Creating a Diplomat

Many programs have been written to play two-player games, but few for multiplayer games in which negotiation becomes important. Diplomacy is a popular board game in which players assume the roles of the major protagonists of world war one. It is a game of negotiations; alliances, promises kept and promises broken. In order to survive a player needs help from others. Knowing whom to trust, when to trust them, what to promise, and when to promise it is at the heart of the game. In this, it provides an exciting and unique environment for negotiation, and one which can generalise to an enormous number of applications. This report describes a novel approach to creating an automated Diplomacy player, using auctions as a means of negotiation, and simple algorithms to help a Diplomacy player determine if and when to lie.