| Title | Calhamer on Diplomacy: The Boardgame “Diplomacy” and Diplomatic History |
| Author | Allan B. Calhamer |
| Publisher | FirstBooks Library |
| Year | 2000 |
| Description: From Alan Calhamer’s announcement of the publication of the book: The book is about the Game of Diplomacy and diplomatic history; the hope is that the Game will make the history more interesting, and the history will make the Game more interesting. Find out: 1) Two crucial diplomatic defeats Napoleon suffered just before he invaded Russia — should these have warned him off? Find out which of his allies, and which minister, were secretly encouraging the Russians. 2) What Admiral Sir John Fisher advised the King to do about the German High Seas Fleet, shortly before World War I. 3) What Bismarck was scared of while his armies were besieging Paris. 4) What proportion of major treaties have been violated historically. 5) Twenty-seven conflicts the U. S. has engaged in since its last declaration of war. 6) Major cooperative agreements which were not alliances. 7) Controversies over the balance of power: does it exist? Should it? Are the alternatives just the same thing? 8) Why did Stalin ally with Hitler? 9) Methods of play in a game in which players keep shifting against the leader. 10) Approaches where game-long alliances seem to be involved. 11) Did the Schlieffen Plan overrule diplomatic strategy in 1914? 12) Ending a war, in the real thing. Conflict resolution, in the game. 13) The content of typical American alliances with third-world countries. 14) A few deceptions. 15) Why DeGaulle wanted the Striking Force (Force de Frappe), i. e., the independent nuclear deterrent. 16) Common use of conflicting agreements, in the Game and in the real thing. 17) How the importance of ideology may have been exaggerated. 18) Allying with the weakness or with the strength? 19) Geographic positions in the Game. 20) Bandidos. 21) Naval diplomacy in the Game and in the real thing. 22) Historical inevitability: does it mean anything? | |
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| Title | Diplomacy Games and Variants |
| Authors | Lewis Pulsipher |
| Publisher | Strategy Games Ltd. |
| Year | 1978 |
| Description: This “book” was a 20-page bound booklet containing several variants designed by Lew Pulsipher, ranging from simple to complex. Also included are three 16 X 11 1/2 inch maps for the variants that don’t use the standard map. | |
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| Title | Diplomacy: Prima’s Official Strategy Guide |
| Authors | Rex Martin and Michael Knight |
| Publisher | Prima Publishing |
| Year | 1999 |
| Description: From Prima Publishing’s web page description of the book: In a game devoid of luck, sound strategy is all you’ve got.General strategies for advanced and beginning playersComprehensive coverage of each Great PowerSneaky opening, midgame, and endgame movesIn-depth strategies and sample gamesGain negotiation tactics through a psychological study of the multiplayer gameStrategy for variations of the gameOver 40 years of insight by masters of the game | |
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| Title | The Game of Diplomacy |
| Author | Richard Sharp |
| Publisher | Arthur Barker, Ltd. |
| Year | 1978 |
| Description: From the book Introduction: In a changing world, some things do not change. It may be fashionable to decry the simple Virtues, but we still like to find them in our friends. Loyalty, honesty, frankness, gratitude, chivalry, magnanimity – these are the hallmarks of the good friend, the good husband and father, the nice guy we all hope our daughters will marry.In the amoral world of Diplomacy, however, they are the hallmarks of the born loser. If a fallen enemy reaches out a hand for assistance, the wise man lops it off. If a friend does you a good turn when you’re down, wait until he’s down, then beat him to death. If an ally asks for your help in planning the next season’s moves, give it freely and copiously, then do the reverse of what you agreed and let him take the counter-attack. Try to surround yourself with people who trust you, then let them down; find an ally who will gladly die for you and see that he does just that.In short, Diplomacy is not a nice game; to win, it is necessary to behave like a complete cad. Some people adopt a tone of moral outrage at the philosophy of the game, and refuse to play it at all: though it is already unfashionable, and will soon no doubt be illegal, to acknowledge any difference between the sexes, this attitude is particularly common among women � a cynic might say that Diplomacy threatens to erode the natural advantage their innate duplicity gives them over men in real life. At any event, this moral posture is quite untenable. We all have these anti-social tendencies somewhere within us, and it may be better to give them free rein in a harmless game, suppressing them where they could do real damage.Not a nice game, as I said; but a marvelously entertaining one. Of all the countless board-games that have followed in the wake of Monopoly, none has acquired the devoted cult-following of Diplomacy: a game of pure skill for seven pedigree rats with time on their hands. | |
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