European Editions


 France 

ManufacturerMiro
Year of ReleaseUnknown (before 1978)
Map StyleTopographic shading with political outlines
PiecesWooden blocks (armies) and prismatic ovoids (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)Red, Pink, Blue, Black, Green, Yellow, Grey
Description:
The gameboard for this edition indicates topographic shading not unlike that of the Avalon Hill bookcase edition, but using a more subtle grading for the shades rather than having sharp boundaries between colors. Unlike the Avalon Hill gameboard, this one also uses difference in shading to indicate differences in depth of water. Thick colored lines indicate political divisions between the major powers of the time.Although the gameboard itself is accurate, there were unfortunately a number of errors and ambiguities in the French rulebook. For example, the rulebook has the Russian fleet on the wrong coast in the initial board setup, and the rules state that new fleets can only be built in “arsenals” (which is to say that locations where the initial unit at the beginning of the game was a fleet) rather than in any home supply center that borders on water. There are also typos in the rulebook.This edition is similar if not identical to the French Parker edition (which is itself similar to the German Parker edition). The reason for this is that Miro was for a number of years the company licensed by Parker to sell Parker games in France. In the bottom left corner of the image below, one can even make out the Parker logo underneath the Miro company name.For pieces, this edition uses wooden blocks for armies and prismatic ovoids for fleets (see close-up image under the German Parker edition farther down on this page). Interestingly, for those of you who are familiar with older (pre-plastic-piece) editions of game Risk, these are the same kinds of pieces used in Risk. When Parker needed pieces to include with its editions of Diplomacy in France (first sold by Miro and then by Parker) and Germany, it simply used the pieces that were already being produced for Risk. An interesting side connection is that Risk was originally developed by a game designer who worked for Miro. Miro sold the rights of the game to Parker, which was the company that really popularized the game. In addition to the armies and navies, this edition also came with a third useful kind of piece — colored wooden “dots” used to mark supply center ownership on the gameboard as the game progressed.
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ManufacturerParker
Year of Release1978
Map StyleTopographic shading with political outlines
PiecesWooden blocks (armies) and prismatic ovoids (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)Red, Pink, Blue, Black, Green, Yellow, Grey
Description:
By 1978, Parker began selling games in France under its own name. (I’m not sure whether it acquired Miro or simply ended it’s prior business relationship with that company.) Aside from the change in company name printed on the box and elsewhere, I am not sure if there were any differences between the French Miro and Parker editions of Diplomacy
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ManufacturerDescartes Editeur
Year of Release1994
Map StyleTopographic shading
PiecesWooden thick 5-sided polygons (armies) and prisms (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)Red, Pink, Blue, Black, Green, Yellow, Grey
Description:
In 1994, Descartes Editeur released a new French edition of Diplomacy (with the French name “Diplomatie”). This set had a redesigned box and gameboard. The set still came with wooden pieces (including the supply center markers) but the shapes of the pieces were changed, now having thick 5-sided polygons for armies and prism-shaped pieces for fleets. The problems with the French rules in the Parker rulebook were significantly if not completely improved (I’m not sure which). This edition also came with a basic rules sheet in French.Note: my copy of this edition is missing the rulebook. If anyone has a copy of this edition and would be willing to sell the rulebook or photocopy it for me, please let me know.
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 Germany 

ManufacturerParker
Year of Release1977
Map StyleTopographic shading with political outlines
PiecesWooden blocks (armies) and prismatic ovoids (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)Red, Pink, Blue, Black, Green, Yellow, Grey
Description:
The gameboard for this edition indicates topographic shading not unlike that of the Avalon Hill bookcase edition, but using a more subtle grading for the shades rather than having sharp boundaries between colors. Unlike the Avalon Hill gameboard, this one also uses difference in shading to indicate differences in depth of water. Thick colored lines indicate political divisions between the major powers of the time.This edition is very similar to the French Parker edition (see images above). One obvious difference is that the rules and names on the map are in German. Although I have not had the opportunity to compare the two side-by-side, I would venture a guess and say that the two Parker editions are identical other than the language difference, having both originated from the same company.For pieces, this edition uses wooden blocks for armies and prismatic ovoids for fleets shown in the image below. Interestingly, for those of you who are familiar with older (pre-plastic-piece) editions of game Risk, these are the same two kinds of pieces used in Risk, a game originally put out by Parker Brothers in the U.S. Parker is the European subsidiary of Parker Brothers, so they evidently decided to make use of machines that were already producing pieces that were already in use for another game. In addition to the armies and navies, this edition also came with a third useful kind of piece — colored wooden “dots” used to mark supply center ownership on the gameboard as the game progressed.
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 Italy 

