by Thomas Haver

Welcome to the Diplomacy: Era of Empire designer diary! My name is Thomas Haver, and I helped design Era of Empire, one of the latest strategy games from Renegade Game Studios.

Era of Empire is set in the 19th Century during a wave of new imperialism. Playing as one of several great empires (Britain, China, France, Japan, Russia, Turkey, and the Netherlands), players must use clever negotiation and cunning tactics to take control of vast swaths of Asia, as well as parts of Africa and Europe. While core mechanisms are retained from Diplomacy, multiple unique mechanisms make for a new experience.

In explaining how the game came into existence, this diary takes a slightly different approach than others. For one thing, Diplomacy: Era of Empire is a redesigned game; it was originally published as Colonial Diplomacy by Avalon Hill, then licensed from Hasbro. This means we'll cover how the game evolved over the thirty years since the original release.

Another reason is the level of support Renegade afforded the team in developing all aspects of the game, meaning we will cover both original game art and game components. The publishing process was a group effort, involving playtesters from initial idea to manufacturing. The result is a game made with reverence for the original Diplomacy, even as it adds unique twists for the modern gaming audience.

The First New Diplomacy Game in Thirty Years

Diplomacy itself was re-released by Renegade in July 2023 after being licensed from Hasbro. The game performed well, in no small part because of community support from its ardent fanbase.

Renegade soon began looking at other properties in the Diplomacy universe for publication. Diplomacy has a rich history of official and unofficial variants, with Avalon Hill previously publishing related games such as Machiavelli and Colonial Diplomacy. From a design perspective, we knew what worked – and had a sense of what did not – from years of community gameplay and feedback. After reviewing hundreds of potential variants, Diplomacy: Era of Empire was selected as the first official variant to be published in thirty years.

Era of Empire is based on Colonial Diplomacy, a popular variant design by Peter Hawes, who is also the designer of Francis Drake.


As part of the selection process, we reviewed prior feedback from multiple sources and pulled in background information from the community. We then gathered information from decades-old sources, consulted reviews conducted with several variant designers, and playtested with groups of both experienced and inexperienced players.

While retaining the core concepts of Colonial Diplomacy, we removed several of its original mechanisms, reworked others, and introduced new ones to differentiate the experience from classic Diplomacy while streamlining gameplay for a modern audience. Every aspect of the original title was reviewed and updated: box art, wooden pieces, map, rules, game modes, and even the country flags. Let's dive into the original game to see what's changed and why.

Colonial Diplomacy Starting Points

Colonial Diplomacy, released in 1994 by Avalon Hill, had several key differences from the original Diplomacy. The game is set in 1870 and instead of being focused on Europe pre-World War I, the game takes place largely in Asia, as well as swaths of Africa and eastern Europe. Colonial Diplomacy also introduced several new mechanisms:

▪️ The Trans-Siberian Railroad allows only the Russian player to traverse multiple provinces across their homeland instead of the usual adjacency restrictions for movement.

▪️ Hong Kong is a Supply Center for all powers except for China.

▪️ The Power that controls Egypt also controls the Suez Canal. They can determine whether fleets can move between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, per a specific order-writing format.

Classic Diplomacy had no Power-specific restrictions on movement and centers. Diplomacy does have the Kiel Canal, but it functions as a normal "space" – a geographic feature that requires Powers to first move to Kiel if they want to shift from the Baltic Sea to Helgoland Bight, for example.

The Trans-Siberian Railroad was a neat feature, but it led to multiple pages of errata released by Avalon Hill as combining railroad moves with basic hold-move-support-convoy action types meant special circumstances were encountered more frequently. Diplomacy is a game that adheres to the old maxim "easy to learn, difficult to master", so cool mechanisms with either extensive errata or limited in-game use were prime candidates for reworking.

