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I came into a situation with a 2-player Small World game, where I was surrounded by an active race with the Diplomatic power, and that player had declared peace with me.

I could not attack the active race and there were no other regions available to conquer. What are my options, except for going into decline?

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2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote accepted

By the rules, that's it - on a given turn, you either conquer or go into decline, and if you choose the first option, there's nothing for you to conquer, so you just sit there.

As far as I can tell, diplomats are just kind of broken in two-player games. If you get them on the first turn, paired with a race with a decent number of tokens, you can conquer through the center of the board, splitting up what's available to the other player, and likely guarantee victory. If they come up later, it's probably okay, since you're unlikely to be able to cut the board in half without touching your opponent's active race.

(I've had one game like this, and in the future I may just remove diplomat in two-player games, or at least veto it if it comes with one of the races capable of splitting the board like that.)

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Nuking the extended discussion of diplomats being broken here. Each participant is encouraged to submit their own answer if they disagree with this answer. – Pat Ludwig♦ Nov 17 '12 at 15:46
I'm pretty sure that according to the rules you can't just sit there. You must at least attempt to attack someone. This means that for example if you have only one token in each of your regions, you must abandon one of them if you choose not to go into decline. – Let_Me_Be Mar 17 at 11:30
@Let_Me_Be You have to choose to either conquer or go into decline, and if you choose conquer you remove all but one token from each region, then attack as you like. So yes, you do have to choose to conquer, but that's not the same as being required to attack someone. If you don't have any tokens to do anything with, there's nothing in there that forces you to empty out regions in order to attack. (Unless I've missed something - please do point us to a rules quote if you have one.) – Jefromi Mar 17 at 14:11
up vote 3 down vote

You always have the option of picking up all your pieces and starting again from the edge of the board. You would probably be able to fairly quickly conquer all regions controlled by your opponent's inactive race.

From the rules, Page 6 - "Abandoning A Region"

If the player chooses to abandon all the Regions he previously occupied, his next conquest must follow the same rules as its First Conquest

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