The CBS "reality" show Survivor has been pulling in extraordinary ratings -- but, really, isn't Survivor just a large-scale negotiation game?
I would argue that it is, though some of the Survivor players don't seem much interested in negotiating. (Not coincidentally, I'd bet that those players will appear on the CBS Morning Show well before the show comes to an end.) And what better negotiating game could there possibly be than the venerable Diplomacy?
In Diplomacy, your goal is to outwit, outplay and outlast your opponents to control a majority of supply centers in Europe. In Survivor, your goal is is to outwit, outplay and outlast your opponents to be the last one on the island. Graphic from Broderbund's ClickArt collection.
Survivor certainly isn't a rip-off of Diplomacy, but it's not a large jump to speculate that someone involved in creating Survivor may have been very familiar with Avalon Hill's classic game. Consider the motto found on the Survivor flag: Outwit * Outplay * Outlast. What better summary could there be for the goal of Diplomacy?
Other similarities between the two games:
Players spend a great deal of time negotiating alliances.
Careful planning is required, with both short-term tactics and long-term strategy playing a major role in determining the eventual winner.
In Diplomacy, you're always trying to control additional supply centers -- similar to the reward challenges in Survivor, in which supplies are the prizes.
Your overall success depends in large part on the actions of other players.
Of course, there are plenty of differences between Survivor and Diplomacy as well, and you could argue that one is better than the other. I've developed a list of five reasons Diplomacy is better than Survivor, and a list of five reasons Survivor is better than Diplomacy.
Once you've read through both lists, post a note in the Forum and let us know -- which do you think is better?
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Why Diplomacy and Survivor are actually quite similar.
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