Diplomacy is Not an Option, a funny title to describe the main story element of the game, you cannot talk your way out of war. Holding heavy inspiration from They Are Billions, Diplomacy puts you in the shoes of a monarch who has to fight against the commoners who are revolting. Developed by Door 407 as their first title, this is yet another Early Access game that piqued the attention of a few streamers that bolstered some of its starter popularity.
As the game is still within Early Access, Diplomacy’s story is only 3 missions long, following our monarch who is tasked with protecting his land and then asked by a higher lord to move closer to the capital and help out your family and eventually the king himself. The story is told through short cutscenes showing our advisor entering a room and telling us about the current situation. It holds a bit of comedy though feels somewhat British and stiff at times, so may lead to crickets at points.
You can complete the current story in a few hours, or sooner if you use the speed-up functions with brevity. Each level is randomised from a basis, being the missions or area, so repeat playthroughs may bring better chokepoints or lead your city into being open on all sides. Along with the random generation you can select from several difficulty settings to make the game even harder, though the final wave will still bring difficulties on the easiest difficulty if you are not comfortable with the genre.
Diplomacy is an RTS game featuring many of the game mechanics of They Are Billions. You have food, wood, stone, and metal for your resources with gold coming in through trades. Spending these resources you will make buildings such as houses to bring in more citizens or walls to protect your city from attack. Each unit you train takes 1 person from your populace as well as a handful of the other resources based on their type.
With enough houses you can fuel a good hundred or so units in combat, though you’ll mostly want ranged units, putting these atop your walls or to use as scouts. There are no levels or advancements for your troops, aside from researching a single boost to them like increased damage or health. Overwhelming numbers win the day like many similar games, 20 ranged units will decimate most small enemy camps that can be found across the maps.
As you explore the small map you’re plonked down onto, you will find carts with some fast resource gains, alongside rebel camps. Destroying these camps rewards the players with magical stones to cast spells, but they are a finite resource that does not recover over time so players must plan ahead for using magic. Any camps leftover at the final wave of a map will join in on the attack, so clearing the area is a good strategy to make the final day easier.
After every so many days, around 3 to 4, a large wave of rebels will attack your city from a randomly selected direction. While I say random, it does feel like they are more geared towards where your heaviest fortifications or buildings are placed, as when I defended only my northeast corner, 4 waves in a row attack that direction. Each story mission has you defend against a good 4 or 5 waves to win. The final wave is the largest, attacking from all sides so you will have to eventually build up your weak spots.
Aside from the three missions on offer, you can play sandbox/endless mode to your heart’s content, though with the lack of other gameplay styles and a low number of buildings, units, and research, you’ll find you’ve engaged with most of the current content around 20 days into a run. Though this can be more than enough for some people, as They Are Billions did very well with a similar handful of such things, its story was completed, so we will have to see how varied the story of Diplomacy is when it is fully released.
The music of the game doesn’t stand out too much, it’s fitting, but it is mostly background noise while you build up your city for each attack or go out on raids of the nearby rebel camps. Further tracks may come with the full release, but it doesn’t feel like major importance was placed on the music. The main menu music gave me vibes of Caesar III, which brought back some nostalgia, though I am unsure if this was their aim.
As for difficulty, the game on the easiest setting isn’t a cakewalk, and medium grants a hearty challenge when the waves come at your city. Newcomers to the genre will hold onto easy for dear life, whereas veterans will readily enjoy what the medium has to offer. Hard mode feels a bit over tuned, though as you play you’ll learn better placements and setups for defence. It is possible that more research and troops later down the line will lessen the difficulty. Losing buildings also don’t create zombies like Billions did, so the loss isn’t transformed into a further loss.
The art style of Diplomacy is cute and minimalistic. The characters mind me of small tokens used on board games, plus the comedy and dialogue fits very well with the style they are going for. The graphics for the stone and iron mines could do with a bit of an update in my opinion, however, as they are slightly hard to see at times and don’t stand out as much as they could.
Overall, Diplomacy is Not an Option is a fun little title that shows its influences on its sleeve. The current content feels rather small, with only a handful of buildings that have any importance outside of gathering resources. With an update to the research, from both an expansive view and improving the layout, I can see runs becoming more varied rather than the singular progression you can take. Unique takes on map design, new units and the like for the story will also help to increase the replayability and depth of the current systems.
Grab your copy on steam in early access here https://store.steampowered.com/app/1272320/Diplomacy_is_Not_an_Option/
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