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[FearfulJesuit]

FALL 1902 ORDERS DUE 3:30 PM GST, DECEMBER 6TH

It would seem that if you just click reply to my reminders to everyone to send your orders in, everyone can see them. Fix this by sending a separate private message to me containing your orders. I believe that fixes it.

Current map:


I've been itching to get a game of Diplomacy started here for a while. We'll want seven players, including me, I suppose, since we can have an electronic game-master. Who'd be up for it?

I will assign countries randomly.

EDIT: Alright, we've got players! It looks like I'm going to have to be the GM, here, and therefore not play. That's fine; if this goes well then we can always play another game with another one of us as game-masters.

1. GreatWyrmGold
2. javierpwn
3. mcclay
4. misko27
5. Gamerlord
6. scapheap
7. Reelya

Here's how I'm going to have it set up, if y'all don't mind. Here are the turns in each year:

1. Spring orders; you will all have 36 hours to send these in.
2. Spring retreats; 18 hours.
3. Fall orders; another 36 hours.
4. Fall retreats and builds; 18 hours.

If that doesn't sound like enough time, let me know and I'll beef it up to 48-24-48-24. Please note that as soon as I have everyone's orders for each step I will send out a private message and the clock will reset, so although I will allow up to 36 hours, if everyone finishes their diplomatizing and sends in their orders within 12 hours, I will send out a PM saying "thank you, please send in your retreats in [18 hours from now]." I will then post a map with the results, plus a list of orders, on this topic.

As the GM, I would like to note that I'm really just a secretary. Any means, fair or foul, other than hacking another player's account (you know, don't awaken the mighty Toad), are valid. The ability to form temporary alliances to a common end is essential. So is backstabbing your partner when they have outlived their usefulness. We have a saying in this game: there are two bywords for losing. The first is complete honesty, and the second is complete dishonesty. And believe me, it is hilarious when (as has happened to me) a complicated plot stretching across half the board and centered on Turkey's taking Rumania falls into chaos because Germany decided to be a backstabbing twat and cut Austrian support from Galicia. (I was Germany. Two years later, I'd lost all my home bases and was reduced to a puppet state in Warsaw and Moscow. It was hilarious, but it doesn't always pay off- although in this case, it had more to do with British expansion than anything else.)

Because most of y'all are new, I'll go into more detail on orders. Firstly, ORDERS NEED TO BE UNAMBIGUOUS. Because of this, and because there are greenhorns here, I am going to say that players are not allowed to use abbreviations. Seasoned veterans can and usually do write orders like F EDI -> NTH, and are good enough that they know they're sending their fleet in Edinburgh to the North Sea, but the problem with abbreviations is that, well, sometimes people mix them up, and if I got an absurdity like F NOR -> NOR I will just ignore it; I'm not going to play the clairvoyant and move your fleet in Norway to the North Sea. Therefore, PLEASE WRITE YOUR ORDERS OUT MORE OR LESS IN FULL. What I want is something like:

A Edinburgh TO North Sea
F Kiel SUPPORTS [F North Sea TO Holland] (strictly speaking the brackets are not needed, but they're good book-keeping).

There are a couple quirks that need to be understood about orders and supports. Firstly, there are three coastal provinces on the map that have split coasts: Spain, St. Petersburg and Bulgaria. Spain and St. Petersburg have a south and a north coast; Bulgaria has a south and an east coast. Basically, these arise when the coastline is not entirely contiguous. When moving into them with a fleet (and with a fleet only- armies don't care), please- for good book-keeping- specify which coast you're moving them into, like so: F Portugal TO Spain [sc]: move my fleet in Portugal to the south coast of Spain. If you write F Portugal TO Spain, I won't know which coast you mean, and make you hold in Portugal.