ManufacturerAriel
Year of Release1972
Map StyleUnknown
PiecesUnknown
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)Unknown
Description:
The box for this edition has caricatures of the heads of the state of the period. One discrepancy of note is that in this edition according to the rules Spain is considered to be adjacent to North Africa. Below is an image of part of the box for the Ariel edition (the text at the upper right was not printed on the box, but was added to the scanned image, which is used on an Italian gaming web page). This box looks pretty much like the purple box design from the British editions, which actually makes quite a bit of sense. This edition was published by Ariel, and at the time, Philmar/Arial was the company in the U.K. that had the rights to Diplomacy, so they used the box design (and quite likely the gameboard design) that they were using in the U.K.
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ManufacturerMondadori Giochi
Year of ReleaseUnknown (between 1979 and 1984)
Map StyleTopographic shading with political outlines
PiecesWooden blocks (armies) and prismatic ovoids (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)Red, Pink, Blue, Black, Green, Yellow, Grey
Description:
This edition appears to be the same design (box, gameboard, conference maps, and pieces) as the one sold by Parker in Germany and France, though the rulebook and names on the map are appropriately in Italian. Although it uses the same design, the company identified on the box is Mondadori Giochi, with their logo appearing instead of a Parker logo in the bottom left corner of the box lid. Most likely, Mondadori Giochi either licensed the design from Parker or they were an Italian subsidiary of Parker. Amusingly, the cover of the rulebook identifies the game is Kissinger’s favorite game.There are no copyright dates or other information to precisely determine when this edition came out. I spoke to one person who is sure he got the game no later than 1984. There is a date referencing an Italian law from 1979, so this edition definitely did not come out before 1979. This is later than the 1977 release of the German Parker edition, so it is clear that the basic design of the game itself originated with the Parker edition and not this one. It also makes sense that the Parker edition would have come out first because the pieces for the edition were the ones Parker (i.e. Parker Brothers in the U.S.) used for game risk. I have also been told that the rulebook for this edition has a number of errors and inconsistencies in it.
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ManufacturerL’Editrice Giochi
Year of ReleaseUnknown
Map StyleAlmost certainly topographic shading with political outlines
PiecesAlmost certainly wooden blocks (armies) and prismatic ovoids (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)Almost certainly Red, Pink, Blue, Black, Green, Yellow, Grey
Description:
The first edition released by L’Editrice Giochi was severely flawed. The company at the time was publishing Monopoly and Scrabble (among other games) and decided to use the same square gameboard format (probably to make use of their existing gameboard manufacturing setup. The actual Diplomacy map is rectangular with the East to West distance being greater than the North to South distance. To fit a rectangular map on a square gameboard, they could have rescaled the gameboard in one direction, but this would have severely distorted the geography of the map. Another alternative would have been to shrink the entire map enough to fit on a square gameboard leaving unused space on the top and bottom of the gameboard. Instead of doing this, they printed the map on the gameboard at the full height of the board, and truncated the East and West sides of the map to make it square. The net result of the truncation is that in the East, the border between Arm and Sev disappeared eliminating the land connection between Turkey and Russia. Even worse, in the West the truncation cut across Portugal so that Portugal was on the edge of the map, effectively creating distinct and separate water areas with movement between the Atlantic region and the Mediterranean region being impossible. This game went to print in this condition, and it was only after complaints from players that they printed a correct version.
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None available.
ManufacturerL’Editrice Giochi
Year of ReleaseUnknown
Map StyleTopographic shading with political outlines
PiecesWooden blocks (armies) and prismatic ovoids (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)Red, Pink, Blue, Black, Green, Yellow, Grey
Description:
This variation is the same as the previous one but corrected the severely flawed gameboard (see description of first L’Editrice Giochi edition for details). At first glance, this edition seems to look the same as the earlier Italian edition put out by Mondadori Giochi. However, on closer examination, there are a number of minor differences in the design. Although the pieces and conference maps are the same, the box and gameboard are a bit different. The design of the Mondadori Giochi edition was taken from the Parker design used for editions sold in Germany and France (see images of German edition above). The box for this game is similar, but not identical; the name “Diplomacy” on the box is white (not light blue) and the word “Diplomacy” does not appear in several other languages on this box as it does in the Parker design. The gameboard is also similar, but not identical. The name Diplomacy appears in the left corner of the board (not centered at the top), there are only two shades of blue used for water (not three), and the shading of the map leans more toward green whereas the shading on the Parker design was more toward yellow. Lastly, the gameboard for this game added a border to the gameboard in the same style as the Avalon Hill bookcase edition (blue border with power names written on rectangular areas colored to match the power color).
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 Netherlands 

ManufacturerJumbo
Year of Release1981
Map StyleTopographic shading with political outlines
PiecesWooden blocks (armies) and discs (fleets)
Piece Colors (AEFGIRT)Red, White, Blue, Black, Green, “Natural” (unpainted wood), Brown
Description:
Although the box for the Jumbo edition has an original design, the gameboard design for this edition is the same as the one created by Parker which has been used in several other European editions. Like the Parker editions, this edition came with wooden pieces as well as the colored dots to track supply center ownership. The shapes of the fleets and the colors for the various powers are not the same, though. The rulebook for the Jumbo edition included rules in Dutch and in French, and was sold not only in the Netherlands but in Belgium as well (Belgium is a bilingual country with two official languages: French and Dutch).
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