Whenever there seems to be a natural balance of power, Germany declares war on two large nations to disrupt it.

Italy has to switch alliances every year.

Italy's troops come with a -20% strength rating, that is to say, if for example Germany and Italy both order one unit into Tyrolia, without support, they don't bounce, but the German unit moves there.

The Turkish diplomat is forced to concede any SC if another power offers a 10 point bribe.

For example, if Russia will pay a 10 point bribe to the Turkish leader's account, he or she could be forced to move out of Serbia and leave it for Russia to take without support.

Further, the export of grain from Ukraine by germany in 1917 causes a famine in winter '17/18 for russia, forcing them to count supply as lower by one.

The easter rising in 1916 requires an army to be present in liverpool (if england still controls the island) Or the Irish gain their independance and fight a civil war against the Ulster Unionists leading to what is effectively genocide.

This english Army just needs to sit in lvp in spring, it can offer support or even cut support by trying to move, (but if it manages to move it fails to stop the rising)

Oh, 1918 the US enter the war, but only if a stalemate line has been fromed and held for at least four years...

Realism, Smealism. This is a game that takes place on a map resembling Europe. It starts in 1901, but it isn't a simulation. If it were, technologies would change and units would have different strengths based on what nation they belonged to and when they were created or last in a home SC (for upgrades).

^Agreed, technologies should change over time. I demand mustard gas.

If we hit 1945, we have to introduce the A-Bomb.

Your post is stupid. In one case, you suggest a rule (civil disorder) that says "17 years in to the game, no matter the status of Russia, they go in to civil disorder and are penalized..." and then suggest a rule for Germany that says "If the player does something right, regardless of history, this will happen"

You are inconsistent.

Hell, if you want to play that game, then you might as well start weighting the strength of units so that 2 vs 2 isn't always a push, etc. And then let's introduce the old Risk "nuke" rule...only in this case it's the "Mustard Gas Rule", in which, randomly, you automatically win battle and cause a disband (not a retreat) because you gassed the bastards...

How about this? No board, no pieces, no game. We just sit quitely and watch a WWI documentary.

I like the gassing "nuke" rule that forces the disband. Soudns like fun!

I suggest not playing the game at all. How many times have we popped open a thread and seen some genius telling us how the game went all wrong, that everyone made the wrong moves and *this* is how the game was *supposed* to go. We should really just establish a board of arbitrators who will examine the initial layout of every game and just determine the winners. That would save us a lot of trouble entering orders and negotiating and back stabbing and all the tedious game-playing stuff...

Diplomacy is not a war game.

That is all.

Ahhh...I guess we mistook "armies and navies" as somehow being a military reference. Stupid us.

OK, sure, in the strictest since it is a "Diplomacy" game...I get it. Except the game uses discussion as a way to facilitate and manipulate the moving of military pieces in large-scale simulations of war. So you are wrong. (Sigh....so many smarty-pants on this site without a clue...)

Question -- ever play gunboat...you know, no speaka, yes? Thus hardly diplomacy at all, except for the hidden messages how you are fighting...how you are conducting your war...

That is all.

*sigh* thank you Draugnar and Krellin for missing OP's point completely.

^What YJ said, you guys got too much anger inside you to recognize that we were JOKING. Thank you.

STFU Yellow....thank YOU for being another one of the Forum Police, making sure that (GASP!!!!!) nobody strays off topic or "misses the point". Pray tell, what exactly was this most important topic that it was so critical that nobody deviated from one bit? Moron...I think it was "add some rules you think might be neat"....so, the Mustard Gas rule...yes that's one...then there's the "Let YellowJacket predict the game, because he's so smart rule and we don't even need to play rule"...that was two....I'm playing the game, dumbass and staying on topic. So, again STFU.

YELLOWJACKET....please now go away proceed to about, oh, a thousand other forum posts in EVERY thread that stray from the original topic. Jackass...

@redhouse...Errrr...no...you are just SO far from truth there. Yes, my Mustard Gas rule (aka the Risk Nuke Rule that everyone knows that has ever played Risk) is actually NOT angry, and NOT out of line with the topic, Moron. what IS out of line with the topic is YOU and YJ....That is the ultimate irony, isn't it? As for my "Stupid" comment in my original post, his original post WAS stupid, as he directly contradicted his own style of rule making...But perhaps logic fails you and you are incapable of grasping that in your need to insult others....as I will do now, to you: Jackass.

Paris should just be a German home center. Also, any unit held in Greece for more than two consecutive turns is disbanded because Greeks are lazy.

@YJ & Red - I did get it. I posted in jest and then listed the rules I would add if we were to go that route. I'm havign fun with it. I like the mustard gas/nuke thing. I really think the ability to nuke and having strategic bombers able to hit anywhere in the world and return as of 1945 (if the game got there) would be a valid addition to our theoretical rules. Tech is part of the game (not all units are armies or naviews, but there are different types) so tech shoudl change as the game progresses. It's a fun idea. Somewhere around the 1910 short range bi and triplanes shoudl come into play over land only. By 1938 there should be sea based short range fighters and land based short range bombers. In 1942 we should be able to send bombers on one way missions off aircraft carriers (ala Doolittle's raiders). And if the game makes it to the 80s, full on SAC, 90s should have the intro of stealth technology, and the 21st century should have drones and advanced tactical aircraft.

