On Sunday, 7 June 2020, 22:38:30 GMT+1, James Cook via agora-discussion <agora-discussion@agoranomic.org> wrote: > > Oh those are really pretty simple too, chess-level simple or simpler (with > > some edge cases that come up as you go). > > My experience learning Diplomacy was that the although rules are short > and seem simple, I found out about new (to me) edge cases constantly. > I love the game but I think the rule authors missed the mark somehow. > Not that I know how to improve it. > > (I don't mean to say the rules haven't been nailed down by now: I > imagine the set of test cases at https://webdiplomacy.net/datc.php is > probably complehensive.)
I think it might be possible to produce rules which are much simpler and have gameplay that, although different, has comparable complexity. At a first guess, something along the lines of "each unit has an intended adjacent destination, if a unit intends to stay still it can support a move to an adjacent location (this support does nothing if any other unit tries to move to its location), if two units attempt to move to the same place the unit with lesser support is dislodged (both are if there's a tie), a dislodged unit must move back to its original square if possible, otherwise it attempts to move again from its original square and if the resulting square is contested the unit disbands". That's a huge simplification of army movement, and although it doesn't produce the same results as the official rules in all cases, I'd imagine it has a similar tactical depth. The complex part is convoying, but even a simple rule like "a convoy attempt only succeeds if no attack on the convoy is attempted" might work well enough in practice (and is paradox-free). -- ais523
