The Longest Diplomacy Game Ever Played | 1901-1910

[@tasnica2438]

Italy's teammate here. This episode was a blast from the past, and it's really interesting revisiting this game almost a decade after it began. The opening 10 years are definitely the part I'm most familiar with, as they were played while the tournament finals were at their peak. We had no idea of the direction things would go at the time! On the contrary, given Italy's Power Rankings throughout this episode, we were mostly just hoping that he'd survive the game and score a few points for the team. The scope and stakes of this game wouldn't really explode until later on.

[@danger2236]

I was wondering why the longest game of diplomacy only lasted 10 years, and realised this was just a tenth of it

[@DiploStrats]

Still a loooooong way to go :D

[@duo496]

Me whos never heard of diplomacy: hmm yes go on

[@DiploStrats]

I have no idea why the algorithm has blessed this video but, I hope it makes enough sense. Thanks for checking it out!

[@jonnboy33]

But same tho

[@joaqu7002]

If you played it, any country that did not speak Spanish would Vanish

[@samalderman2721]

Literally. Idk why I haven’t heard of this till now

[@wolfVFV]

Like people like watching long videos of experts talking about a theme they really really know much about. What the theme is doesn't really matter. It's still interesting.

[@SjurSkur]

I don’t know why this was recommended to me, as I’ve never heard of this game before, but I am so happy I was.

[@Dartyus]

>Russia losing to Austro-Turkish Alliance Russia: Fuck it I'm playing as Germany

[@alexwilliams8365]

The real winner is England. Getting out of this nightmare as soon as possible.

[@DiploStrats]

Can't imagine he was that happy at the time, but looking back he's got to be relieved :D

[@1EthanCC]

"So when do we get nuclear weapons?"

[@CaptainMeme]

You asked for it, we finally did it! We're going to go through this entire game in a (probably ten part) series of commentary videos. We were originally planning to do a 24-hour livestream but we decided to do this instead for our sanitys' sake, and yours!

[@DiploStrats]

You can find the game and all press here: www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=93086

[@Vaderi300]

@@DiploStrats I love that the London->Belgium convoy is not discussed at all in any of 1903's press.

[@JECE]

The original Turkish player was actually a fellow that went by the name Sandgoose. In Fall 1908, Sandgoose was banned for cheating in other games and replaced by his team's official substitute, ibadibam.

[@JellyMyst]

I was about to ask how you cheat in Diplomacy, but I guess it was some breach of negotiation rules.

[@JECE]

@@JellyMyst No, nothing like that! Remember that webDiplomacy is an on-line website. Users might try to cheat by 'multi-accounting' (controlling two different Great Powers in the same game), for example. Usually the mods explain why on the banned profile, but in this case the mods simply wrote "Banned by a moderator: RIP". I guess that it was pretty notorious cheating!

[@JellyMyst]

@@JECE Odd. How do you know it wasn't a breach of negotiation rules, then?

[@JECE]

@@JellyMyst Because there is no such thing as a breach of negotiation rules You can check the current website rules yourself, and the version of the webDiplomacy rules contemporaneous with the tournament should be easy to find on the Internet Archive. With some digging you may even be able to find an old explanation from a moderator about what Sandgoose did to get banned. I can't remember since so many years have passed, but I do recall that there was some sort of an explanation.

[@JellyMyst]

@@JECE Fair enough. Maybe I'll have a look at it to see what I can find. I just figured since the negotiations in this game, for instance, were supposed to be done in the open, communicating privately with a player would have been considered cheating. Thanks for answering my questions.

[@sgtsnek962]

Wait have I heard this right. They were playing for 3,5 real life years?!

[@DiploStrats]

Yep! These players are both dedicated and insane :D

[@dantreadwell7421]

That is crazy.

[@tasnica2438]

In some ways, the players who were eliminated early and the teammates who never got subbed in really lucked out. Though I'm sure the rest will never be forgetting this game!

