Rule Exceptions and Interpretations

Last revised: May 19, 1990

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The adjudicator follows The Rules of Diplomacy as specified by Hasbro with the following exceptions:

VII.3.b
When a fleet can move to two coasts and the coast is not specified, the adjudicator will pick an arbitrary coast. Actually not totally arbitrary, but the first one in its movement list.

VII.7:
Abbreviations are the first three characters of the province name except for provinces starting with "gul", "liv", "nor" and "tyr". These are abbreviated as follows:

gob: Gulf of Bothnia
gol: Gulf of Lyon
lvp: Liverpool
lvn: Livonia
naf: North Africa
nat: North Atlantic Ocean
nrg: Norwegian Sea
nth: North Sea
nwy: Norway
tyr: Tyrolia
tys: Tyrrhenian Sea

Other reasonable abbreviations are also defined. For a complete list see the file available with the "get map" command.

IX.1
Do not specify owners of units in support and convoy orders. This redundant specification would unnecessarily complicate the parser. The movement results will indicate the alternate power on support and convoy orders.

IX.7
Based on the second statement after XIV.5, IX.7 does not apply if either or both of the dislodged or dislodging unit is convoyed.

XII
Armies intending to use a convoy must specify the convoy route in their movement orders as in the examples:

A LON-ENG-BEL,
F ENG C A LON-BEL.
or
A LON-ENG-MID-WES-TUN,
F ENG C A LON-TUN,
F MID C A LON-TUN,
F WES C A LON-TUN,
A NAF S A LON-TUN.

XII.4
Since convoy routes must be specified, there will never be any ambiguity.

XII.5
a) This rule when taken literally can have some unintended results. For example:

England: F Iri-Mid, F Eng S F Iri-Mid
France: F Spa(nc) S F Mid, F Mid Convoy A Por-Bre, A Por-Mid-Bre
Italy: F Gulf of Lyon Convoy A Tus-Spa, A Tus-GoL-Spa

What happens in the Mid-Atlantic ocean? What about if the additional order:

Italy: A Mar S A Tus-Spa

is entered? With literal interpretation of the rules, the fleet in Spain would be dislodged, but its support to the fleet in the Mid-Atlantic Ocean (of an action in a body of water containing a convoying fleet) would not be cut. This adjudicator makes five passes to determine what support gets cut:

a) Normal non-convoyed movement cuts support.
b) Any armies being convoyed by fleets that would be dislodged without further support cuts are flagged "maybe no convoy".
c) Any convoyed armies without the "maybe no convoy" status cut support provided by units in their destination provinces.
d) Any armies being convoyed by fleets that still would be dislodged are flagged "definitely no convoy".
e) Any armies still flagged "maybe no convoy" status cut support of units in their destination provinces. The "maybe no convoy" status is cleared.

Using this algorithm, Spain's support above would be cut in pass three. The Mid-Atlantic Ocean's dislodgement would be detected in pass four. Portugal would be given the "no convoy" status and thus would have no effect on any unit in Brest in pass five.

XIV.4
If a power is required to remove a unit and no valid order is received, the least recently produced unit that is not at a supply center will be disbanded. This is the first one listed on the reports which will be the one most likely to be furthest away from a home supply center.


* Diplomacy is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc., all rights reserved. Used with permission.