Colonial Diplomacy Group Competitive Project

     - Rudyard Kipling from The White Man's Burden

This is another competitive group project, similar to the Paper Chain Game and Civilization.  In it students will compete for control of (or independence from) the European colonial powers in Asia in the late 19th century.  In the end there will be definite winners... and definite losers, all based on the control of resources and territory.  It is not expected that students will understand how to play the game based only on reading this page, but this site should serve as an important reference for students once the simulation begins.
 
Purpose:
When studying the 19th century colonial era, an understanding of geography is essential as so many of the conflicts of the 19th century were bounded by geographical issues (access to ports, natural resources, and population centers).  This intensive simulation focuses on a mapboard of Asia on which teams of students, representing various nations, compete for control.  Other than the starting positions there is virtually no "luck" involved in this game: what is essential for success is the formation of successful alliances through diplomacy (hence the name of the game).  While the outcome of the game does not necessarily follow the actual historical record, the essential areas of conflict become quite clear. 
 
Materials (What you will need):
  
 A. Get a Group and Determine Roles (of, preferably, friends) -
The class will break up into 7 groups, representing the 7 most important powers which confronted each other in the 19th century colonial era.  Depending on class size, groups will generally consist of  3 or 4 people.  Once you have formed your group, get out a piece of paper (only one for the whole group) and list everybody's name in your group, first and last.  Each group member will chose one of the three roles: Leader, Ambassador-General, and Spy.  If there are more than three people in the group, there will be multiple spies.  Once the roles have been determined, a spy from each group will turn in the sheet to the teacher.  The roles are described below:

NOTE: In the advent of the game being played over a period of two weeks with one or two moves being made daily, these role descriptions are subject to change.

    Leader - Makes the ultimate decisions on what the armies and navies of the nation will do and where they will position themselves.  The leader will write down the actual instructions (which are handed in to the teacher at the end of every round), and therefore should have a good idea of the game mechanics involved in writing instructions (poorly written instructions are not carried out).  Being the leader, however, he or she may not leave their country and wander about - thus, they MUST remain in their seat, rooted in position (unless handing in the orders or unless exiled, see below, or unless having commanded a subordinate to sit in for them).  The leader may boss around the other members of the group, including forcing one of their subordinates to stay seated for him/her.  The leader is also free to distribute their own personal points to others in the group at the end of the game.  If the capital city is captured, however, the leader must go into "exile" and must leave the classroom.  The General-Ambassador takes over for the leader at that point (and remains rooted, although either one of them may still write the orders).  If, at the end of the game, the leader is still exiled, three points are deducted from his or her points.  If the capital city is "liberated" from the foreign invaders, the leader is free to return to the classroom (and if it remains free, no points are deducted from the leader's score).  The leader gains three points by taking an enemy's capital city.  The leader may also use counterspies by signing a document in which they give away their own points to foreign nations' spies in exchange for information.  Such notes are binding and will cause points to be deducted from the leader and added to the counterspy's total. 

     General-Ambassador - Will consult with the leader to determine where the armies and navies should go.  The GA is free to move about, make deals with other nations, give advice to the leader, and function in the leader's absence (if the leader is exiled).  The GA must become rooted in a seat if the leader is exiled (due to the loss of the capital to foreign invasion).  If the nation the GA serves manages to capture and hold until the end of the game ALL the starting territories (other than the capital) held by an enemy nation, the GA receives three extra points.  If, conversely, all the starting territories (other than the capital) are lost to an invading army and are still not re-captured at the end of the game, the GA loses three points. It is the GA who makes the determination of what military units are built (armies and navies) and where they are built. The general may distribute any points gained this way but does not begin the game with any additional points (unlike the Leader).

     Spy - Drifts freely about, attempting to intercept secrets, attempting to keep other spies misinformed, and attempting to create general sneaky havoc.  It is the spy who carries the nation's orders to the teacher for adjudication (and hopefully has not altered them in any way).  The spy can also defect and counterspy for another nation.  If the spy wishes to do this, the Leader of the other nation must give the spy a written and signed contract with an amount of points the leader will sacrifice from their own final points and give to the spy.  These points may not exceed 10.  Spies with these written contracts may counter-counter spy (feed false information to the nation they are counterspying for) but, so long as they have the signed contract, they still get the points.  Spies may also counterspy for multiple nations.

