The Embassy

This is a sticky one, frankly.  If you want to win a game of Diplomacy what isn't allowed?  Some of the stuff that isn't allowed should be obvious and I've discussed much of it in previous posts in this series.  That leaves things that you can do to win that are questionable and, in the final analysis, come down to personal choice. How far are you prepared to go to win at Diplomacy ?  That is probably what defines whether you think something is "gamesmanship" or not, and whether you think it is acceptable. Slow Play Some players in the online game are what I call Pussycats .  They want to play as quickly as possible and they want to move the game on.  Some will hassle through Public Press.  "Has everyone finalised yet?" "Who hasn't finalised?" "Come on - FINALISE!!!" Now this, itself, is something that becomes annoying.  If you join a game with certain deadlines, you need to expect to play to those deadlines.  If you...

I thought it might be fun to have a look at some types of player you're likely to come across when playing  Diplomacy .  Well, OK, it's not all fun in this series... but I'll do my best. Finally, the people who really shouldn't be playing the way their playing no matter what.  Sorry, but none of the people here ought to be playing Diplomacy . The Davian Davian behaviour in animals is, basically, necrophilia.  Davian behaviour in Dip players isn't quite as strange, but it isn't great, either; it's still flogging a dead horse. There are times in Dip games where the game is over.  Usually there are two sides: sometimes it will be a Grand Alliance stopping a single player from winning; other times there may be two opposing alliances preventing each other from making progress.  The key to this situation is that, without someone doing something stupid, the game has ended.  These are deadlocked games. A Davian is a player will who refuse...