MAKING A COMMITMENT.One of the main things people produce articles about when writing about the game of Diplomacy is opening theories. You must have seen the type of thing I mean? A sure fire way to bust Russia from the German perspective... Statistics on the outcomes of the various options for England etc. Personally, I am not much given to this sort of theorising. With any country on the board, I will nearly always make a neutral opening which offends nobody in particular and look to see who is doing what. If you go into a game with a preconceived notion of how you are going to proceed you limit your options. The essence of the game is the diplomacy, your interaction with the other players. Give the diplomacy a chance before you commit yourself to a given opening or course of action. Note the use of the weasel words "nearly always" in the above paragraph. My natural tendency is towards a neutral opening, but I don't rule out a jump into the channel in Spring '01 when playing England if the diplomatic circumstances are right. However this is a highly committal move and I would need to be very sure of my allies to be persuaded into it. Much better really to be the German player who has convinced the English player of the importance of this opening without committing himself. You can then sit back and watch the fur fly, siding with whoever suits you best! In the strongest games it is fairly rare to see people commit themselves to a particular course of action against another power early on in the game. Everyone wants to sit on the fence, figure out who is going where and then make their dipositions accordingly. The ideal country with which to adopt this course of action is of course Italy. You can take your build in Tunis and then potter about in the Med for a couple of game years if you so desire, without coming to any serious harm. England, on the other hand tends to have to come to conclusions much more quickly. England has committed himself if he puts an army in Norway (it's anti-Russian - at least I can assure that it is if I am playing Russia!). It is also committal, though more desirable than an army in Norway, if he successfully convoys an army to Belgium. Neither France nor Germany tends to be too thrilled about this though if you can get one of them to agree to it, then its not so bad. Best to my mind is to have a fleet supported in by both of them. Oh bliss. Nobody can have any idea where you are going next - and you don't even need to know yourself! Time for the diplomacy again. I can recall John Wilman once remarking that, if he had to play Diplomacy for his life, the country he would choose to play would be France. I am sure that many players would agree with this assessment. Why? Because you can take two cast iron builds without committing yourself to a thing. I know that it is tempting to dive in and make a claim for Belgium as well. However, why be greedy? Much better to allow England and Germany to fall out about it having disposed your forces so that you can ally with either of them against the other. So - there you have my views on opening theory - make your moves as non-committal as possible for as long as possible. Wait until somebody else blinks! (Any comments most welcome). I have come accross a number of good sites for Diplomacy since I acquired the technology a few months back. I hope to put a review of them here in the near future. Updated 12/9/00 |