When I was at my last gig we had a very active board game community and Diplomacy was eventually brought out. We played twice while I was there and it sowed an unbelievable amount of enmity and discord. It was incredibly fun.
The first time we played a majority of the players had never played before. We got through one "year" a week, with Spring and Autumn troop movements due by the end of the day on Tuesday and Thursday respectively. Then we'd resolve conflicts and submit build or retreat orders. Then we'd plot.
It was really fun but I think it was too fun - I think office productivity seriously suffered for it. Especially considering the amount of time we spent thinking/scheming/talking versus the scarce minutes in the evening actually "playing" the game. Still an amazingly well balanced game once you understand the subtleties. I fared extremely poorly by treating it like Risk and being far too aggressive. On my second playthrough I became much more docile and cooperative, and was thoroughly stabbed in the back for being so trusting.
We had a game of it erupt at my office as well. I wasn't even an actual player to the game but had _far_ too much fun seeding discontent among the alliances and feeding real/fake information to the other players (all good friends of mine).
The best is when someone actually got betrayed and then I'd get to say "I TOLD YOU THEY'D DO THAT!"
Here at Standard Treasury, for awhile we had exactly six people. We played a bunch of Diplomacy games on http://www.playdiplomacy.com/ (terrible site). It was really fun, but terribly time consuming. We eventually stopped because six games over six months with the same six people is a little much.
Considering the age and popularity of the game, I'm surprised we haven't seen a solid boxed-set that includes alternate maps for different playercounts. I would expect the mechanics to work fine with any group large-enough for flowing alliances (5+) so it should be possible to design boards that work well with anywhere from 5-12 players.
The WW1-era setting of the game is interesting but really isn't essential.
But if course, this is exactly the kind of hardcore game that attracts hidebound players who scream bloody murder at things like alternate maps.
I hope you won't mind if I promote my site, http://backstabbr.com. We felt like none of the other Diplomacy sites on the Internet had a modern interface (and they weren't compatible with mobile phones) so we set out to fix that. We also have a Sandbox that you can use to play around with potential moves. If you give it a shot, I'd be eager to hear your feedback. Thanks!
I'm going to need to actually see how the controls work during play, but signup and creation are far better than any of the other web judges I've played under. Good job!
The Sandbox is definitely where I'd recommend you start. It'll give you an immediate feel for how everything other than press works. (And the press is pretty straightforward.)
Well, our website is only partially responsive (if that's what you mean) but you can definitely use the site from any of the major phone platforms. To the best of my knowledge, none of the other online Diplomacy sites are fully playable via phone.
And yes, the game is fully implemented. We lack a lot of the alternate rules and maps you can find on other sites, but our goal was to make the best possible experience for the core game instead of trying to cater to all the variations.
I'm afraid so. We presently use Google exclusively for user management. For whatever it's worth, the only thing we take from your profile is your email address.
When you look at the resolve phase, to have the lines/units tween into their new position (or bump one another in case of a draw), makes it easier to see what went where and makes it a bit juicier.
Ah, yes. Well, I can tell you that one of the things we've talked about a fair amount recently is changing the color of displacement/retreat move orders, so that they are more visually distinguished from a regular failed move.
Similarly, I introduced our office to Conquer Club (an online, slow-turn, RISK clone [0]) and it led to such a lack of productivity that it was subsequently banned. Too much fun!
It's a space-based strategy game that has a lot of diplomatic elements, and the thing we really like is everything about it is completely deterministic, other than one researchable ability that gives you research points in a random field every turn.
Anyway, the default one turn per day is fantastic, and the game "ticks" once per hour, meaning it can take between a few hours and a couple of days for your fleets to transit between stars. It's a great pace for checking in a few times a day, and the game has calculators to help with timing coordinated attacks.
Finally, and I think this is key, do not enable formal alliances. They allow allies to share vision and they require a 24 hour notice to break the alliance, which takes all the fun out of it :)
I distinctly remember people storming out of games, including one who would not talk to us for weeks afterward. It is definitely a game that fuel emotions but it also helps you understand how to best deal with people, especially sensitive types.
The first time we played a majority of the players had never played before. We got through one "year" a week, with Spring and Autumn troop movements due by the end of the day on Tuesday and Thursday respectively. Then we'd resolve conflicts and submit build or retreat orders. Then we'd plot.
It was really fun but I think it was too fun - I think office productivity seriously suffered for it. Especially considering the amount of time we spent thinking/scheming/talking versus the scarce minutes in the evening actually "playing" the game. Still an amazingly well balanced game once you understand the subtleties. I fared extremely poorly by treating it like Risk and being far too aggressive. On my second playthrough I became much more docile and cooperative, and was thoroughly stabbed in the back for being so trusting.