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Can anyone suggest a programme or website that will allow playing diplomacy with all players on one computer. Ideally this should not involve logging in and out, or having a window open per player. I would like to use it purely as a movement judge, so once all orders are submitted on paper, then they can be copied onto the screen, and the "Go" button clicked to show the results (ideally with nice arrows showing where units bounced, convoyed etc.). I have found many programmes and websites that provide great interfaces for play-by-email or play-by-web for a single player, but nothing for helping with face-to-face games.

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I am not sure if you aren't looking hard enough, or I am misunderstanding how an online web version wouldn't work for you (is logging in really a problem?). It sounds like you only want a hot seat software recommendation. Hot Seat will have some problems with what you said you don't want. You cannot keep each players orders secret from each other (before hitting "Go") without having different windows for each player (if this isn't true, how would you accomplish the secrecy?). – user1873 Apr 14 '12 at 16:03
@user1873 Sorry for not being clearer. The idea is to maintain secrecy by submitting all orders on paper, and then once all have been revealed use the software to play out the moves quickly. – tttppp Apr 14 '12 at 17:36

3 Answers

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The software I know of is Realpolitik.

I know that at games Dan Burgess has hosted in Chicago, they've used this program (eg see his comment here), but I believe not in lieu of ordinary analogue adjudication over a board. The general setup as I understand it is that a non-playing host loads the moves into Realpolitik and adjudicates, which is synced up to a computer screen in a different negotiation room(s), so that players in that room can see the current position of the board while negotiating. I've never actually see this in progress, if you want more information, I'd contact one of the Windy City Weasels.

Call me skeptical, but I'm not convinced of the advantage of using automatic adjudication (perhaps if I see it in action I'll become convinced, maybe cutting down on errors is one possibility, but not the one mentioned in comments). The orders still needed to be read, and the results assimilated by the players, so I don't see a major time saving (since assimilation usually occurs simultaneously with hand-held adjudication).

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+1 Thanks, this is useful. I am also planning to use computer screens in negotiation rooms. I am playing with a group that are all new to the game (and I've only played a handful of games), so I think it will cut down the mistakes too/save us time. If we adjudicate positions manually we will either spend longer over it (e.g. arguing over bounces and convoys), or we will make more mistakes. – tttppp Apr 19 '12 at 12:01
We actually ended up using jdip (jdip.sourceforge.net), along with vnc to relay the screen to the meeting rooms and a game timer I wrote to mimic the behaviour of ellought.demon.co.uk/diptimer.htm, but without needing to be full screen. The order resolution was great - I didn't have to work out why other player's orders had failed - I could just read out the results from the screen. Anyway - the suggestions in these answers were great, so thanks! – tttppp May 1 '12 at 12:07
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The kind of software you are looking for exists.

MSN - Gaming Zone used to support Diplomacy, but something must have happened between Hasbro and Microsoft to change this.

Stewart Cross has an interesting article on the difficulty in creating the Diplomacy GM. If you are looking for reviews of the PC game, you might check GameSpot, or AllGame (although it looks like this site is a data farming site like Answers.com). I would normally use GameFAQs.com, or MobyGames.com, but both don't seem to have much useful information on them.

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+1 Thanks, the first of these looks like it's what I want. I'll have a look for more details about the second. – tttppp Apr 14 '12 at 17:38
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jDip is an exact fit for that. It is a free java program so can run on any platform.

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Hi dsas! Thanks for the suggestion - in the end I did use jDip, and it was perfect for my needs. We then used VNC to relay the map to other computers in conference rooms. – tttppp Aug 8 '12 at 11:24

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