B. Pick a Nation: (see the list below)                                              Each group will be called upon to chose a nation.  Although there are advantages and disadvantages to each one, your knowledge of history (and what ultimately happens to each one) may influence your choice.  I will list the 7 powers and the general advantages and disadvantages of each:

C. The Object of the Game (How to Win) -                                                                   The way to win the game is to control the most production centers at the end of the last game session.  On the board there are multiple regions on land and sea.  Some of these land regions are production centers, represented with dots.  This means they have the resources to produce more units (they have population and natural resources, etc.)  If a nation controls 3 production centers, they may have three units on the board (say, for example, two armies and a fleet).  If a nation controls 10 production centers, they may have 10 units on the board.  The goal of each nation is to control as many of these production centers as possible.  Early on in the game there are plenty of open (unoccupied) production centers - thus it is easy for your nation to expand initially.  After a few turns, however, nations start bumping into each other.  At that point you must use cunning, diplomacy, and aggression to gain control of more production centers.  Whichever of the seven nations has the most production centers at the end of the game wins.  Points are awarded on the following basis out of 30 points possible:

 Units do not automatically get placed on the board as soon as you take a production center, however.  Instead, new units are produced only between every other turn (I like to call this phase "Getting Christmas Presents").  The GA determines what units will be added and where they will be added. (They must be added in the home production territories, not built somewhere else on the board.) Since it is every other year, if in 1870 you take a production center, you do not get credit for it.  If, at the end of the next year you have stayed in it, you control it - you will get credit for it.  Once you have control of it - you do not lose control unless another country takes it and holds it in a "purple" or Christmas Present year - you may freely move your units away from the production centers.

D. How the Game is Played  -                                                        Once the class has been assigned/chosen nations, each Leader will get out a sheet and title it with the name of their nation (this is separate from the sheet which listed the group's names and roles).  This is the Orders Sheet.  The game begins in the year 1870, which every Leader will write on the Orders sheet.  Each turn (representing two years) the groups will follow these same steps:

   (1) write the date - The Leader will write the date of the current year of action, beginning with the first round in 1870.

   (2) inventory the armies and navies - The Leader, usually with the help of the GA (General-Ambassador) will then list (in a column under the date) all the nation's armies and navies.  An "A" will be listed for each army followed by the territory it is occupying; an "F" will be placed for each fleet, again listing the sea or territory it occupies.  No single piece may occupy more than one territory; no army may occupy a sea territory; no fleet may occupy a land-locked territory.  Fleets may occupy the coast of a territory and may also move along the coast (to an adjacent coastal area).

   (3) negotiate and spy - once the inventory is complete, each team should begin to plan (and write) their Orders. To do this, each nation may  negotiate and spy on the other nations, cut deals with them, find out their secrets, or retreat into isolationism and reveal nothing and communicate little.  As information comes in through the Spies and GA...

   (4) write Orders - ... The Leader should write down the orders for his nation's military.  There are four basic "Orders" and each piece may do one "Order" per turn.  The four basic orders are as follows:

      The leader will write out the orders for each of the inventoried navies or armies.  Writing orders always follows the same formula:

     F or A,  followed by the area the unit occupies, followed by the type of order given, followed by the destination or object of support (if any).  If a piece is holding, simply write "hold."  If a piece is moving, use an arrow to indicate movement ( ---> ).  If a piece is supporting another piece to either hold or move, indicate that it is giving support "sup." and what it is supporting and where; if it is convoying, write "conv." and where the final destination of the army being convoyed is located.  See the examples below:

Be sure that your Orders are written properly.  If they are not, they are ignored and your pieces default to "hold"

  (5) hand your Orders in - Once you have completed writing your Orders, have the Spy run them to the teacher. Once the first set of Orders are turned in, the teacher will begin a three or five-minute countdown, at the end of which any orders not turned in will be ignored.  You may not ask to get your Orders back to make revisions once they are turned in.

  (6) Resolve Conflicts (and get Christmas Presents every other year) -   Once all orders are turned in, the teacher will read off the results of what every nation intended to do and will resolve conflicts.  Conflicts are resolved on a simple basis: (a) If one unit moves into an area unopposed, it succeeds.  (b) If one unit moves into an area where there is already a unit, and has no additional back-up (support), it fails to move at all.  (c) If one unit attempts to move into an unoccupied area and another unit tries to do the same thing, and neither one has support - both fail and the area remains vacant.  (d) If a unit tries to move into an occupied or unoccupied area and has more support than any other unit either already there or attempting to go there - it succeeds.  (e) If a unit is being convoyed and the convoy is attacked (successfully or not) anywhere along the convoy line - the convoy fails.  (f) If a unit is in place and is dislodged by an invading, supported unit, it must retreat to an adjacent area.  If it cannot, it is destroyed.  It may also NOT move into an area where the attacking unit came from. (g) If a unit attempted to move into an area where a unit tried to move out but was repelled, the teacher will resolve the conflict based on whose units are involved.  If it's only your own units involved you will have some say-so in the matter.

     If it is the end of a second year cycle, the GA will either add or remove units based on the number of production centers controlled.  If you have lost all your territories - you cease to exist.

