Manufacturer	The Avalon Hill Game Company
Year of Release	1976
Map Style	Topographic contours
Pieces	Wooden short thick blocks (armies) long narrow blocks (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)	Red, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Black, Green, White, Yellow
Description: This set is a bit of an anomaly. As stated on the Games Research editions page, Games Research put out a version of this edition that had a rulebook copyright 1971 by Games Research and the Basic Rules sheet copyright 1974. When Avalon Hill acquired the rights to Diplomacy from Games Research, they either continued to make this version or, more likely, they inherited some unsold inventory of this edition, which they continued to sell until they ran out.Although Avalon Hill sold this set, they didn’t make any modifications to the box, and therefore the box lid has Games Research’s name and address on it instead of Avalon Hill’s. What distinguishes the Avalon Hill version of this edition is that the rulebook is Avalon Hill’s 1976 rulebook — the same one they had in the bookcase editions that they later put out. The Basic Rules sheet included in the game also has Avalon Hill’s name and address on the back. The first time I saw this edition, I assumed it was a Games Research red box edition where somebody had lost the original rulebook and replaced it with an Avalon Hill rulebook at some later point in time. However, I have since come across a total of three or four copies of this edition that had Avalon Hill materials inside, two of which even included an Avalon Hill game catalog, so it seems like too much of a coincidence to think that so many Avalon Hill rulebooks would end up in a Games Research set if they weren’t sold that way.Lastly, one additional difference you will notice between the image below and the Games Research version of this edition is that there is no 7-compartment tray for holding the pieces. My copy of this edition did not have a tray, and when I got it I assumed it had been lost. However, I later came across somebody else who had the same edition, also without a tray, with pieces in baggies that looked just like mine. Neither of us were original owners, so I can’t confirm whether the Avalon Hill version game was sold with baggies instead of a tray, or whether they just both happened to be sets where a tray had gotten lost and where pieces were subsequently stored in baggies. If you have a copy of the Avalon Hill version of this edition, please let me know whether or not it comes with a tray.
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Manufacturer	The Avalon Hill Game Company
Year of Release	1976
Release Notes	First bookcase edition
Map Style	Topographic shading
Pieces	Wooden short thick blocks (armies) long narrow blocks (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)	Red, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Black, Green, White, Yellow
Description: In 1976, The Avalon Hill Game Company acquired the rights to Diplomacy. Depending on the truth behind the unclear situation surrounding the edition mentioned above, it is not clear whether this edition is the first or the second one sold by Avalon Hill. Either way, it was the first edition designed by Avalon Hill. The Avalon Hill bookcase editions are probably the most familiar editions of the game in the United States.The first bookcase edition was significantly redesigned from the earlier Games Research editions. The map style was revised from the GRI editions. Avalon Hill kept the concept of a topographic map, but redesigning the map so that instead of having contours and a contour legend as the GRI editions did, the AH map uses shading differences to indicate topography at a less detailed level than the contour map. The border of the map was also modified. The board comes in three sections and has four plastic clips to hold the sections of the board together. The rulebook for this edition is copyright 1976, Avalon Hill. I have not compared the two rulebooks to see if there were any minor editorial changes or if they are completely identical, but in terms of the rules themselves I am not aware of any changes between the 1971 rules and the 1976 rules.It should be noted that later editions of the Avalon Hill bookcase edition still have a copyright 1976 on the box. Editions with plastic pieces and/or 2nd edition rules are often misidentified as 1976 editions by people who are not familiar with the game. If a box is still shrinkwrapped the only way to distinguish an edition with wooden pieces from one with plastic pieces is by weight. There is no way to distinguish the 1981 edition (with 1st edition rules) from the 1982 edition (2nd edition rules) from the box alone, because both had plastic pieces. The 1985 variation can be told apart from the others because of changes to the box (see description of the 1985 variation for details).
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Manufacturer	The Avalon Hill Game Company
Year of Release	1981
Map Style	Topographic shading
Pieces	Plastic stars (armies) and anchors (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)	Red, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Black, Green, White, Yellow
Description: This edition is identical to the previous edition, has plastic pieces instead of wooden ones, presumably as a cost-cutting measure. For traditionalists who preferred the wooden Diplomacy pieces, Avalon Hill also sold a bag of wooden pieces that people could buy separately. The set which I have was purchased used did not have the plastic sliders to hold the three sections of gameboard together. These were presumably also eliminated to reduce costs. The copyright date on the front of the rulebook is 1976 because the rulebook did not change, but in the bottom right corner of the back of the rulebook there is a date indicating a 1981 year of printing.
