Diplomacy: the Guns of Covid
03-29-2020
, 10:28 PM
03-30-2020
, 05:56 AM
03-30-2020
, 04:41 PM
Stealing a previous outline of the rules:
Quote:
Intro to Diplomacy
The basic idea behind Diplomacy is to recreate the political situation of Europe as of 1901. There's 7 "Major Powers", that the players each control. Russia (white), England (dark blue), France (light blue), Germany (black), Italy (green), Austria (red), Turkey (yellow). They each start with 3 "Centres", except Russia, which controls 4.
This is the starting position of the game.
While it does seem unfair that Russia gets more units to start, it's not that big of an advantage, due to the way they need to split their forces.
A few terms:
A Territory is any space on the board. It can be land, sea or coastal. Each named territory can have one unit on it - and only one. Any unnamed territories (Ireland/Switzerland) can have no units.
A centre is a special territory, marked with a dot and a name, instead of just a name. If the territory is neutral, it's brown. If it's owned by a power, it's dot is the colour of the power. You can support one unit for each centre you own.
A Unit is either an Army or a Fleet. Armies look like cannons, and can only go on land territories. Fleets look like battleships, and can go on water territories or coastal territories. Each unit is worth the same amount of combat power.
Game Flow
There are 5 phases to the Game. Spring Movement, Spring Retreat, Fall Movement, Fall Retreat, and Winter Adjustment. The 2 Movement phases are the Major phases, and occur every game year. The others are Minor phases, and do not necessarily occur.
Games occur in Years. Each Winter, there's an adjustment of units, so that each Power has the same number of units as Territories. If there's more Territories than units, then the Powers can build on one of their Home Centres (the ones owned at the start). If there are more builds than home centres - or the home centres are full, and thus cannot be used for a build - then the Power is short a unit.
If a Power has more units than Territories, it removes some - whichever it wants.
After each movement phase, any dislodged units can Retreat to any empty, adjacent Territory. A unit cannot retreat to a Territory it attempted to occupy on that movement that it got bounced from.
Orders
There are 4 types of orders you can give to each unit. Move, Hold, Support and Convoy.
Movement
This moves a piece from one territory to an adjacent territory. Units can only move one territory at a time. An unsupported move can only work if the target territory is empty, and has no other unit present.
Successful Move:
Each of these units is moving to an empty space, so the moves are all successful.
Unsuccessful Move:
Each unit - VIE and WAR are trying to move in to GAL. Since they each offer the same combat power, neither one is able to occupy the square.
Special Movement Rules
There's a few special movement situations that should be addressed.
1. Spain (SPA). When a fleet tries to occupy Spain, it must choose either the North Coast, or South Coast. You can see Spain below, with the North coast marked in red, and the South coast in blue. When in Spain, a fleet can ONLY move to an adjacent territory to the Coast it is currently on. So, if a fleet is in SPA/SC (Spain, South Coast) it cannot move to GAS (Gascony), which it could if it were on the North Coast. Only one unit can occupy Spain - you could not have one on the North Coast and one on the South.
2. Bulgaria (BUL). Just like Spain, BUL has split coasts. The East coast faces the Black Sea (BLA), and the South coast faces the Aegean Sea (AEG).
3. Constantinople (CON). This appears to be a land square, however, it has a canal that allows fleets to pass through from AEG to BLA. Fleets do need to stop in CON during the transit, so it takes two moves to make the transit.
Hold
This tells a unit to stay where it is. Not very exciting.
Support
There's two kinds of Support - movement and hold. This adds one units strength to the strength of another, either to help it move, or help it hold. You can only support a unit whose destination (or current position if holding) is adjacent to the supporting unit. If you refer back to the first image of the whole board, and the bounce in GAL, BUD could have supported VIE in to that space had it not moved. On the other hand, MOS is not adjacent, and thus could not provide support.
As mentioned, all units have equal power. Support is needed to kick a unit out of a Territory it currently occupies. Support can also be used by the other player to help it maintain that space. You can support a unit of another power, on either attack or defense.
Here is an example of each kind. In this, Englands North Africa (NAF) is attempting to move to Turkey's Tunis (TUN). England's Western Mediterannean (WES) supports the move. Turkey's Tyrrhenean Sea (TYS) is supporting TUN so it can hold. In this situation, there's actually another Turkish fleet providing support, but it's not important here. If TUN had no support, it would have been dislodged. Because it had the extra fleet providing support, it had equivalent power as the attackers.
Cutting Support
Sometimes, you cannot get as much support on a unit as needed, but you have a nearby unit that is not adjacent to the territory in question. If it is adjacent to one of the enemy units that is in position to provide support, it can attack it. If a unit that is providing support is attacked, it's support is "cut", and no longer counts.
The above is a complicated example. But, the Frency Army in Marseilles (MAR) wants to help the off-screen Austrian (red) units in to Germany's Munich (MUN). If Burgandy (BUR) is able to support MUN, then the unit will hold. Therefore, the French player attacks BUR, preventing that unit from supporting MUN. Austria now holds that Territory.
