Mach Plays Diplomacy

Steal Thy Kill

Well-Known Member
Member
This will certainly go well.



Diplomacy. A game of world European world domination circa 1901, where in order to win you'll need to strategize, negotiate, and backstab in a timely fashion. That last one being the most infamous and entertaining aspect of the game. As you can tell from the map, there are 7 nations available to play. England, France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. For meme reasons, remember that Warsaw is Poland, Bohemia is Czechia, and Ukraine is South Putin-Land, but Crimea is in Sevastopol (a Russian home center. Czechmate, rebels).

As a player, you can achieve one of four outcomes. The first is Victory. The dots you see on some of the provinces signify supply centers. There's 34 on the board, and if you capture 18 of them, then congratulations! You won! The second best outcome is a Draw. A Draw is declared when the game is at a clear stalemate, and nobody's going to get to 18. While the player doing the best gets to be the first among equals, everybody left gets to partake in the result. If you assholes are clearly stuck stalemating and refuse to call it, I will do it for you. The third best outcome is Survive. It means somebody else won, but you didn't get eliminated. A few people are going to get swallowed for somebody to win, so congrats on that not being you! Even if all you have left is an army stranded in Tunis, you get credit for Survival. The worst outcome is obviously Losing, or being Eliminated.

So it goes Win -> Tie -> Not Lose -> Lose. Knowing when to admit you won't hit one goal and shifting down a gear is important, but sometimes it's more important to see an asshole get taken down a rung even if you have to go with him. Nobody will judge you for it, because spite is an important part of the game.

I'll toss the rules in a spoiler below, but for those who are familiar here's how things'll work. Fall and Spring orders phases will be 3-4 days. Should be enough to get negotiations done and accommodate schedules. I'll post the deadline with each phase. Retreat and Build orders have a day/day and a half to get in. People not sending in orders sucks. I don't care if you're screwed, man up and see it through. See what damage you can do on your way out, or better yet talk your way out of things. Your nation will be assigned by RNG, but if people want to trade before the game officially starts that's fine by me. You can send me orders or sign up or any sort of contact either here or by Discord. idc which, but I'll be posting updates and whatnot here. Diplomacy also has a "standard notation" for order format. I really don't give a fuck, as long as it's clear what you're ordering.

Oh, and to borrow a rule from mafia, no direct quoting of chat logs or pms or whatnot - regardless of who they're from. Be convincing the old fashioned way.

So you can find plenty out there, but here's two sources you can use. First is a copy of an actual rulebook, which'll be more in depth than this overview. Second, for all you visual learners, is a video series. It's got the most views when I type in "diplomacy rules" so you know it's good.

But anyhow, here's my overview.

How Turns Work

The game starts in the "Spring" phase of the year 1901 (year doesn't matter aside from tracking the turn. Just flavor). During this phase, your job as a player is to give orders to your units to move/support/convoy (will explain later) as you want. This is also when you do most of your talking and planning with other players. Send these orders directly to me. You can post them in the thread if you want, but then they won't be secret. After I get all the orders, they get resolved and the new game board is posted. If one of your units has been dislodged from the space it started in, then you'll have to send in a retreat order to move it somewhere else.

Once that's taken care of, we move to the "Fall" phase. Fall works the same as Spring. Send in your actions, followed by a retreat phase. What makes Fall unique is what happens afterward, as that's when supply centers count as captured. Any unit in a supply center you didn't already own is now yours. Congratulations! That supply center now belongs to you until somebody else captures it by having a unit in it at the end of a Fall phase. You don't need to keep a unit in a space to continue owning it, you only need to occupy a space to capture it.

Finally, there's the almighty build phase. You can have 1 unit per supply center you own, so in this phase you can either build up to that limit or - if you have more units than centers - disband any extras. If you're going to build, though, you can only build on any open home centers. Home centers are the three (four for Russia) centers you start with. After this, it's back to Spring, and the cycle continues. Key to remember is that you can only officially capture a center if you hold it at the end of the Fall. So if you have 18 after Spring? Great! Now keep it.

Even if all your home centers are taken, you're still in the game so long as you own another center. That said, you can't build units unless you retake your home.

How Units Work

There are armies, and there are fleets. Those are the only 2 units. Armies travel on land, fleets on water, and both on coasts. It's that simple.

