Diplomacy: The Board Game of the Alpha Nerds (2014)

This game takes like 8-12 hours, but if you do it in person, it just FLIES by. I was too afraid to take a food break or even a bathroom break because I didn't want to be out of earshot of everyone else so they could scheme against me.

We had 15 minutes for planning each turn, and that never seemed like enough. You want to talk to everyone, sometimes including one person, then again after that person leaves to talk to someone else and the third person tells you 'Actually I didn't mean what I told him. Screw that guy, let's do this instead.'

And then that guy backstabs YOU instead, and you find out their quarrel was all a ruse for everyone else and they were actually just pretend trading supply centers back and forth, not actually fighting.

It was overwhelming and I never knew who I could trust, with each turn just nailbiting seeing how it actually played out. But it was also one of the most exhilarating (yet exhausting) gaming experiences in my life.

There's also websites for doing it online, and you send messages back and forth, and can set how long each turn takes (like a day or two maybe). It still works that way, but the experience isn't quite as overwhelming.

Not bad for a 62 year old game.

I think Diplomacy is a super interesting domain for AI research, too. It has a lot of natural language (over a limited set of topics) as an important component, and multiple agents taking turns simultaneously, with fluctuating alliances.

I’ve always wanted to play this, however a few things hold me back.

Experience has thought me that it is very difficult to wrangle a lot of people to play complicated games. Simple party games are easy, but the moment you try to explain anything complicated to a large group all their eyes glaze over.

Then there is the issue of the extreme play length. The people in my play group will complain if something takes an hour to play, I doubt they could handle 8 hours.

The closet I have come to this is Sidereal Confluence which allows for up to 9 players and can takes up to 3 hours or more to play. Explaining that to such a large group was a nightmare.

And finally there is the “take that!” aspect of this game that I find worrying. People like to say “don’t get mad it’s just a game!” But this isn’t javascript we’re taking about, these are real people with real feelings. I’ve been involved in games were people explode in anger or other times were people burst into tears, this is not fun.

As the host of the game night it’s my responsibility to make sure people have a good time, not to have them fight with each other and break up their friendships.

I second this sentiment. Played it once a long time ago computer supported with longer turns. Couple of days. Could not bear the betrayals even though it is 'only' a game. There are a lot of negotiations, talking and discussing with your friends and little game mechanics.

I quit the game early. Not worth losing friends over.

Apparently this game is a much faster and simpler game that also makes people stressed out and mad at each other.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So_Long_Sucker