Diplomacy and Gaming-By-Mail

Diplomacy is a strategic board game created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in 1959. (Calhamer) It was a wargame focusing on negation and diplomacy, hence the name, with absence of a die or form of randomizer requiring the players to use skill as a means of winning the game. (Parlett, 1999)  Diplomacy was the first commercially published game to be played by mail, a form of gaming played through postal mail – in this scenario - or email, popularized in the 1960s and reaching its peak in the 1980s. Diplomacy differs from the majority of war games in multiple ways including players write down all their moves in secret after a negotiation period and once revealed are put into play simultaneously; social interactions are an essential part of the game. It is played with between two and seven players and comprises of a negotiation phase and a movement phase. In the negotiation phase players may use any verbal means possible to forge alliances or form arrangements with one another, communication is a valuable asset to have during this phase. The movement phase consists of players writing down orders for each of their units in secret, once each player has done so each order will be executed simultaneously. Players must capture each other players supply centres, the winner is declared once each of the other players have been eliminated via lack of supply centres or if one player has over half the supply centres on the board. (Avalon Hill Games, 2000) It was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame in 1994.