Now, onto supports. You need a numerical advantage to take a province, so first let me explain bounces. If one unit opposes one unit, they will bounce. For example, if you had an army in Prussia that you tried to move to Warsaw, and there was a Russian army holding in Warsaw, they will just both hold, because neither has the advantage. This is also true when two units try to move into the same province. Let's say Galicia is unoccupied; Russia orders A Warsaw TO Galicia and Austria orders A Budapest TO Galicia. Because neither can get into the province without being bothered, and the province can only hold one unit at a time, they will hold in Budapest and Warsaw, and Galicia will remain unoccupied. You can only support movement into an adjacent province.

So how do you take a province? Through support. Any unit can support any attack on an adjacent province to it. For example, if Germany had an army in Prussia and one in Silesia, it could move A Prussia TO Warsaw and A Silesia SUPPORTS [A Prussia TO Warsaw]; then the forces are 2 vs. 1. Prussia will successfully move to Warsaw, and the army in Warsaw will be dislodged. It will have to move to an adjacent unoccupied province that it could have moved into at the start of the turn- so not the newly unoccupied Prussia, and also, by the way, not any province that is vacant but only because of a standoff. However, if Warsaw were supported to hold from A Moscow, then it would be 2 vs. 2, and everyone would hold.

There's also the matter of cutting support. Let's say Russia had an alliance with Austria, and Austria had an army in Galicia. Russia is going to lose Warsaw from Prussia and Silesia, but Austria moves A Galicia TO Silesia. It doesn't actually matter if Silesia is the army supporting or attacking. In either case, in the course of defending itself, it can no longer support or attack; then it's simply a matter of 1 vs. 1 on Warsaw; everyone holds. This can lead to some fun domino situations where half the map is tied up in a convoluted plot for someone to take just one province, which then fall apart hilariously when someone decides to be a backstabbing twat and cut one piece of vital support. (I did that once when playing Germany...two years later, I was reduced to a rump state in Russia and had lost all my home provinces).

There are a few quirks in support. Firstly, if you're being attacked, you can't cut support to that attack on you. Warsaw cannot move into Silesia to cut the support and then expect to be in a 1 on 1 standoff with Prussia and hold.

In addition, fleets can move only into adjacent coastal provinces and sea provinces. Landlocked provinces are a no-no. They can also support an attack on an adjacent coastal province, but not an adjacent landlocked one. For example, if Germany had a fleet in Prussia instead of an army, it could support an attack on Berlin, but not on Warsaw. Strangely, this holds even if it's a move into another coast. For example, if Britain and Germany were in a marriage of convenience against Russia, and Britain had a fleet in Norway, while Germany had a fleet in the Gulf of Bothnia, then Britain could order F Norway TO St. Petersburg [nc] and Germany write F Gulf of Bothnia SUPPORTS [F Norway TO St. Petersburg [nc]], even though the Gulf of Bothnia is only adjacent to the south coast.

The last thing to talk about is convoys. Let's suppose Britain has an army in London, and a fleet in the North Sea, and Norway is unoccupied. It can write A London TO Norway and F North Sea CONVOYS [A London TO Norway]. If you're trying to dislodge someone, note that the fleet doesn't enter the calculations, just the army. If there's a Russian army in Norway at the time, then everyone bounces and everyone holds. But you can support: if Britain also has a fleet in the Norwegian Sea, it can F Norwegian Sea SUPPORTS [A London TO Norway], and dislodge Russia.

Finally, be very wary about losing supply centers. After the Fall turn, during the retreats stage, you also take stock of how many new supply centers you've gained: that's how many you hold at the end of Fall, plus any that you don't have occupied at the time, but that nobody else has moved into. Then, if you have
-as many units as supply centers, nothing happens.
-more supply centers than you do units, you may order the difference to be built, but only in an unoccupied home supply center (one you owned at the start of the game) that you still occupy. For example, if Germany has 4 units out but owns 6 supply centers, he may build (for example) a fleet in Berlin and an army in Kiel, if he doesn't have any units in those provinces already.
-more units then you have supply centers, OUCH! You must disband units until they are equal. You get to choose which units to disband, though.

