There are a philosophies about playing Diplomacy. Calhamerism is one philosophy. Named after the game’s inventor, Allan B Calhamer, it might be described as playing Diplomacy the way Calhamer designed it to be played.
Calhamer described some aspects of Diplomacy in a number of articles that can be found in the Diplomacy Archive. There are two that describe the influences behind the game, and one which defines a specific aspect of Diplomacy. I’ll provide links to these below, however the main article I want to focus on is “Objectives Other Than Winning“, first published in the IDA Diplomacy Handbook 1974.
Context
Calhamer wrote this article to discuss how a game of Diplomacy should end. He identifies two schools of thought: the WIN ONLY school and the STRONG SECOND school.
The Strong Second school of thought was that Diplomacy was all about collecting SCs. In some ways, this is fair enough: to win the game you have to own 18+ SCs. However, what happens when a leader looks like they’re going to achieve this total?
The Strong Second school had it that, in this situation, you should try to capture as many SCs as possible yourself. The idea was that it was better to end the game on more SCs than anyone else, other than the person who won the game, because that meant you had done better than anyone else (other than the person who won the game, of course).
Calhamer says that his idea had been encouraged by ratings systems:
Some ratings systems give credit for them, one GM gives small prizes for the first three places, and so forth. Any player once in the lead might as well offer his assistance toward the attainment of these objectives to the other players, since these objectives, unlike the draw, do not conflict with the leader’s effort to win.
The Strong Second school, then, was all about placings behind the winner.
The Win Only school didn’t follow this philosophy. Instead their philosophy was about preventing the leader from winning the game. In the scenario where one player looked to be en route to this success, other players should be banding together to stop them.
For the Win Only school, it was better to end the game in a draw, to prevent a solo. For me, the ‘Win Only’ name doesn’t really do this credit. It sounds almost as if it was that only a SOLO is worth anything. This isn’t what the philosophy was about: preventing a solo when you’re unlikely to achieve it yourself is just as important.
The End Result
Calhamer, and hence Calhamerism, favoured preventing the solo, or the Win Only school of thought. In the article, Calhamer points out the reasons playing to draw the game is better:
It is not wholly clear why the draw is not an adequate secondary objective, inasmuch as the game is probably a draw with best play from the overwhelming majority of positions actually encountered.
The draw, of course, is the only objective other than victory that is recognised by the Rulebook.1
The notion that all players sharing in the draw share equally reflects in part the considerable and logical difference between survival and elimination; anyone who has survived into the draw might conceivably win if the game went on, but no one eliminated can do so.
Following the assumption that a power holding 18 units can sweep the board, it then appears that no power has survived the game unless he has achieved either a win or a draw. The reward for a draw, then, is the reward for survival in a dangerous world.
Giving equal credit to all those sharing in the draw also encourages the smallest power to fight for the draw, instead of giving up without a fight. If they give up without a fight, the larger powers may not get a draw either, since the leader may benefit from their collapse and win.
A recent postal game arrived at a point at which the supply centres were divided among the remaining players 17-11-6. Here the player in second place could have secured second place by giving one of his centres to the leader, ending the game 18-10-6; but this player plays only for a win or a draw. The third place player was willing to entertain second place as an objective other than victory; however, there was no way he could achieve it, because if he attacked the second place player, the leader would win at once. Consequently, the two weaker players joined to fight for the 3-way draw, playing several exciting moves, and eventually succeeding.
This final attempt to contain the leader is sometimes one of the most dramatic and exciting parts of the game. Co-operation must be created among players who have been fighting one another, and who have set their hearts on other objectives; they must admit that goal they have pursued all game long, which are now within their grasp, have just lost their value, and may even be destructive. Frequently, they are out of position for the new encounter, and are better positioned to fight each other. They must form a line together, exposing their territories to each other. This is not the co-operation of merely being assigned to the same team. This co-operation is hard won over difficulties. This is Verdun.
On the other hand, Calhamer also states why the Strong Second school isn’t a sensible way to go:
Some players have argued that giving credit for “strong second” is realistic. This result is hard to determine, for when a player has won, he has presumably gained control of Europe, something which one country has never done. The strong second, then, is the last or largest to fall to the conqueror. Whether this situation is a good one or not is hard to say. The Mongols used to give the worst treatment to those of their enemies that held out the longest.
In terms of achievement, it is easy to believe that a strong second with 10 units is preferable to being knocked out early, or to succumbing with the rest while holding just one unit. However, in the final battle to prevent the leader from winning, one would normally expect the second place player to be the leader of the opposition. Consequently, something must be detracted from his achievement because he must bear some of the responsibility for the failure in the final battle.
What Calhamer is saying is that, if one player wins the game outright, everyone else has lost. Giving credit for losing but losing on more SCs than the other losers, is ridiculous. You lost. You failed to prevent another player from winning. The winner gets all the credit; everyone else gets none.
On the other hand, if you force a game to end in a draw, nobody has won. This means that everyone who has survived to the end of the game has achieved equal credit.
Other Aspects
Calhamerism isn’t just about the outcome of the game; it is also about how the game is played.
Calhamer’s design for Diplomacy was partially based on his reading on the pre-WWI alliance structure in Europe, and especially on German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s foreign policy. This is referred to as Realpolitik and this had such an impact on Calhamer’s ideas for the game that it was originally called “Realpolitik“.2
Hence, Calhamer’s idea is that all players should have the freedom to set up any kind of secret agreements with any other player. There are no game-long alliances such as are favoured by the CAREBEARS. Alliances are used only as long as they are useful.
Neither are the alliances meant to be binding.
NOTES
- At the time this article was written (1974), and with the current rules of the game, this is not accurate. The rules then (and now) had it that a game might be a “Short Game”, which might end after a set time or at a set point, at which the player with most SCs was said to have won. However, the general rules have almost always (with an exception for the 1961 Rules) featured a rule stating that, should the game end before a winner is declared, all surviving players share in a draw.
- “A Dozen Years of Diplomacy.” Calhamer, A. Diplomania #12 Aug 1966. Accessed from https://diplomacyzines.co.uk/strategy-tactics/articles-by-alan-b-calhamer/a-dozen-years-of-diplomacy/
THE DIPTIONARY 