Topic: Games
After running an errand this evening, I called in an order to Joey's for dinner. I had fifteen minutes to kill before my order was ready so I popped into the used bookstore down the street. What did I find on the shelves...? None other than a box set of Avalon Hill's Diplomacy from 1976.
I've been wanting a Diplomacy set for a long time. Never got around to picking one up. You can pick up a new set (the Wizards of the Coast printing) from Amazon for $22.99. But the vintage 1976 set with the wood pieces (as mine this one has) sell for $50 on Amazon and eBay.
I picked this one up for $10.
Diplomacy is one of the best board games on the planet, but it is rare you'll find someone who'll play it twice. Like Risk, the object of the game is to sieze as much territory as possible in an effort to control a majority of the map. Unlike Risk, moves are not determined by dice roll. Rather in order to accomplish anything in the game, the players must negotiate supporting one another in various military engagements. The nature of the game then is that at some point one has to screw over their allies.
In a March Fear The Boot forum post, I described Diplomacy thus:
It's a wonderful game encouraging such marvelous duplicity. Hard on friendships, though. And I must discourage anyone from playing with spouses.
FtB's Luke Meyer commented:
This game will destroy all that you love and hold dear! There's no such thing as a friendly game of Diplomacy.
Doesn't that sound fun?
Who wants to play?
Aron Head
www.EvilBastard.net
