I would guess that most diplomacy players have a love/hate relationship with the game. My high school friends and I used to play a lot – maybe too much. After we all left for college, we kept playing over the web. It kept us in touch, and for that, I love it. At the same time, it required constantly lying to each other on the phone and in emails, and for that, I hate it. (If you’ve never played, you are doomed if you just tell the truth; cheating is explicitly stated as legal in the rules.) So this post is a tribute to my friends for the countless hours we spent playing a game that simultaneously brought us closer together and pushed us farther apart.

Adjacency in diplomacy is both a good and bad thing; it allows for less restricted movement and more options to support your units, but it also means you have to defend against more avenues for attack. As a conservative player, I prefer more defensible positions and would thus rather play as Turkey or France than Germany or Austria. Based on the standard starting position (for 7 players), here is the average number of adjacent provinces for each country’s initial supply centers:

Austria: 5, 5, 7 → 5.67

England: 4, 5, 6 → 5

France: 4, 5, 5 → 4.67

Germany: 5, 7, 7 → 6.33

Italy: 4, 5, 7 → 5.33

Russia: 5, 5, 6, 6 → 5.5

Turkey: 4, 5, 6 → 5

Happy diplomacy playing, everyone! And remember, it’s just a game…that you should take very personally.

Data source: Map based on jDip export – http://jdip.sourceforge.net/