How Orders Work

The first, and most common, is Move. Move is how you move, and how you attack. The rules for it are pretty common sense, at least in concept.
  • A unit can move to any adjacent space. Once again, armies move on land, fleets on water, and both can occupy coast spaces.
  • Units cannot "cross paths", even if they're both yours. If they do, it counts as combat and is resolved accordingly. If you want units to swap spaces, you need a to make a circle with a third (convoying also works). Basically, you can have a circle jerk but you can't cross swords.
  • If a fleet is in a coastal space, than it can move to any adjacent body of water or an adjacent coastal space if that coastal space is adjacent along the same coastline. You can't pick up your ships and cut across the continent. Again, common sense. Fleets have a few more quirks.
  • Three provinces have two distinct coasts. Spain has a north and a south. North borders Mid Atlantic Ocean, while the South borders Western Mediterranean. The second is Bulgaria, where the east coast borders the Black Sea, and the South the Aegean. And the third is St. Petersburg, with the north bordering the Barents Sea and the South the Gulf of Bothnia. You can travel from these coasts to another adjacent coastal province, but that province's coast must be adjacent to the coast you're stationed at. Basically, these coasts are not continuous, so a unit can only be on one of those coasts. Make sense?
  • Regardless of what coast you're on, a unit is considered to occupy the entire province.
  • For Russia, if you want to build a fleet in St. Petersburg, you have to specify which coast you want it on. Your starting fleet is designated to be on the South Coast.
  • Kiel and Constantinople have canals, so they don't have the coast problem. A fleet in Constantinople can go to Black or Aegean. A fleet in Kiel can go to Baltic or Heligoland.
  • Both armies and fleets can go from Sweden to Denmark and vice versa.
  • There's no land bridge between Spain and North Africa. Gotta go through the water.
  • Gray areas are impassible and you cannot go there. Same with the Caspian Sea, not that you could get there anyway.
You may see a giant hole, like how the hell is England supposed to get armies onto the mainland? That's the second action. Convoys.
  • A fleet in a water space can convoy an army from one coastal space to another, so long as they are coastal spaces bordering the fleet.
  • An army must come willingly (be ordered to convoy to the desired coastal area), even if both units are your own. You can convoy somebody else's army, but you can't abduct one.
  • You can chain convoys between multiple fleets, but if one link in the chain is broken then the whole thing fails.
  • The only way to disrupt a convoy is by dislodging a convoying fleet. If the movement fails because of combat reasons, then the army goes back to its original space as usual.
  • You can't convoy a fleet.
Biggest rule of all? Only one unit can occupy a space. So what happens when two units try to occupy a space at once? Well that's how combat starts.

How Combat Works

Once again, the concept behind combat is simple. 2 beats 1. 1v1 is a draw. All units are of equal power. If a battle (called a standoff) ends in a draw, then all units involved go back to their original spaces. This works the same whether it's one unit moving into an occupied space, or two (or more) units trying to move into the same space. No dice, just basic numbers. But how do you get that 2? You don't get it by attacking with two different units, that's basically it getting attacked by two different forces. Even if they're both yours. Instead, you must use the third type of action you can order. Support.

To order support, you order a unit to support another unit. Either you support it to stay where it is and basically gets +1 defense, or you support it into another space and give it +1 attack. You can't move and support with the same unit, it can only do one.
  • A unit can only give support into a province it can legally travel to. If you're supporting a unit's defense, this is straightforward. If you're supporting a unit's attack, your unit must border the space being attacked.
  • Legally travel to is key. Armies cannot provide support for a fleet to take a sea space. A fleet cannot provide support for an army to attack a landlocked space.
  • You can support your unit or an opponent's. It doesn't matter.
  • Support does not require the consent of the receiving unit.
  • If you support a unit to attack one place, and they instead attack somewhere else, your support does not translate even if you border both spaces.
  • A unit can get supported by multiple other units, but you can't chain support. If you give support to a unit that is giving support, it's +1 to the unit's defense.
  • If a space is occupied by a unit, and it gets ousted by a stronger attack, it's dislodged and you get the space.
  • If a space is occupied by a unit, is unsupported (strength of 1) and is targeted by two attacking forces of equal strength (let's say 2), then the attacking armies both go back to where they started and the defending unit survives and keeps its spot. This is called the "beleaguered garrison" rule.
  • You can attack yourself. You can't dislodge yourself, neither directly nor through support.
  • You can support a convoy, but you can't convoy support.
  • Dislodging can, of course, disrupt support. It doesn't disrupt a move.
If you win a fight and take over an occupied province, then that unit has been dislodged and must retreat. But wait, there's more! Support can be given, but it can also be cut. You cut support by attacking the space of the unit providing support. Your attack doesn't need to be successful for support to be cut, you simply have to attack. You can't cut support if that support is invading your province, but you can still cut support if you were successfully invaded.

