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The Cities expansion comes with 3 diplomacy tokens.

In each game there could be 4 (5 with Manneken Pis) ways to get a token:

  • Age I City card: Residence
  • Age II City card: Consulate
  • Age III City card: Embassy
  • Wonder: Byzantium
    • side A: 1 token
    • side B: 2 tokens
  • (Wonder: Manneken Pis)

What happens when all three tokens are in use and now another token is needed?

Example scenario:

  • 4 players:
    • Bob has wonder Byzantium (B)
    • Alice has wonder Halicarnassus
    • Susan (any wonder)
    • Dave (any wonder)
  • In Age III:
    • Bob builds both wonder stages → 2 tokens (1 left)
    • Alice builds a wonder stage and builds Residence from the discard pile → 1 token (0 left)
    • Susan builds Embassy from her hand → 1 token needed

Does Susan get a virtual diplomacy token or not?

4
  • Just as a note, the wonder in question is Byzantium (diplomacy), rather than Petra (debt).
    – Samthere
    Feb 17, 2016 at 10:35
  • Also, you'd have no reason to have two Diplomacy tokens in the same age. You have to use them when military is checked. Bob has misunderstood how to use Diplomacy tokens, and someone should advise him to build his wonder stages in separate ages if he wants the maximum benefit from Byzantium.
    – SocioMatt
    Feb 17, 2016 at 19:28
  • @SocioMatt: If Bob has two Diplomacy tokens, he uses/loses only one per Age, so it can make sense to get more than one Diplomacy token in the same age. (Obivously not in Age III, like in the scenario, but Bob might have had other reasons for building that wonder stage ;-)).
    – unor
    Feb 17, 2016 at 19:35
  • @unor You're right. I think my game group has been playing this wrong, so nobody ever takes multiple tokens in the same age. The rules literally say "During the next Conflict, the player will not take part in the resolution and then MUST discard this  Diplomacy token." It isn't until the clarifications that it mentions you only need to discard one of the Diplomacy tokens.
    – SocioMatt
    Feb 17, 2016 at 19:42

1 Answer 1

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I think it's pretty safe to say that there are only 3 Diplomacy tokens provided because the scenarios in which 4 or 5 Diplomacy tokens are required at once are so vanishingly rare.

As I discovered from previous discussions of the finer points of the rules terminology (and I went so far as to double-check with the game designer Antoine Bauza via Twitter!), 7 Wonders is not a game where you need to obsess about the minutiae. In unusual corner cases, things probably work in a commonsense sort of way, no need to over think then.

There is no obvious reason why a player should be deprived of a Diplomacy token because 3 have already been taken already; and certainly no available justification for taking somebody else's Diplomacy token that has already been given out! In the unusual event that more than 3 Diplomacy tokens are required at once, I believe the sensible course of action is just to use something else as a stand-in Diplomacy token for the turn.

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