The game of Diplomacy is best played by seven players (though as few as two may play.) Each player represents one of the Great Powers of Europe just prior to World War I: England, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Austria-Hungary (commonly referred to as "Austria"), Italy, and France. Each is distinct and independent of the others. At the start of the game, the players draw lots to determine which Great Power each will represent. This is the only element of chance in the game.

As soon as one Great power controls eighteen (18) Supply Centers, it is said to have "gained control of Europe". The player representing that Great Power is the winner. Players may terminate the game by consensus agreement before a winner is determined in this manner, in which case all players who still have units on the map share equally in a draw.

Since gaining control of 18 Supply Centers can take quite a long time, players may agree beforehand to stop the game at a certain time. Players may agree to regard the player who has the most units on the map at that time as the winner.

Conversation, deals, and agreements among the players will affect the course of the game great extent. These are arranged during the "Diplomacy Period" which takes place before each move. This period lasts one week before each turn, possibly more before the first turn of the game. These periods may end sooner if all players agree at the time.

During Diplomacy Periods, a player may say anything he wishes. The players may keep the content of their conversations secret. These conversations usually consist of bargaining or joint military planning, but they may include such things as exchanges of information, denouncements, threats, spread of rumors, and so forth. Public announcements may be made as the players see fit. However, these rules do not bind a player to anything he may say or to which he may agree; deciding whom to trust as situations arise is an important part of the game.

Certain provinces on the board, 34 in all, are designated as "Supply Centers." Supply Centers are marked with a black dot. Each of these provinces produces supplies sufficient to keep an army or fleet in being. A Great Power may have only as many armies and fleets on the board as it controls supply centers. Consequently, there will never be more than 34 armies and fleets (hereafter called "units") on the board at one time. A country gains or loses units in accordance with the number of supply centers it controls.

The Map. The physical features shown on the map, except for the coastlines, are purely decorative. The major countries are set off by heavy, solid, black lines. The Great Powers are also cut into "provinces" by thinner black lines. The smaller countries are but one "province". The seas are divided into "bodies of water" by thin black lines. Each province or body of water is a "space".

Units. "Armies" are denoted by appropriate graphics and represent control of a province by military forces. "Fleets" are denoted by pictures of ships and represent control of a body of water or coastal province by warships. Thus, the units of each Great Power are displayed on the map by pictures of a distinct color, as indicated below.

Starting Positions. At the start of the game, each Great Power - except Russia - controls three supply centers and has three units. Russia controls four supply centers and has four units. These units begin play, one in each home supply center, in the following positions (where "A" indicates army and "F" indicates fleet):

The twelve remaining supply centers are not occupied at the start of the game.

Orders. Only one unit may be in a space at a time. On each turn, each Great Power may order all of its units, or some, or none of them. A unit may be ordered to do only one thing on each move: an army may be ordered to move, hold, or support; a fleet may be ordered to move, hold, support, or convoy.

Mechanics of Writing Orders. Each player sends his orders to the gamemaster, usually keeping them secret, and these orders to the armies and fleets, as well as their results, are made available all at once by the gamemaster. An illegal order is not followed, and the unit so ordered simply stands in place. A mistaken order, if legal, will be followed. An order which admits of two meanings is not followed; a badly worded order, which nevertheless can have only one meaning, must be followed.

Dates. Orders for the first move are dated "Spring 1901"; for the second, "Fall 1901"; for the third, "Spring 1902"; and so on. In other words, turns alternate between Spring and Fall, with years progressing normally.

Format. In each set of orders, the space each unit is currently occupying is written first, followed by its order. The first three or four letters of the name of any space will almost always form an unambiguous abbreviation, except for spaces beginning with "Nor". (In these rules, the following abbreviations will be used: North Sea, Nth; Norwegian Sea, Nrg; Norway, Nwy; North Atlantic, NAt; North Africa, NAf.)

