Diplomacy.

Diplomacy is a strategic board game from the early 1950's that is still very popular online. I've recently finished playing a game and will be playing more in the future, and the idea of hosting a game of Diplomacy here hit me.

So, I'm doing an interest check to see if anyone is willing to play a game of diplomacy online! The rules can be found here: Diplomacy rulebook

Also; we'll be needing 7( players for the game, excluding a GM. So if not enough people want to play, this won't be possible.

For everyone who wants to play, you can leave a reply here and give your three most preferred nations. Just write the first letters.

I myself, for instance, would pick TRE.

Summary of the rules:

The map:

Nations:
There are seven nations or great powers present in the game, each played by one player. These are
Turkey T
Russia R
Austria A
Germany G
France F
Italy I
England E


The diplomatic phase:
Every turn exists out of a large diplomatic phase. During this phase, you can communicate with others to cooperate your movements.
Turns:
A year has two turns: fall and spring. During each turn, you can use your units. At each fall turn, there is a period of calculating the victories and losses.

Units:
There are two types of units on the board: armies and fleets. Fleets can only move on coasts and sea, armies on land and coasts.

IMPORTANT: ALL MOVES MUST BE SENT IN A PM TO YACKUL. He has agreed to take the responsibility of gathering these, and I will process them once I have all moves in.

Moves:
Every turn, ever army or fleet may make one move. There are four different moves:
Hold position. Not too much to add here. Ex: Fleet Mediterranean sea Hold or F Med H
Attack-move. Moves the Army or Fleet to the designated province or sea. Ex: Army Berlin move to Munich or A Ber > Mun
Support. An army or fleet can provide defensive or offensive support to a different army or fleet. To do this, it must be adjacent to the to the province which it is supporting in the case of a defensive support, or adjacent to the province it is supporting an attack on in case of an offensive support. Ex1: A Ber H, A Mun S > A Ber H. Ex2: A Ber > Pru, A Sil S > A Ber > Pru
Convoy. Convoying transports an army over an ocean. Ex. A Ank > Sev, F Bla C > A Ank >Sev.

Retreats:
At every turn, you must include where an army that could in any possible way defeated will retreat to. Unlike in some other games, if an army is defeated in Diplomacy, it will not disband, but retreat instead. If an army or fleet has nowhere to retreat to, it will disband.

Builds:
After each fall turn, the amount of armies and fleets you own is adapted to the amount of dots you have. You may build new armies and fleets at your three main dots if you have more dots than armies.

Orders:
Here's a guide I stole on how to write orders.

Quote :

How to Write Orders
As the leader of an entire nation's military campaign, it is up to you to give your units the proper orders they need to seize control over Europe. The mechanics of writing orders might initially look difficult, but given time and practice you will find they will come to you without a second thought.

All orders are submitted to the Mapmaker via Private Message (PM). I will be the only one who sees it until all orders are turned in, and only then will they be posted for everyone's perusal during orders reconciliation.


DATING YOUR ORDERS
The first component of your orders is the date on which they take place. For the purposes of this online game, the Subject Header must state the current turn's season and year. For example, the first turn's set of orders will read "Spring 1901 Orders". Normally, the nation must also be stated, but as the PM indicates the sender this will not be necessary. Only the season and year is needed. Writing down the wrong date or forgetting to do it at all will render your orders null and void.


ORDER ABBREVIATIONS
Every set of orders will make use of the following unit and movement abbreviations:

A = Army
F = Fleet
C = Convoy
S = Support

There are also three-letter abbreviations for every province on the board. I will list these in a sticky post for ready reference. If you prefer to write out the province name that's fine, too. Just be warned that writing the wrong three-letter abbreviation will cancel that order. Note that the A/F/C/S commands are always abbreviated.

The only aspect of order writing which does not have an abbreviation is the Hold command. Simply write the word "Holds" immediately after establishing which unit is to remain in place.


THE BASIC MOVE ORDER
The basic move order begins with the identification of the unit to which the move order refers. Say you want to move your army on St. Petersburg to Moscow. In your orders, this would be represented as "A St.P. - Mos". That's it! Very simple, straightforward and elegant. The same principles apply to fleet movement: "F Lon. - North Sea".


