Diplomacy is one of the finest board games ever created. Set during the tumultuous years prior to the Great War, it's a seven-player game of trust and deceit, where the aim is to take half of Europe by force. The drama, however, lies not in conquest but in negotiation, and because there are no dice and, unlike Risk, each territory can only support one military unit, the game can only be won with the help and/or ineptitude of others.
Before moving your units, the early phase of the game is spent negotiating with the other heads of state. If you were playing the board game, you would simply call the Russian President into the corner and offer to support his attack into Prussia if he supports your defence of Constantinople. In this PC version, the same is done via a few mouse clicks, by creating a meeting room and inviting the other players in. And, unlike the board game, seven human players aren't a necessity.
Unfortunately, Diplomacy doesn't lend itself too well to playing against computer-controlled opponents. It's a game of wits and wile and negotiating with a PC isn't quite the done thing. While the PC can play a good military game, die-hard diplomats will know that this aspect is only half of the game. Sometimes it's not what you say, but how you say it. Still, for Diplomacy students, the PC game is nothing if not a good trainer.
Multiplayer-wise, Diplomacy covers all the bases. Offering a Hot Seat mode where players can bicker around the same PC, to full online games either on Microsoft's Gaming Zone or by email. Email games are in fact the closest you'll get to the 'real thing', but the paradox is that you don't need Diplomacy to play via email (confused? Check out www.diplom.org).
For those wanting to get into the world of Diplomacy, this PC version is a more than accessible first step. After a few games though, its lack of human interaction shines through and the whole game comes across as a shallow conversion of a true board game classic. Buy that instead.
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