A version of this article originally appeared in Diplomacy World Issue 163, published in the fall of 2023.

In issue 160 of Diplomacy World, Baron Powell discusses the development of (and ongoing changes to) a variant he co-developed with Jeff Kase circa 2000: Ambition & Empire. While this 10-player variant is notable for many reasons, including its well-researched setting and asymmetric power relationships, its most innovative legacy came in the form of new gameplay mechanics: the Diplomacy Points (DP) system.

In this article, I hope to introduce DP mechanics, relate some of its benefits, and provide several examples of DP-based variants. I hope this introduction will whet your appetite to compete in DP variants as part of the 2024 Tournament Through Time, which I will be running through the course of next year via Discord.

DP Variant Rules & Mechanics

In a DP variant, there are two interlocking rule systems that add significant depth to the first several turns of play: (1) the minor neutral powers that occupy neutral SCs at a game’s start, and (2) the secret DP bidding system used to determine those units’ orders.

Put another way, in a DP variant, neutral SCs begin a game filled with non-player characters (NPCs), and you can secretly ask those NPCs to help and harm your opponents and allies.

I personally have both designed and GM’d DP variants frequently enough that I have written up a Common Ruleset for DP-based Variants, originally posted to the PlayDiplomacy forum and now hosted on my own website (https://nopunin10did.com/common-ruleset-for-dp-based-variants/). Some excerpts from that ruleset have been adapted to this article.

Minor Neutral Powers

The first major rules change for a DP variant, as opposed to a typical Diplomacy variant, is that all (or nearly all) neutral supply centers are considered “Minor Powers” of their own. Each SC has its own fleet or army, and that unit does not belong to any specific player.

Typically, these neutral units are stationary, meaning that they will not leave their home SC unless they are destroyed. Each turn, they can perform an order, just like a player unit. They can hold, support another unit to hold, or support another unit’s attack.

Counterintuitively, they can also perform move orders. However, because minor powers’ units are stationary, their move orders always bounce, even if they bounce with nothing. This is sometimes called a “sortie.”

Examples: Minor Neutral Powers in Action

The following illustrations provide some examples of neutral powers’ units in action using actual turns from a variant I designed and am currently administering: Sub-Saharan.

In Figure 1 above, neutral units can be seen in Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Sesheke, and Otjimbingwe. (Note: in my map designs, I tend to color neutral units in shades of tan and brown though the unit decorations may vary). The Mozambique player (white) orders an attack from Maputo to Pretoria, and the neutral army in Sesheke supports that order. Meanwhile, the neutral army in Otjimbingwe moves to Karas; while this move is unopposed, it is still marked in red as a bounce. One must assume that this move was a preventative measure to ensure that the Cape Colony player (navy blue) did not send his army from Cape Town to Karas. Instead, the Cape Colony player makes a supported attack from Durban to Bloemfontein.

In this second image, we see the results. Otjimbingwe remains in place. Bloemfontein and Pretoria are both dislodged, and because they are stationary units, they are automatically disbanded, as they cannot retreat.

SC captures still operate the same as with regular Diplomacy; they don’t occur until the end of autumn. As this was a spring turn, should Mozambique walk out of Pretoria in the autumn, leaving it vacant, the SC there would remain neutral. In a DP variant, it would also rebuild its army during the Adjustments phase.

This rebuild was the case for Lagos (Figure 3). Its fleet was dislodged and destroyed by the Ashanti (black) in spring, but by the end of autumn, the Ashanti and nearby Sokoto (green) left Lagos open, allowing the neutral power to rebuild.

In Figure 4, the army in Moshaweng bounces with the Angolan player (purple) over Mwansabombwe. While Otjimbingwe in Figure 1 ended up bouncing with nothing as a preventative move, here the army in Moshaweng makes contact, preventing the army in Lunda from advancing.

Secret DP Bidding

But how do those neutral units decide what to do? This is where the DP bidding system comes in.