[@sweetpeabee4983]

I only know of Diplomacy by reputation -- this was in my recommended, and I have no idea how the game works haha. My dad used to play in college. No idea about nowadays, but apparently it was super common to play back then. Loads of different groups playing games at the same time with breaks only for classes, holiday breaks, etc. He said it could be a delicate social situation sometimes for more serious groups, where two people in a game together wouldn't be able to talk at all during non-class time without it being considered "part of the game", so my dad would often act as messenger between people for like, "when is this homework due" kind of information lol.

[@DiploStrats]

It's much more common to play online now, but that's absolutely the feel of Face to Face games! The person who introduced me to the game ten years ago said never to spread the game out over multiple sessions, because paranoia is just always, always there. Maybe it's because I'm more of a masochist now, but I really enjoy the thought of that constant paranoia :D Sometime I'll play it that way.

[@notyou2353]

@@DiploStrats So that makes me want to get this game. Wow.

[@rileymoore7025]

A 3-hour video on a game I've never heard of let alone played? *HEEEELL YEAH*

[@notyou2353]

Considering this is only a tenth of the total in game length, I suspect the total series length is closer to 30 hours. Holy shit!

[@goldfinger0303]

Also we used Google Hangouts - team coordination was very much a thing :)

[@AnglosArentHuman]

Wait, how did that work?

[@goldfinger0303]

@@AnglosArentHuman There were four other games going concurrently - 2 standard press and 2 gunboats. You had teammates playing these games, and can consult with each other on how to conduct your games. The team with the highest combined score from every game won the tournament. That's what kept the game going 105 years - each team could've won with a solo here (except mine but I did the math wrong).

[@filbertshi5932]

​@@goldfinger0303 legendary... legendary!

[@Sam_Hue]

Back then Discord, Zoom and Teams didn’t exist, the only other major alternatives for conferencing that they had at the time were Skype or TeamSpeak.

[@Sky_Guy]

The chill atmosphere and insightful commentary makes this feel like a laid-back history lecture. This is gonna be a fun series to watch in the background while I write my next DnD encounters & NPCs. Great content, guys!

[@Sky_Guy]

3:13:00 I got it! :)

[@DiploStrats]

Thanks, and glad to hear that! I wonder if the sudden influx of views is because it's being recommended to DnD players - it's always struck me that Diplomacy is probably more similar to DnD than any other board game in the way it plays out. Fairly simple rules and the gameplay itself is really all about the players!

[@Streetcleanergaming]

Valefisk wishes he could get a game as soul crushing as this.

[@DiploStrats]

I'm sure CNA will be up there when it releases next week

[@Streetcleanergaming]

@@DiploStrats exactly guys, CNA just a week away

[@AeoLynx_]

Bless the algorithm. Never actually committed to playing Diplomacy when I had the chance in college, but this is fascinating to go through. Definitely a series to catch up on!

[@heliveruscalion9124]

nice pfp

[@AeoLynx_]

@@heliveruscalion9124 Thanks lol

[@sharplydressedrabbit3604]

I've never played diplomacy, but I just had this reccomended to me. I'm an hour in now and I think I'm starting to understand. Regardless, this is a really good video and I like the commentary

[@DiploStrats]

I think KZbin suddenly started recommending this video to a lot of people who don't know the game; wasn't really expecting that, otherwise we would've given a brief explanation at the start! I'm glad you enjoyed anyway :D Also, it's a bit of a nostalgia trip seeing your name and avatar; I always used to pick Rebel Friend for free play missions despite him, uh, not being able to do very much :D

[@jatzi1526]

@@DiploStrats Mouse droid for the win!

[@DiploStrats]

@@jatzi1526 If you're going for a droid, surely Gonk is the ultimate one :D

[@LegendaryTactics]

So glad you covered this. So appropriate that it would be you covering the longest game ever. Thanks Captain!

[@JimCullen]

Joining the "I don't know why this video was recommended to me" crowd. I _have_ heard of the game before, and had a very vague notion of the rules, but have never played, and definitely don't understand all the notation used on this map. Still enjoying it so far. Just finished reading the rules that came up on the WotC website.