 D. Scoring Points at the End of the Session -                                     At the end of the session, points will be awarded on the basis of which nations control the most production centers.  (See the chart above)  Additionally every Leader receives three extra points.  Any Leaders who have lost their capitals at the end of the session lose 3 points.  Any GA's who have lost the non-capitals of their nation lose 3 points.  Any GA's who have captured all the non-capitals of another nation gain 3 points.  Spies with contracts can get their points added and the Leaders who signed them have the points deducted.  Any member of the group can voluntarily donate their points to anyone else  in their own group.

Further Questions and Explanations:

Questions?  Comments?  Monetary Donations?    Put 'em on the Web-site and I'll convert them into FAQ's.

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Colonial Diplomacy FAQ’s:

Question: How much time will we have to play in class?

Answer:  About 4 - 6 hours.  One of those hours will be spent going over the basics, though students should already have read these instructions beforehand.

Question: Are there any confusing areas of the board we should know about?

Answer: Certain peninsulas have two coasts (Arabia, Korea, Bangkok).  If you move a naval fleet onto one coast it may not simply hope overland and exit the other coast.  Certain other areas are bridged with arrows indicating that you may move either a fleet or an army between the zones (note: Constantinople-Angora; Hong-Kong-Canton; Singapore-Malaya; Kyoto-Kyushu; Davao-Cebu; Cebu-Manilla).  You may not move from Davao to Manilla in one move.  Likewise, although they appear close to each other, other territories cannot move between each other without a convoy (ie. Ceylon, Sumatra, Celebes, Java, Otaru, Sakhalin).  The Philippines are also odd in that, with the exception of the Celebes Sea, all other four sea regions surrounding the Philippines have access to all three Philippine territories.  (Celebes Sea only has access to Cebu.)

Question: Are there any other confusing areas we should know about?

Answer: Yes, in fact there are a couple.  Whoever CONTROLS Egypt also controls the Suez canal and may move fleets from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea or give permission (but it must be specified) for others to do so.  Lastly, the Russians have access to the Trans-Siberian Railroad and may move pieces along any open length of track.  No other power may do so, even if they control the territories.

Question:  Is it going to be on the test?
 
Answer: Of course.  Life is the test.  (A smart-assed teacher retort to that inevitable and weary question.)  On the other hand, if you are asking if you will need to know information about the geography of each nation or the general geography of Asia for the test the answer is: yes, the geography issues are essential - the outcomes (who wins in the game) are not.  The actual outcomes (who wins in reality) ARE essential to the test.

Question: I was comparing my version of the play with the someone else's in the group.  I noticed that sometimes the translation was different, in fact, his version even had swear words in it!  Which one of our versions is the right one?  Which one should we use?
 
Answer:  What a lame-assed question.  These are FAQ's about the Colonial Diplomacy Simulation, not about the Greek Plays. Yo!  Get with the program!  

Question: Why don't you tell us which version to buy or get on line?  Can we buy one from you?

Answer: Hello?  Did you get the idea in the last response or not? Helllooooo?  (By the way, I sell Bibles, not Greek Plays.)

Question: So we can use the lots of swear-words when we play?  Can we go to class naked, too, if it is part of the tradition of our nation?

Answer: Do what you want.... just remember - your peers are all involved, so, with that in mind, don't do anything that would (a) embarrass you in front of your parents at a parent conference and (b) will get me in trouble with the school administration (who are kinda like *my* parents).  It's okay to be crude and tasteless, just don't be tastelessly tasteless.  If you have specific questions, check with me and I'll be happy to play the Morality Adjudicator for the simulation.

Answer: Absolutely.  And if you don't, I simply deduct 20 points from the possible 100 for the project.  You're responsible for teaching your friends and classmates through that playbill.  Do it any way you want, beautiful work often gets extra credit - but remember, you need a copy for everyone in class - and you will pass them out in the 3 minutes set-up time you have.

Question: Are there any other sites more helpful than this stupid one for explaining the game?

Answer: Yes - http://devel.diplom.org/   you may also want to try:

 http://www.wizards.com/avalonhill/rules/diplomacy.pdf

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Just so you can see - there can be quite a variance of outcomes.  What follows are the two games played in 2006 by periods 4 and 5.  In the first example, Britain clearly took the lead and China was virtually completely crushed.  Russia and Japan weren't doing too poorly either.  Clearly, though, the Brits had just snagged some nasty critical bits of France and Dutch Indonesia.  In the second example (period 5) it was Britain which was virtually crushed and China which dominated the world, with the French and the Ottomans not doing too badly at all.

  Period 4                                    Period 5

On the other hand, fate can be cruel.  In the period 5 example, two turns later, China was reduced to virtually nothing as all its "allies" backstabbed it.  I have seen virtually every different country possible score a victory in the game.  It all depends on how well you negotiate, strategize, and participate.