You are eliminated when you have no units left, of course.

I forgot this, so I'll just stick this in here: Kiel and Constantinople are canals. That means that if there are no units in those provinces, then a fleet in the Helgoland Bight can move straight to the Baltic Sea (if Kiel is unoccupied), or vice versa, and a fleet in the Black Sea can move to the Aegean (if Constantinople is unoccupied), or vice versa. It doesn't matter whether the unit occupying the province is of the same or a different nation as the fleet trying to get through; if it's occupied it can't get through.

And now, THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR.

GreatWyrmGold is playing Russia.

javierpwn is playing Italy.

mcclay is playing Britain.

Misko27 is playing Turkey.

Gamerlord is playing Austria.

scapheap is playing France.

And that means that:

Reelya is playing Germany.

[GreatWyrmGold]

How do you play?

[javierpwn]

I would also be curious on how to play

[mcclay]

I wisht to be Britain! Also I know how to play (kinda)

[FearfulJesuit]

For those of you not in the know: imagine Risk meets Chess. You're playing as one of seven Powers in Europe just before World War One, trying to win by taking control of at least half the "supply centers" on the board. This is what the board looks like:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The catch is that there isn't any chance involved at all, except who's assigned to what country at the beginning, which I think we want. If something happens in-game, there were conscious player decisions involved. In some ways, that means it's even more unpredictable than chance: a die is just an innocent die, but your opponents' minds lead themselves to bluff, double bluff, and second-guessing.

Gameplay is fairly simple. There are two sorts of units: fleets and armies. Armies can be in any land space on the board, fleets in any ocean space or coastal province. Switzerland is impassable. At any given point, only one unit may occupy each region.

Now, here's the trick. Before each turn, you send in an order for each unit you have. So let's say you're Germany, and you send in the order A BERLIN -> PRUSSIA: move the army in Berlin to Prussia. That's all well and good. But if Prussia is occupied by another unit that turn, they will bounce, and nothing happens. Likewise, if Prussia were unoccupied but Russia's army in Warsaw tried to move into it, they would also bounce.

So how do you make the game interesting, you ask? Well, the answer is that units can support each other. Suppose that Russia had an army in Warsaw, and Germany had armies in Prussia and Silesia; Prussia sends in an order to move to Warsaw, Silesia sends in an order to support Warsaw, and the Russian army in Warsaw has orders to hold. Because two armies are more than one, that army is dislodged- ie it must either be disbanded or move to an unoccupied adjacent province. Now, this would mean that you'd be sending units on a wild goose chase around the map until they were cornered, but after each Fall turn (there are Spring and Fall turns), supply centers are counted up and redivvied, and you may only have as many units as you have supply centers. So if you can conquer a supply center, that's a unit its previous holder will likely have to disband.

The real genius of the game is that the true skill is above the game board, because units can support units of different nations, and there's always the chance to try an alliance. But there is of course a problem: I need your help to achieve this objective, which may benefit you as well, but it puts me that much closer to winning, so why should you help me, again? Being able to ally, and then backstab and lie, are essential. This means that the players will probably be sending each other private messages like mad. So it's being a diplomat, not a tactician, that is essential.

[javierpwn]

Ill try a hand

[misko27]

ME!  I've always wanted to play!

[Gamerlord]

I'll give it a shot.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Why not, I'm game.

[scapheap]

player inbound

[Reelya]

I'm pretty much up on Diplomacy rules, used to own a physical copy.

put me on the list - i think that makes 7, assuming the GM isn't a player??

What kind of time period for moves do you have in mind? coz it's not the same game unless people have time to plan together and double-cross each other.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Cool, we're starting. Dibs on Japan!
No, I'm not serious.

[Reelya]

lol @ "Japan".

Take Austria-Hungary, it's a sure winner. Second best is Italy.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Examining the map, I think I'd prefer Italy.

It seems to be the South America of Europe.

[misko27]

I will assign countries randomly.