Talk:Diplomacy (game)
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The map shown on the page is not correct, Finland does not border on Barents Sea in the game. Instead Norway and St. PetersBurg border, which they seem not to on the map shown.
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Variants section
I removed the section linking to Global Diplomacy; it seemed silly to have two sections headed "Variants", one of which singled out a specific one of the hundreds of variants to link to. It would probably be a good idea instead to write up individual pages for the more popular Dip variants and list them, but that'd be a fairly hefty undertaking. Psmith 15:01, 17 Oct 2003 (UTC)
1914 or 1901?
I edited the introductory sentence to read that the game is set "at the beginning of Word War I". Before it read that the game was set "at the beginning of the 20th century", and now it says that it is set "at the turn of the twentieth century, prior to World War I". I don't want to get into an edit war, so I am explaining why I think one should say the game is set in 1914, not 1901. I am open to discussing the issue, but if no one responds, I will revert the article to my previous wording. I think it is clear that the game, so far as it has a historical setting, draws its inspiration from World War I. Additionally, the map on the board show Europe roughly as it was in 1914.
What reason do we have for believing that this is a turn-of-the-century game, as opposed to a World War I game? The only evidence that I know of is that game years are traditionally numbered starting in 1901. But as far as I understand, this is pure convention, adopted from the play-by-mail community. Game years seem not to be a part of the historical simulation, but rather a notational convenience. It would be odd if a simulation of Europe at war had a typical running time of 1901 to 1912, given that Europe was not at war at that time! If the game can be said to have a historical setting at all, that setting must be World War I, not a decade prior.
Peace, --Fritzlein 03:20, 13 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Reverting, given no opposing viewpoint. --Fritzlein 19:07, 17 Jul 2004 (UTC)
- The documentation [1] (http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/resources/rulebooks/2000AH4th.pdf) states that the first set of orders are in Spring, 1901. So, this is the official line. porge 23:13, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Gamestart year
The map is neither precisely accurate for 1914 nor 1901, but is closer to 1914. Calhamer adopted the "first turn = Spring 1901" convention in an early revision. (I think this was between his 1958 self-publishing and the 1961 Games Research Inc. publication, but I'm not certain.) In my opinion the current text "set at the start of World War I" is sufficient, as (according to his past articles) this was indeed the intended diplomatic context for the gamestart situation.Barno 18:51, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
A selection of rule sets are available at http://www.diplomacy-archive.com/diplomacy_rules.htm - these show that Diplomacy (called Realpolitik at the time) was initially set in 1914, but by the time was published the start date had been changed to 1901. I assume that this is merely to ensure that the numbering was easier to understand for new players (and when it was first published, there were of course no old hands)
links cleanup
I added text to some of the external links, added a link for the Diplomatic Corps website [warning: I was responsible for this site 1999-2004], and made link formats more consistent. Also corrected a spelling error in an earlier section. Barno 18:55, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Style of English
I see we have some back-and-forthing between American English and British English spellings. The game was invented by an Ameican and rights to it are currently owned by an American company. Furthermore, the earliest version of the article that's listed in the history is this one (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Diplomacy_%28game%29&oldid=25046), which uses "favorable" (the only instance I noticed of a choice between AE and BE). Given these factors, Wikipedia policy calls for use of AE. I suggest we settle on AE, make it consistent, and avert future reverts. JamesMLane 11:16, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
- Agreed. Note that, while a USA company owns the primary publication rights, they license rights in other countries to other companies. Waddingtons, at least, uses British English. But AE is the most appropriate standard to use here. Barno 19:47, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)