Colonial Diplomacy map
Colonial Diplomacy is also larger than classic Diplomacy – much larger. The game has 120 provinces and 57 Supply Centers, compared to just 75 provinces and 34 Supply Centers in Diplomacy. To match the increased size of the map, the endgame condition (Supply Center count) was also modified for three different potential game lengths:

• Short game – 16 Supply Centers
• Standard game – 24 Supply Centers
• Long game – 30 Supply Centers

An additional endgame condition awarded victory to the player with the most Supply Centers if everyone still in the game agreed to end.

The size of the map and number of centers was also an opportunity for rework to more closely align the game to classic Diplomacy. In the 2023 edition of Diplomacy by Renegade, for example, the endgame conditions were updated to limit games by time or turn rather than just number of centers or draw. These updates allowed a group to set a time deadline (e.g., four hours) or a turn deadline (e.g., seven game years) to determine a winner — that is, the player with the most Supply Centers).

Land bridges
Several map features from Colonial Diplomacy had already required clarification. The "land bridges" on the map had arrows between them to indicate that both Armies and Fleets could traverse land areas separated by bodies of water. One of those provinces, Cebu, is special because it contains both land and sea, and it can be occupied by either an Army or a Fleet, with Armies able to travel via those land bridges from Manila to Cebu and Cebu to Davao (and vice versa for both cases).

Cebu
After the initial release of the game, however, the designer noted there should be a land bridge between Vladivostok and Sakhalin that wasn't included.

Clever Diplomacy fans had found an issue with the original map: Sakhalin existed entirely within the Okhotsk Sea. As a result, if a player positioned a unit on Sakhalin, it could never be dislodged because the most another Power could do is have strength one against strength one. A player sitting on Sakhalin may not win the game, but they could ensure they wouldn't be eliminated.

In the next print run, Avalon Hill included a land bridge between Otaru and Sakhalin, but not Vladivostok to Sakhalin. Enterprising fans made further modifications, including land bridges between Akita and Otaru, as well as Otaru and Sakhalin. This became known as the "Moulmein Convention". If you own a copy of Colonial Diplomacy, pull out the map to see which version you own.

Moulmein Convention
Lastly, starting strengths for each Power in Colonial Diplomacy differed from classic Diplomacy. In classic, each Power starts with three units (except for Russia, which starts with four units "split" north-to-south). In Colonial, the designer opted for a Power imbalance to spur on conflict in the early game. Britain starts with six units, including Fleets in Singapore and Hong Kong, which are near two neighbors. China starts with all Armies. Russia starts with five units, split east-to-west this time.

Over the course of 200+ recorded games, however, it was clear Britain and Japan had advantages over other Powers. Britain's strong starting position meant that if other Powers did not gang up on the empire, Brittania would reign supreme. Japan starts the game in the corner with four units and is difficult to eliminate, so they also experienced consistently strong finishes. Two Powers outpacing others over a large enough sample size warranted adjustment for gameplay balance.

Since the response to the original release of Colonial Diplomacy was well documented by Diplomacy players and Avalon Hill fans, there were many opportunities to enhance the game for a new release. Concerns related to the map and Power imbalance could be directly addressed with rework and playtesting. The rules could be rewritten to more closely match the style of Diplomacy's sixth edition (released in 2023) so that players could learn either game, then easily transition to the other. The game components and artwork could be redone to show a similar theme across multiple Diplomacy games. Let's check out all those enhancements to the game!

Updating the Rules

Renegade took a community-driven approach to updating the rules. Feedback about the prior release of Colonial Diplomacy was directly incorporated into Era of Empire. The rulebook was updated from the original to more closely match the sixth edition rules in style, with added changes to reflect gameplay specific to Era of Empire. Input from several experienced variant designers (David Klion and Manoli Strecker) was valuable in addressing some of the balance concerns from the prior release.

We also enlisted the support of Lucas Kruijswijk to update the rules. Lucas is the creator of the Diplomacy Adjudicator Test Cases (DATC), a set of tests to validate adjudication of rules that can include some complex and tricky situations.

The combined efforts of many people led to the following key changes:

▪️ The Trans-Siberian Railroad was removed from the game. The mechanism was neat, but the additional errata combined with it impacting only the Russian player meant extra complexity. Sometimes in game design (and life!) it's best to simplify.