Gamemaster. The gamemaster collects the orders and reads them, adjudicating resulting situations and making rulings when necessary. His role should be strictly neutral.

Movement. An army may move to any adjacent province unless this move causes it to conflict with another unit (under the rule that no two units may occupy the same space at the same time.) A fleet may move to any body of water or coastal province which is adjacent to its current location, unless this move causes it to conflict with another unit. A move order is usually shown by a dash or arrow when written (as, for example, "A Par-Bur").

When a fleet is in a coastal province, the warships are assumed to be at any point along the coast of that province. The fleet may move to an adjacent coastal province only if it is adjacent along the coastline (so that the vessels could move down the coast to that province.) For example, a fleet may move from Rome to Tuscany or Rome to Naples, but not from Rome to Venice, because these two provinces, although adjacent and both coastal, are adjacent only along in inland boundary - not along a coastline.

Units may not move to islands (except England) nor to Switzerland, nor to any location not specifically named on the map.

Attack. A move order, correctly given, will sometimes in these rules be called an "attack" upon the space to which the unit has been ordered to move.

If two or more units are ordered to the same space, none of them may move. If a unit is not ordered to move, or is prevented from moving, and other units are ordered to its space, those other units may not move. If two units are ordered, each to the space the other occupies, neither may move. These three situations are called "stand-offs." Like the other rules governing conflicts, these rules apply whether the units involved are armies or fleets, which are essentially equal in power and different only in the spaces to which they may move. These rules also apply (with two minor exceptions noted in X.3 and the note to X.6) whether the units involved belong to the same or different Great Powers.

Support. A unit may give up its movement in order to support another unit trying to hold or enter a space. This space must be one to which the supporting unit could have moved if not opposed by other units; that is, the space which is the destination of the action being supported must be adjacent to the space in which the supporting unit is located, and must be suitable for an army or fleet, whichever the supporting unit may be. To order a support, it is necessary to write the location of the supporting piece, the word "supports" or its equivalent, and both the location and destination of the piece receiving support. (The letter "S" may be used to mean "supports".) Thus, "A Tyr-Mun" and "A Bur S A Tyr-Mun" indicates that the army in Burgundy is supporting the move from Tyrolia to Munich by an army of the same Great Power; in supporting units of another country, nationality need not be indicated but may be desirable to avoid confusion (e.g., A Sil S RUSSIAN A War-Pru). Fleets may support armies and vice versa. But, as implied above, a fleet may not give support into an inland province, nor into a coastal province not adjacent along the same coast; and an army may not give support into a body of water, because it cannot move there even if unopposed.

Effect of Support. A unit moves with the strength of itself and all its valid supports. Unless it is opposed by a unit equally well or better supported, it may complete its move, the rules under CONFLICTS above notwithstanding. Equally supported units which conflict in the situations described in Section IX follow those rules. A unit which otherwise would have remained in the space attacked by a better supported unit is dislodged and must retreat or be disbanded.

Self-Dislodgement Prohibited. One exception mentioned above (under CONFLICTS) is that an order to move into a space occupied by another unit of the same country will not succeed if the second unit fails to leave that space. The order would still be valid for other purposes, however, such as standing off an equally well or less well supported attack on the same space by units of other countries. Similarly, an order by one country which supports an attack by another country against a space occupied by one of the first country's units does not permit a move dislodging that unit, but may be valid for other purposes.

Example 1.

Example 2.

Self-Standoff. While a country may not dislodge its own units, it can stand itself off by ordering two, equally well supported attacks on the same space. However, if one of the attacks has more support than the other, it will succeed.

Example 3.

Beleaguered Garrison. Since dislodgement occurs only when another piece enters the space in question, as indicated in X.2 above, it follows that if two equally well supported units attack the same space, thus standing each other off, a unit already in that space is not dislodged.

Example 4.