[@Sploack]

Your commentary of the German position in 1909/1910 almost killed me lol

[@Yolomcswaggins6969]

I don't know why this was recommended to me by the algorithm, but I'm gonna watch it regardless

[@oliviapg]

I've never played Diplomacy before but I saw a story about this game a few days ago and now I've been reading and watching a ton of stuff about Diplomacy and want to get into playing it online (no way I can get 7 people together for this in-person). Which of the online sites would you recommend? I've noticed there are several.

[@DiploStrats]

I mostly play on webdiplomacy.net - the interface is pretty outdated, but I think of all the sites it has the most solid community and anti-NMR measures (making sure that if someone drops out, the game isn't ruined). VDiplomacy.com is a very similar site but has a ton of variant maps if you get bored of Europe! If you're not a fan of that interface - The one we use for the videos is called Backstabbr, and is the nicest site to look at, but has serious problems with NMRs and cheating in public games. Conspiracy is an android app that also looks great but has similar issues. If you want something that looks good(ish) and has a good(ish) community, PlayDiplomacy is probably your best bet :D

[@goldfinger0303]

And at 2:54:00 there is very much a stalemate there you're missing. Livonia holds StP. Finland and Bothnia support Sweden, Fleet Berlin (had Kiel been taken and retreated to Berlin) hold Baltic. Now in this particular case, there's not enough SC's to go around for Germany to support all those units, but there's very much a stalemate with the line Mun-Ber-BAL-SWE-FIN-STP

[@DiploStrats]

Huh, that's true! Hard to spot on the go and not one I have memorised. I'll mention this in the next episode!

[@louisrizzi9990]

I've never seen your content before, but this got recommended and it was way more fascinating to watch than I expected! I've only played a few games of diplomacy casually, but you inspired me to get back into it and binge watch this series!

[@DiploStrats]

Glad you've gotten back into it - good luck in your games!

[@ianhampton3568]

Three hours per part... oh boy! Keep them coming!

[@Deronimo4]

The return of Captain Meme! It’s good to have you back

[@markdavis180]

No idea why this popped up in my recommended, but thanks for making my workday more interesting!

[@Flow86767]

I’m starting to watch your commentary on this game, and oh boy this is gonna be fun :)

[@zorkwhouse8125]

I didn't know people still played Diplomacy much - I played with my best friend's older brother and his friends back in the 1980's and I still have my own physical copy I bought not too long after that - but I don't think I've played in 25 years hehe I'm glad a classic game like this is still enjoyed by people, and heck, enough to even have tournaments - even better! I never played competitively or anything, but our group did play a lot - it was one of our go-to games along with Axis and Allies, Fortress America and Civilization. Dang - watching this is making me really nostalgic/wishing I could play those again... I'll be 45 in a week or two, but I haven't had people to play with since I graduated from college. Maybe I'll have to break down and try and find some way to find people to play online with. I don't know how old the folks narrating this breakdown are, but I'm guessing college-ish age maybe - and I don't know if college aged people would play with someone my age these days... I really appreciate you guys' efforts here to cover this game though - its fascinating to hear/follow and I'll have to work my way through the subsequent episodes. Great job! The length of this one brings back wonderful memories of some of our marathon 9 player games of Advanced Civilization (with the western expansion map) where we would start maybe 10am on a saturday morning and with perhaps a 2-3 hr interlude of sleep (with people just crashing on the floor and on couches) between sat and sun, and then picking back up and playing late into sunday night - until someone won or we had to break down and stop b/c of the necessity of getting some sleep before monday morning school/work obligations. Back when I actually had the energy to pull that off hehe it's amazing how much more energy I had between the ages of 10 and 15.. :-) I apologize for this rambling extended comment - this really has brought back great memories though and I'm sort of gushing a little bit hehe. So I'll cut off my exuberance here - but thanks again.

[@DiploStrats]

I'm really glad to hear you enjoyed it, and to read a comment like this! We're both ~25, but age doesn't tend to factor into who plays against who in Dip very much. There's been a huge surge in virtual Face to Face play recently due to the pandemic, and I've played against players who are far older than me and others who are far younger. I imagine it'll translate to in-person games once we're past all this! I've never played any board game for so long that I'd take a sleep break and come back, but that's exactly the kind of energy this game has! It's amazing how fast it can go when you're immersed in a game like that.

