannot break this attack by trying to move into the Ruhr or into Belgium.

Support is absolutely necessary if you actually want to do anything in this game! Learn it, know it, love it.

Finally, fleets (and only fleets) may convoy. You note earlier that I indicated that an army cannot move into the ocean. However, with the aid of a fleet, they may move across water, from one coastal province to another. Fleets may act as a convoy in order to move an army from any province they are adjacent to, to any province they are adjacent to. This action may be chained without limit - each fleet carries the army to another fleet, until it finally reaches the coastal province of its choice. Unlike support, this cannot be disrupted by attacks which do not dislodge one of the fleets... however, if any fleet is dislodged, the entire convoy breaks down, and the move fails.

The game consists of one turn per year, with each turn consisting of three phases. At the end of the fall, any units in province not previously belonging to them conquer that province, giving it to the player in control of that unit. Most of the time, this has no real effect. However, as you may have noticed, certain province have little circles in them. Those provinces are called supply centers, and they are vital to winning the game. For each supply center a player controls, they may control one unit, army or fleet. This is why Russia has four units - it starts with four supply centers.

Each conquered supply center, accordingly, gives the player the ability to create a new unit during the winter phase between years. Three newly conquered supply centers, three new units. There is a caveat, however - new units may only be created in one of the supply centers originally controlled by that player. Therefore, Turkey can theoretically create up to three new units if it captures enough territory... however, if Constantinople has a unit in it, or was captured by Italy, it may only create two units this winter, and must wait until next winter to create that third unit. This means that if a player's home supply centers are all conquered, it is incapable of further growth until it takes its territory back.

The converse is also true - if a country loses supply centers, it must disband its extra units. The player chooses which units are disbanded however they so desire. If a player runs out of supply centers, they must disband all of their units, which means they are out of the game.

A more in-depth discussion of the rules is available here: http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/diplomacy.pdf . If you have any questions about the rules, feel free to ask me.

Next: So why does it matter?

So, why is the game called diplomacy instead of "bizarre little war game?" Because of the diplomacy. Unless I have a strong demand otherwise, each turn is going to take place over one week. On Monday, Spring begins. On Thursday, Fall begins. Finally, on Sunday, the winter begins. During those days, players are free to interact however they so desire - public posts to the board, private messages, instant messenger, carrier pigeon. My only request is that you get the transcripts for me... hey, how else am I supposed to have fun with this game? Anyway, unlike the gameplay aspect of the game, the diplomacy phase has only a single rule: have fun. You may make promises, you may break promises. You may lie, you may threaten, you may cajole, you may place voodoo curses on each other. Just don't break the ToS, and try not to have any hard feelings - it's only a game.

Nothing that you say to anyone has any effect on your movement - that, you relay to me via orders via PM that MUST be received by 23:59 EST the day before the next phase begins. Therefore, I must have Spring orders by 23:59 EST on Wednesday, Fall orders 23:59 EST on Saturday, and Winter orders 23:59 EST on Sunday. Any orders not received by then will be ignored, and you will enter a period of (hopefully) brief civil disorder, where all of your units hold. This is a very good way to get conquered, so if you think you can't post, get them to me early. If any units are dislodged, then get those orders to me ASAP - if they're not in my inbox by the time I get home from work Thursday or wake up Sunday (or 12:00 EST, if I actually wake up for once), they disband.

