Part of what keeps Diplomacy interesting is its versatility-there are dozens if not hundreds of variant maps spanning regions and eras. Calhamer and a version of the game designed by David Klion and Manoli Strecker set in a near-future post-apocalyptic New York City. Everything about Diplomacy is simple and easy to learn, but the actual gameplay is fiendishly complex, built around social interactions between seven committed players, each pursuing their own selfish interests through a series of ephemeral military pacts.įrom left: a classic Diplomacy board a January 1974 cover of Games & Puzzles magazine featuring the creator of the strategy game, Allan B. There are no dice, unlike in other classic strategy games like Risk or Axis & Allies, and there are only two types of game pieces: armies and fleets. The classic version of the game is set on a simplified map of Europe in 1901, at the height of the rivalry among the great imperial powers-England, France, Germany, Italy, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Ottoman Turkey-that would eventually culminate in World War I. Kennedy and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy models the realist view of international relations-in which sovereign states rationally compete for spheres of influence, eventually achieving a stable balance of power. This is a game for people who dream about power in its purest form and how they might effectively wield it.īeloved by President John F. The game is not for everyone, but it is ideally suited for the kind of nerd who has a deep interest in international relations, geopolitics, or really politics of any kind- Foreign Policy’s readership, in other words. If you’ve never played Diplomacy, it might be hard to explain its appeal.

The lessons the game taught both of us stuck, but in very different ways. For me, Diplomacy has been an on-and-off obsession since high school, when I played it at the home of one Michael Ellis, then a young conservative, and now an obscure but potent player in the Trump administration. My friends, some of whom had never played before the COVID-19 pandemic, have quickly become hopeless addicts. Calhamer in the 1950s, mass-marketed by the game company Avalon Hill, and eventually developed into an elaborate (and mostly free) online hobby. In the absence of parties and happy hours and date nights, millions of Americans living under lockdown have regressed into pastimes like playing Animal Crossing, reading War and Peace, baking sourdough bread, or attempting to learn Romanian.įor me and around two dozen friends, the diversion of choice has been Diplomacy, the strategy board game invented by a Harvard University undergraduate named Allan B.

Imperialism 2 diplomatic vctory