Each Orders Phase, every player receives an allotment of DP. The amount per turn varies by variant; in Sub-Saharan a player receives one DP per SC they control, up to a max of 3. That DP is use-it-or-lose-it; none can be stored or carried over into the next turn.

Allocating & Adjudicating DP

Along with orders for their own units, players can submit potential orders for one or more neutral units. Each potential order must come with a DP allocation. Allocations must be made in whole-number values (i.e. no half-points), and the total DP allocated by a player must not exceed their total allotment for that phase. The DP expenditures act like “votes” for that order. Other players may vote for that same order and allocate DP to it. A single player with 2 DP, for instance, can potentially spend 2 DP on a single unit’s order or allocate 1 DP each to two different units’ orders.

At the time of adjudication, the GM analyzes all the submitted DP allocations for a given unit. The order that has the most DP spent is the one that will be given to the unit. If two or more orders tie for DP spent, or if no DP is allocated to that unit, it will be given a default order instead. Except where specified in the specific variant’s rules, the default order for any neutral unit is Hold.

All DP allocations are kept secret. Only the “winning” orders will be known publicly but not which players (if any) allocated DP to those orders. For most variants, all DP allocations will remain secret until the entire game has completed.

The Attacking & Allocating Rule

If a player’s own unit is attacking (or supporting an attack on) a minor power, that player may not allocate DP to that minor power during the turn the attack or support is taking place.

This rule lessens some of the inherent “gullibility” of minor powers. Most commonly, it prevents a player from allocating DPs to a minor power for the purpose of having the minor power unit move, thereby making it ineligible to receive support-to-hold during the player’s attack on that minor power.

DP Allocation & Orders Practical Example

As part of the Common Ruleset for DP-Based Variants, I have provided a lengthy example of player bids, adjudication, and results on my website.

Playing a DP Variant

But is playing a DP variant fun? Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of the system.

Blank Spaces No More

Because stationary units occupy all the neutrals in a typical DP variant, players cannot just walk in and claim territory. At the very least, they need another unit (either their own unit, an opponent’s unit, or a different neutral) to support their attacks and dislodge the targeted neutrals. With all the extra neutral units on the board, rather than solely player units, the variety of potential orders and turn results is exponentially larger. Supports to hold can be granted, supports can be cut, and what would normally be an unopposed move can be bounced.

Distant Friends & Enemies

Because DP can be allocated to any neutral unit, it means that players nowhere near one another on the map still have reason to talk to one another and collaborate. Deals can be made for one another’s DP allocations, though verifying the follow-through of those deals is another matter. France’s bids can secretly help or harm Russia, even though they sit at opposite corners.

Dastardly Deeds

The secrecy of DP allocations allows for machinations to occur behind-the-scenes that can keep one’s opponents on edge for an entire game. For instance, in a 2017 session of Ambition & Empire, a peaceful arrangement had been made in the first turn between Great Britain and Spain regarding Gibraltar. Britain was to exit Gibraltar for the Atlantic, and they would assist one another in capturing Morocco and Portugal in turn.

This was a bit of an icy agreement to start with, but when adjudication completed, Britain found that his fleet had been bounced by the neutral Portugal, and that he remained in Gibraltar, violating his agreement with Spain. Britain and Spain both blamed the other for this failure to launch, and their relationship never fully recovered.

However, unbeknownst to either of them until after the game’s completion, it was their mutual neighbor France who had allocated the DP to Portugal that turn. France had succeeded in keeping his nearest opponents angry at one another by quietly screwing up their intended moves.

These sorts of deceptions are possible with a DP system. While the source of some neutral orders might be easily guessed (as with the support order seen in the earlier figure, which was bid on by Spain), many can lead to tactical surprises and sneaky stabs from the dark (provided the bidding players know how to keep a secret).

Complexity in the Early Years

In most, but not all, DP variants, the system’s relevance lasts only until the final neutral unit is destroyed. Occasionally, this may not happen at all; a game of Ambition & Empire has ended with one fleet hanging on for dear life in Tunis, for example.

