Circus Maximus Diplomacy Revival

By sunny. Released: 2026/07/27.
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Circus Maximus Diplomacy Revival

Art by DaWolfKid.

Introduction

In years past, when dinosaurs like LonelyNess still hosted tournaments, the game of Diplomacy was once a popular mainstay in the Circus Maximus subforum. When Circus activity as a whole declined, so too did Diplomacy's, with the last pre-revival game held in 2020. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when players old and new returned to Circus, Diplomacy eventually came right along with them in 2024, thanks in no small part to one StupidFlandrs48. Circusgoers have hosted and played in many such games since then; this article will highlight each of them for you and show you how you, too, can conquer the world! (Or, at least, a digital map.)

What is Diplomacy?

Diplomacy is a strategic board game created all the way back in the 1950s that is set in Europe at the start of the 20th century. The classic map is played by 7 players, each controlling a major European power (Austria-Hungary, Italy, France, England, Germany, Russia, and Turkey). Each player starts with three units and aims to use these units (and their negotiation skills) to capture supply centers to allow the player to produce more units. The ultimate win condition is to conquer a majority (18) of those supply centers, although in practice, draws are far more common and solo victories are quite rare. Due to the popularity of the game, variant maps were created, with different rules and set in different locations, such as the Mediterranean, Asia, and even the entire world, allowing for refreshing new experiences while keeping the core of the game mostly untouched.

map

Game Reviews

Our revival-sparking game fittingly takes place on the original classic European map. Early alliances between England (LonelyNess) and France (sunny) as well as Austria (bluedoom) and Turkey (Blazade) attack Germany (Dead by Daylight) and Russia (Adelynn), respectively. These alliances put both target powers in hot water, with neither being able to fully recover. In the classic map, it is very difficult to expand as Italy; this was certainly the case for the Italian (Aura Guardian) in this game, and this relative weakness led to a stab by Austria. However, Austria learned a lesson in diplomacy with this stab: by lying to Italy, anti-Austrian sentiment led to Italy turning their units against Austria, to the benefit of an increasingly large and dominant alliance of England and France. The same can also be said for Russia: thanks to England's honesty, Russia ended up assisting the England-France (EF) alliance and remained alive until the final turn, despite England stealing St. Petersburg early in the game. The "remaining alive" part did not apply to Germany, however, as they eventually found themselves completely subsumed by the EF and were the first country eliminated from the board. Due to a lack of expansion prospects, Turkey ended up stabbing Austria, who became the second eliminated power. However, this stab was not enough to halt the overwhelming tidal wave of blue that is the EF alliance: after sweeping through the Balkans, the game eventually ended in a two-way draw between England and France. Much like the revival itself, this draw came about in spectacular fashion: an army in St. Petersburg was convoyed around the entirety of Europe to deal the finishing blow to Turkey.

The first post-revival map took place on the "War in the Americas" map, which is a massive ten-player slugfest across both North and South America. An unfortunate idle from the original Great Britain player, askaninjask, in the build cycle of the first year led to a ragequit and sunny subbing in for Britain, but no retroactive builds; this led to a remarkable series of events, as all ten players decided to idle in order to give Britain their builds. Even more remarkable, however, was how Britain took advantage of this peace in order to manipulate Spain (meamPearl) and Mexico (pulsar512b) into attacking the United States (M2H) in peacetime, which left the latter in a very difficult position. A compliant USA (who believed that Britain was on his side) as well as a relatively experienced Spain, who was oblivious to Britain's stab posturing, led to British domination in the North. In the South, things were a bit slower: Argentina (Aura Guardian) found themselves between a rock in Brazil (Dead by Daylight) and a hard place in Chile (Adelynn) and was ground down into dust. The same could be said for Panama (ImaginaryNeon), who faced pressure from both Peru (bluedoom) and Venezuela (Jalmont); interestingly, Panama fled all the way up the Pacific coast to reside in Alaska near the end of the game. Thanks to the rapid expansion of Britain in the North, the powers in the South didn't have enough time to fight as much as they may have liked. In order to prevent a British solo win, the living southern powers and Mexico united to present a brick wall to the British navy. When Venezuela managed to steal the winning center out from Britain's neck, and further British losses seemed inevitable, the five strongest powers (basically, everyone living except Panama) came together for a five-way draw.

We return to the classic map for our second post-revival game, but this time with a twist! Players did not get a set of starting centers based on which power they were playing but rather were allowed to draft three supply centers (four, in the case of the last seed) in a snake draft! This led to very interesting starting positions, such as a disjointed "Russia" (Adelynn/ionnss) that held a lone southern outpost in Sevastopol and an England (pulsar512b) that traded Liverpool for two centers in the Lowland Countries—the drafting of supply centers also led to the West being far more crowded than the East, although violence seemed inevitable in both. Right off the bat, an early alliance between Italy (M2H/StupidFlandrs48) and the Balkans (CrreamyKitty) crushed Byzantine (bluedoom), who was hampered by a poor, vulnerable starting draft. A similar coalition was formed against England by Russia, Iberia (JALMONT), and Germany (Dead by Daylight/Alice Kazumi), leading to an early English defeat, with their holdings in the lowlands carved by the two western powers, while the island of Great Britain was captured by Russia. The West then devolved into a three-way brawl while Italy swept up in the South, after stabbing their former Balkan ally in the back, making them the power best positioned for a solo win. The game finally ended in a draw once the bickering western powers realized that they must put aside their differences and stop Italy before it was too late.

