Diplomacy (game) - Basic Setting and Overview

Basic Setting and Overview

The board is a map of Europe plus portions of the Middle East and North Africa. It is divided into fifty-six land regions and nineteen sea regions. Forty-two of the land regions are divided among the seven Great Powers of the game: Austria-Hungary, England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Turkey. The remaining fourteen land regions are neutral at the start of the game.

Thirty-four of the land regions contain supply centers, corresponding to major centers of government, industry or commerce (e.g. Vienna, Rome); twenty-two of these are located within the Great Powers, and are referred to as home supply centers. The remaining twelve are located in provinces which are neutral at the start of the game. The number of supply centers (SCs) a player controls determines the total number of armies and fleets a player may have on the board, and as players gain and lose control of different centers, they may build (raise), or must remove (disband) units accordingly.

The land provinces within the Great Powers which contain supply centres are generally named after a major city in the province (e.g. London, Moscow) while the other land provinces within the Great Powers are generally named after a region (e.g. Bohemia, Apulia). Neutral land provinces are generally named after countries (e.g. Serbia, Belgium). Finland and Syria are both parts of Great Powers as Finland was part of the Russian empire in 1914 and Syria was part of the Turkish empire in 1914. Tunis is used rather than Tunisia on most boards and North Africa is a single province covering parts of Algeria and Morocco. Although for game purposes, the game starts in 1901, the map generally reflects the political boundaries of Europe in 1914 just before the outbreak of WWI, with Bosnia already annexed to the Austrian empire, and the Balkans reflecting the results of the wars of 1912 and 1913 in that region. On the other hand, North Africa and Tunis start the game as neutral, despite these regions being part of the French colonial empire in 1914.

All players other than England and Russia begin the game with two armies and one naval fleet; England starts with two fleets and one army, and Russia starts with two armies and two fleets (making it the only player to start the game with more than three units). Only one unit at a time may occupy a given map region. Balancing units to supply center counts is done after each game-year (two seasons of play: Spring and Autumn). At the beginning of the game, the twelve neutral SCs are all typically captured within the first few moves. Further acquisition of supply centers becomes a zero sum dynamic with any gains in a player's resources coming at the expense of a rival.