On: The Rise of German Board Games

[joshvm]

Have you ever played Diplomacy? It makes Catan look like a picnic.

https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2017/11/diplomacy-the-most-evi...

[cycrutchfield → joshvm]

Can confirm that a game of Diplomacy will take a group of happy friends and turn them into scheming backstabbers who will never trust one another ever again for the rest of their lives.

[shandor → cycrutchfield]

The solution is to only play Diplomacy with a group where everyone is a known scheming backstabber who will never trust one another ever again for the rest of their lives! Have tried, can confirm it works. Good times.

[qznc → cycrutchfield]

Some people can deal with that. I played Diplomacy with my whole group at work and everything is fine.

I wonder if that is a learned skill or a personality trait? In the former case, it might be valuable to teach it.

[suprfnk → qznc]

His response seems like hyperbole to me.

[knowaveragejoe → joshvm]

It's great, but if your group is used to something like Catan, it's much more time consuming. Great at ending friendships, however.

[ido → knowaveragejoe]

If you want to play in one sitting, in-person you need 6 or 7 players for a good 6+ hours...So basically it's a game for college students (I played it a lot at uni).

As an adult you can try to online versions where you only do one move per x(usually 24) hours. The games last weeks but you can play remotely at your leisure.

[Tomte → joshvm]

I am probably the only one playing Britain in the history of the game who never made it off the damn island. The game is really hard.

[eru → Tomte]

Even with board full of experienced players, every nation can have a bad start every once in a while. Sometimes people do gang up on you at the start.

However, if you play lots of games, and never get off the British Isles, you might want to look for a different hobby.

The game is meant to be hard: after all at most one in seven people can win. (Unless you are a drawmonger and consider that an acceptable outcome.)

[ainiriand → joshvm]

I actually lost friends playing Diplomacy! Stabbing little bitches!

[eru → ainiriand]

All stabs are preemptive.