Like Draftplomacy, this game was on the classic map but contained a unique twist. Instead of one person both negotiating and ordering troops, these duties were split between Diplomats and Generals. The Diplomats' identities and the powers they represented were public, and they were the ones doing all of the negotiating in a public thread. The Generals, on the other hand, remained anonymous and were unable to talk or negotiate directly with any powers. This dynamic led to an interesting mismatch between what the Diplomats were promising and what the Generals actually decided to order. France (sunny/Adelynn) and Germany (Dead by Daylight/pulsar512b) quickly reignited their old feud from the Lost Art game, bickering to gain the favor of England (HydrogenHydreigon/Aura Guardian). England tended to waver between both allies before Hydro decided to side with Britain, leading to some French backpedaling. England and Germany also had to deal with Russia (NightEmerald/LonelyNess), who was proving to be a pest in the North despite incursions from the South. Speaking of the South, it seemed as if everyone wanted to be Austria's (Alice Kazumi/M2H) friend, with both Turkey (Crreamykitty/bluedoom) and Italy (Tommy/UncleSam) vying for Austrian support. Turkey wanted to march against Russia, while Italy was trying to move against Turkey. The Austrian general decided to team up with Turkey, however, leading to the near destruction of Russia and the loss of the Italian mainland. The Austrian general decided to stab their Turkish ally a bit too early, though, and the overwhelming threat of an Austrian solo put the Western powers on high alert. Through the haranguing of their Diplomats, the Western Generals managed to align just enough to form an impenetrable stalemate wall, stopping any hopes of an Austrian solo. With the chances of a solo gone (and any deviations from the stalemate line suboptimal due to the remaining threat), the Generals decided to call our first (and hopefully, only) seven-way draw, as little Italy managed to hang on with just one center!

Yet again, another game is played on the Classic map! The gameplay was not fundamentally altered too much—however, modifiers were added to the game every year to spice things up! Said modifiers were extremely impactful, ranging from simply disbanding units to Nuclear Proliferation (allowing mass destruction of units on the board), ensuring that the game would be kept interesting throughout its entire duration and adding an element of randomness to an otherwise luckless game. Right off the bat, the modifiers were extremely impactful—Rogue Agents were rolled, making it so that a unit of each power was controlled by another power. This modifier severely impacted negotiation dynamics, as the move of a starting unit is extremely impactful. This was a lesson learned the hard way by Turkey (Adelynn/bluedoom), as their starting unit in Constantinople was forced to hold, setting their progress back significantly. The rest of the year went by pretty normally—in the north, England (ImaginaryNeon) was attacked by both Germany (M2H/Alice Kazumi) and France (apricity/pulsar512b), putting them in a state of disadvantage. Russia (sunny/LonelyNess) opened as normal, taking advantage of Germany's focus on England to secure the Scandinavian centers; however, they were hampered somewhat by an alliance between Austria (StupidFlandrs48) and Turkey. The East remained in flux due to Italy (CrreamyKitty), who kept nipping at Austria's heels in Trieste. As the years went by, the German-French alliance continued, cleaning up England and marching on against the disorganized East. The remnants of the East realized they needed to ally together to not die against the Western alliance—but it was too late. The best that they could do was merely hold off the invading armies, which was not enough, as it was inevitable that Nuclear Proliferation would be rolled as a modifier, and when it did, France and Germany could use the nukes to rip past the stalemate line established by the eastern powers. After much bickering in the Diplomacy Discord as to whether the game should be called early (or if the players should have waited for the inevitable outcome), France and Germany decided to share a joint victory. Thus, the game was called, ending in a two-way draw between the French and the Germans.

We return to the familiar map of Europe that we all kno- wait, is that a 10-player map?? In this variant, the game is set in Europe in the late 20th century, having additional powers (Spain, Poland, Ukraine, and Egypt) added and Austria-Hungary removed. In addition to this, the board size was also increased, with the supply center count nearly doubling despite the setting being so geographically similar to the classic map. The board dynamics were extremely interesting this game—an early alliance between Ukraine (Thetwinmasters) and Poland (M2H/Adelynn) against Russia (bluedoom) led to the fall of Moscow to Polish troops in the first year. This alliance did not last, however, with Poland betraying Ukraine almost immediately, capturing Kiev and Kharkov in the second year while Russia allowed Moscow to remain Polish. However, this amiability between the two nations soon came to an end, with the East simply devolving into an all-out brawl. In the Mediterranean, Egypt (theironpikachu/Yoru97), Italy (Dead by Daylight/sunny), and Turkey (pulsar512b/Aura Guardian) all locked horns, preventing each from making significant gains elsewhere; this left Italy vulnerable from the West and Turkey vulnerable from the north. Speaking of the West, an early coalition was formed against Germany (CrreamyKitty/ImaginaryNeon) and Spain (skippergamez>Tommy), with both collapsing to the combined might of England (LonelyNess) and France (UncleSam/Alice Kazumi). However, it seems as if France got the lion's share of the gains and soon turned on Britain in Fall 1996, easily overpowering him afterwards. Seeing as the East and South were still pointlessly bickering and squabbling even as France crushed everyone in western Europe, it was clear that a French solo was inevitable, and that is what happened.