▪️ The Hong Kong rule was removed from the game. It hurts China (the only Power affected by it) and results in worse overall results. All Supply Centers on the board should be available to all Powers.

▪️ The Suez Canal rule was reworked to match the Kiel Canal rule from classic Diplomacy, that is, to require Fleets to move to and from the Canal as a territory. Colonial Diplomacy's permission aspect of the Suez Canal was novel in allowing a Fleet to "skip" over Egypt, but in practice permission was rarely granted and required additional order writing notation as well. Aligning the Kiel Canal rule with the Suez Canal rule makes for an easier switch between the two Diplomacy games.

We also added two new mechanisms for players based on recommendations from decades of teaching the game. (In my spare time, I teach Diplomacy – a lot. I've been attending conventions for decades, running fifty Diplomacy tournaments and teaching nearly two thousand people how to play the game. If you've ever attended Gen Con, Origins, WBC, PrezCon, KublaCon, or any other large convention, then you've likely seen me running Diplomacy on a giant walkable map.)

Teaching at KublaCon in 2025
After teaching the game for so long and to so many different people, I noticed common "feature requests" from players experiencing the game for the first time. Players consistently struggled with the rule that you could build new units only in Home Centers, a term in classic Diplomacy for Supply Centers where each Power starts the game. It doesn't matter how much territory you conquer; you're still limited to building on those Supply Centers. Therefore, we added a Conscription mechanic to the Build Phase:

Building in any open Supply Center you own made sense to the players. It also made sense in this game because the map is much larger than classic Diplomacy. If you force players to build only in their starting locations, the game will take longer. It's a long path from Constantinople to Kyoto, so it makes sense to add a "forward build" mechanism. From a thematic standpoint, since this game is set during the Age of New Imperialism, the mechanism reflects empires conscripting the local populace to fill out the ranks.

"Giant" Era of Empire demo map at Circle DC
The second new mechanism in Era of Empire also derives from player feedback. Oftentimes new players would make "mistakes" in figuring out what to build. A new unit in a Home Center would make sense until players saw it on the board — then they would be stuck with that choice for the rest of the game. While it's easier to handwave mistakes in shorter Euro-style games, making a mistake in the first thirty minutes that you have to live with for the rest of the day just feels bad. I considered the best way to address this circumstance, while also making it meaningful to experienced players. The result was adding the Conversion mechanic to the Build phase:

Players who make a mistake now have an opportunity to rectify things. Still, restricting the conversion of units from Armies to Fleets and Fleets to Armies to the Build Phase, plus requiring it to occur on a Supply Center, ensure stability in the game. More than that, the change adds a layer of depth to the Build Phase. Many "stabs" (betrayals) in Diplomacy occur during the Fall turn, when you backstab an ally and there's a swing in the Supply Center count. Play then shifts to the Build Phase, where there's no negotiation. Allowing players to convert units means they can set up for some huge turns in which they capture new territory, then convert units and march on. Build-stabs are something to watch out for now.

Conversion also ends up being a much-needed mechanism for this map. Significant portions of the map contain landlocked provinces or open space for sea battles. If you're locked into a Fleet or Army early in the game, then your options for growth are limited. With Conversion, you can capture a coastal Supply Center with a Fleet, convert to an Army during the Build Phase, and continue your attack in the Spring. During playtesting, we found this mechanism made the game more dynamic than classic Diplomacy, which can often end in a stalemate (as it should, given it's a diplomatic simulation of World War I).

Era of Empire on a demo fabric map at Origins Game Fair 2025
In addition to the above mechanisms, we made numerous rule clarifications to address circumstances that arise during play. We specified what occurs when players have two Orders for the same unit (the first Order is resolved), what happens when they write more builds than they have available, and what happens when they write more disbands than they need. It's necessary to clarify these situations – mistakes happen, but Diplomacy players will also intentionally make mistakes with their Orders to gain an upper hand. Without a dedicated GM around to adjudicate, things can quickly spiral into arguments (a beloved pastime by passionate Diplomacy fans).


