For those of you who may be unfamiliar with the game, the concept of Diplomacy is simple - be one of 7 nations to take over Europe circa 1900 using your armies and navies, charm and deceit. All units have equal power when attacking or defending, so the only way to win a battle is with a superior number of units. There are no dice to be rolled or chance cards to be played so luck is not a factor whatsoever. It purely comes down to superior numbers. Usually the best (and sometimes the only) way to achieve superior numbers is to convince another nation that it is in their best interest to help you succeed. Of course, since there can be only one winner, backstabbing an 'ally' is not only commonplace, but indeed, necessary. Of course, convincing another player to help you instead of someone else - or worse - outright attacking you, is where the charm and deceit come in. Other players can tell you what orders they plan on giving their units, but never do they actually have to do what they tell you they are going to do. In the end, you have to trust someone that you know you may very well end up fighting against later on. So the delicious challenge is: knowing when to backstab them before they backstab you.

After installing the game I ran through its tutorial to figure out just how to issue orders for my units. The tutorial itself is superbly done. Using a series of interactive lessons utilizing text, voiceovers and units on the actual game map, it did an excellent job of informing me on both the rules of the game, how to use the interface to issue orders for my units, as well as make proposals to other nations. The interface uses non-text based visual and audio cues to communicate proposed moves and other negotiations such as alliances and non-aggression pacts. This is a great idea as it allows for players from all over the world to play against each other, without suffering from a communication breakdown. Successfully communicating with another nation is a whole other issue.

The UI is laid out well enough, and is easy enough to use, when it works. During a single player game against 6 AI nations, I didn't encounter too many game breaking issues with the UI, although, it would have been really nice to have included a mouse-over tooltip that would come up over the various buttons on the interface. As it was, the only way I was able to find out what some of the buttons did was to just click on them and see what happened. Covering these mysterious buttons in the tutorial would seem to have been prudent as they so effectively dealt with navigating within the main part of the game world.

The game world itself consists of 3D versions of the game's playing pieces placed upon a flat 2D version of the map, all of which can be rotated in 3D space to allow for looking at the map and pieces from any angle. While this is somewhat pretty, I can't help but feel it is entirely impractical; or at the very least, poorly executed. The light source in the game tends to reflect harshly off the map surface causing considerable glare and totally whiting-out certain areas of the screen. This becomes particularly problematic when chatting in multiplayer games, as the text displayed between players is white, but I'll get to that in a bit. The best way I found to rid myself of the glare was to tilt the camera in the game to an almost straight-down view of the map, but this provided its own obstacles, such as trying to discern an Army unit from a Naval Unit. From straight down, both pieces look similar enough to be confused. This is just another example of the extreme polarity found throughout the game.

The recurring theme of the game design seems to be that there was simply too much time spent on certain aspects, while a criminally small amount of time was spent on others. Unfortunately, it seems like the trivial parts got all the attention, while the crucial aspects of the gameplay itself were given just enough attention so as it couldn't be said they were ignored. For instance, the AI has quite a few different profiles that can be selected for the different nations. Each profile is based on a personality with its own quirks, flaws and interests. While this would normally be a feature worthy of being praised for creating a vast dimension of replayability, instead I couldn't help but wonder if any AI was assigned at all when playing the game. If any of the AI Profiles behaved any differently from one another, then it was completely lost on me. For instance, it was not uncommon for the computer to issue erratic orders, often moving one unit into a territory, and then immediately moving the same unit out of the territory on the following turn, for no apparent reason. The AI also will not work together to try and bring another nation down, even if it is on the verge of winning, which is one of the staple concepts in any Diplomacy game. If a particular nation starts getting too strong, then everyone else typically sets aside their own conflicts in order to take up united arms against the biggest threat. The AI barely picks up its arms at all it seems, and this is the 'Hard' AI I'm talking about here. If I had chosen the 'Easy' setting, I'd understand this type of behavior a bit more, but if this is supposed to be the most difficult setting available, I have to question what sort of testing this game went through before being shipped. Never mind the fact that there are AI Profiles that exist as descriptions in the game setup screen, but don't exist as being available to assign it to an AI, as well as some AI Profiles that exist as available options, but lack descriptions.

Sadly, the AI is no better at negotiations with players, than it is with its strategy. Of all the games I played, I never once got the AI to agree to anything I proposed to it, even when I was blatantly giving up my own territory to the computer. Offering to assist it into an enemy Supply Center didn't seem to coerce it either. To contrast that, if the AI proposed a move to me, and I declined, it almost immediately offered me the same exact proposal again. Repeatedly. It was because of this that I was able to find out the key to conquering all 6 enemy nations, even when set on the Hard setting, regardless of which AI Profile they had assigned to them. It's quite simple: Accept every proposal they make, but never actually do what the AI asked of you. If you do this, and are capable of at least somewhat sound strategies, it actually requires effort to lose the game.

OK, single player is a no-go. So, I decided to try playing a friend of mine online. After reading nearly all the posts on the official forums, I finally found the instructions needed to be able to create an account on the forums, which would allow me create an account for the game's Meta-Server, so I could then log onto and use it to find other people playing Diplomacy. After jumping through all the requisite hoops and "convincing the right leprechauns to give me the right amount of pixie dust," as my friend put it, we were finally able to log on to the Meta-Server. Once connected, we were the only two players logged on to the Meta-Server whatsoever. My friend and I did manage to start up a game and start playing against 5 AI nations. We were able to get through two turns before the UI started causing problems for me. The 'public' chat that all players would be able to see (had there been any others) was colored white. This, as I mentioned earlier, is drowned out by a lot glare coming off the game map. I found myself scrolling around the map just trying to find a spot dark enough to contrast the text enough to see it. When replying, I found the chat character limit to be painfully short. I was typing half a sentence at a time to send to my friend, just so it wouldn't get automatically cut off. There was also no indication whatsoever that any particular sentence was too long. The text entry field would let us type as much as we wanted, and then only display the first 48 characters or so.

Trying to play the game was nearly as difficult as trying to register the game. Interface issues such as buttons not working, disappearing chat text, no indication as to whether a player has finished issuing their orders and ended their turn or not (this was a particularly nagging issue when I sent a proposal to another player, and sat there waiting patiently for a response. Meanwhile the other player had already ended their turn, and had no way of informing me of that). Also, the game offered nothing to try and draw my attention to any moves whether they were proposals or retreats. When I was sent proposals by another player, I had to scout around the map on my own and eventually find the move being proposed. Retreats are the same way. It would have been nice to have some sort of animation, or flashing arrow or some sort of cue that drew my attention to what was actually happening. The game functions exactly the same in Multiplayer as it does in Single Player. The UI really makes it difficult to actually play a Multiplayer game. It can be done, but not smoothly to any degree. You'll have to be very determined.

Despite all the negative things going for the game, it can still be enjoyable. If you're new to Diplomacy or new to strategy in general, then this just might be your speed. The tutorial makes it easy to learn the rules and the basics of the game. And with the AI as forgiving as it is, you'll quickly learn to find out which strategies work, and which ones just plain don't work. The Sandbox Mode that the game has can also be useful to play around with. If Paradox is able to get rid of many of the bugs with patches and improve the AI as well, then Diplomacy could really take off. With some solid gameplay against a worthy AI, it'd be a much more compelling reason to purchase the game, not to mention a lot easier to get people onto the Meta-Server, where the real honest-to-goodness fun would be. Until then though, you just can't beat setting aside some time over the weekend, pulling the board game out of the closet, and commencing the lying, double-crossing and backstabbing with a few of your favorite, closest friends.