DIPLOMACY VARIANT: WORLD WAR I

 

Last night, I saw a posting on the Boston Backbiter Discord channel something about playing some Gunboat Diplomacy. Gunboat is Diplomacy without negotiation; you just plot and resolve moves, in what turns out to be a purely tactical exercise. Don't get me wrong, I really like playing Gunboat, particularly online. (My only solo win was as France in a Gunboat game.)

It got me thinking about a Diplomacy Variant I'd been thinking about for Solo Play. In the original rules, there were outlined some variant setups for when you have less than seven players. There is the Neutral Italy option for a 6-player setup, the so-called Napoleonic 5-player setup where Germany and Italy are both neutral. Both 4- and a 3- player variants that were less-satisfying IMO -- so the less said here, the better. And then a 2-player WWI variant with Central and Entente Powers and a Neutral Italy until Spring 1915. It was explicitly meant as a Gunboat game, used to learn the rules mechanics for writing orders and resolving conflicts.

It's this last one that I'd like to address. I have actually done it as a Solo game from time-to-time with literally predictable results. My thought was to hack it to make it more playable as a Solo game. (Part of the impetus for this was an event that happened a few years ago at Total Con, which made me swear off playing any more tourneys there -- and in effect, to stop playing Diplomacy for a number of years. More on that at a later date, I suppose.)

The big problem playing in any board game not meant to be played solo, solo is that you, as the player, have perfect knowledge of the state of play. You can solve this by creating your own AI (I've seen a really interesting one for Star Wars Rebellion) of come up with some sort of randomizer or oracle system.

In Diplomacy, the challenge is taking secret orders and simultaneous resolution and transforming it to something that is sequential and linear in nature. My solution comes down to randomizing the order in turn writing for each nation. Starting first is the worst position, with maximal ignorance of the state of play. Last is the best position, with perfect knowledge of the state of play. The trick is to randomize it so that who goes first and who goes last varies from season to season. There are other hacks out there for the game that work on similar logic and that can be combined together. Think of it as a series of knobs that you can set to determine the initial conditions that then hold throughout the course of play.

Here I'm going to talk in general and then apply it specifically to the World War I game:

First Knob: Fixed Alliances vs No Alliances. In World War I, you have fixed alliances, with only the question of Italy to discover randomly or not through the course of play.

Second Knob: Fixed Turn Order vs Alternating Turn Order vs Random Turn Order. I think we can all see the problems inherent in any fixed turn order, regardless of how it is ordered. An Alternating Turn Order fixes those problems somewhat, but still with too much predictability in how it works. IMO, Random is best. What you need is some form of randomizer -- dice are OK (but it strikes me the game comes with its own randomizer, pieces drawn from a bag or cup.)

Third Knob: Alliance vs Individual order writing. In general, I prefer the idea of having each nation be individual and have its own randomly determined turn.

Each of those knobs would apply to any Solo Game.

Fourth Knob: For a World War I game, one big variable is Italy's entry into the War. There seem to be a few options available for this: Central Italy, Entente Italy, Neutral Italy or Random Italy. Some ideas for how to determine each.

Known Alliance at Start: You could start knowing whether Italy was to be Central, Entente or Neutral.

• Spring 1915: D2 to determine whether Italy is Central or Entente.
• Spring 1915: D3 to determine whether Italy is Central, Entente or Neutral.
• Starting Spring 1915: Randomly determine at the start of the season, which nation controls Italy. Omit Italy as a choice. If you don't, though, drawing Italy means they are in Civil Disorder that turn.
• Spring 1915: D4 to determine which of the four choices (including Random Italy) is operative for that game. Then a D2, to determine which version of Random Play is operative, when necessary.

Also, I would institute a rule in the last two scenarios, violating Italy's territorial integrity in 1914 would either move it into the other alliance's orbit instead OR start the random play option immediately.

These are rules I intend on playtesting and sharing the results here on the blog.