Diplomacy

[size=12][COLOR=#009900][b]MIKE'S[/b][/COLOR][/size]

Maybe I'm just too much of a schemer. Or maybe I hold grudges too much. Or maybe its the maximising. But I just can't get along in this game. People don't trust me. I love the Middle Earth variant though: Downfall.

First played at school when we used to have two sets of orders a week. I think I may have only played this ftf once or twice but I probably had several games on the go at one when I was very active in the postal hobby. I love the idea and the mechanics are great but I really suck at negotiation and don't enjoy that aspect at all - and if you take away the negotiation in Diplomacy there really isn't a game. I don't mind adjudicating though.

In my opinion Diplomacy is by far the best strategy boardgame ever created, purely for the fact that it doesn't have any dice (or cards for that matter) and subsequently relies entirely on pure skill and is also very simple to pick up and play.

An amazing game for the right situation. You need a group of friends who are willing to stab and be stabbed with no hard feelings. Also a serious time commitment in a single sitting.

My Dip group got around this by migrating most of our games to online. Mitigates some of the anger surrounding a well timed stab, adjudicates the rules, and keeps track of the board if you leave it for a while.

A game that is so good it's almost dangerous because it gets in your head and stays there plaguing you with doubts and fears. Very simple but almost endlessly replayable because the game depends on the players not the other way round. And the only boardgame that is improved by being played online. If only it wasn't unbalanced it might be perfect.

This game is so great, but getting 7 players in a room to complete a game is the almost impossible part. Luckly you can play by Email and have almost the same experience.

If only it didn't take so long to play...