House Rules


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The game state and the next deadline will always be shown on the web page www.brokk.me.uk/diplomacy/diplomacy.html

I'll accept orders by email or by any other reasonable means. Please avoid work email unless it's an emergency. If you phone me at home, don't leave it until just before the deadline in case I'm out. My phone number isn't on the web but I'm in the phone book and I'll tell the number to anyone who wants it.

Deadlines will be set for times in evenings so that I have time to prepare the results and there's not too much excitement at work.

None of the email addresses will be on the web page for fear of spam, but an email from me announcing the start of the game will include them all.

"Soft" or "hard" deadlines may be used. In the case of a soft deadline, if orders for all the countries are not available, the deadline will be extended by a day or a few days. This will avoid any country falling into civil disorder because of a failure to give orders on time. I suggest that no-one should admit what they've ordered to anyone else until the results are published on the web. In the case of a hard deadline, however, no orders will be accepted after the deadline has passed and countries for which orders have not been given will suffer civil disorder. Hard deadlines used to be the norm in postal play, but in these days of email we may find that soft deadlines keep the game going better.

I will make reasonable efforts to understand unclear orders, as far as permitted by the rules. The rules state that any ambiguous orders fail. E.g. "Fleet Mid Atlantic Ocean – Spain"; this order hasn't said which coast of Spain is intended, so it's ambiguous and fails according to the rules. However, if someone just writes "Fleet Mid Atlantic – Spain(South)", using "Mid Atlantic" instead of "Mid Atlantic Ocean", I understand that and there's no ambiguity.

If I notice that orders are unclear and will fail before the deadline I'll try to discuss it with the player and get clarification, but I won't extend a deadline to do this so it can't be guaranteed.

If you're happy with it, I'd like orders in the notation which is almost standard, as these can be imported straight into my PC program. Examples are:
    A(Par) hold
    F(Lon) – NTH
    F(ENG) S F(Lon) – NTH
    F(NTH) C A(Lon) – Bel
All the conventional unambiguous province names are shown on the situation map. However, there is more scope for slipping up like this so only do it if you're confident.

You can give new orders superceding old ones as many times as you wish in a turn up to the deadline. I would prefer every set of orders to be complete: please don't write things like "A(Lon) hold and all the other pieces do what I said last time". A new set of orders always supercedes all previous ones. There is no way to make your orders unchangeable (e.g. in a deal with a suspicious ally).

Only the player owning a country may give orders for the country's pieces. There is no way to authorise someone else to order some or all of your pieces. That always leads to trouble!

Deceiving the GM (e.g. by forging someone else's orders) is usually disallowed in Diplomacy play, and is punishable by one or more seasons "civil disorder" or removal of units.

Orders for retreats and builds will be handled informally. If only one or two players have retreats I'll just ask them what they want to do and publish the results when I've got all the needed instructions. More complex situations, such as builds in 1901, may need a mini-deadline.

You can write "press" with your orders using a name tag, obscuring your identity or not. For example:
    London: "Death to my enemies"
    Russia: "I will conquer the world"
    Observer: "What's going on?"
    Brokk: "Great spectator sport"

Some name tags are reserved: country names, capital city names, and "Brokk" which is mine. The full list of reserved press name tags is:
England, London, France, Paris, Germany, Berlin, Russia, St Petersburg, Turkey, Constantinople, Austria (or Austria-Hungary), Vienna, Italy, Rome, Brokk.

These name tags may only be used by the appropriate people. Other made-up name tags may be used by anyone. So in the example above, the identity of everyone apart from "Observer" is obvious.

If anyone uses a deliberately deceptive tag similar to one of the reserved ones, I may need to point it out by adding "(sic)", or in an extreme case refuse to print it. E.g.:
    Br0kk (sic): "Game master here. Next move is delayed two weeks."

If you want to write long press I'd prefer it by email so that I can copy and paste it.

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