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

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

#61

Post by xpe »

29athrowaway wrote: post #28

Is there a professional system for Diplo? Do people train by playing against AIs created by the top companies in the world? Has the game existed for thousands of years and has studied by endless generations of scholar, military generals and intellectuals of all walks of life? I doubt so. The game for alpha nerds is Go, in my opinion. It is an incredibly deep game that will always offer you life lessons at every stage…

Diplomacy is harder than Go. Perhaps by a factor of 10e3 or more. (I'd throw out a guess of 10e9; what are other's estimates?)

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

#62

Post by FactolSarin »

mikelevins wrote: post #41

I've been part of a gaming group for about 45 years. The gmes we have focused on have varied over the years, and so has the lineup of players. For a while we played a lot of Diplomacy. For a couple of years, while we were playing a lot of Diplomacy, we played on some unusual maps. My first wife worked for the USGS Map Sales office, and she could sometimes bring home discarded maps. We tried several of them as Diploma…

I would love to see those!

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

#63

Post by snarf21 »

dmurray wrote: post #54
snarf21 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reach out to me, I've designed a card based version that plays 3-6 and about 15 minutes per player. It is super solid but I'd always love more feedback.

Interested in knowing more about this, but you don't have contact information in your profile.

My email was set but I guess not in the about. It is now.

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

#64

Post by cduzz »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #39
michaelmior wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I love the game, though haven't played in.... a decade at least.

I worked at a place where some other people had a diplomacy club and they'd play over lunch or after hours.

I decided I didn't really want to know who at work was best at lying and backstabbing.

I later left the place because they did stack ranking and found that teams traded people from one team to another with the express purpose of "the new person gets the PIP"

Not my cuppa.

Don't play diplomacy at work and maybe don't work where they play diplomacy?

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

#65

Post by LanceH »

xpe wrote: post #53
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

I heard some seasoned folks at a Diplomacy group describe that media coverage... IIRC, they considered it to miss much of the spirit of the game. I think ongoing people who enjoy it have a special ability to value the game dynamics without taking it personally.

Step one: Don't think of your opponent as people.

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

#66

Post by LasEspuelas »

qznc wrote: post #38
Crye wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For those on Android, check the conspiracy app. It includes about half a dozen variants as well, ranging from 2 players (cold war) to 15 (known World 901). Great platform to play.

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

#67

Post by technofiend »

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've introduced a few classics to my family over Thanksgivings: Munchkin, Cards Against Humanity, Carcassonne. Eventually we settled on Mahjong; games are quick, the rules are well defined and if enough people want to play we just break out a second set or rotate players through the game.

People would recall and retell twenty-year-old stories how the more cutthroat relatives screwed everyone in Monopoly or Risk, so quick games without elaborate mechanics prevent a lot of hurt feelings.

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

#68

Post by mcguire »

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…

"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."

I seem to recall hearing about one tournament game where one player got locked in the restroom to prevent him from taking some action---the judges ruled it a legitimate tactic.

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

#69

Post by mcguire »

Calhamer's book on Diplomacy, Calhamer on Diplomacy: The Boardgame "Diplomacy" and Diplomatic History, is probably the best set of game designer's notes I've ever seen. Discussions of the state of Europe in the late 19th century mixed with tactics and play suggestions.

It's hard to find, though.

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

#70

Post by CalChris »

Played hella Diplomacy when we were kids. I don't know if we were any good since this was pre-internet and the standard of play has probably improved considerably over the decades. But we did run into a problem consistently and read the rules over and over, and argued and still couldn't answer this simple question:

  Can you cut a supported support?
You either can or you can't and the rules then just weren't clear. (The article doesn't mention this problem in its summation.) So we typed up a letter and sent it to I think it was Games Research and waited. For awhile. Finally, a couple of months later we got a reply. They hadn't considered it either! And so they issued a new rule.

Honestly, I cannot remember what the ruling was since it's been so long and I haven't played the game in decades. So I had to look up the rules as of now.

The support is cut.

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