The game also has a metal variant. I've heard that the metal board is the largest (most accommodating to a ton of units packed into a tight region, especially around Switzerland and Italy).

The wood pieces are nice, and I like the vintage look, so it's personally my favorite.

I've heard that the plastic pieces are cheap and suck, the map is one of the smallest, and not worth the purchase.

The cardboard units aren't bad, but they don't have the flexibility to allow you to show a support order like the wooden pieces do (lay flat or stand up) except maybe to turn them over. Not bad, but of cheap design.

I will say I once saw a 60's version on Ebay for $40. I didn't have the money at the time or I'd have scooped it up. I'm into vintage board games. I have a '71 version of Risk (never played since I've played Diplomacy), a '61 version of Stratego, a '70's version of War at Sea, a '72 version of Paydirt, and a series of others.

It's been a very long time since I've played F2F, I completely forgot about the need for nation markers. I wonder if it might be worthwhile to independently purchase metal ships and cannons or tanks, paint them seven colors, and use painted washers as nation markers?

Wood. They're more obviously distinguishable, not just unit type but also colour, have the stand-up for support feature, and just look/feel nicer to me.

I'm actually surprised the non-wooden pieces have managed to botch it so bad. They could just copy the destroyers and tanks from Axis and Allies and it would already be ten times better than what's out there.

I like mine, it comes with metal ships and cannons. Otherwise the wooden ones all the way, even if France was a sickly green. Its the Hasbro edition. The main drawback is that the board is smaller than the old Avalon Hill editions.

Look for a wood one on eBay -- they feel much better than the cheap plastic pieces. I somehow missed the stand-up for support feature though!

I have several copies of the metal version one. I had such a sweet deal. It was during the time that the gaming market (inspired by Settlers) was really growing, and lots of other shops wanted in on the money. One huge Dutch chain of warehouses bought tons of Diplomacy games, thinking it'd be an accessible game to sell to the general public at 70€. They thought wrong. After six months, they put all of the games on sale for 10€ a piece. Again, this is with metal units. I bought six and gave a few away. I still own three.

I'm dreaming of making a wooden board, maybe on an old table or something.

tfw no one has ever heard of the stars and anchors

I had that one. I expected the wooden pieces; it was such a let down to see those cheap plastic pieces.

Metal. I learned on a metal board and its my favorite to play on. Its huge.

@2WL The board is metal?

My board is carved from a single piece of obsidian. I use the skulls of my fallen enemies to represent armies, and for fleets, I have ships carved from their other bones.

*Metal pieces

A have my father's copy of the game. Wooden pieces. Very easy to differentiate and I like the simplicity. Metal pieces are nice, but I find it can be very hard to quickly glance at the board and tell them apart. Plastic is a joke.

One bump to get another set of eyes.

Made my own. Poster board, printed out a paper map on four pieces of printer paper, colored pins and flags (toothpick + annoying-to-draw flags. Still not done with these.)

I had the old wood ones (see my efforts at alternative color schemes to reflect those) but my brother and I did make a world diplomacy map with 32 countries on an old refrigerator carton and made pieces from wood. I still have it too.

I had some good (very good) friends of mine build me a Geek Chik like table based on the Sultan table. Made of plywood it was massive. SO massive we had to reduce it by 15".

It was made for Diplomacy and D&D. It has seven fold down stations and a huge (3 feet by 4 feet I think) Diplomacy poster map.

The down side is that my friends had only played once and the poster my was wrong. Missing sea boarders and SCs in the wrong places. A sharpie solved those issues and we try to play F2F once a year near Remembrance Day. I still dream of getting time and money to do another poster print of a new map.

We like the metal pieces from the Ha$bro version.

I have two sets:
1) older set with wooden pieces
2) Hasbro set with metal pieces

These two are my favorite among the published options. I prefer the wooden pieces for their classic style and utility for indicating orders.

I've seen the plastic stars and anchors, which I think are awful. The plastic "bullets and boats" of some other sets don't look much better either. The cardboard tokens of the latest set are probably the worst of all though.

If you have a custom set, please post pictures of it

I also prefer wooden pieces, but not all wooden pieces are equal. I play most often with the Deluxe Diplomacy set from c1990. Those pieces have a matte finish. I prefer the glossy finish on the pieces that came with the earlier Avalon Hill bookcase editions. With some of those sets, however, it's difficult to distinguish between the French and Italian pieces, and sometimes the British and German fleets. I solved the former problem with some powder blue spray paint.

If I ever end up in prison, I'm going to take a page out of Andy Dufrense's book and carve my own Diplomacy pieces out of soapstone.

and then be raped

Shouldn't you be advertising your world games that never start?