[@ethanertl5021]

Literally first time hearing about this game and I’m watching a 3 hour video. I need a life

[@kylegrefe4399]

This will be interesting. Coming from the Valefisk video. Time for a massive tone shift.

[@TheGameKat]

Kick ass! Been waiting for this.

[@jamessloven2204]

I understood the beak sharpening fable!

[@ClockworkAnomaly]

OH WOW. Public Press is the variant I needed! TBH its probably more realistic, as it represents spies and national consensus constraints. (from a player who got burned on his first 3 games of diplomacy, being backstabbed by everyone in some bizzare newbie hazing by my best friend's family)

[@DiploStrats]

Public Press is a very, very different style and can be hard to adapt to if you're used to standard Dip, but it's definitely a fun one! And ouch, that sounds like Diplomacy alright :D

[@connorhughes8291]

I had no idea what diplomacy was before, but now I really want to learn how to play

[@monkeytime9851]

Do they make other versions of this game, with alternate game boards, alternate themes etc but with the same basic rules? I could see that doing well.

[@DiploStrats]

Officially, not really. There were a couple published in the 70s (Colonial variant which was Europe + Asia, Machiavelli which was based on Italy) but they're fairly rare now. However, unofficial player-made variants are a huge thing - vDiplomacy, one of the variant hubs and where I really got my start as a Diplomacy player, has over 130 maps ranging from 2 player to 50 player. My favourite is probably Chaos - Classic map, but 34 players each start with one SC. The name is pretty accurate!

[@willscott1533]

I love diplomacy so much, but haven't played in a couple years. Cool to see a little channel dedicated to it! You earned my sub.

[@DiploStrats]

Thanks! I hope you enjoy the series!

[@jedirevan5892]

I think I found my new marathon youtube series to watch. Last one was a guy who beat Supreme Ruler WWI as El Salvador, only took 80 episodes.

[@jedirevan5892]

Based on how long the game goes I'm thinking that Germany has just as good a chance at winning. Go Underdogs.

[@DiploStrats]

You can rest assured this series will be less than 80 episodes. Sounds like that took some dedication!

[@willoux_]

i discovered your channel recently thru valefisk and ive watched wayyyy too many of these already. sure why not start a 20-30 hour series

[@YossarianKurciski]

ok I listened to the whole thing, now I want More

[@Ksrwilhelm]

Part 1 of 10: 3⅓ hours. I don't even know what this game is but all right let's go.

[@DiploStrats]

Thanks for checking it out! I hope you enjoy :D

[@HighlyCruciferous]

More outstanding content, thank you !

[@connorhughes8291]

I wish this map was more colorblind friendly, I can barely tell the difference between England and Russia

[@DiploStrats]

I think Backstabbr does have colourblind options, but we use the colours everyone is used to in this game. The actual sandbox we're using is publicly accessible (www.backstabbr.com/sandbox/2012-webDip-World-Cup-Final/5100437696151552/1901/spring) so while it's not a great solution, an option is having that open with the colourblind options enabled!

[@JECE]

On webDiplomacy, there are settings to view the maps for protanope, deuteranope and tritanope players. I tried replying with more details right after you posted this, but it didn't go through.

[@jaymoney5090]

So what I gathered from this is that this entire series is France's fault for not just taking the solo :D

[@DiploStrats]

In reality I think they couldn't have gotten the solo either way (one of the players highlighted a stalemate line we missed in this episode that would have prevented the win), but France is still at fault for backing off afterwards. Amazing to think that the game could have been 90ish years shorter if one different decision had been made!

[@justsomeoneelse5942]

Fun fact, the time between the game starting and the game ending is roughly the same amount of time between this video coming out and this comment.

[@logansmith2703]

This had to be a weird game for Kompole. Lost early and 3 and half years later the game ends.

[@YossarianKurciski]

y'all really did it!

[@Skiltra]

never heard of this thing, i can only assume this is either recommended to me because i watch one of the following history or strategy games or both.

[@DiploStrats]

Well, thanks for checking it out! From what I can gather from the youtube analytics it seems like this got mixed in with Crusader Kings videos and grand strategy for some reason.

