Diplomacy

StarCraft Diplomacy is a genre of custom multiplayer maps for Blizzard Entertainment's 1998 real-time strategy video game StarCraft which utilizes real world terrain and tax collection as opposed to gathering as means of achieving minerals. The game most likely takes its name (but not its rules) from the Diplomacy board game. The original Diplomacy was not created by the Battle.net user Feruk as popularly thought. It was created by Ruggles as noted in Diplomacy 1.0, in which Feruk gave credit to him. However, Feruk was responsible for popularizing Diplomacy with the Gold series.

Summary

At the start of the game, or in some cases before, players choose a state from the options presented to them. Up to seven players battle for control of a map while utilizing their diplomatic skills to form alliances. The eighth player is generally the computer-controlled neutral territory that is subject to conquest from the human players. Victory generally comes when one player or team of players wipes out all its enemies' buildings.

Terrain

The terrain in the most common diplomacy maps includes most of Europe and parts of North Africa and the Middle East. Most variants of the map don't easily fit into any historical timeframe.

One of the most common Diplomacy series of maps, Gold, is generally riddled with errors. For instance, Germany includes the Jutland peninsula yet does not include Mannheim. Also, Czechoslovakia is vastly inaccurate, as the map gives the landlocked nation an outlet on the Baltic Sea. In addition, the Balkans and Black Sea area are completely misconstrued, with notable errors such as Romania being located in Crimea.

Other maps of the usual European theater tend to be more accurate, such as that of Diplomacy Infinity, whose details differ from those of the terrain used by most other versions of the map. However, some believe these inaccuracies make for a more fair and fun game, and the more inaccurate map (Gold 7.7) remains the basis of the most commonly played Diplomacy games.

Economics

On most maps, cities are represented by "doodads" in their real-world location. In other versions, cities may be represented as beacons. They are usually protected by defense fortifications; one must overcome these defenses with their army to capture the city. Once captured, a city has to be built next to by the player to be taken. The amount of money received per turn (once the game clock reaches 2:00) depends upon the number of cities the player owns (analogous to real world tax collection).

The amount of money a single state generates usually correlates to the size of that country's economy in real life; for example, the North African country Libya will make less than a European country like Germany. However, less money does not necessarily make any country inferior to a country from another region for various reasons. These reasons include the nation's "special" unit and defenses (both fortifications and natural, such as the natural defensible choke point of the Sinai and the Suez Canal in Egypt).

Special Units

Each state has its own "special" unit that only it can build. A state can produce another country's special unit by capturing that country's capital. Each special unit is unique in its own way and has some advantage over the unit's standard form. Some specials, for instance, spawn two units per one built, such as in the Gold 7.x series, where Turkey's Riflemen (Samir Duran Ghost) and Crimea's Attack Dog (Zergling) double, but most specials usually only boast more HP, damage, and armor. Generally these special units are used when possible both for the superior fighting strength and the ability to get around the 200 unit maximum army size that is built into Starcraft. The main exception to the use of special units is for the use of normal riflemen (ghosts) due to their increased range over special ghosts. Most maps other than the Gold series (especially Infinity) try to get around this by making special ghosts far stronger.

Variants

The most common form of Diplomacy maps is the Gold 7.x series created by GgG-Criminal, but he did not make the terrain of the map. The three official versions of that series are 7.3, 7.5 and 7.7. There are several other Gold 7.x maps such as the x2 and x3 versions which allow players to select numerous states. x2 and x3 have serious flaws which have yet to be repaired, however, and remain less popular than the official Gold versions.

The Gold 7.x series isn't the only one, either. There are maps for almost all areas of the world including Asia, the Americas, and Africa. In addition, there are some maps with significantly different gameplay and structure from the 7.x series, including Diplomacy High Octane, the Imperialism series, Diplomacy RP series, and Super Gun.

A new series of diplomacy maps called Diplomacy Infinity II has been rising in popularity. The latest version, 2.1, allows players to choose from six different modes of gameplay (normal Diplomacy, Economics, Phantom, Axis & Allies, Insane AI, and a secret mode) and more choosable states than almost any other Diplomacy map. It also has more accurate terrain than other diplomacy maps (especially the Gold 7.x series). The numerous modes are a source of contention among some fans of the map; some players who host games want to choose specific modes while players don't always agree on what mode they should all play. Another problem hampering the map's growth of popularity is a general lethargy among players accustomed to the ease of expansion and fighting in the Gold 7.x series.

A number of specialty Diplomacy maps have also been created, with notables including maps based on World War I, World War II, Star Trek, and the Dune Universe.

Problems

Most diplomacy matches and map variants suffer from various problems, which usually stem from too many units being present on the map, or lag from too many players controlling too many units.

This is most prominently noticed in the variants x2 and 7.x as they have no unit limits, and the former by design has many extra units compared to normal matches.

Another common glitch in the Gold 7.x series is the ability to pick up the tribute unit (usually a Dark Templar) from the tribute center, which is invincible and invisible, thereby giving the cheating player a distinct intelligence advantage over others.

Hopping

A trend among many players of diplomacy is "hopping" around the map to capture cities unprotected behind their borders.

Hopping players simply load a dropship with a Marine and "SCV", and fly through a preset path to get past computer defenses. This gives them an obvious economic and in some cases intelligence advantage over other players. Some argue this holds the map to be highly unrealistic and detracts from the prestige of the diplomacy genre.

Of course this is not an accepted strategy by some, and there is much controversy over the realism and fairness of this. Some newer maps, such as Infinity II, restrict hopping to high degrees.

Popularity

Diplomacy is popular on the East, West and European Battle.net servers, and a typical game of Diplomacy (the 7.x series) may hold up to seven players as the computer takes up the eighth slot. (This rarely happens, however, as 7 players usually make the game lag and provide many conflicts of interest early in the game.) Many StarCraft clans have been built for this one game, with frequent "wars" and "alliances" between the various clans.