Orders are to be mailed to me via PM in the following format, with anything not in the following format ignored. One line per order, one order per line.
Movement: X Pr1-Pr2, where X is A for an Army or F for a Fleet, and Pr# is the three-letter abbreviation code for that Province, as seen on the map (or the first three letters if there is no code). Examples: A War-Pru (the army in Warsaw is moving into Prussia); F Hol-Nth (the fleet in Holland is moving into the North Sea)
Support: X Pr1 S Y Pr2-Pr3, where X and Y are A or F, as above, and Pr# is also as above. Note that if there is no corresponding move (either your own or another player's), this will fail. Example: A Tyr S A Boh-Mun (The army in Tyrolia is supporting the army in Bohemia's move into Munich)
Convoy: F Pr2 C A Pr1-Pr3. Note that, once again, if there is no corresponding move (either your own or another player's), this will fail. Example: F Mid C A Spa-Bre (The fleet in the Mid Atlantic is convoying the army in Spain to Brest).
Disband: X Pro D. Note that this may only be done if you have been dislodged - you cannot disband at any other time. Example: A Ste D
Building: X Pro. Example: A Mos
Note that orders must be in a PM, with the title of "X Orders Y 19ZZ" without quotes, where X is your country, Y is Fall, Fall Retreat, Spring, Spring Retreat, or Winter, and ZZ is the current turn. So, if you're Russia, I expect to see Russia Orders Spring 1901 from you on your first turn. Anything in an improper format will be assumed to be chatter to me, which I will duly read for my own amusement and otherwise ignore. If you give me the wrong phase, I will count them as being orders for the future (if appropriate) or a sad dream to change the past (if appropriate).

Orders may of course be revised as long as the deadline has not expired.

So, let's see if we can get seven of you guys interested in playing. I'm intending to start this game next Monday, unless I somehow get 7 players signing up in an hour. Sound good?

Uh, duh. I am so in this it isn't even funny.

Well, duh. You're the one nagging me to run it, after all.

Feel free to request a specific country, and put down a country you really don't want to play as. I won't do anything about it, but I will at least have a good laugh when you get it.

I have my own personal preferences, which I will no air. It is easy to guess my least favorite countries, if you've played before.

I'll be honest, I've never played as England, and I have an inkling of an inspiration there. But I'll really only be unhappy with one of the seven possibilities.

What the hell? I'll play, naturally. Give me a hat!

Considering all past games of Diplomacy have ended with every other player deciding my complete lack of experience at having ever played Diplomacy coupled with my painfully apparent honesty and trustworthiness made me the most dangerous player who must therefore be eliminated first, I will be waiting to see who becomes the butt-monkey while I sit this one out.

So shall I put you on the list to take over for the first player to enter permanent civil disorder?

Also, given that I forgot to note this earlier: There are two possible victory conditions. First, Conquest. If one player controls a majority of the supply centers in the game, or is the only surviving player, he wins. Since there are 34 supply centers, a majority constitutes 18. Second, Peace. If ALL remaining players send me orders with the appropriate subject line for the upcoming phase, consisting of NOTHING other than "Declares Peace," the game ends. They all split the victory, which isn't as good as winning it on your lonesome, but is better than being one of the losers who got eliminated. Notably, if one player defects, changes their orders, or screws it up, peace will not be declared.

As a fiat rule, peace cannot be declared before SOMEONE is eliminated. Come on now, that'd just be ridiculous. Conquest... if you can figure out how to do it without any elimination, I'd like to see it.

If it's going to be an official rule that teams of players can win the game, then I'm going to withdraw my name from the hat to play.

That is not how a game of global domination is supposed to work.

-_-;

Will you be happy if I call it a draw instead of a win, like the game itself does? After all, I made it nice and easy to backstab people trying to declare it...

I would never consider a game where more than three powers remain "finished" by any definition.

I'd like to play!

I echo Skitz's sentiment, except with two powers instead of three.

(ETA: I'm not trying to be pithy, really. The three-person team that never betrayed one another and had no intention of betraying one another was the main reason I didn't really enjoy the first game of Diplomacy I played. Everything in the rules should be written as distinctly to discourage that behavior as possible.)

Personally, I dislike the double. With two you each have 17 and then its "what are neither of you good enough to get one more?" The triple is a time tested result. When I'm at my PC I'll find statistics.

Here are the results. Both Mathew Self's analysis, which is famous in the hobby and reprinted at the Diplomatic Pouch, and further analysis on some blog.

As you can see, the single (the Win) is most common (50% or so of games), with the triple half as common (26%), and the double half again as common as that (12%) based on the 635 recorded games Self analyzed. The blog looks at statistics from four times as many and finds the percentages are similar.

I can see why Grillick is annoyed, though. So would I be. But that's Diplomacy. When we play, I'll be your ally Grillick, unless I don't have to, and only until it becomes advantageous for me to stab you. And I expect the same behavior from all of you.

I'll play if everyone makes the same promise that Skitz made.