THE SUPPORT ORDER
The Support order backs up the move of another unit from one province to another. In order to successfully support such a move, the supporting unit must be adjacent to the destination province. The order begins with the identification of the supporting unit, followed by an "S", followed by the move order for the supported unit. Using the army example above, an army on Livonia would support the move as follows: "A Liv. S A St.P. - Mos". You can also write this out as "A Livonia S A St. Petersburg - Moscow".

If the unit you are supporting belongs to another player, you must also specify that unit's nation name immediately before the unit's move order. For example: "A Liv. S RUSSIA A St.P. - Mos".


THE CONVOY ORDER
A convoy order takes place in two parts. The first is the move order for the army being convoyed, followed by the convoy order(s) for the convoying fleet(s). So, a fleet in the English Channel convoying an army in Wales to Brest would be written:

"A Wal - Bre, F Eng C A Wal - Bre"

If more than one fleet is convoying the unit, each fleet must have a convoy order taking the army from Wales to Brest.


THE HOLD ORDER
Should you choose to keep a unit where it is, simply identify the unit and write "Holds" immediately after it, as follows: "A Lon Holds"


HINTS TO ORDER WRITING
Early on it's pretty easy to keep track of your units, but as the game progresses and the number of units you control increase, you might find it harder and harder to keep track of everything. The easiest way to avoid forgetting something is to immediately write down the locations of every unit you control. For example:

F Lon
F Edi
A Wal
F Eng
A Pic

Next, decide which ones you want to hold and add that next:

F Lon
F Edi Holds
A Wal
F Eng
A Pic Holds

If you choose to convoy, take care of all units involved in the convoy:

F Lon
F Edi Holds
A Wal - Bre
F Eng C A Wal - Bre
A Pic Holds

Finally, take care of whatever else needs to be moved:

F Lon - North Sea
F Edi Holds
A Wal - Bre
F Eng C A Wal - Bre
A Pic Holds

You might also find it useful to jot down which deals you have outstanding with other nations you wish to honor and address those moves first before they get forgotten in the mix.

---

Press:
Press is whatever you send to all players, "in character".
Press should be the only thing posted in this topic, next to very general questions and outcomes of each turn. Be careful not to send any of your war plans in press, as all players can read it.

Additional:

Retreat and builds: the conditional order

Next to your normal orders, there are two more that are very important to the game: retreat and build. As I've already explained, you must order retreats and builds before you know the outcome of the turn. In actual diplomacy, there is another deciding phase. For this reason, there is the conditional order. For builds, you simply put what you will build with which outcome. For retreats, list the locations you wish to retreat to IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE. If two retreating armies bounce, both will be disbanded, so it is important not to have your armies retreat to the same place.

Quote :

GIR

IRG

RGE

GRT

Cut the spam please.

Nation preference and spam are two different things.

Suzen wrote:

Nation preference and spam are two different things.

Just read the acronyms. My bad everyone.

Come on, fokes! Just two more and we can go!

If anyone has questions regarding online gameplay, feel free to ask me in the chat box or send me a PM.

I've also added a poll to the first post, be sure to give your preference. As this is a game with new players, I'll go with 2 weeks per turn myself.

I'm gonna bump this because I'd still like to play with you guys.

Two more, anyone?

Additional:

Retreat and builds: the conditional order

Next to your normal orders, there are two more that are very important to the game: retreat and build. As I've already explained, you must order retreats and builds before you know the outcome of the turn. In actual diplomacy, there is another deciding phase. For this reason, there is the conditional order. For builds, you simply put what you will build with which outcome. For retreats, list the locations you wish to retreat to IN ORDER OF IMPORTANCE. If two retreating armies bounce, both will be disbanded, so it is important not to have your armies retreat to the same place.

RGI

TIE

Welcome everybody, to the email Diplomacy game of :-

*** CMF Diplo ***

a Diplomacy 2-weekly Standard game.

I am Suzenl and your GM for this game. All orders and queries about this game should be sent to Yackul using the personal messages on the CMF.



In turn I shall adjudicate the moves and email you all with the results
each season, together with a map.

The line-up is :-

AUSTRIA: Suzen
ENGLAND: Arweena
FRANCE: Evil KittyX
GERMANY: Capslok
ITALY: Xofaytox
RUSSIA: Leyline
TURKEY: NightFlame
(Nobody wanted Austria or France... go figure)

DEADLINES

The game will usually run to two week deadlines which will normally be
15:00 DUT/BST on a Tuesday. The Spring 1901 deadline will be a fairly swift -

***** 15:00 BST MONDAY JULY 6TH 2011 *****

but this will depend on all players submitting provisional Spring 1901
orders
promptly.

