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"I have army A in Norway, army B in Sweden.
I move A to Sweden, B to Norway. It fails. How come?"

thats pretty unrealistic

the fact that a "bounce" doesn't weaken any of the forces involved. Realistically this is a fierce battle involving so many casualties on both sides that it is a standoff. In the game, however, you could bounce using the same unit 10 times and turn around and bounce a brand new unit fresh off the SC with the same efficacy.

The whole point of supply centers accounts for that. Throughout the 6 months that encompass a move the Army is getting new recruits and supplies.

The most unrealistic thing is that Switzerland isn't really a giant hole in the middle of Europe.

And that 1914 borders are used for a game that starts in 1901.

You can only conquer in winter.

there isn't any spies! I think every now and then, completely at random, a country's dialogue with another should be unveiled to a third power.

spies aren't random though - you can definitely have double agent-types in Diplo, but the diliberateness of them actually makes it more realistic than if it was random

The very structure of the game is unrealistic. The #1 rule in Diplomacy is that no army is more powerful than another. The creators of Diplomacy failed to take into account technology advantages and geographical factors. Also, they base the game off the assumption that two armies of equal size fighting each other will automatically result in a stalemate. For example, could an army of 75,000 well trained, well equipped soldiers defeat an army of 150,000 poorly trained, sparsely equipped soldiers? Yes. Diplomacy fails to take into account the amount of training and equipment soldiers recieve.

How about a historical example:
150 Austrailian (not Austrian) commandos defeated thousands of Viet Cong guerrillas during a battle in Vietnam.

Or, what about 300? We all know about that. That was actually a real battle between Greece and Persia, not just a movie.

Amount of training, technological advantages, geographical factors, and even weather can dramatically affect the outcome of a battle. These are factors that the game Diplomacy ignores.

If Diplomacy included those factors, the game would be much more realistic. However, we all know that it would be impossible to incorporate these into a board game, especially in an online application.

This makes the game militarily unrealistic, but it is an excellent overall strategy game.

Well, it seems that when I jokingly complained about military capability not being taken into account, everyone took it seriously :-p.
The game is much better off without it, otherwise the diplomacy would suffer. Which would defeat the purpose of the game, I think.
(And yes, a Russian army in Russia would defeat anyone, unless it was in Warsaw)

diplomat, clearly you are missing the point. This thread was not actually meant for criticisms it was just for poking fun. It's less realistic not just because it's impractical for a board game but because such realism wouldn't necessarily be fun. Not only this, but Diplomacy is clearly meant to emphasize the important of diplomacy over strategic prowess which is why everyone is relatively equal. It's your diplomatic skills that set you apart.

Am I the only one here who finds it alien when people call this a "video game", or a "computer game"? It's a social game, more like Mafia than any sort of electronic game...

I call it a board game. X_X

Quote Maniac
"Diplomacy doesn't have spies"

???
UR DOIN IT WRONG

Yeah, I forgot to state that it would be impossible to incorporate my previously stated factors into a board game, even more so because this is an online application of the game.

how about the fact that Germany and France work together quite often? ironic?

How about...
A fleet can easily sail from Norway to Sweden while an enemy holds Skagerrak, but when a fleet sails from Norway to Sweden while an army crosses from Sweden to Norway they bounce?

In real life, the former would be impossible, and the latter would be pretty easy...

i think it is stuped that you cant talk to countries like spain or norway. and it dasnt make sense that you cant move to big parts of africa and asia and that the usa isnt taking any part in such an huge war

You've all got to be kidding. It's a board game.

Yes girmo, stuped...

" 'The speed and ease with which people accept their new leaders and even build them new tanks. This can happen several times...'

Conquered countries don't build them new tanks. The invading forces takes over the industrial processes, ship raw materials back home to build new tanks in the home country."

He might have been referring to CDs.

"The most unrealistic thing is that Switzerland isn't really a giant hole in the middle of Europe."

Effectively it is. Try invading and they will destroy you so easily it's not even funny.

That might be true but when was the last time Switzerland was at war? Napoleon? And he won, didn't he?

Switzerland have to be neautral it was written into some treaty, they can only fight inside Switzerland and the Vatican City

The coastal crawl being illegal is odd, when they wouldn't meet one another in reality.

New post Sent from: trim101 Online (100 ) Sent: 04:16 PM
Switzerland have to be neautral it was written into some treaty, they can only fight inside Switzerland and the Vatican City
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Maybe, but arguably whole point of war is to use force because you disagree to someone else's views and treaties!

Oh, and I had another one. In a more realistic version you would be able to disband unwanted units for tactical gain and not just out of necessity.

Yeah... but is the cost worth the effort of taking over Switzerland... Its certainly do-able, just not necessarily worth the effort.

When there's a stalemate line where owning Switz could break it, I would grab at the chance

Okay, shift to rules: To not just be a negative but to add to the forum, I've always felt that a fleet being able to make a convoy while being itself attacked is pretty bogus.

It can? I've never had that situation. That's messed up!

I'm actually pretty happy with the way fleets and convoying work, though I admit given the way other rules work (support is cut if you're attacked) it isn't terribly obvious to new players that convoys work that way, and it isn't as consistent. That being said, if just attacking a ship in a convoy was enough to disrupt convoys, I think they'd be to difficult to actually pull off, and it would kind of ruin a lot of the game (England would be in a lot of trouble...).

My guess, though I'm just pulling this out of my head, is that the rules probably originally (and this may not have actually ever even made into a published edition, by "original" I mean the first time someone tried to make up the rules and then playtested them) worked that way, but it was probably changed to the current system (convoy succeeds unless a ship is actually dislodged)

My reasoning is that it seems like the game's philosophy of rules is really centered around simplicity and consistency in rules (the complexity is meant to come from the diplomatic aspects of the game, and the interactions of those few simple rules). And that exceptions and extra rules are only introduced where they are necessary to balance the game and make it playable for everyone.

So while it FEELS like just attacking a ship in a convoy should disrupt it, since that feels like it'd be more consistent with the way the rest of the game works, my guess is it was changed at some point early on to make the game more playable.

Again this is just my guess, but my read of the game from the rules and such leads me to think this is at least a probable history of the rules for Convoys.

Yes, I agree. To remind anyone who jumps into the conversation at this point: the case is what is least realistic. We know the game is good etc, but what is least true to real life.

As noted before, it would be much more realistic to have enemy nations refuse to help your cause. However, I would take this a step further. Former allies (such as the low countries and England) would help, whereas a German unit in France would face insurgency.
I must admit that this thread has led me to think about a number of possibly interesting variants, which would I admit be a lot harder to write, and more along the lines of the Total War games, with a decent AI diplomat.