However, in most games, these mechanics are most important in the first several years of play. The first years of a typical variant involve a lot of communication and coordination for a relatively small number of player units; DP systems give players more to do.

As the game continues, players’ own unit counts become higher, and minor powers’ units are destroyed, the need to focus on DP lessens. As a player’s unit complexity rises, DP complexity falls.

GM Required

The DP system was originally created with the Play-by-Email (PBEM) community in mind. As with Play-by-Mail Diplomacy, PBEM requires a central Game Master (GM) to set due dates, receive players’ orders, adjudicate their results, and publish the resulting maps. This mode of play still has a following, though it more often occurs via forums or online chat platforms like Slack or Discord.

This differs from play that either (1) occurs in person, where the players can handle their own deadlines and adjudication, or (2) occurs on an online platform programmed to administer Diplomacy games (webDip, Backstabbr, etc.).

However, unlike typical variant games, the DP system requires a neutral third party to act as a go-between during adjudication to resolve the orders that result from players’ secret DP bids. The bids are not supposed to be known the players, so they cannot just read them out to the table as they normally would their own orders. A modification could be made to DP variants to make such allocations public, but I am unsure of whether the additional adjudication overhead would be worthwhile without the opportunities that secrecy allows.

As for the automated online space, support for DP has yet to be implemented on a major platform. To my knowledge, the only automated form yet completed is on the DPJudge adjudicator, and it is a somewhat buggy (and older) version of Ambition & Empire. Note: I would be happy to consult with any platform that would like to implement these mechanics in a scalable fashion.

Because of the structure of the secret auctions, DP variants are currently only viable for asynchronous GM-administered play on forums, chat clients, or email.

Current DP Variants

As I am an avid fan of Diplomacy Points, you may not be surprised to hear that I have incorporated DP rulesets into several variants of my own creation. I am also not the only variant designer to experiment with the system, and designers have created further rules that sit on top of the DP paradigm. The following variants are examples, in rough order from low to high complexity.

Sub-Saharan

• 10 players
• Designed by W. Alex Ronke
• Sub-Saharan Rules

Sub-Saharan is set in the late 19^th century just prior to the “scramble for Africa.” It is intentionally a low-complexity DP variant that has very few rules above-and-beyond the core DP structure and the standard Diplomacy rules.

Succession & Legacy

• 10 players
• Designed by W. Alex Ronke
• Succession & Legacy Rules

Succession & Legacy (S&L) is set in the early 1700s during the War of Spanish Succession and the Great Northern War. In addition to the core DP ruleset, S&L includes rules for “affiliate” powers, which are neutrals that treat DP allocations from a sponsoring player power as being worth double their usual value.

1936

• 7 players
• Designed by Charles Féaux de la Croix
• 1936 Rules

1936 is set in Europe just prior to the outbreak of the second World War. Its complexity is comparable to that of S&L, with rules that similarly deal with neutral biases for player powers. Additionally, there are mechanics for representing the Spanish Civil War, with two factions there controlled directly by Italy and the Soviet Union.

Ambition & Empire

• 10 players
• Designed by Jeffrey S. Kase & B.M. Powell
• Contact VonPowell@aol.com for the latest rules.

As mentioned in the introduction, Ambition & Empire (A&E) is the variant that proved the value of the DP system. The variant itself has some other additional complexities in terms of some nonstandard geography, neutral units’ religious limitations, and highly asymmetric player starting positions. It is a fascinating scenario and a good exploration of Europe’s complex borders in the 1760s.

Greek City-States

• 7 players
• Designed by Chris Helwig
• Rules were last posted to the PlayDiplomacy Forums, though they are currently not operational.

Greek City-States is a mashup of two earlier variants. It includes several mechanics on top of the DP system. Unlike most DP variants described here, all neutral units in GCS are mobile, and players can elect to keep the neutrals on the map as “aligned” units after capturing their home SCs.

