Ep. 51 - Umble wins Nexus Season 2 Cold War Tournament
The Diplomats’ own @umbletheheep won the Season 2 Nexus Cold War Tournament last week. Cold War is an increasingly popular 1 v. 1 Diplomacy variant. We invite @umble and @bsiper, winner of Nexus’ Season 1 Cold War Tournament, to discuss the game. Lots of information about Cold War, how to play properly, and the advantages and disadvantages each power has. Props to @gohornsgo for asking newbie questions and changing the slides. The video is below.
@umbletheheep and other Diplomacy Briefing contributors have published an invaluagle Cold War Resources guide at Diplomacy Briefing. Here are his opening thoughts, but read the guide in its entirety if you are interested in playing this surging-in-popularity variant:
Overview of Cold War
by umbletheheep
In 2015, a new variant was made available on vDiplomacy. The Cold War variant was unique in that it was one of the few variants designed for just 2 players. While 1v1 games on the Classic map have been played since Diplomacy first came out, Allan Calhamer optimized the map for 7 players.
Firehawk and Safari, Cold War’s designers, described the variant this way:
The Cold War variant is set just two years before the Cuban Missile Crisis, and explores the potential conflict between the world's two great superpowers at that time, NATO and the USSR. First and foremost, however, Cold War is a one on one variant designed to be as entertaining and as balanced as possible.
They succeeded in these goals, and Cold War quickly become the most played variant in Diplomacy. Besides vDiplomacy, you can also play this variant on the Conspiracy and Diplicity platforms. As of July 2020, it has been played in over 20,000 game on Conspiracy far outpacing any other variant.
While there isn’t a ton of “diplomacy” in the game itself (besides taunting your opponent), it is a great variant to play to develop your tactics and learn the game. To play Cold War well requires the ability to put together strong attacks as well as defend with the least units possible. This requires creativity and the ability to anticipate your opponents moves. All of these skills are valuable for Classic Diplomacy especially in developing strong midgame play. At times it can come down to a 50/50 guess that determines the game’s outcome. While that can be frustrating, Cold War is still very balanced, and the better player usually wins out.
Cold War has become the most popular variant, but there is very little that has been written about it. The Briefing aims to fix that with articles and podcasts below to help beginners as well as veterans to improve their game.