In September 2003, Ronald Lokers proposed an Intimate Diplomacy Tournament, having previously run one in 2001, the results of which are recorded here. It sounded interesting, so I signed up, never having played the variant before. The 2003/2004 tournament took a while to get started, so I took the opportunity to play some practice games.

The first thing I needed to do was choose a preference list. I studied all the power pairs that were played in the 2001 tournament, and decided that the following preference list seemed to be a good one: "AIFGTER". It seemed that no country has an advantage over Austria, based on the results I analyzed. One reason Austria and Italy seem to be better than the rest is that they receive an initial treasury of 24, which is 2 more than Germany, and four more than the rest, which only receive 20. Another reason the A and I do well is that, being central powers, they can expand in all directions (opponents permitting), and so can grow fast. France has the advantage of sitting on both sides of the stalemate line. Against Italy, Austria, or Turkey, there is little competition stopping France taking all the centres in the north. Against Germany or England, there is little stopping France taking most of the southern centres, as those powers cannot get fleets into the Med. Russia has a hard time, because it has too many neighbours and is hard to defend. England, Germany, Austria, and Turkey can each attack, and G, A, and T can all take a centre in 1901, thus it is likely Russia has to spend resources defending herself from mercenary powers, so despite the theoretical potential to get to 8 centres in 1901 compared to a maximum of 6 for any other power, this cannot be achieved in practice.

Having chosen the above preference list, I have used it in every game I've played (not counting games with more than two players - see later). I figured, when I lost using it, I may need to revise it; but so far I've played 9 two-player games with that preference list, and it has not let me down yet.

I started a couple of practice games prior to the tournament, and those went well. I did a lot of analysis prior to each bidding phase. I considered each neutral country and decided what it would do for me if I controlled it, and how it could harm me if my opponent controlled it. This could often be counted in terms of supply centres. For example, consider opening as France against Turkey, and consider England. In 1901, given free rein, France can get to any of Spa, Por, Mun, Ven, Bel, Lon, and if Eng and Nth convoy, also Hol, Den, Nwy, and Edi. Now since France has only three units, that is clearly the maximum number of builds available in 1901, so controlling England doesn't give any extra builds immediately. If England is attacking France, however, then Lon-Eng-Bre needs to be stopped. Bre-Eng bouncing in the Spring is sufficient, leaving Marseilles and Paris to get two builds elsewhere. So England is plus-or-minus-one in terms of affecting 1901 builds for France. Obviously, sometimes powers need to be considered together, as some combinations could cause a power to come close to loosing, and result in a position from which it would be difficult to recover.

Having considered the values of powers to me and my opponent, I started guessing which combinations of powers my opponents would try for, and the relative sizes of the bids they might make. I then chose my bids so that I avoided my opponent getting combinations of powers that were too powerful, made control of important powers (for either player) expensive, but not beyond their worth, and tried to pick up other powers cheaply. Obviously, with limited resources (without overbidding) it is not always possible to do all of those things. Sometimes I decided a large bid for a particular power would be likely, and I wouldn't bid for it, using the money elsewhere. If my opponent guessed I was doing that control of that important power could be had for very little. But to attempt that would risk losing that power, and so I tried to use that tactic where the risk to my opponent, if that power was not controlled, was significant.

Obviously bidding strategies change when your opponent's treasury is considerably larger or smaller than your own. I've been in situations where if I control a power, say France, I can force a win, and my treasury is 20 say, while that of my opponent is only 10. Although bidding 11 (or any number at least 10) would ensure my opponent didn't get control, tied bids means whatever I bid, if my opponent guesses it then France stays neutral. However, my best strategy (assuming a rational opponent) is to randomly pick a number in the range 10-20. The best my opponent can do is to do likewise though that still only gives one chance in eleven of not losing.

I have played one three-player game of Intimate - USTV:int7. I was France against Italy and Turkey. From the start it looked like Italy was going to get squashed in the middle. It is clear in a three player game the middle powers return to being weak, whereas they are strong in the two-player game of intimate. And as in the two-player analysis of powers above, France had the advantage that the whole of the north was open to me. An additional bidding strategy arose in this game: at one point Turkey had a larger treasury than Italy or myself. Italy suggested we could both bid a very large value for Russia, and that would stop anyone, and in particularly Turkey, from controlling Russia that year. Of course it relied on trust as if either of us had pulled out the other would have over-bid, and so lost all their money and controlled no powers.

In conclusion, my winning of the tournament shows that it is not a hard variant to learn and become an expert at. There is obviously some luck in the bidding process, as bids of nearly the same value are likely to be nearly as good as each other, and yet adjusting bids by one point either way can make a huge difference in the outcome. However, I think there is considerable skill required too, as winning ten straight games by luck alone is rather unlikely. It is quite different from regular Diplomacy, even from "no-press" Diplomacy, but it is definitely a fun little variant.