Saga of the Nine

• 9 players
• Designed by W. Alex Ronke & Chris Helwig
• Saga of the Nine Rules

Saga of the Nine is a fantasy / alt-history variant set in the Iron Age in the Arctic Circle… or at least, a predicted geography of the Arctic Circle as envisioned by famed cartographer Gerardus Mercator. S9 expands the DP system with mechanics for heirs and marriages. These systems allow for the creation of new micro-powers (vassals) whose control is shared between two opponents who marry their heirs together. But these heirs are also a vulnerability, as a player can be eliminated from the game early if all their heirs are killed and their capital city is taken!

Order of the Dragon

• 10 players
• Designed by W. Alex Ronke
• Order of the Dragon Rules

Order of the Dragon ports the entirety of the Saga of the Nine ruleset (heirs, marriages, vassals, early elimination, etc.) to 15^th century Europe. Like S9, it is a medium-to-high complexity DP variant. Of the variants I have personally had a hand in, it is the one that has been most well-received.

College of Cardinals

• 12 players
• Designed by Timothy Hayward & Baron Powell
• Contact VonPowell@aol.com for the latest rules.

College of Cardinals is a vastly complex variant set in the time of the crusades. It uses the DP system as a foundation, but it goes far beyond those rules with mechanics for papal elections, religious bias, excommunication, and (often risky) crusades that swiftly relocate Catholic units to the Levant. It is quite the experience, and its rulebook is not for the faint of heart.

Распад (Dissolution)

• 10 players
• Designed by W. Alex Ronke
• Dissolution Rules

Dissolution is a high-complexity variant set in the early 1990s, shortly after the breakup of the USSR. It pits small-to-medium powers across three continents against one another as they simultaneously manage their relationships with invulnerable non-player-controlled “Nuclear” powers (Russia, NATO, India, etc.) in addition to the capturable neutrals. The DP system stays relevant for the entirety of the game, as the Nuclear powers hold key positions around the map, and players fight on an abstract secondary map each Winter turn to improve their standing with these pernicious titans. Additionally, there are mechanics for Wing units (airbases) that allow quick convoys of armies across the map.

(It may be some time before I run Dissolution again, however, as the real-life invasion of Ukraine continues. Russian units supporting invasions of Kharkiv and the Crimea are a bit too close-to-home at the moment.)

The 2024 Tournament Through Time

Interested in playing a DP variant? Next year (2024), I will be running a year-long tournament featuring four of these DP variants.

• R1 (Jan 2 – March): Sub-Saharan
• R2 (Apr 2 – June): Succession & Legacy
• R3 (July 1 – September): Order of the Dragon
• R4 (Sep 30 – mid-December): Saga of the Nine

This will be my second time running an online year-long variant tournament (the first TTT was in 2018), and I hope to get solid players from the online, Discord, and Face-to-Face communities involved.

Structure & Top Table

Each round will have a cap of 7 years of play. Each round will be played via Discord and run at a pace of two major turns (Spring, Fall, Winter) per week. Scoring will use the Fibonacci system, which is a mathematical variant of Carnage.

Rounds 1-3 should field 2-3 tables each, depending on signups. Round 4 will be a “top table”, with nine top-ranked players based on the sum of their top two scores from rounds 1-3. The Paris Method will be used for power selection and endgame tie resolution.

The board-topper (or soloist) from this top table will be crowned the tournament champion!

Contact

Please join my Diplomacy Variant Discord server for further information and to have access to the signup form when it first becomes available.

Discord Invite Link: https://discord.gg/BtS4jXM

Tournament Registration: https://forms.gle/EWWtBDu9owfMHqhWA

If interested in competing, spectating, or providing coverage of the event, please use the linked registration form above. Even if you aren’t sure you can commit to two of the three initial rounds, please consider playing! We will likely be in need of proxy players and replacements (as is often the case online). We may even team up pairs of players to cover for one another’s scheduling conflicts.