BST is British Summer Time which is GMT + 1 hour. GMT (UTC) is
Greenwich Mean Time (ie London). If you live in a different time zone and
are not sure how this relates to your zone then you might find
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/ useful.

I would like to hear from all of you as soon as possible (that means
immediately) supplying me with a set of provisional Spring 1901 orders (I
don't accept 'all units stand' as provisional Spring 1901 orders by the
way). These orders may be changed at any time up to the deadline of course.
Although you have already confirmed to the Diplomacy2000 website that you
are committed to play in this game, the reason I ask for provisional orders
is because no game is allowed to start with any missing orders in Spring
1901, so if a player is going to be replaced it would be best to get it
sorted as soon as possible. Once I have seven sets of Spring 1901 orders
I'll let you know, confirming both the line-up and the Spring 1901 deadline.

Good luck to you all, and have fun.

Suzen

======

Here's some extra information you should all know which my GM, from who I have stolen and adapted this start message, always sends.

All players are expected to participate until their role in the game
ends - either the game being completed (and this could be up to a year, or
even more, in real time), or the player being eliminated. If you don't think
you can give this level of commitment then let me know now so that I can
arrange for you to be replaced. In the event of any drop-outs (two
consecutive misses) after the game has started, the country concerned will
be placed in anarchy and all units will stand unordered for the rest of the
game. The player dropping out may be replaced.

The game will be run on a '2-season per game year' basis, so retreats
should be sent along with all orders, and builds and disbands should be
submitted along with Autumn (Fall) orders.There are no separate seasons for
the retreat and build/disband phases. You may specify multiple retreats
(e.g. A(Bud) retreats to Vie,Tri would cause A(Bud) to retreat to Vie unless
Vie was unavailable for a retreat, in which case it would retreat to Tri).
You may also specify conditional retreats, builds and disbands (e.g. if
A(Bud)-Ser succeeds build A(Bud); if A(Bud) retreats to Vie build A(Tri);
otherwise build F(Tri)).

Be very careful with these conditional retreats/builds/disbands. Make sure
that they are unambiguous and that every eventuality is covered, and if not
then finish with "Otherwise........". If you order "Build A(Bud), A(Vie),
A(Tri)" I just take the first 1, 2, or 3 that is available. Retreats may be
conditional on any eventuality in the season (Spring or Autumn) just
adjudicated. Builds and disbands may also be conditional on the events of
the season just adjudicated, plus the retreats that have taken place, or on
the number of builds (or disbands) that you or any other player are due to.
Do not make anything conditional on things like "If Austria attacked Italy
then ....." as this is subjective.

I would advise that you send provisional orders to me as soon as
possible each season. This is a good habit as PCs can crash at the most
awkward moments, and servers have been know to lose or delay mail, or
illness might strike or other commitments might cause you to forget the
deadline. You can always change your orders as many times as you wish up to
when I adjudicate.

When changing your orders please send a ***FULL*** new set of orders
(including retreats/builds/disbands if necessary, and any press or votes on
end-game proposals), and not just advise me of the changes. When
adjudicating I only refer to your latest email, and so if that email
contains just changes to previous orders then you might find some units
standing unordered.

I will accept orders (or revised orders) at any time up to when I
adjudicate. This will almost certainly be within a few hours of the
deadline, and perhaps even within five minutes, but I won't deliberately
delay adjudication if orders are missing. I would advise you not to discuss
the game with other players after the deadline until you see the
adjudication.You can find the adjudications on this topic. If
you miss a deadline then don't complain because I certainly won't
readjudicate the game. Just ensure you get your orders in for the following
season.

Deadlines will normally be two weeks apart, but will depend on my own
personal circumstances. Generally speaking, I won't accept requests to
extend deadlines for your personal reasons, and you must make your own
arrangements to get around problems caused by holidays, exams, working away
from home, family emergencies, and all other real life issues. It's the
responsibility of each player to ensure their orders reach me on time, or
arrange for another player to order their units. (See FAQs).

Should you wish to do so you can pass control of some or all of your
units to another player in the game. This is
known as a proxy. Where one player is ordering both his own units and those
of another player, I still require just the one email covering *all* the
orders, and not separate emails for each country.

If you have any queries then don't hesitate to ask me.