Holding. A unit not ordered to move (i.e., one that is ordered to hold, ordered to convoy, ordered to support, or not ordered at all) may receive support only for its attempted movement. It may not be supported in place in the event that its attempted move fails. Thus, "A Mun Holds, A Boh S A Mun" is valid, but if "A Mun-Ber", then a written order "A Boh S A Mun" is not a valid order because the army in Munich was ordered to move.

Note that a unit need not be next to a unit it is supporting; it must only be next to the space into which it is giving support and it must be able to move to that space if unopposed by other units. Support cannot be convoyed. A player may not, by an attack, cut support being given by one of his own units (see Section XI below).

Dislodgement of a Unit Participating In A Standoff. It follows from the above that, where two or more equally well supported units are ordered to the same space, neither may move, even though one of them has been dislodged by a supported attack during the same move. However, if two units are ordered to the same space, and one of them is dislodged by a unit coming from that space, the other attacking unit may move.

Example 5.

Example 6.

Note that in each example above, if Russia had not ordered A Sev-Rum, Rumania would have been vacant for purposes of another unit's retreat because Rumania was not vacant due to a standoff. It may be said that a dislodged unit has no effect on the space its attacker came from.

If a unit ordered to support in a given space is attacked from a space different from the one into which it is giving support or is dislodged by an attack from any space (including the one into which it is giving support), then its support is "cut." The unit that was to have received that support then does not receive it.

Example 7.

Example 8.

Example 9.

Example 10.

After all the orders have been read, the moves made and the conflicts resolved, any dislodged unit makes its retreat. It must move to a space to which it could ordinarily move if unopposed by other units (that is, to an adjacent space suitable to an army or fleet, as the case may be). The unit may not retreat, however, to any space which is occupied, nor to the space its attacker came from, nor to a space which was left vacant due to a standoff on the same turn. If no place is available for retreat, the dislodged unit is "disbanded"; that is, its marker is removed from the map.

Writing Retreats. Retreats are submitted by the appropriate deadline by the players concerned, and simultaneously resolved as with movement orders. Retreats may neither be convoyed nor supported.

Disbandment. A player may always choose to disband a unit rather than retreat it. If two or more units may retreat only to the same space, they are all disbanded, unless only one of the units is ordered to retreat and the others are ordered to be disbanded. In that case, the one unit ordered to retreat may do so. If two or more units are ordered to retreat simultaneously to the same space, they are all disbanded. If a player fails to order a retreat when necessary, the unit is disbanded.

Convoying an Army Across a Body of Water. A fleet in a body of water may convoy an army from any province on the coast of that body to any other province on the coast of that same body. To do this, the army must be ordered to the intended province and the fleet must be ordered to convoy it. (The letter "C" may be used to indicate "convoys".) The order to the fleet must give both the location and the destination of the army being convoyed. The orders must specify the same destination or the army may not move. Thus: "A Lon-Bel, F Nth C A Lon-Bel" orders the army in London to Belgium, with the fleet in the North Sea convoying it there. Foreign armies may also be convoyed; for clarity the player may wish to indicate the foreign nationality, as "F Nth C ENGLISH A Lon-Bel". A fleet may not convoy more than one army during one move.

Convoying an Army Across Several Bodies of Water. If two or more fleets occupy adjacent bodies of water, an army may be convoyed through all these bodies of water on one turn. Thus, "ENGLAND: A Lon-Tun, F Eng C A Lon-Tun, F Mat C A Lon-Tun" and FRANCE: "F West C ENGLISH A Lon-Tun" takes the English army from London to Tunis in a single move. (Should the convoy be disrupted or the attack fail, note that the English army would remain in London.)

Disrupting a Convoy. If a fleet ordered to convoy is dislodged during the move, the army to be convoyed remains in its original province and has no effect on the province to which it was ordered. An attack on a convoying fleet which does not dislodge it does not affect the convoy.

Example 11.