Convoys
This is the one exception to the "One territory per turn" rule. A fleet on an Ocean Territory - not a coast - can Convoy an army from one adjacent land Territory to another. For example, and Army in London (LON) could convoy via a Fleet in English Channel (ENG) to Picardy (PIC). Convoys can be strung together among adjacent fleets to move an Army far. Conceivably, one could go from SMY in Turkey up to STP in Russia, around all of Europe.
In this example, the English Army in Wales (WAL) convoys via ENG and Mid Atlantic Ocean (MAO) to Portugal (POR).
Like supports, you can Convoy using other Powers fleets or armies.
You can also support a Convoy at the destination, or support a fleet at any point along the path. A convoy is disrupted only if the Army is not able to land at the destination, or if one of the Fleets along the path is dislodged.
Entering Orders
Because this is being run on an automated judge, orders need to be entered in a very specific format. Fortunately, Bounced has a syntax checker that will tell you what it's seeing with the orders you have entered.
Each Territory has a 3 letter code. This is how you will refer to units in that territory, and how you refer to it as a destination.
Let's go back to the first example:
This is a pretty typical English opening.
To order these units:
F EDI - NTH
A LVP - YOR
F LON - ENG
This says:
Move the Fleet in Edinburgh to North Sea
Move A Liverpool to Yorkshire
Move F London to English Channel
To order a Hold:
F EDI H
To order a support for a move:
In the previous movement example, I could have supported the move to the North Sea with London, using this:
F LON S EDI - NTH
If LVP wanted to support EDI in place:
A LVP S EDI
To order a Convoy:
This can be complicated. For the Army to be convoyed, you need to enter the entire path of Fleets it will take, as well as the destination.
This will be easier with an example. The above is the Convoy order from earlier.
The Army order would be:
A WAL - ENG - MAO - POR
The fleets would be:
F ENG C WAL - POR
F MAO C WAL - POR
As you can see, the fleets use the C order, with the origin and destination, and don't mention the other fleets at all.
If England had an Army in SPA for that convoy, and wanted to support the move to POR, it would use a standard support order:
A SPA S WAL - POR
I think that this is enough of the rules for you to get started. Post any questions in here, and I (or others) will answer them. There's a lot to digest, but the games not too complicated once you get in to it.
The basic idea behind Diplomacy is to recreate the political situation of Europe as of 1901. There's 7 "Major Powers", that the players each control. Russia (white), England (dark blue), France (light blue), Germany (black), Italy (green), Austria (red), Turkey (yellow). They each start with 3 "Centres", except Russia, which controls 4.
This is the starting position of the game.
While it does seem unfair that Russia gets more units to start, it's not that big of an advantage, due to the way they need to split their forces.
A few terms:
A Territory is any space on the board. It can be land, sea or coastal. Each named territory can have one unit on it - and only one. Any unnamed territories (Ireland/Switzerland) can have no units.
A centre is a special territory, marked with a dot and a name, instead of just a name. If the territory is neutral, it's brown. If it's owned by a power, it's dot is the colour of the power. You can support one unit for each centre you own.
A Unit is either an Army or a Fleet. Armies look like cannons, and can only go on land territories. Fleets look like battleships, and can go on water territories or coastal territories. Each unit is worth the same amount of combat power.
Game Flow
There are 5 phases to the Game. Spring Movement, Spring Retreat, Fall Movement, Fall Retreat, and Winter Adjustment. The 2 Movement phases are the Major phases, and occur every game year. The others are Minor phases, and do not necessarily occur.
Games occur in Years. Each Winter, there's an adjustment of units, so that each Power has the same number of units as Territories. If there's more Territories than units, then the Powers can build on one of their Home Centres (the ones owned at the start). If there are more builds than home centres - or the home centres are full, and thus cannot be used for a build - then the Power is short a unit.
If a Power has more units than Territories, it removes some - whichever it wants.
After each movement phase, any dislodged units can Retreat to any empty, adjacent Territory. A unit cannot retreat to a Territory it attempted to occupy on that movement that it got bounced from.
Orders
There are 4 types of orders you can give to each unit. Move, Hold, Support and Convoy.
Movement
This moves a piece from one territory to an adjacent territory. Units can only move one territory at a time. An unsupported move can only work if the target territory is empty, and has no other unit present.
Successful Move:
Each of these units is moving to an empty space, so the moves are all successful.
Unsuccessful Move:
Each unit - VIE and WAR are trying to move in to GAL. Since they each offer the same combat power, neither one is able to occupy the square.
Special Movement Rules
There's a few special movement situations that should be addressed.
