Here's more good advice than you'll read in a month of Sundays:
http://web.archive.org/web/20020602150039/www.diplomacy-archive.com/index.html

You can find the complete official rules for Diplomacy here:
http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/diplomacy_rulebook.pdf

And a helpful guide for new players here:
http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/Diplomacy_FiveMinGuide.pdf

I recommend a read through Richard Sharp's book "The Game of Diplomacy." It's quite interesting, and will give you a basic overview of the opening game dynamics, though many disagree with Sharp on some points.

http://www.springoffensive.org/god-contents.htm

I still find this book is an excellent reference, especially for specific countries. Also, always be polite in your conversations.

http://www.springoffensive.org/god-contents.htm

You beat me to it, Medi ; ).

Well said Croaker. Talk to everyone, and be polite.
Also, just a little warning. Hopefully you and your friends will enjoy the game and stay with us on the site, however, if you enter a game having already agreed to ally that is cheating. Just a little warning, hope it doesn't affect you.
Oh, and although you should really consider when is a good time to stab, try and stab your ally before he stabs you!

There's also a diplomacy 'wiki' that contains, in addition to a bunch of information that is less useful for you, a lot about the tactics of and strategies you can employ.
http://www.dipwiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Exterminate the lesser countries... fully... =)

wow mitch. nice forum... ya cheater

yeah ya little snot

lol

If you're a teacher and doing this for educational reasons, you can also make up your own boards if you have an appropriately-size map of Europe you don't mind altering. Just laminate it, draw borders labels and borders in the appropriate places, and find or make something to use for fleets, armies, and to identify each player's territories. If you have to stop the game, just write down where all the pieces are, take them off the board, and roll it up till next time.

If you do this, make sure the students refer to places by their proper names, not necessarily the Diplomacy ones (Istanbul, Izmir, Netherlands, etc). The disadvantage is that you don't have a computer to help you with all your moves and to prevent cheating, but the advantage is that you have students interacting with each other personally and learning European geography from a real, high-quality map.

Also, you might be able to get the latest source from the developer, Kestas (kestasjk), so if your school has accommodating tech people you'd be able to set up a private server just for class use.

"Exterminate the lesser countries" is terrible advice.

thats right clod, much better to contain the biggies even prop up the small ones id say

I'm not too sure about that. You can use lesser countries in two ways:

1) Coerce/Convince/Lure/Bribe them to help you in your struggles
2) Take their supply centres.

Option 2 is better if you can be sure that you will benefit more than your opponent. A strategy is to position them for a stab using option 1 then take all of their supply centres, in which case you will have their position with no communication and loyalty problems and the additional units!

Although, you may want to build your reputation by helping a loyal, lesser, ally to surive as you can win without taking their centres, but those of their opponent.

Personally, I prefer option 1, unless they are not helpful then option 2 occurs. Also, let no emotion stand between you and your 18 supply centres.

There I go again with the spelling! That should say "survive".

For newbies, I think it would help to define what is meant by "lesser countries". However, your attitude towards another nation should rather depend on which country you're playing, and might well be subject to change over time. For example, it is common for Austria to be quickly eliminated by a coalition (simply because it has so many neighbours), but (depending on the attitude and intentions of the Austrian player) this is not usually in Germany's interest, or Russia's, for that matter, while Italy and Turkey can hardly be expected to endorse a tenet like "exterminate the lesser countries". France and England are unlikely to be overly concerned with of Austria or Turkey until directly affected, England is unlikely to be initially concerned with Italy, and Russia might well benefit from an alliance with Turkey, so it's hard to see who Oxygen's advice is intended to serve.

Of course, any nation might be fair game to any other nation later on. Assuming that winning is your ongoing objective, "let no emotion stand between you and your 18 supply centres" is excellent advice.

I think "lesser countries" was intended to mean either "everyone else," or the neutral SCs. In other words, always look out for number 1, and pick the low-hanging fruit first.

hey emily harvey and mitch luden

If you keep to yourselves (please), then your inexperience will not be an issue.

the key is "diplomacy".

i agree with everything said thus far, especially the bits about talking to your opponents (that means the other six players, not just those who you are not allied with at the moment).

My extra bit of advice is to know and use the rules. The rules are rather simple, but can be used in some very interesting ways, for instance the double bounce (moving two or more units into a territory in order to prevent a 3rd party from sneaking in). also, the rules pertaining to support are VERY important for tactics. After you know the rules for support, you will understand where to attack from and whether to support your attack or cut support provided by other units.

Generally, talk to each other and know the rules.

oh, and you have the greatest teacher ever for letting you play diplomacy for class.

Is that debate between labond and sicarius around here somewhere?
I think I saw that they were going to continue somewhere else but cant remember where

By Email - I remember the final post in the thread suggested that it might be interesting to post the result in a new thread. I'd be quite happy to do so if Sicarius is, but Sicarius is away at the moment. It was an interesting discussion and it would be nice to resume it later.

Email... : (

I was enjoying that debate. although idk if I would call it that