Diplomacy

[Philip]

I was thinking it'd be pretty cool to have a full seven-player game of Diplomacy this year. I've got a set that I bought when I moved to Seattle and have never used, it'd be nice to at least use it once before I get rid of it for taking up shelf space.

And I was thinking, to facilitate the game moving along so it's possible to finish within a regular 4-hour con slot, rather than being a player myself, I could be the arbitrator and timekeeper.

The crazy-fun option would be to have two players per Great Power: one a diplomat, to talk about deals with others, and the other a general, to actually keep an eye on the board and write up the orders. But that'd require 14 people (plus me as judge), and I don't know if there's enough interest for that.

Any takers? Any thoughts?

[EnricPDX]

I'd be into this. How much shorter would it have to be? Would the negotiation periods only be five or ten minutes long?

[crunk_posby]

I have seen* people run this as a multi-day event. This allows people to to do other games and check in at certain times to see what the results are. They could even just drop off their plays and see what happens later. I think having 2 people play each country could be fun - and having it run as a three day event would allow for a lot of interesting play to happen.

I would be in for sure if it was a multi-day event. I have never played, so I'm not sure I want my first time to be crammed into a 4 hour period...

*and by "seen" I mean read about it on forums and knew it was happening at events I attended but didn't actually do it or see it with my eyes...

[20-Sided_Dave]

I might be up for this, but as a single event.

[Philip]

So, the rules say this about time management:

It is wise to set aside about four hours to play Diplomacy. No more than five minutes should be allowed for writing orders after the diplomatic negotiation period has ended.

And the rules for the diplomatic phase say:

Negotiations last 30 minutes before the first turn and 15 minutes before each turn thereafter. Negotiations may end sooner if all players agree.

Now, I think the rules are being overly optimistic if they think a full game can be played in only 4 hours. Even if this time management is followed, it'd still reasonably be at least 25 minutes per turn: 15 minutes to negotiate, 5 minutes to write orders, 5 minutes to resolve them. So that's 8, maybe 9 turns at best in 4 hours, and it'd be pretty impressive for someone to reach the victory conditions that quickly, though an alliance might have a shot.

That said, the Saturday night slot starts at 7 pm and can go up to midnight, and we could do something like set up the game Saturday afternoon, assign powers, and then let the initial negotiation period be from then through dinnertime until the start of the Saturday night slot.

A multi-day event would be cool, but I'm not sure it'd really get any more turns in because of people being busy with their other games and such.