Inspired by the Risk thread I have decided to GM a game of diplomacy amongst the TG members, using the http://www.dipbounced.com interface. It's free and easy, and does all the grunt work for you.

For anyone that does not know diplomacy is a board game set in Europe at the turn of the 20th century. It contains the 7 great powers (England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Austria and Turkey), in a bid for domination of all of Europe. You start with 3 home supply centres, and each of these allows you to have one unit. As you capture more SCs (either neutral, or those belonging to another player) you get to build more units. Obviously the more units you have the more powerful you are.

Combat is simple in theory, but extremely complicated in nature, and comprises a mixture of strategical and tactical thinking with, well plain old guess work to be honest! Each unit may be given one order per season, and on the whole this is either a move or a support. Units of equal strength bounce, so if I had an army in Munich and you had an army in Kiel, and you ordered your army to move into Kiel and I ordered my army to hold, then you would just bounce off of my army and not move in. However if you had a unit in Burgundy support your army from Kiel to Munich then you would have a 2 vs 1 situation, and your move order would be successful. Of course if I had a unit in Tyrolia supporting my army in Munich then it would be 2v2 and you would not get in. But then if you had an army in Piedmont and ordered it to move to Tyrolia then you would cut the support my army in Tyrolia was giving to my army in Munich, making it 2 vs 1 (Bur & Kie vs Mun), and thus you would get in.

Of course starting with 3 units there is not much you can do to stop a combined attack against you, and this is where the game gets it's name. You need to interact diplomatically with the other players. In the west for example the three powers of France, England and Germany have a tricky situation. Neither wants to be isolated against the other two, but how do you know your alliance is genuine? A good ally can lead to a strong stab, and then you lose everything. Thus agreements of NAPs (in this sense agreements not to enter a certain area), and 'mutual bounces' can help to stabilise a region, although it can lead to a loss of tempo, and thus slow your progression.

Well, enough about that! I would be loking to run a game of 48hrs / turn, which gives you good opportunity to review and think about your moves, as well as conduct press (the name for in game messages). If you are interested then sign up to the site and send me a PM. If I get 7 I will start a game. If I get more then I will start more games.