My current plan is to play kingmaker or fast and loose siding with whoever has better/more intriguing moves. I think between the other players on the board they can get their fill of backstabs and plotting, so unfortunately no great stabs for me in this one (unless they reallllly are asking for it
). If you all have any experience with this I'd be happy to hear about either your successes or failures in order to make sure they have a good time. One of my few worries is it usually seems like there's going to be at least one player who just gets the worse end of the deal and is out first (usually a new Austrian player
). I'm not sure if that should be a sword I try and fall on for their sake and to boost their early enjoyment of "taking down the vet" or if it would be disingenuous or unfair to artificially allow a few nations to get SC advantages over the rest of the board by playing too dumb. One thing I have thought of doing while writing this is that when we go into the order writing phase we will end negotiations per rulebook press, submit my turns first and not alter them so that players can freely ask me any and all rule questions and if their moves will work (but not to give advice). I know from firsthand experience it can be extremely frustrating to know what you want to do, but not submitting the moves correctly.
Sorry for the wall of text, but thought I'd ask, share some things I've already thought of, and see what the rest of the community has to add about this. Hopefully by the end of it Diplomacy will have six new players
.