More Than One Convoy Route. If the orders as written permit more than one route by which the convoyed army could move from its source to its destination, the order is not void on account of this ambiguity; the army is not prevented from moving due to dislodgement of fleets, unless all the routes are disrupted.

Example 12.

A Convoyed Attack Does Not Cut Certain Supports. If a convoyed army attacks a fleet which is supporting an action in a body of water; and that body of water contains a convoying fleet, that support is not cut.

Example 13.

Both A Convoy Route And An Overland Route. If an army could arrive at its destination either overland or by convoy, one route must be considered and the other disregarded, depending upon intent as shown by the totality of the orders written by the player governing the army.

Occupying Supply Centers. Occupation of a Supply Center by a Great Power occurs when one of its units is located in that Supply Center after a Fall turn has been played, complete with retreats. Once occupation has been established, the center may be left vacant for as long as the player sees fit and the occupying Great Power will continue to maintain one unit on the board for this Supply Center, so long as this center is not occupied by another Great Power at the close of a Fall turn. Note that occupation occurs only during the Fall turn; a unit which moves into a Supply Center during a Spring turn and moves out of it during the Fall of the same year does not affect the ownership of the center. In short, the current owner retains occupation of the center so long as, at the end of each Fall turn (with retreats), the center is either vacant or is occupied by one of his own units.

Building and Removing Units (Adjustments). After the Fall turn has been completed, and the retreats (if any) made, each player's number of units must be adjusted to equal the number of Supply Centers his Great Power controls. If he has fewer centers than units, he must disband only excess units by removing them from the map. The units removed may be of any of his units he chooses.

If a player has more centers than units, he may "build" new units by placing them, one in each unoccupied Supply Center in his home country only (provided that such centers are still under his control). He must specify a fleet or an army in a coastal Supply Center (if Russia builds a fleet in St. Petersburg, the Russian player must specify the coast on which it is to appear or the build is invalid). If his home Supply Centers are all occupied by his own units and/or owned by other players, a player must wait until the conclusion of the next Fall turn on which this situation can be corrected to raise any unit to which he may still be entitled at that time, though by occupation of other Supply Centers he may reduce the forces of some other country. From this it should be clear that if a player has lost all his home Supply Centers, he may still fight on with the units and Supply Centers remaining under his control but he may not gain units until he recaptures a home Supply Center and leaves it vacant at the close of a subsequent Fall turn. As with retreats, builds and removals (collectively known as "adjustment") are submitted and revealed simultaneously.

Fleets in Kiel and Constantinople, and in any other coastal province, may not convoy.

The rule that "if two units are ordered, each to the space the other occupies, neither may move," does not apply to three or more units exchanging positions in rotation (e.g., A Hol-Bel, F Bel-Nth, F Nth-Hol).

Two pieces may exchange places if either or both are convoyed. Thus, "ENGLAND: A Lon-Bel, F Nth C A Lon-Bel" and "FRANCE: A Bel-Lon, F Eng C A Bel-Lon" all succeed.

Civil Disorder. If a player leaves the game, or otherwise fails to submit orders in a given Spring or Fall season, it is assumed that the civil government in his country has collapsed. His units all hold in position, but do not support each other. If they are dislodged, they are disbanded. No new units are raised for this country. A player who temporarily fails to submit orders may, of course, resume play if he returns to the game and still has some units left. It is probably more desirable, if sufficient persons are available, to allow a person who has not previously had a country (or failing that, whose country has already been eliminated from play) to replace any player who has left the game. The replacement of a player who has failed to submit orders is entirely at the Gamemaster's discretion.

Civil Disorder Removals. If a country in civil disorder has to remove units, because it has lost supply centers, the unit farthest from home (most distant from the nearest home supply center as computed by the shortest available route, including convoys) is removed first, the fleet before the army. If more units are equally eligible for removal than should be removed, priority is established by the names of the space in which they are located, the earliest in alphabetical order coming off first.