Diplomacy
Diplomacy is a strategic board game created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in the United States in 1959.
Postal (play-by-mail) Diplomacy was very popular in fandom in the ’60s through the ’80s. SF fans invented Diplomacy play-by-mail gaming, with John Boardman's Graustark and Ted Johnstone's Ruritania being the first and second play-by-mail Diplomacy zines. Other well-known fans who played included Charles Reinsel, Jack Chalker, Fred Lerner, Bruce Pelz, Dian Pelz, Don Miller, Ted Johnstone, John Piggott, Robert Sacks, Peter Sullivan and Sandra Bond. Miller, in particular, published hundreds of issues of various fanzines devoted to Postal Diplomacy between about 1965 and 1974.
Its main distinctions from most board wargames are its negotiation phases and the absence of dice and other game elements that produce random effects.
Normally set in Europe (though fans created versions set in stfnal realms such as Middle-Earth), Diplomacy is usually played by two to seven players, each controlling the armed forces of a major European power. Each player aims to move his or her few starting units and defeat those of others to win possession of a majority of strategic cities and provinces marked as "supply centers" on the map.
Following each round of player negotiations, each player can issue attack orders and take control of a neighboring province.
| Fanhistory | 1960s— |
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