1. Spain (SPA). When a fleet tries to occupy Spain, it must choose either the North Coast, or South Coast. You can see Spain below, with the North coast marked in red, and the South coast in blue. When in Spain, a fleet can ONLY move to an adjacent territory to the Coast it is currently on. So, if a fleet is in SPA/SC (Spain, South Coast) it cannot move to GAS (Gascony), which it could if it were on the North Coast. Only one unit can occupy Spain - you could not have one on the North Coast and one on the South.
2. Bulgaria (BUL). Just like Spain, BUL has split coasts. The East coast faces the Black Sea (BLA), and the South coast faces the Aegean Sea (AEG).
3. Constantinople (CON). This appears to be a land square, however, it has a canal that allows fleets to pass through from AEG to BLA. Fleets do need to stop in CON during the transit, so it takes two moves to make the transit.
Hold
This tells a unit to stay where it is. Not very exciting.
Support
There's two kinds of Support - movement and hold. This adds one units strength to the strength of another, either to help it move, or help it hold. You can only support a unit whose destination (or current position if holding) is adjacent to the supporting unit. If you refer back to the first image of the whole board, and the bounce in GAL, BUD could have supported VIE in to that space had it not moved. On the other hand, MOS is not adjacent, and thus could not provide support.
As mentioned, all units have equal power. Support is needed to kick a unit out of a Territory it currently occupies. Support can also be used by the other player to help it maintain that space. You can support a unit of another power, on either attack or defense.
Here is an example of each kind. In this, Englands North Africa (NAF) is attempting to move to Turkey's Tunis (TUN). England's Western Mediterannean (WES) supports the move. Turkey's Tyrrhenean Sea (TYS) is supporting TUN so it can hold. In this situation, there's actually another Turkish fleet providing support, but it's not important here. If TUN had no support, it would have been dislodged. Because it had the extra fleet providing support, it had equivalent power as the attackers.
Cutting Support
Sometimes, you cannot get as much support on a unit as needed, but you have a nearby unit that is not adjacent to the territory in question. If it is adjacent to one of the enemy units that is in position to provide support, it can attack it. If a unit that is providing support is attacked, it's support is "cut", and no longer counts.
The above is a complicated example. But, the Frency Army in Marseilles (MAR) wants to help the off-screen Austrian (red) units in to Germany's Munich (MUN). If Burgandy (BUR) is able to support MUN, then the unit will hold. Therefore, the French player attacks BUR, preventing that unit from supporting MUN. Austria now holds that Territory.
Convoys
This is the one exception to the "One territory per turn" rule. A fleet on an Ocean Territory - not a coast - can Convoy an army from one adjacent land Territory to another. For example, and Army in London (LON) could convoy via a Fleet in English Channel (ENG) to Picardy (PIC). Convoys can be strung together among adjacent fleets to move an Army far. Conceivably, one could go from SMY in Turkey up to STP in Russia, around all of Europe.
In this example, the English Army in Wales (WAL) convoys via ENG and Mid Atlantic Ocean (MAO) to Portugal (POR).
Like supports, you can Convoy using other Powers fleets or armies.
You can also support a Convoy at the destination, or support a fleet at any point along the path. A convoy is disrupted only if the Army is not able to land at the destination, or if one of the Fleets along the path is dislodged.
Entering Orders
Because this is being run on an automated judge, orders need to be entered in a very specific format. Fortunately, Bounced has a syntax checker that will tell you what it's seeing with the orders you have entered.
Each Territory has a 3 letter code. This is how you will refer to units in that territory, and how you refer to it as a destination.
Let's go back to the first example:
This is a pretty typical English opening.
To order these units:
F EDI - NTH
A LVP - YOR
F LON - ENG
This says:
Move the Fleet in Edinburgh to North Sea
Move A Liverpool to Yorkshire
Move F London to English Channel
To order a Hold:
F EDI H
To order a support for a move:
In the previous movement example, I could have supported the move to the North Sea with London, using this:
F LON S EDI - NTH
If LVP wanted to support EDI in place:
A LVP S EDI
To order a Convoy:
This can be complicated. For the Army to be convoyed, you need to enter the entire path of Fleets it will take, as well as the destination.
This will be easier with an example. The above is the Convoy order from earlier.
The Army order would be:
A WAL - ENG - MAO - POR
The fleets would be:
F ENG C WAL - POR
F MAO C WAL - POR
As you can see, the fleets use the C order, with the origin and destination, and don't mention the other fleets at all.
If England had an Army in SPA for that convoy, and wanted to support the move to POR, it would use a standard support order:
A SPA S WAL - POR
I think that this is enough of the rules for you to get started. Post any questions in here, and I (or others) will answer them. There's a lot to digest, but the games not too complicated once you get in to it.
03-30-2020
, 10:30 PM
03-31-2020
, 04:30 AM
03-31-2020
, 06:27 AM
Quote:
Each Winter, there's an adjustment of units, so that each Power has the same number of units as Territories.
as long as im not misunderstanding something
Quote:
If a Power has more units than Territories, it removes some - whichever it wants.
03-31-2020
, 07:19 AM