The Embassy

Eventually, I was able to move into the modern world.  I got a PC.  Yep, a real computer.  And I got t'internet. Even more eventually I wondered: What will I find if I search for Diplomacy on the web?  So I searched and the first return of note was Play Diplomacy Online . So, I wasn't impressed with the map used back when I joined.  But, you know what, it was only the map.  The game system worked.  The game was easy to access.  It didn't have a long, long wait for things to happen.  And I could play live games against people. I think PlayDip was about a year old back then.  Not everything ran smoothly.  But it improved - massively.  The map is now pretty looking, there are interesting variants available on the main site, the ranking system is much better than the old one, games are interesting and varied. For me, though, it's always been the Forum that has interested me as much as playing Dip.  The discussion ab...

It feels somewhat strange to read that sentence: I ...  went to university and Dip faded from my life.  I wasn't the most involved of people at Uni.  To some extent that was because the societies at Sheffield University in the early-80s weren't very interesting.  There wasn't a Diplomacy Society... not even a board game society.  And this was pre-internet effectively. In fact, it wasn't until the early-90s that I really got back into Diplomacy.  At that point, I was in the early stages of my career (or what I thought would be my career) in teaching, had my own place with a loft bedroom-come-study where I did my work. One Christmas I wandered into a toy store and was perusing the board games.  I spotted a copy of Diplomacy - a different box but, from the illustrations on the back, the same board and pieces.  And it included a flyer about the postal hobby. Wait.  What?  Postal play???  If wtf had existed then, I'd have though...

I'm not going to pretend I remember when I got my first Diplomacy game.  It was that long ago that, if I attempted to name a year I'd get it wrong. It was published by Avallon Hill, though, and a typical UK/European board.  Russia was purple, England pink, France... well, what colour do you call that?  'Blue' seems to do a disservice to blue. I was young enough that the closest I got to playing the game was with family.  This normally meant the 6-player version and involved me, my brother Steven, my parents, Uncle Alan and Auntie Margaret.  Dip games were few and far between because we also had Treasure of the Pharaohs, Game of Life, Monopoly (yawn), Anti-monoploly, Alarm... Board games were great. There was one occasion when we got a 7-player game, one Christmas when Auntie Barbara was there.  The problem was that it took a long time to explain the rules to a new player.  I don't think we got very far into the game. My game wa...