Those who have played the game of Diplomacy, either in person (as I have not) or by e-mail (as I have, many times) will note that one of the fascinating problems of the game is the problem in separating possibility from the actual history of the time, and also in trying to balance out positions for playability as well as reality.  As someone who has played both “standard” diplomacy and a great many variants which take the general idea and apply it to other maps designed for other circumstances, I thought it worthwhile to examine the game in light of the challenges it faces both for designers of variants as well as for players, and also what sort of real-life lessons one can take from such a serious game.

I first became familiar with the game of diplomacy when I met one of my mom’s cousins, a nuclear engineer from Maryland who happened to work for the Navy and who was a very bright fellow.  Recognizing that I too was interested in strategy games, he commented that he played the game of Diplomacy, which I had never heard of up until that time.  However, I soon found that Diplomacy had a very large and healthy international following online, and I quickly became a familiar player in online PBEM (play by e-mail) games of various kinds, a habit I have continued throughout the last few years.

The standard map of diplomacy consists of 34 supply centers (areas that can support either an army or a fleet), of which 18 are necessary for a solo victory in a competition between seven nations (Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire starting with 3 supply centers, and Russia starting with four).  Switzerland is impassible, and games usually end up in a stalemate.  Over the length of time that Diplomacy has been played statistics have been kept on which nations have done particularly well (France and Russia), which names have done particularly poorly (Italy and Austria Hungary), and some reasons for these differences have been examined.

One of the problems with Italy and Austria-Hungary, for example, is that the two powers are the only ones in Diplomacy to have a home SC bordering that of another power.  In the case of Austria-Hungary, the center of Trieste (its lone port, the only supply center that can build Austrian fleets) borders Venice, Italy’s northern supply center.  Therefore, due to the design of the game, both Italy and Austria Hungary are permanently in danger of a “stab” from the other player because of having their home territory so close.  This permanent tension and the fact that both nations border much stronger and more secure nations (France, the Ottoman Empire, and Russia) makes both nations very poor performers, since the temptation of an “easy” gain of territory from one’s neighbor when its armies and fleets are fighting elsewhere is often too much to resist.

Of course, part of this weakness reflects historical reality.  After all, neither Austria Hungary nor Italy were really great powers on the level of Europe’s other major powers.  In 1896 Italy had lost to Ethiopia at the Battle of Adowa, becoming the only colonial power to be decisively defeated in a war by a native African power (and the Ethiopians probably didn’t match the level of some of England’s opponents like the Ashanti of Ghana or the Zulu of South Africa.  Austria-Hungary, on the other hand, was in the process of a slow decline where in 1867 the Hungarians were given equal privileges with the Austrian Germans, at which point the empire’s various Slavic peoples (especially the Czechs) began demanding the same sort of respect for their own traditions and languages.

Of course, some nations in the game are weaker than they were in real life–like Great Britian, which has a secure position on its island realm but a hard time expanding and a weak army (okay, that much is realistic), making its growth slow and often unsteady, but making it a valuable ally for either Germany or France (usually France) in Western Europe.  Germany is weaker in the game than it was in real life because its early gains make it an early target for jealous rivals (this is called the “early leader syndrome”) and because its central position means that it has a large amount of potential enemies (Great Britain, France, Russia, and Austria are all neighbors whose policies and actions must be taken into account by the German player.

Diplomacy, whether played in its standard form or its variants, offers a lot of lessons that are useful in real life.  Among them are the following:  if you want to succeed you need well-placed allies who can cover your back, but at the same time you always have to look out to make sure your allies don’t stab you in the back while you’re dealing with someone else.  People who play the game of Diplomacy are often pretty treacherous and dishonorable, so much so that it’s really expected.

Instead of behaving like leaders of democratic nations with historical grudges and alliances that must be taken into consideration, diplomacy is like being part of a highly competitive group of warlords who are always looking to further their position and do not feel bound by any ethical or moral code of conduct to prevent them from taking advantage of someone’s weakness or distraction.  When one sees these people in real life do the same thing, one realizes that games really do resemble reality in fundamental ways by bringing out people’s true personalities.  It should be noted, just for the record, that I’m a pretty honorable player even in this game, a fact which has allowed me to play test many variants and serve as a replacement player fairly easily but also a fact that has probably hurt me in many games because I am more honest than those I play with.

One of the elements of diplomacy that is particularly interesting is the aspect of “press.”  Players in diplomacy send each other messages, especially if they are “allies” seeking to work together.  They will tell each other all sorts of things–say that they will support their ally into this territory so long as the ally supports their army in another territory.  Of course, this is not always the case, especially because each of the players in diplomacy are looking out for #1–competitive players looking to win by any means possible, honest or not.  It is only when the moves are revealed that the faithfulness (or lack thereof) of one’s supposed friends is known.  And by then, if the knife is skillfully wielded, there is usually no point in complaining.  The law of the jungle is a savage one indeed, and everyone realizes that everyone else is a potential threat.

One of the most intriguing parts of Diplomacy is the problem of trust.  How is it that one can trust someone else to be reliable in the face of temptation to desert an ally at the earliest beneficial moment?  For that reason, perhaps, the most enduring alliances in the game of diplomacy are between “opposite corner” powers with a common neighbor but no common territory.  For example, France and Russia both border Germany but do not border each other, just as (in the game) is the case between the Ottoman Empire and Great Britain.  The lack of a common border and the presence of a common enemy against whom one can work in concert makes for successful alliances.  It would seem that a certain amount of distance is required for turf battles to be less severe, a lesson that has applications far outside a favorite board game, but also in other aspects of life where there are disputes over territory and jurisdiction.  It certainly gives one a lot of food for thought.