The last item related to the rules we added was a set of "Quick Start Rules". Just like the 2023 release of Diplomacy, we created a brief front-and-back sheet for players to teach the game. While the full rulebook addresses all rare cases and tricky situations, the "Quick Start Rules" are the best path for getting started in under ten minutes.

Creating the New Map

The map has undergone significant changes for both gameplay and aesthetic purposes. After the rules, this was the second most significant set of changes to the game. During the course of playtesting, we rebalanced the Powers' starting position and the map itself. This involved multiple iterations (nine major map versions, then numerous minor version changes). First, let's look at the smaller changes:

▪️ The Year Counter from the original map was removed to allow more space for the actual map. Everyone loves a good map!

▪️ Removed the Power names from the lower left corner of the map so that we could include the provinces in Africa we added during playtesting. Again, more map.

▪️ Bicoastal provinces are gone! In classic Diplomacy, three provinces in the game have separate coasts (St. Petersburg, Spain, and Bulgaria). These coasts matter for Fleets as you must specify a coast when moving to (or supporting) a province with two coasts. This was a constant challenge for new players as they would misorder a move to a coast. This was an occasional challenge for experienced players as well. (Sometimes the "mistake" was intentional by experienced players, but I'm sure they'll find other creative avenues to promise a move and not follow through.) Removing the bicoastal provinces simplified the game.

Era of Empire map
Overall, we reduced the number of provinces to 109 (from 120) and reduced the number of Supply Centers to 50 (from 57). Certain areas of the map required a complete rework, whereas others remained almost the same from the original Colonial Diplomacy.

The starting units for each Power also changed, for balance. Britain went from 6 Supply Centers to 4 as we removed the starting fleets in Singapore and Hong Kong. China, Russia, and Japan also had starting units removed. The distribution of units was also changed so that every Power had at least one Fleet and one Army to start.

The net result of these changes was a more balanced starting position with less "friction" between Powers in the first game year. Since the new mechanisms allow for more aggressive play later on, we intentionally went lighter on the first year of gameplay to give each Power more agency. In classic Diplomacy, it's still possible to get dogpiled from turn one (Austria has a reputation for this very circumstance), though at higher levels of play the Powers matter much less than players. However, most people who play Diplomacy do it for casual fun and the opportunity to destroy friendships forever. (Kidding! Remember to keep the tension on the board.)

Demo game looking on from Japan, Russia, and China
The first game year in Era of Empire is your opportunity to grow your personal empire, decide which conversions you want, then swing your sword. One approach I've seen playtesters and demo players take is to "bank" builds, or decline to build the full complement of units after the first year. They hold an extra build or two in reserve for a conscription build the following year or a negotiating piece with other players. This happens infrequently in classic Diplomacy, but it's all part of the game in Era of Empire.

For the map artwork, Renegade employed the services of gaming legend Rob Lazzaretti. If you've ever played Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder, you've likely seen his handiwork. Rob's challenge was to make a map where the contrast between the wooden pieces and tokens against the board was good enough for people to see from a distance. Most board games are played at a table with everyone seated, but for Diplomacy most of the action happens at a distance while players are negotiating. This map was designed for face-to-face play. The map was designed to have contrast between the pieces and have contrast between the pieces and the board. That meant using more muted colors for the map and more vibrant colors for the components.

Speaking of which...

We Updated the Components, Too

Diplomacy players love little wooden blocks. They rave about them. Wooden blocks have been part of the game since the beginning, with designer Allan B. Calhamer numbering the blocks in his first self-published print run. We had to get the pieces right. In 2023, Renegade went back to wooden blocks using ships for Fleets and artillery for Armies. The color was matched exactly to the colors in the 1992 Deluxe Diplomacy release.

We therefore elected to make a change with the color scheme and piece shape for Diplomacy: Era of Empire.