We returned to the basics with Vanilla Diplomacy. As its name suggests, this was a classic game of Diplomacy at its finest: no map variants, no rule modifications, nothing. This game faced some stumbling blocks initially, as inactive players required multiple substitutions. When it got going, though, we saw some interesting gameplay. England (Dead by Daylight), France (M2H), and Germany (CrreamyKitty -> Jalmont) did what the western powers always do, which is duke it out. In the East, things were more interesting. Austria (tomfy), Italy (thetwinmasters), and Russia (Adelynn -> UncleSam) all teamed up on Turkey (Drookez). Turkey is an incredibly tough nut to crack, however, and the rapid dissolution of this three-way alliance in 1903 (with Austria attacking Russia with German help while simultaneously being attacked by Italy) led to an incredible growth of Italian power. While Austria turned their focus back to Italy to constrain this new threat, Russia gazed westward. By this time in the West, Germany and France had allied against England and were rapidly chasing them back to their island. Russia's incursion against a preoccupied Germany, therefore, led to rapid Russian gains, and seeing as how Austria and Italy had locked horns in the East, there was little that could stop the Russian forces on their march. Russia eventually subsumed Germany and staked their claim on the British Isles; without a concerted effort by the remaining powers to form a line and stop them, Russia would win a solo. Unfortunately for the non-Russian powers, Italy proved uncooperative, leading to back-to-back solo wins for UncleSam!

This game took place on the Classic map but contained a unique twist. Normally, each power starts with three home supply centers (barring Russia, with four). The rest of the centers on the map begin as neutral, with no owners. The beginning stages of the game consist of a race to grab these neutral centers and expand your military influence. But what if there were no neutral centers? This game attempts to answer that question by creating four new powers: Balkans, obviously inhabiting the Balkans; Benelux, inhabiting the Low Countries and the Ruhr valley; Norway, inhabiting Scandinavia; and Spain, inhabiting Spain (duh), Portugal, and Tunisia. This led to a rather interesting game at first, as countries now had to actually attack each other from the get-go in order to expand, mandating formation of alliances from the very beginning of the game. Italy (Blazade) and the Balkans (Magic Mayhem Maiden -> sunny) drew first blood by collapsing on Austria (pulsar512b), quickly eliminating them from the game. The western powers fell into an early deadlock but eventually got their act into gear: Spain (Dead by Daylight) fell to Italy and France (Alice Kazumi), while Germany (Lonelyness) attacked Benelux (Drookez) with England (Bull of Heaven)'s help while simultaneously attacking Norway (ElectricityCat) with Russia (Adelynn)'s help. Speaking of Russia, they faced trouble in the East. The Balkans marched and took both Moscow and Sevastopol from under their feet, while Italy assisted them in attacking Turkey. This chain of events led to the eventual downfall of Benelux, Norway, and Russia, with England not too far behind. The stage was set for the remaining four major powers (Balkans, France, Germany, and Italy) to fight amongst themselves. The first to fall was the Balkans, who pivoted their forces northward to fend off a German incursion. This left their backside wide open for an Italian stab and led to a quick downfall (even faster than England, who perished the following turn). Each remaining power saw little opportunity for a solo at this point, though, and so the game ended with a three-way tie.

After having fun with a couple of variants, we return to standard Diplomacy yet again, this time with no twists or alterations to the game we know and love! Even though the map is not as flashy as some of the other maps we have recently played on, it still possesses the unique charm that has allowed it to endure over the course of 60 years. This, plus the fact that the game mostly consisted of new players, made it a spectacle to watch. The western powers were heavily disorganized and decided to duke it out, with no apparent alliances between any of the three, leading to a chaotic war over Western Europe until 1904, when England (duckycrater) and France (AirC) decided to team up against Germany (pulsar512b). The East fared better, with a Juggernaut (the community's name for a Russia-Turkey alliance, considered the most powerful starting alliance in the game) between Turkey (ionnss) and Russia (Dead by Daylight) crushing Austria (Drookez) and Italy (Lightniong) while the latter two had one last petty squabble. At this point, the game looked pretty over, with a draw imminent; however, a war sparked between France/Russia and Germany, giving Turkey an opportunity to stab both France and Russia in 1905 while they were distracted, securing their solo victory.

Conclusion

As you can see, the game of Diplomacy is immensely complex despite its seemingly simple rules. There is ample opportunity for both strategic and diplomatic innovation every time you join a game, variant or not. There's almost always a game running nowadays in Circus Maximus, and we invite you to spectate or play in the next one!

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