[@Skiltra]

@@DiploStrats ah that makes sense then.

[@J3Puffin]

Why do I feel like at some point in middle school some of my classmates were playing a game like this with the maps in the back of our assignment books...

[@DiploStrats]

This is that kind of game! I've heard some teachers actually use it in history classes, to teach about the political struggle behind WWI.

[@EcclesiastesLiker-py5ts]

One imagines that Ibadibam is from north Africa or Oman, given his name.

[@DiploStrats]

It's possible! I don't think there was an African or ME team in the World Cup, but it's possible he was in a Southern Europe or Eastern Europe team - the way teams worked was a little strange, because Diplomacy players on that site tended to be from the US or Western Europe, so they were usually regions rather than countries and players outside of them sometimes just got absorbed into the closest team to them.

[@dna0303]

I don’t even know what this game is, but it sounded interesting. I looked up the rules purely so I could understand this video

[@DiploStrats]

Awesome! I hope you enjoy the video!

[@kunallobo4136]

How does the game actually end, if not for 18 supply centers?

[@thegoosh6469]

At any time, all the players who are still alive can agree to a draw, or a shared victory if you want to see it that way. Sometimes, games will automatically end in a draw after a certain amount of time (clearly this was not one of those games).

[@Nathanael_Forlorn]

F05 / S06 really don't look like this is going on much longer, especially not another 100 years.

[@hotdogfingerz9674]

I've never heard of this game before. Still gonna watch it out of curiosity, though.

[@marylowrie4548]

Sometimes players will try to move two of their own units into the same space. Why is that? Just misclicks? Do they forget that they're already sending a unit there? Canceling out and blocking your own moves seems really weird and counterproductive.

[@DiploStrats]

This is a strategy called self-bouncing - by having both units attack the province, they're both defending the provinces they're currently in (since neither is moving out) and they're actively defending the province they're attacking as well, because any other unit attacking it needs to have strength >1 to make progress. So it's a clever way of defending three provinces using only two units! It's also sometimes done in order to defend a frontline province without actually being there, which can put an ally at ease - for example, France sometimes opens with a self-bounce in Burgundy, because it defends the province against Germany without putting a unit adjacent to Munich.

[@eliebinetruy]

Sorry, new to diplomacy but why didn't france build something in marseille in winter 01 ? tTey had 3 builds because they got Spain, Portugal nd Belgium in Fall 01

[@DiploStrats]

Players can choose to 'waive' builds if they want to - it doesn't happen very often, but probably the most common occurance is exactly this, when France gets 3 builds in 01 and decides to only build 2. It's because France is seen as a very strong power, so they keep one build back to not look like such a huge threat.

[@eliebinetruy]

@@DiploStrats Thanks a lot ! Wow you answered so fast on an older video !

[@YokoGoodiel]

The content is very good

[@DiplomacyTanya]

Awesome!

[@PattPlays]

ARMY smyrna to ARMENIA? oh his is gonna be GOOD!

[@ryunoe9353]

Do you have a tutorial video for this game so I could understand more? If not, here's to hoping my wwi knowledge is enough

[@DiploStrats]

I don't at the moment - I didn't really expect this video to reach people who didn't know what the game was! But I'm putting one together at the moment, should be done by the end of the week :)

[@thewingedserpent5823]

1:31:00 Total noob here who is just finding out about this game: why can't austria build?

[@CaptainMeme]

You can only build in your home SCs - the ones you start the game with. So for Austria, that's Tri, Vie and Bud. Only one unit can be in any province at a time, so you can't build somewhere that already has a unit in it - and Austria has units in all three home centers, so can't build in any of them. Hope that helps, and welcome to the game! I hope you enjoy our endless rambling about it :D

[@thewingedserpent5823]

@@CaptainMeme i think the game is very interesting to watch, i just wouldn't be good at it so i'll stay a viewer for, as such ramblings are welcome. then again, i thought the same thing about D&D so who knows

[@CaptainMeme]

@@thewingedserpent5823 That's very fair, it's definitely not a game for everyone. I'm glad you're enjoying the rambling though!

