Have you ever thought to yourself, “Man, I really want all of my friends to hate me, but I also want to waste four precious hours of my life. If only there was a way I could do both simultaneously.”?
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had thoughts like that. (Just kidding: zero.) For those of you who do find yourself in that situation, though, the answer to your plight has already been invented – the board game Diplomacy.
Diplomacy is based on the simple concept most people would rather win a board game than maintain healthy relationships with their friends. At the start of the game, each player is given dictatorial control over a European country, and the object is to manipulate the country’s armies to conquer the majority of the continent. (It’s sort of like playing RISK with Hitler.)
Gameplay consists of turns which can be divided into two phases. During the first phase, all players take several minutes to privately discuss their strategies with each other, make agreements and form alliances. During the second phase, players break the promises they made in the first phase.
The results are then tabulated, armies are maneuvered, territories change ownership and the next turn begins. The downward spiral of mistrust and backstabbing continues until one soulless player controls 18 of the 34 key territories on the board. (That person is considered the “winner.”)
My first experience with Diplomacy consisted of me getting crushed after four turns and completely disowning (or, more accurately, becoming passive aggressive for two weeks toward) all of the people I played with. This group of people consisted of people who are normally reasonable and level-headed, such as The Reflector opinion editor Harry Nelson.
And yet, when faced with something as simple as unqualified control over an entire country, Harry turns into a manipulative jerk. (Though I probably shouldn’t say so in this article – I wouldn’t put it past Harry to mess with my column title or something.)
Now, some people may read that and think, “McNeill’s just bitter because he lost, and he’s taking it out on the game.”
Why, yes, yes I am.
But my experience is typical for many new players (seriously), and I find it hard to imagine why anyone would voluntarily subject themselves to such a game. Perhaps they have decided they have too many friends and want to get rid of a few. (For reference, Facebook restricts you to 5,000 friends.) Or perhaps it’s just because quite a few board games (sometimes despite their best efforts) are incredibly fun to play.
My personal favorite such game is called Pandemic (not to be confused with the online Flash game where the objective is basically to infect the people of Madagascar). In the Pandemic board game, the players cooperate to stop global outbreaks of diseases. Instead of competing with each others, players compete against the game itself, relying on careful planning and coordination to win. And though it was a little demeaning the first time I lost to an inanimate object, the game has never ceased to be fun.
There are even some games out there that are highly competitive and still fun. For example, in Settlers of Catan, players manage resources to build large cities on an otherwise uninhabited island. Only one player can win, but the game is rigged so players have to work together in order to advance, so there’s no Diplomacy-esque sense of paranoia.
Games like these have so much strategic depth and complexity that they’re hard not to enjoy (unless you don’t like strategic depth and complexity). And they’re in no short supply.
For whatever reason, Germany has really taken a liking to strategic board games recently, and there’s a huge industry over there devoted to manufacturing them (in case you’ve ever wondered what the Germans have been up to for the past 20 years). It’s so pronounced Wikipedia lists “German-style board games begin to develop as a genre” as one of the major milestones on its timeline of board game development. (And trust me, that’s a bigger deal than it sounds.)
There are literally hundreds of these intricate European games, all of which put American games like Life, Monopoly and Deal or No Deal: The Electronic Board Game to shame (just kidding about that last one – it has no shame). And they’re rapidly growing in popularity. Even in Starkville, I’ve seen a sharp increase in the number of people interested in strategic board games lately (I’ve even heard rumors that an official Strategic Board Games Club is in the works).
Will this trend continue? Will German-style strategic board games eventually become a college student’s time-waster of choice? I doubt it; not as long as social networking and drinking are still around, at least. But as far as I’m concerned, they are at least a nice diversion every once in a while.
Except Diplomacy. I hate that game.
McNeill Williford is a senior majoring in industrial engineering. He can be contacted at [email protected].