And finally, let's talk Retreat. Retreating is simple. After the battle ends, if a unit is dislodged then it must move to a different space, or disband. You can't move to the space that dislodged you. You can't move to an occupied space. You must be able to legally move there. No convoys. And you can't retreat to a space that was just fought over, even if that fight left it unoccupied (i.e. two different forces attack an unoccupied space but bounce out). You can retreat to an enemy owned space, so long as it doesn't break one of the prior rules. If multiple units try to retreat to the same space, they all die.

If a unit has nowhere to run to, it automatically disbands. Instead of retreating, you can voluntarily disband a unit. This is useful if you want to basically respawn it during a build phase.

And I believe that covers it.

Alright boys, let me know who wants to play and we can get this started.

1. Rondait - France
2. Tirin - England
3. Coolpool - Germany
4. TC - Austria-Hungary
5. Easy - Italy
6. Milamber - Russia
7. Jeroth - Turkey
 
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Rondait

Well-Known Member
Member
IN. There will be one night a week of every week that it's a complete bitch to contact me due to being stuck on the ship, but if you send me a work email (I'll give it to Stealthy and those who are interested in it, PM me if you want it while playing) I'll be able to respond at some point those nights. Just uh, please keep in mind while you're emailing me to mention the word diplomacy in the title of the email, I'd rather not get questioned by NCIS about whether or not you're sending Russian troops to Ukraine without proof that it's for a game.
 

Tirin

God-Emperor of Tealkind
Moderator
I will slap the shit out of every one of you, Rondait. I'll be sending things through PMs or Discord depending on my mood 'cause that's how I fuckin' BE.

Given that this isn't Mafia, we can negotiate with one another outside of the game thread and the like, right? I've heard it's that kind of backstabby game.
 

Rondait

Well-Known Member
Member
That's fine, I'll just check at some point this week whether or not I can access mach at work, can't say that I've tried. If I can then all is well.
 

Steal Thy Kill

Well-Known Member
Member
I will slap the shit out of every one of you, Rondait. I'll be sending things through PMs or Discord depending on my mood 'cause that's how I fuckin' BE.

Given that this isn't Mafia, we can negotiate with one another outside of the game thread and the like, right? I've heard it's that kind of backstabby game.
Yes. Absolutely. Do.
 

Tirin

God-Emperor of Tealkind
Moderator
That's how that real gangsta Coolpool lets us know that he's gonna have a knife in all of our backs - except for the one with a gun to his head.
 

Steal Thy Kill

Well-Known Member
Member
And there we go. I randomly assigned countries and it spit out the following:

@Rondait is France
@Tirin is Russia
@coolpool2 is Germany
@Colonel Thunder is Austria-Hungary
@Easy is Italy
@Milamber is England
@Jeroth is Turkey



We'll start the game officially tomorrow, so gives everybody a day to do any prep they want to. I know Tirin was considering trading earlier, so if people would rather swap around then by all means.
 
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Steal Thy Kill

Well-Known Member
Member
Spring 1901: Begin

@Rondait is France at 3
@Tirin is Russia at 4
@coolpool2 is Germany at 3
@Colonel Thunder is Austria-Hungary at 3
@Easy is Italy at 3
@Milamber is England at 3
@Jeroth is Turkey at 3



Okay, at this point let's consider the game officially started. You can begin talking to each other, negotiating, and formulating orders and whatnot. This thread will be used to post updates by myself, but beyond that you only need to post here if you want it to be on a public record. By all means, use PMs and especially Discord as much as you like. It's the easiest way to do it. I'll take orders on Mach or on Discord, whichever you prefer, as long as I get them. I'm also here for any questions.

As said in the OP, order phases are gonna be 3-4 days apiece. If nobody has any problems, the Deadline For Orders is Thursday Night, let's say by Midnight

If, now or in the future, you know there's gonna be a day where you can't reliably get online to submit orders/talk/etc, just say so and we can extend the phase another day. New Years and Christmas will obviously count for this.
 

Tirin

God-Emperor of Tealkind
Moderator
You know, TC, I can always use valued teammates in my quest to brutally conquer peacefully unite Europe! Since you're on my doorstep, all you can lose out on is me kicking your supply centers out of you. Whattya say?
 
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