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

grantland.com

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

#31

Post by joe_the_user »

cableshaft wrote: post #2

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…

"This game takes like 8-12 hours"

I found the best Diplomacy framework is a hard 15 minutes/turn limit. After 15 minutes, your moves are down on paper or they don't happen. This yields a 4-5 hour game.

By "best", I mean, "it's fun, it's intense and it's done". I see a lot of variations being described along with notes they became intolerably intense for people.

Which is to say, this isn't a framework that needs help to be made more engaging. Keeping the excess-engagement genie sometimes in the bottle is more the challenge here.

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

#32

Post by morelisp »

myko wrote: post #24

I first heard about this game on This American Life - they had an actual ambassador from the US help a novice play. I found it super interesting and now have a copy of the game but haven't played it yet (hoping to post-COVID) The episode, which I found fascinating, is this one: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/531/got-your-back

The "novice" (not really) in the NPR article is the author of the Grantland article.

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

#33

Post by joe_the_user »

jsilence wrote: post #8
regus wrote: post #6

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 ho…

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.

I've played the game in a number of contexts.

One of the things I noticed is that the longer the turn, the most intense the resulting game, to the point you can experience real life problems.

Letting the game take more than a day seems cool but it often results in things getting out of hand.

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

#35

Post by joe_the_user »

NikolaeVarius wrote: post #16
regus wrote: post #6

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 ho…

This is the kind of game you play in TableTop groups, not with some random friends at an arbitrary time.

I've played the game with a random acquaintances and hard time limits. That worked better than formally getting all my friends together.

Also, 4-5 people is really all you need for a fun game - or a game that spirals out of hand, with the fun level then being a matter of taste.

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

#36

Post by joe_the_user »

macintux wrote: post #34

I have played online a few times over the decades, and in person once. I think we gave up in person. I have spent many, many hours reading these archives[1]. Recommended if you find the game interesting. [1] http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/home.htm

The Diplomacy set I bought used, in elementary school, had a set of back issues of Diplomacy World with it. This was before even Dungeons and Dragons existed. I think the way pre-Internet fan-presses had similar qualities to the Internet is a fascinating study.

And Diplomacy itself certainly was one precursor to the "addictive interface".

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

#37

Post by joe_the_user »

andrewzah wrote: post #3

I wish I had known about this game in college. Getting 7 adults together for 8+ hours is nearly impossible now. I got to play this with 7 people exactly once. It was amazing.

You really only need 5 people. I haven't played with seven very often and I didn't find it improved the play much, if at all.

Just as much, if you set a hard 15 minute time limit, you get the play down to 4-5 hours (especially if you also say victory is preponderance on the board, not total elimination of all other players).

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

#38

Post by qznc »

Crye wrote: post #23
andrewzah wrote: post #3

I wish I had known about this game in college. Getting 7 adults together for 8+ hours is nearly impossible now. I got to play this with 7 people exactly once. It was amazing.

Checkout backstabbr. It's a web based version of the game and allows a lot more asynchronous playing. It also allows you to remain anonymous which helps with biases and super judicial alliances.

Does Backstabbr have variants? I like vdiplomacy because it has lots of variants: https://vdiplomacy.com/variants.php

It uses the more old-school webdiplomacy interface but I'm fine with the dropboxes.

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

#39

Post by ryanmarsh »

michaelmior wrote: post #20
monocasa wrote: post #14

We played this in college, but with a couple twists. We had probably 30 people playing separated into the seven teams. Each week, we'd execute one round of orders on Friday evening followed by drinks. Really upped the intrigue as the time scales better matched real diplomacy. Plus the distinction of having to balance internal and external politics better matches real life diplomatic tradeoffs. "What you're saying mak…

In grad school we did something fairly similar when a new faculty member suggested it as a team building exercise...I'm not sure how well it worked :)

Diplomacy played in small groups with friends is a great way to end up with less friends.

To win you basically have to lie to their faces. Still, it’s a great game.

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

#40

Post by jashper »

morelisp wrote: post #30

Last Saturday and yesterday were the qualifying rounds for the top board of the first Diplomacy invitational championship. I don't play myself but if you have some familiarity with the rules the commentary is interesting. https://diplobn.com/dbn-invitational-2021-rules/

Had the pleasure of playing in it last weekend — if you’re interested in joining the virtual face-to-face community and playing some games, hit me up and I’ll send you some info
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