So i am posting this to ask some questions about Out of Game communication. I was recently introduced to Diplomacy by a group of friends who needed a 7th man for a private game of diplomacy. These people were all from the school i currently attend. So not really knowing the rules we talked about strategy and made alliances outside the game and it eventually turned into a 4 way draw (I was one of the last standing!) Anyway my question went along the lines of, does communicating outside of the game in a normal diplomacy game count as cheating? If it does then does it also counted as cheating if all members of the game know each other in real life and agree that they can talk to each other Out of game to make alliances. I obviously know that Gunboat is a different matter entirely but what about private games? The reason i ask this is because i really enjoyed sitting down to a table to eat lunch and having the turn tick over, the knowing smirks and secret alliances and the little hints that you might be about to be betrayed made the game more interesting. To me it felt like an actually game of diplomacy that you sat around and played like the actual board game without the time restraint that board games impose on the players as most of us are quite busy with other things. Anyway thanks for taking the time to read this thread and i hope you all have good games.