Diplomacy: The Game of Knife

In which I attempt to rationalise my love of betraying my friends by insisting this board game is in fact a deep exploration of our lives.

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It's taken a year, but I'm back with another video essay. Remember when I said I'd probably never make one again? I lied.

Like ParaWorld, Diplomacy is a semi-niche game I've played for many years. Also like ParaWorld, I have a burning need to tell the world about it and all the ways in which it's phenomenal. This video is what came of it.

Editing has improved in general, though I'm still annoyed at my own voice. Guess I'll have to live with it.

If the world leaders playing Diplomacy scene makes you want to gouge your eyes out and pray to Cthulhu for an escape from this hell, I don't blame you.

0:00 Intro
3:27 What is Diplomacy?
6:30 Part I: Particles of War
17:23 Part II: Mind Games
26:32 Part III: The Meaning of Knife
35:00 Conclusions
37:03 Credits

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FOOTAGE

100 Years of History in 2 Minutes
pwnwer

Best TV Static Animation with Sound Effects
YouToogle

Causes of WW1: Alliances
Mr Allsop History Clips

Community: Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design
NBC

Cuban Crisis (1962)
British Pathé

Diplomacy, Running the Game #40, Politics #3
Matthew Colville

Diplomacy World Cup 2012
kenneth gordon

Eurovision Song Contest 2019 - Grand Final
Eurovision Song Contest

Flames
Pixabay

Forrest Gump
Paramount Pictures

Golden Balls - £100,000: Complete End Round Pt2
GoldenBollocks

Life in life
Phillip Bradbury

Paradox Interactive's Diplomacy (Full Austria Stream)
DiploStrats

"Remain Indoors" emergency broadcast – BBC Comedy
BBC

The Start of WW1 | Frightful First World War
Horrible Histories

Tsar Bomba Detonation
Tsar bomba

VHS Rewind Effect - 4K Green screen FREE high quality effects
ANFX // Free Media!

WDC Recap 3: Fall 1901
DanceScholar

World War One – Footage
killtron

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MUSIC

Carmina Burana: O Fortuna
Carl Orff

It's a Long, Long Way to Tipperary
Coldstream Guards

It's a Long Way to Tipperary
John McCormack

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License

X-Files Theme
Mark Snow

Bigger Than Us
Michael Rice

La Venda
Miki

These Constants Into Morning
Oliver Lugg

Victoria II Soundtrack
Paradox Interactive

Brain Damage
Pink Floyd

Sister
S!sters

God Save the Queen
Traditional

State Anthem of the Soviet Union
Traditional

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ARTICLES

[thewingedserpent]

"A game that takes 3 years to play" dnd with bad schedules

[whyando]

"Diplomacy meanwhile is all about communication which is why mathematicians don't actually like playing it" +1

[Tomartyr]

For me the most fascinating part about this is that it's an American board game, set during the World Wars, that doesn't centre on or even include America.

[katerinafitzridley]

I diplomacy. I remember all the friends I used to have before we played.

[thom_w]

A few years ago, clubs were mandatory at my school so me and my conveniently sized group of six other friends played diplomacy, one game a week for months. I remember the arguments over the English Channel and the Black Sea, everyone banding together against the 16 supply centre Russia, and a naval invasion from Greece to St Petersburg. We actually got together on a google doc a few weeks ago to play diplomacy (which I can NEVER recommend, as the board was a .png which was incredibly easy to move accidentally) and had a good time.

[Manquilla]

I once played a game of diplomacy in which, playing Britain I managed to get myself in an alliance United against Russia (played by the most experienced player). An afternoon full of backstabbing later I somehow managed to end the game as a member of the winning alliance... on Russia’s team. 10/10

[QemeH]

Regarding the last unofficial rule about "cheating":
My friends and I once played a legendary game with the homebrew additional rule that there was a "player" (I'm using this term lightly as they didn't have win conditions and acted perfectly neutral, so maybe "umpire" is the better word) acting as "the league of nations" with the sole power of removing units off the board. Any nation could at any point (except *during* turn resolution) claim that a unit had been cheated on the board and the league of nations would then take a secret poll among all remaining players weather this was true (if the voted ended 50/50 the "league of nations" went with the "correct" option as they traced all units independently). Oh boy, the friendships we destroyed with this rule... "Dave! You clearly saw Peter put a fleet in the baltic!" - "Hmmm... did I, Peter? Or will you promise to not support Berlin?"

[Repporio]

I feel the Vicky 2 soundtrack fits perfectly with this game. Though I thought buggy Victoria multiplayer was cool, this game sounds like utter madness.

[NStripleseven]

So essentially what happens in the case of a paradox is that all of the troops involved think about it for a bit and are so confused they can’t do it.

[angelolorilla]

Changing Brest to Breast. Such a man of culture.

[sambutton]

My dad played it with his friends, and lost them in the process. He then taught it to me, and I played it with my friends and followed in his footsteps.

[cam]

If it makes you feel better, "Fall" seems to have been a poetic counterpoint to "Spring, " as in, Spring is when life 'springs up' after the winter, and fall is when it 'falls back' again. If it doesn't make you feel better, it's called "Fall" cuz the leafs start fallin'

[merrymerryjerry]

"I know all the openings, but am otherwise terrible at it"

*Uses a queenside Bongcloud as background footage*

A man of culture, I see

[codeviper]

"I know this because the only thing I've ever read about Paradox Interactive's PC version of _Diplomacy_ is that the A.I. sucks balls"

To be fair, Paradox couldn't program a chess AI to beat a human player

[gamerofwar]

The algorithm works in mysterious ways. Never had it show me a small youtuber like this before, but it's nice to get recommended middling youtubers putting out high end content. Good luck king.

[ManuelDornbusch]

Wait what? There is a Game of Life that plays an even bigger version of Game of Life? I have never seen that before. Whoever worked that out, fills my heart with fear.

[nok]

Diplomacy is like a combination of Risk, Chess, and Pokemon, with it being a map based strategy game like Risk, not luck based like Chess, and a little bit prediction based with the whole both players making the turn at the same time like Pokemon.

[ethanomcbride]

We used this game to study paradigms in my game theory in international relations class. It was a semester-long sweaty fever dream

[jonesjohnson]

30:30 "What if you based the impotent order for your last remaining fleet on a native Danes advice to attack their mortal enemies, the Swedes."
- That had me, a native Dane, cracking up

[Ragnoar]

Mathematicians: Math is logically consistent
Gödel: Have I got numbers for you kiddo