Designer Allan Calhamer's first Diplomacy set
Armies and Fleets from Diplomacy (2023)
The pieces were sized to work with either classic Diplomacy or Era of Empire. As with the 2023 release of Diplomacy, we decided to use shaped meeples for Era of Empire. The armies are cavalry with kepis/hats. The fleets are the steam and sail ships popular for the time period. We care about these little details to set the time and place for players. The wooden blocks pay homage to the original fans, while using meeples that have become standard in our hobby.

Fleet and Army outlines for Era of Empire
Comparison of units from Diplomacy and Era of Empire
We updated the color scheme from the original Colonial Diplomacy. While Britain and France kept the same color as 2023's Diplomacy, we had to give the Dutch their orange. It's their national color, and they were being upgraded from a Supply Center in classic Diplomacy to a full Power in Era of Empire.

We worked to have Powers linked to colors of national importance for the time period, while removing green so that individuals with red-green color blindness wouldn't be affected. This change improves accessibility elsewhere; players who have trouble differentiating Austria (red) and Italy (green) in classic Diplomacy can now use the orange pieces from Era of Empire in the classic game.

Tokens (front)
Tokens (back)
Supply Center markers were also included in the game to denote ownership. Given that the game has fifty Supply Centers, it would be difficult for players to track without some physical tracker. The front side is the national flag for each Power, and the back is the corresponding color. Players can use either side to denote ownership, placed over the Supply Center stars. Observant players will note that the front and back of each Supply Center marker are repeated on the Power nameplate on the map.

Conference maps
Lastly, we included a set of front-and-back conference maps. These can be written on/marked up/crumpled up and thrown at the person who just stabbed you. We all love maps, but that art is fantastic.

That Beautiful Box Art

One of the cool details about the game is the consistency in artwork from Diplomacy to Era of Empire. For the 2023 edition of the game, Renegade retained the services of Janos Orban for the cover art illustration.

The box art for Era of Empire was designed to be similar to the most recent edition of Diplomacy: three characters representing three of the Powers in the game, with a backdrop of the map. The playtesters themselves voted on the figures to be represented: Queen Victoria, Sultan Abdulaziz, and Empress Dowager Cixi. The figures represent the West, Middle East, and Far East in the game.

Box art comparison
Playtesting

Playtesting for the game covered a year of in-person and online games, which included various Slack and Discord groups. The rulebook credits more than forty individuals who have contributed in some form, whether it be gameplay, rules reviews, map revisions, or mechanisms. Some individuals are well-known in the Diplomacy community, whereas others are brand new to the game. We wanted to have both groups represented to ensure both long-time fans and new players would enjoy this game.

Among those contributors, I want to name a few notable individuals. David Hill and his son Gus participated, bringing my Diplomacy journey full circle. In 2014, David Hill wrote this amazing piece on Diplomacy for Grantland and recorded a This American Life episode on NPR about the experience.

Variant designers David Klion and Manoli Strecker provided insight at every stage in the process. David is "Diplomacy famous" by consistently referencing the game in his articles. Manoli is "Diplomacy famous" for his many excellent variants, of which Metternich (co-designed with David Klion) is his most famous product. I hope another one of his designs, "Five Boroughs (of NYC)", eventually makes it to publication. There are some amazing contributors to Diplomacy that keep this game alive after decades of play.

Box and map
To Wrap Up

Diplomacy: Era of Empire required a large effort from volunteers and Renegade staff. It's a long arc from project approval to seeing the physical game in the hands of fans, but totally worth it when you see negotiations (and betrayals!) live. The game will be formally released at Gen Con 2025, with a giant walkable map to demo and lots of Diplomacy-themed swag for participants. We hope fans will enjoy Era of Empire as much as we enjoyed making the game. Take care everyone — and remember to watch your back!

Thomas Haver

P.S. For anyone interested in learning more about the game, several "How to Play" and strategy videos have been posted on YouTube. Check out Legendary Tactics' content HERE, HERE, and HERE. Board Game Nation has also published a How to Play video.

We go all out for Diplomacy and Era of Empire, and believe both are best experienced by focusing on the roleplay aspect of those games. Check out our in-costume discussions HERE.