[@jatzi1526]

I think it turned when Austria pulled back after losing Greece and having that brief break with Turkey. If they'd kept going they could have taken out Russia and faced France with much more power.

[@DiploStrats]

Hard to know exactly what would have happened, but I think this is definitely reasonable. Taking out Russia would have been huge change in the way this game went down! I don't think Austria necessarily made a mistake though; the AT alliance is notoriously Turkey-sided going into lategame, and Austria would always have been at a disadvantage there.

[@mutedknght]

I have literally never played this game and don't know the rules but youtube keeps telling me to watch it so here I am

[@DiploStrats]

\o/ praise the algorithm \o/

[@coleomantenforty8747]

10 three hour videos? Thanks but noooo thanks!

[@DiploStrats]

Definitely not for everyone :D

[@bobmcbob8044]

I assume by longest game you're disqualifying pacifist diplomacy, and the actual longest game, which I created, "test" bad strategies here? Because those have been going for over 1000 years each, just without much board movement.

[@DiploStrats]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/enSWhYeEj5p9q5o Got you covered :D Or well, the longest game at the time I made that anyway. But yes, I've seen the wonder that is the Test Bad Strategies game! And I'm excluding all games along those lines or ones that were stalemated forever (even back in 2012, this wasn't technically the longest game ever because there was another game that went on for ~90 years after a stalemate was established when a player refused to draw).

[@bobmcbob8044]

@@DiploStrats I don't think you understand, pacifist is clearly an inferior game. But it's funny that someone was just completely unwilling to draw for 90 years. I think I saw that game while sorting by length, but didn't look into it very much.

[@wolfVFV]

You could call this game.. The 100 year war.

[@ddshocktrooper5604]

The French blunder is so sad. I would believe it if there was a proof of a forced win in their position, even if the remainder of their public press was to the effect of "lmao gargle my balls"

[@DiploStrats]

We *think* that there was a stalemate line in place that they couldn't cross anyway (one of the players reached out to us and talked to us about it) but, this has still got to be devastating as France. They were so close!

[@laKogane]

KZbin hath blessed me yet again ........... NOWHERE TO GO BUT UP!

[@filbertshi5932]

INTRESTING!

[@phelan9278]

yes, i know some of these words

[@drunkenlancer5895]

Yeah I don’t understand what’s going on, looks interesting though

[@DiploStrats]

KZbin's algorithm seems to be throwing this video around like crazy right now :D There isn't a great short introduction video out there yet, but Legendary Tactics has a solid video here that gives something of an overview: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqa4eIOql92ra8k

[@ConradJD777]

3:03:00 bookmark

[@Trever101]

Wow

[@sdcwarzone]

You should definitely check out Warzone! www.warzone.com I started a podcast about this in more detail and would love to talk to you about this more, but if you are new to play, I made some tutorials here: kzbin.info/aero/PLqlNiRE6sfVBKmJmIL_FnZxG1w32iN1TH

[@DiploStrats]

So I tried this briefly when I first saw this comment and couldn't see the relation to Diplomacy at all... then I realised I was playing the Idle version :D So I might go back and try it again at some point. Seems like an interesting game, but will take me a while to get around to it just because there's a lot going on in the Diplomacy scene at the moment!

[@sdcwarzone]

@@DiploStrats Thats great to hear! Its a classic game so its good to hear it making a comeback! Warzone is very similar in some ways, but it all depends on what version you play. I can see where you would be confused with the Idle version :)

[@ivanelias3916]

soy de argentina 😐el algoritmo de youtube me trajo aqui😐 😐estoy viendo de que trata todavia😐

[@DiploStrats]

Had to plug this into Google Translate :D I have no clue what's up with the algorithm either but thanks for giving the video a shot!

[@cassidydankochik3294]

England was the real winner of this game, lol

[@darknight1022]

A shame the game is not using a correct map of Europe 1900. This is a fantasy map.

[@JECE]

Right, the board game Diplomacy starts in 1901 but uses a map that is closer to 1914. If you're interested in playing on a map of Europe that is closer to 1900, there is an excellent variant of Diplomacy for you to do just that! I tried posting on Monday with a direct link to the variant on the website vDiplomacy, but I don't think that it went through.