From: lexfridman
Diplomacy is a complex, seven-player strategy board game that emphasizes negotiation and coalition-building. It offers a unique blend of strategic positioning and interpersonal negotiation, setting the stage for players to engage in intricate [international relations and conflict resolution](international_relations_and_conflict_resolution).
## Historical Background
The game of Diplomacy was created in the 1950s and is set in pre-World War One Europe. It features seven Great Powers: England, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and France. Diplomacy was reportedly favored by historical figures such as JFK and Henry Kissinger <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:19:00">[01:19:00]</a>.
The creator of Diplomacy intended it to serve as a lesson in the failures of World War One diplomacy, suggesting that the war was a failure of negotiations. The game's ideal outcome is one where no single player wins, emphasizing the futility of war and promoting the concept of achieving peace through effective diplomacy <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:19:31">[01:19:31]</a>.
## Gameplay Overview
Each game session involves players representing different nations, who must negotiate alliances and make strategic moves to control territories on a map of Europe divided into about 50 territories <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:17:00">[01:17:00]</a>. The nature of the game encourages both collaboration and deceit, as players can promise support but later choose to betray their allies <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:18:36">[01:18:36]</a>.
### Sequence of Play
1. **Negotiation Phase**: Players engage in private negotiations to form alliances and plan strategies. Communication is done in open natural language, allowing for a wide range of conversation topics, including long-term alliances and support offers <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:24:21">[01:24:21]</a>.
2. **Order Writing**: Players write down orders for their military units, which include moving units to adjacent territories or supporting the movement or defense of another player's units.
3. **Order Resolution**: All players' orders are revealed and executed simultaneously, often leading to unexpected outcomes and potential conflicts <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:17:19">[01:17:19]</a>.
### Strategies and Winning
The key to success in Diplomacy lies in the art of negotiation, the ability to form and maintain alliances, and the strategic manipulation of opponents' perceptions. The game is self-balancing because a stronger country, like France, becomes a natural target for other players to form coalitions against <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:21:02">[01:21:02]</a>.
Winning requires a player to control a majority of the map, which is challenging as the game is designed to prevent any one player from becoming too dominant, encouraging players to work together to check rising powers <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:22:04">[01:22:04]</a>.
## AI and Diplomacy
Artificial Intelligence research has taken significant steps in using Diplomacy as a benchmark for [strategic game solving techniques](strategic_game_solving_techniques). AI systems like Cicero have been developed to play Diplomacy by not only making strategic moves on the board but also negotiating effectively with human opponents using natural language communication <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:28:53">[01:28:53]</a>.
### AI's Approach to Diplomacy
AI in Diplomacy needs to incorporate human-style negotiation to engage effectively with players and convince them to cooperate. Unlike games like chess where AI can simply focus on modeling the game, Diplomacy requires the AI to understand and participate in human-like negotiations to succeed <a class="yt-timestamp" data-t="01:28:01">[01:28:01]</a>.
## Conclusion
Diplomacy as a game offers not only a platform for entertainment but also a microcosm for understanding complex strategic negotiation and the essentials of coalition-building and betrayal. It provides valuable insights into [game theory in realworld applications](game_theory_in_realworld_applications) and serves as an interesting domain for AI research, bridging the gap between theoretical game-solving and practical human interaction.
> [!info] Learn More
>
> - Explore how AI is being used in negotiations: [[implications_of_ai_negotiation_systems_on_realworld_diplomacy]]
> - Discover deep strategic principles in board games: [[foreign_policy_strategies]]