'If it were, technologies would change and units would have different strengths based on what nation they belonged to'

no, the nation doesn't mater, if a turkish unit is weaker on average than the rest this is made up for by them sending more men in each 'unit'. This is all balanced for the sake of gameplay....

mustard gas should similarily be a small enough impact that it doesn't wipe out an entire army, unless you produce a metric fuck-tonne of it.

So i suggest allowing the construction of a mustard gas 'unit' which has the effect indicated - this should be great for breaking open stalemate lines :)

But a nation with serious tanks and infantry to support and clean up would wipe a pure infantry force out with no problem. Russia in WWI versus Germany in WWI. After all, tanks were devloped in WWI to *be* stalemate busters.

Basically....what you are all describing is Avalon Hills Squad Leader, or any other number of strategic board games played with fog of war and a mod....which is great fun.

As for mustard gas...yes, metric fuck-tonne of it would be nice! lol

One interesting aspect of Squad Leader was "breaking moral", where if a unit was under fire you had to do a moral check, and if the unit failed it was forced to retreat, even if undamaged. An officer with the unit could mitigate a moral roll, or reinstate moral. This is a type of rule that would break stalemate lines -- eventually one side or the other would break morale (which would be a simulation many thing, including loss of support from home)

Another idea is supply lines, such that an isolated unit would have to do a supply check to see if they could gather supplies, or risk disbanding.

krellin - 1) Gunboat is not Diplomacy. I've played tons of it. It bears almost no resemblance to Diplomacy. 2) Actual Diplomacy - the kind where you spend 90% of your time talking and 10% writing moves - has almost nothing to do with the armies and navies and the board. It's about manipulating the other players. It's about predicting human behavior. It's about getting inside people's heads. It has far more in common with poker than with Axis and Allies.

It is not in any way a war game. If you think it's a war game, you don't understand the game.

(OP - Sorry to hijack your thread btw. Wasn't my intention. The point of my overly snarky comment was really just to say that if you're looking for a good realistic war game, there are good ones out there. Diplomacy models the negotiations and human interaction of warfare perhaps, but the board could be red and green spaces and round and square pieces and have all vestige of warfare stripped out, and it would still be fundamentally the same game. It's a multi-player strategy game that happens to be played on a map. But the map and the armies and fleets are just flavor. IMO, if you want more realism, I'd just go find a good war game. I think Diplomacy is the greatest game out there, but as a war game it's kind of crap.)

At orathic, how much is in a metric fuck tonne? I never realized the fuck ton was a metric unit, is it more or less than the standard shit ton?

Dys - gunboat is not Diplomacy...funny, because other than no communication, it uses *EXACTLY* the same rules as Diplomacy. FAIL.

Regarding your other blathering....blah blah lbah. funny thing is REAL wars are mostly not about fighting either....so in reality, Diplomacy simulates real war quite nicely. Lots of talking...more talking...a little bloodshed here and there...We had hundreds of thousands of troops run through Iraq over the years....relatively speaking, the casualities were almost non-existent compared to the volume of troop. Seems Diplomacy is very much a war game.

I undertand teh game extremely well, dufus. I also understand what "war games" are, as I spent my youth playing them. I'm sorry that you are so narrow minded and "high browed" that you can't accept that this not a war game. Kind of makes you a simpleton, I think, because unless there is simulated bloodshed it isn't a war game? lol Tell me, what other game simluates attacks and retreats and disbanding of armies who are caught with no place to run? Because THAT sounds exactly like war to me. Good god you people are ignorant.

As for Dys....you may note (if you have even the slightest of reading skills) that I have referenced the fact that there are many war games out there...but, like it or not, this is a war game. The basic elelments of the pieces represent miitary units, and their interactions are based upon military tacitcs. You call it a "strategy" game....well, what the fuck do you think REAL war is? You think it is general RANDOMLY sending soldiers out to fight or do you think there is planning, negotiating with Allies, coordinating attacks, etc in real war? How utterly stupid are you people anyway?

@smcbride -- I believe the metric fuck tonne is perhaps a liquid measurement, as opposed to a weight....like the confusion some suffer over an ounce...? You see, a "shit ton" would be a measurement by weight, but if the nachos were a little too spicy, and things get a little...er....."loose" shall we say? Then you might measure your product in a liquid fuck tonne instead of shit ton. Make sense now?

"War Game" It is a "war game" if the little pieces on the board are shaped like military units, and you have to roll a die to randomly determine the outcome of a move. Of course, since I have a house full of strategy board games, and therefore see the same strategic elements involved in "war games" and other games (say, a game about trying to eliminate pandemic disease)...I guess what makes something a "war game" is random dice (not wait...that's in farm games too....) so the only unique element is "pieces shaped like army men". Thus, Diplomacy is a war game....unless you have an old school version with square cubes of wood and rectangular blocks of wood to differentiate army and navy...