to my knowledge, I dont think there are any vs AI games. But that is actually beside the point.

learning how the pieces move and some basic tactics are only a part of the game. I'd argue that you can learn that easily just by playing a game or two.

the real meat of diplomacy is...diplomacy. Talking to your neighbors, getting a feel for there intentions, knowing a good time to stab them, etc.

diplomacy is interactive. AI will never replicate what you need to learn to become a good player. You can only learn by playing with humans.

I think that there are, I don't know any of them, but I'm pretty sure they're a little weak on the diplomacy side of things. I suggest that you just get in on a game and then see what happens. I'd just recommend that you don't join a live game. Make sure you do a game with at least 24 hour phases and I'd suggest that you only join one game until you're done the first year of the first game.

Darwyn is right. I started in the exact same boat trying to find games like crazy that had an AI version. It really wasn't worth it. I learned more by asking questions..and still asking questions...from everyone around to get great knowledge and advice.

You will do fine here oris. You just have to practice.

Hey oris,

I'll let somebody else answer your AI question, because I don't know the answer. But I would say that you should go ahead and join a game here if you're pretty clear on the rules. You say you don't want to have to drop out -- well, definitely don't drop out. That is the only thing that would offend people. As long as you stay in the game and keep playing, making mistakes is forgiveable, and you'll pick up pretty fast after a game or two.
Believe me, you won't be the worst player on the site. Go ahead and play and don't stress out too much.
It's cool that you're concerned about not ruining the game for other players though. Just don't NMR, and reason through your moves as well as you can, and you should be fine.
Once you get going, know which country you are, etc., maybe you'd find it helpful to check out some of the articles here:
http://www.diplom.org/~diparch/resources/strategy.htm
Good luck!

An option is to use Realpolitik. http://realpolitik.sourceforge.net/
You'd have to play all the countries yourself, but I find it an invaluable tool for playing out scenarios. Once you get the hang of the controls (message here if you have questions) it can help teach you those "what happens if?" questions.

https://sites.google.com/site/diplomacyai/QuickStart

will give you a pretty good AI to practice tactics on. It can form stalemate lines and does balance of power and stuff like that. It is the kind of thing that you will eventually get good enough to beat every time, though, so I mainly just use it as something to do to destress these days.

@uclabb: You do? I find it pretty hard to beat the Quickstart AI. I suspect it has a bias against human players. Every time I play, I either get one or two countries to go suicidal on me, or they form a huge stalemate line.

@oris: Join a game. Diplomacy is a game one should play with fellow diplomats. The real fun of this game is the communication with other players, building trust with your allies, spreading rumors about your enemies, that kind of stuff. No engine will teach you that side of Diplomacy.

The Quickstart AI is a pretty good tactician, by the way.

Thanks for responses guys,
I appreciate all the advice and am going to join a game and learn by practice.

I did actually just stumble accross DAIDE Diplomacy, which allows playing against AI (as well as over network) but with no function to save/load games.

uclabb - yepp, should've refreshed the page before posting i guess :))

Quickstart AI is very good, but when you play few games you notice patterns, and than its winnable.

@basvan- Yeah, I find that the AIs just don't have a killer instinct so you can just outlast them and rebuild. And while they are decent at setting up a stalemate line, they don't really get triggered until you get up around 12 or 13 and by then I make sure to have stuff across it anyway. Also, since they are so into balance of power you can basically hang out at around 3 or 4 centers until 1960 if it takes that long for an opening to show up as they just keep trading the lead.