Controls

Units

There are two types of units: Armies and Fleets.

Armies are represented by a square counter, Fleets by a slender rectangle.

The seven Powers have the following colours (also visible on the National Force Pools on either side of the Gaming Board):

 


 


 

All units can be dragged to any map location. M This does not mean that Armies are allowed on sea regions, or fleets inside land. Units will snap to the closest defined location, as indicated by a location square and an abbreviated location name. Supply centers are surrounded by a purple circle when uncontrolled, and marked by a star with the colour and the name of the controlling Power when controlled.

 

The Belgian center (bel) is uncontrolled. Paris (par) is unoccupied but controlled by the French. Picardy and Burgundy are no supply centers. A (rotated) French fleet controls Brest (bre). M Note that due to current design choices, the physical position of any region is bound to the small white square inside each region. This is where units have to be dragged to when moving.

 

All units can be sent back to their national pools when in game by right-clicking them and selecting the corresponding command, or by typing the keyboard command CTRL-P when they are selected.

 

All units can be sent to any of their national supply centers when in their units pool game by right-clicking them and selecting the corresponding command, or by typing appropriate the keyboard command when they are selected.

Alternatively, units can be dragged to any position on the board. They should be expanded before by double-clicking on the stack, otherwise all units will move as a single stack.

 


Grouped units (left) can be moved together as a stack.
Expanded units (right) can be moved separately.

 

Fleets

Fleets can also be rotated clockwise or counter-clockwise to better fit inside their region. See the right-click menu.

 

Deleting units

The Referee can also delete units. Note that if the Game Piece Palette is not activated by editing the module to do so, deleting a unit will remove it completely from the game without possibility to restore the corresponding national pool. It is always advisable, unless required by specific scenarios or setups, to send a unit back to its pool rather than deleting it.

 

Coasts

Bulgaria, Saint-Petersburg, and Spain have two coasts on which Fleets can locate. Fleets cannot move directly from one coast to the other. Armies are not affected. To allow the positioning of Fleets on a specific coast, additional snapping coast locations are provided for these three regions.

 

Game-turn Tracker

 

 

The Game-turn tracker will cycle through Spring, Autumn and Winter seasons for each year.

The Winter season of each year triggers a check of Supply Center control: All Supply Centers will be toggled to control by the currently occupying unit’s Power. M The Game-turn tracker can be activated by any player ! Should you by accident trigger an unwanted check of Supply Center control, click the Undo button to restore the game state (you may have to click Undo as many times as centers have been updated, each update counting as one action.)

 

Victory Points and Units Inventory

Two buttons allow to display the status of Supply Center control and Units on the board:

The VP button will show how many Supply Centers each Power controls.

 

Referee

The Referee side has some privileges, namely:

  1. Can manipulate all game pieces on the board.
  2. Can delete any game piece.
  3. Can control the visibility/invisibility of Supply Centers.
  4. Can trigger the control check of Supply Centers.
  5. S/He is also the only side that can manipulate Supply Centers at setup (necessary for setting-up variants). Actions can only take effect on Supply Centers if they are selected. Select a Supply Center by holding the SHIFT-key depressed while clicking on the counter. A selected center is surrounded by a blue box (see right). Supply Centers cannot be moved. If misplaced, delete the unit and drag another unit to the desired location.

 

 

 

 

Playing the game

It is recommended to start one of the Pre-defined Setups Centers and Pools or Spring 1900 (see Setups and Variants below).

 

When joining the game, each player will be asked to choose a Side, or Power.

 

This module does not support adjudication, neither does it enforce restrictions on Army or Fleet movement. Players will have to take care themselves of correct unit placement, movement, and adjudication. “Play by email” (pbem) adjudicator softwares can be found on the web, e.g. jDip, a Java application. By using command formats compatible with the selected adjudicator application and displaying their orders in the Delayed Tab of the Notes Window, players will easily adjudicate games and keep records.

 

Private Messages can be sent to other players by right-clicking on their names in the server window, right of the task bar.

Additional Rooms can be created and locked on the server by players wanting to negociate in restricted groups.

 

Setups and Variants

 

Setups

The Centers and Pools setup provides you with all normal Supply Centers in Europe 1900, and both 9 Armies and Fleets in each National Force Pools on either side of the Diplomacy Gaming Board. They will have to be sent to National Supply Centers by right-clicking each unit for the command menu, or dragging each unit to its starting position. You can save the game at that moment to use it as additional game setup.

 

The Sprint 1900 setup is prepared for standard Diplomacy, with all Power units already placed at their corresponding National centers.

 

Variants

Should you need to setup a variant with different national pools, start Vassal in the Editor Mode, double-click the “Diplo Counter Palette” item, check out the Hidden box, save the module with another version name, and restart the game loading your modified module. By clicking the Power Counters button, the Palette will appear.

 

User’s Guide, v1.0, Michel Decré, Sept 2006.