I clicked and hoped it was Diplomacy. I'm so glad to be right. I've only played it once 20 years ago in high school, and it was a remarkable experience that I'm not sure I'll be able to repeat. You and a few folks have to really dedicate the entire day to it to get the most out of it, something that is very hard to do now as a parent and with many possible distractions within reach.
We played a few games my freshman year in college in the dorms 25 years ago. One of the guys on our floor brought it, and he had gotten if from his dad who played in law school in the 1970s.
Our games took days, and we would leave the board up in a room, and we would spend time between classes and other activities talking and making deals and strategizing. While only a handful of us were actually playing, the entire floor was involved, giving advice, spying, etc.
It was quite the experience. We have talked about playing again in the two plus decades since then, but it is really hard to make that sort of commitment as grown adults with families.
Why not play with your kids?
As weird as it is, I play Shikoku 1889 with my kids, betrayal and anger and everything. If anything, Diplomacy might be easier to setup and keep up.
I might when they get a bit older. My oldest is 10, which is a bit young I think.
I've never played Diplomacy, but I do remember an 11-hour session of Twilight Imperium back in my university days as one of my peak tabletop gaming experiences. Hours and hours of careful diplomacy and verbal agreements all coming apart in the final hour when three players vied for the final victory. I was never in contention, but I remain proud of not breaking my word in game to this day (and also helping cost the win for the player who screwed me over hardest).
We used to play it in junior high and high school. My neighborhood was all boys (except some weekends when daughters of divorced parents were visiting). We were pretty nerdy and in summers would play DnD, axis and allies, risk, just about everything. And diplomacy! Diplomacy was a perfect multi-tasking game. At the beginning you could have several moves a day but as the game goes on and negotiations get more complex we would often just have one move a day. We had games that lasted all summer and when school started again we'd flip the board. :)
Did you play Fortress America?
There were a lot of other games we regularly played (car wars, some card-based baseball league simulator, and others) but that one doesn't sound familiar.
I played it a few times in university (pretty much the only period of life where a group of friends can get together and sink a whole day and night into stuff like this). It's hard to describe this game; as you get going on a round with friends, it's intensily exciting and fun, but as soon as you're done, you never wanna play again (then that feeling fades). Yet somehow, my friends and I to this day refer to things that happened in rounds of this game 15-20 years ago! (Especially that time one of the group was to catch a ride home with another, until the passenger backstabbed the driver in the endgame and had to walk home at 4 am.)
I also tried playing it online with randoms a few times, thinking it would be suitable for play-by-mail style play instead of losing a whole day. Didn't like it at all. The unique fun comes from backstabbing your friends.
Truly a magnificent game, but also one that I'm glad is firmly behind me in a different era of my life. Like a lot of things from uni ;)
> [diplomacy] was inducted into Games Magazine’s hall of fame alongside Monopoly, Clue, and Scrabble.
It takes a diplomacy player to deliver such a backhanded accolade.
I have really enjoyed Arcs by Cole Wehrle as my modern Diplomacy-like asymmetrical war game - cutthroat, negotiating, area control, but also more randomness, variety and theme. And the campaign totally changes the vibe into a space opera!
Root was also very good but I think is harder to master as the factions are so different and so runaway games are common IMO.
Ah, the good old days of optimizing turns instead of database queries. Pretty sure a few friendships died over this game.
In the East Bay (CA), there was a multiline bbs that a family wrote and ran. One of the online games they had was diplomacy - ascii graphics. They also sold the game at their office for members. My first online intro, friends and I played before. This was in the 80s.
Illuminati was like that for me. It took a special group of friends to play a game where betrayal and backstabbing is expected, and not come away hating each other.
But oh man, the things we said to each other would make a Marine drill sergeant blush.
I bet my experience would have been better if I were playing with people I knew, but the one time I played it, I didn't have a great time. (Yes, of course I was betrayed and stabbed in the back by another player; but that was expected! And as the one newbie who didn't know anyone, I knew my time was numbered.)
I think I mostly hated the map; it was difficult to read, and I made at least two mistakes because the regions in the center were tiny and hard to parse out for me.
But... also, this sort of thing just doesn't appeal to me. I really like Secret Hitler, but otherwise, the social-deduction style of game doesn't appeal to me. But I'm very glad that this game exists, and that people are way into it.
I can’t play it with people I know, after genuinely upsetting some friends in a backstab. With strangers meeting only for the game it feels a lot more expected and less personal
Finding a good group is hard. Too many board gamers don’t realise that these are _games_.
It just depends on the person I think, nothing inherently wrong with the fact that some people take it a bit personally, just don't invite them back. Personally I love root, but there are definitely people who are a little sensitive to play it with; it really has to be the type of friend who can see the humour in a good backstab.
Great article, sadly it seems that the footnotes are no longer working
Wusses. We played Machiavelli, which was basically Diplomacy with plague and famine phases...
Remember this one? Felt like it was trying a bit too hard to be 'meta' back then. Definitely a product of its time.
We used to play Diplomacy at work but it caused too many hard feelings and was a distraction.
We played several games at work. The finale was a guy actually paying people off (like with cash) to close out a win. I consider that a raging success.
Diplomacy can be really, really, fun but you absolutely have to play it with the right crowd. It's an acquired taste because you spend a huge chunk of the game telling bald-faced lies and talking out both sides of your mouth. Some people are good at not taking things personally, or having hurt feelings after the game has ended.
Other people, not so much.
If you like Diplomacy, try "So Long, Sucker." You can destroy friendships in 1/100th of the time.