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Manufacturer	The Avalon Hill Game Company
Year of Release	1982
Map Style	Topographic shading
Pieces	Plastic stars (armies) and anchors (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)	Red, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Black, Green, White, Yellow
Description: The 1982 bookcase edition introduced the second edition rules (the rulebook is marked “2nd Edition/Feb. ’82”, which you can just make out in the top-right corner of the rulebook in the picture below), with the most significant change concerning the convoy rules, in an effort to eliminate paradoxes which introduced its own problems (see this description of convoy paradoxes at The Diplomatic Pouch for details). Other than the revised rulebook, this edition is identical to the previous one. As with the previous edition, the board came in three pieces. I believe that starting with this edition, the Play Diplomacy by Mail sheet were no longer included with Diplomacy. I cannot be completely positive about that, but the set that I have lacks the Play Diplomacy by Mail sheet. If you have a 1982 edition that confirms or contradicts this, please let me know. Lastly, the previous two bookcase editions had gameboards with black backs; the back of the gameboard for this edition is brown.
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Manufacturer	The Avalon Hill Game Company
Year of Release	1985
Map Style	Topographic shading
Pieces	Plastic stars (armies) and anchors (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)	Red, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Black, Green, White, Yellow
Description: This variation looks similar to the previous one but there are several changes that have been made. Whereas earlier gameboards came in three sections, this variation has a one-piece folding gameboard, again having a brown back as with the previous variation. Having previously eliminated the sliders that originally came with 1976 version of the game, keeping the pieces of the three-section board would have become a hassle. The change to a one-piece folding board eliminated this problem.The copyright date on the front of the rulebook is 1982 because the rulebook did not change from the 2nd edition rules, but in the bottom right corner of the back of the rulebook there is a date indicating a 1985 year of printing. As with the 1982 edition, the Play Diplomacy by Mail rules are not present (at least not in my set, which is unpunched and otherwise appears to be complete, still having the Avalon Hill parts order form and registration card).With the three previous bookcase editions, the box itself was never changed. Here, for the first time, the box itself has been modified (see figure below). The small-print text above the game name “Diplomacy on the box lid (which reads “The Avalon Hill Game Company’s Trademark for Its Game of International Intrigue”) now is written across two lines instead of one (compare the image below with the image for the 1976 edition). Also, the text that describes the game on the front of the box was moved from the bottom (as can be seen in the image for the 1982 edition) upwards along the right side (as can be seen below) in this variation, so that the Avalon Hill company name and logo could be put at the bottom. And lastly, as a sign of the times, the right flap of the lid now sports a UPC symbol, where none of the earlier editions did.
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Manufacturer	The Avalon Hill Game Company
Year of Release	Unknown
Map Style	Topographic shading
Pieces	Plastic stars (armies) and anchors (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)	Red, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Black, Green, White, Yellow
Description: The back of the gameboard for this variation is red. I believe it has plastic pieces, but I am not which edition rules this set has, or which version of the bookcase edition box it has. Additional details are forthcoming.
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Manufacturer	The Avalon Hill Game Company
Year of Release	1992
Release Notes	Deluxe Diplomacy edition
Map Style	Topographic shading (more subtle style than the bookcase editions)
Pieces	Wooden short thick blocks (armies) long narrow blocks (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)	Red, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Black, Green, White, Yellow
Description: This edition was a deluxe game designed to appeal to people who were willing to pay more for a few things that didn’t come with the basic game. First, this set has wooden pieces whereas the standard game being sold when this edition was released had plastic ones. Second, the game came with little adhesive stickers with the flags of each of the powers that were intended to be stuck to the wooden pieces (though I have heard some owners of this edition say that they liked the pieces better without the flags and never used them despite the fact that they had them). There are obviously people who were willing to pay more for this set, but a more common view expressed by players was that although the added perks were nice, they were not worth the significant difference in cost between the two sets, as the retail price of the Deluxe Diplomacy edition was nearly twice that of the standard edition.Aside from the value-added items mentioned above, the deluxe game itself was basically the same game as the 1982 edition. The rulebook was revised and now reads Third Edition, but I believe this is the result of having made cosmetic and/or editorial changes to the rulebook. As far as I know, the rules themselves did not change. The box and gameboard were redesigned for the deluxe edition. The topographic shading on this map is more subtle than the one in the bookcase editions. The gameboard itself misspells the names of two spaces on the map, spelling Burgundy as “Burgandy” and having three Rs in the word “Mediterranean” in the Eastern Med.
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Manufacturer	Avalon Hill (Hasbro)
Year of Release	2000
Release Notes	The map and rules are copyright 1999, as the game was originally intended to be out by the 1999 holiday season. However, delays held up release until early 2000.
Map Style	Geographic
Pieces	Die-cast metal cannons (armies) and ships (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)	Red, Dark Blue, Light Blue, Black, Green, White, Yellow
Description: In 1999, Hasbro acquired The Avalon Hill Games Company from Avalon Monarch and released a new edition of Diplomacy under the name Avalon Hill (not “The Avalon Hill Game Company” since they have the rights to the Avalon Hill name but the AH company no longer exists). The game has been completely redesigned, with a new gameboard, box and die-cast metal pieces. The game also comes with cardboard counters to track supply center ownership. There have also been some minor rule changes; the rulebook now reads Fourth Edition.
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