5D Diplomacy With Multiverse Time Travel 

Pinning this before more people point it out: at 7:06 a blue army moves to a region where there was a bounce in the past. I decided this should be allowed as the space was ultimately left empty, but I admit it's up to interpretation. (Also with the way I implemented order resolution, it would have been extremely painful to change it. Maybe that was why I didn’t…) EDIT: Also at 11:18 an orange army isn’t copied to the future board. I told you there were bugs.

I'll never forget that time that the Soviets lost ww2 in 1945 due to their country collapsing in the 90's

"Requirements - Java 14 or higher - 500 iq"

Oliver: I programmed 5D diplomacy with multidimensional time travel Also Oliver: I don't know how to program clicking stuff

> “smallest non-trivial Diplomacy board” Literally 1984

"Is it a viable game that you could actually play? I don't think so." I believe this is what we academics call a 'Hold my Beer' moment

I need to see Valefisk and crew play 5D Diplomacy with Multiversal Time Travel

this is simultaneously extremely painful and extremely hilarious

master plan: - finish this - play a game of it to completion, maybe with a simplified board - record said play - translate the game to a story for NaNoWriMo - drown in madness - become the madness - achieve enlightenment, warp the samsara in on itself and end the multiverse

why must you haunt me so much this game looks simultaneously very entertaining and mentally draining you've done it you've broke me

I will point out another valid mix of 5D Chess and Diplomacy is just regular chess, although you might have been beaten to the punch to make that one.

He broke himself. He's finally done it he drove himself mad. Honestly I've no idea how you made this like at all.

In 5d chess the players each get their own direction from the central axis to expand into when creating new timelines. Conveniently these directions fit nicely on a 2d plane, but they don't have to. My proposal would be to start using that "third unused spacial dimension" (although not on the board) to fit seven directions around the central axis. It'd look very pretty as well, creating a sort of conical shape as you play, though it would become even worse to control.

Honestly, while this isn't really a game in its current state, it seems like it would be far easier to make into a game than 5d chess in its current state... Would you mind if I tried my hand at it? (Yes, I would make it seven players)

I actually remember an old school Diplomacy variant with two parralel worlds and 14 players. A unit could either move normally on its own board OR move to the same space it was already in but on the alternate map.

Needs a theme song: "Yesterday's altered tomorrow is only today's elsewhen".

creating a way to kill or get rid of timelines or having a timeline cap would probably be needed to be able to actually keep track of whats going on

It seems weird to me that units are considered adjacent to adjacent spaces in the past or future. Seems like they should only be adjacent to their own space in the past and future.

timeline logic is quite easy, you are alowed to make up to a single timeline more than the player that created the least.

7 Players: Easy! Every player gets their own dimension. Which would make this 8-to-12-dimensional Diplomacy. (depending on how you count them - not going to open that can o' worms) So, we got ourselves a temporal cold war simulator. JOY!

can't wait for Sid Meier's 5D Civ with multiverse time travel

why be based when you can be based on Diplomacy and 5D Chess with Multiverse Time Travel instead

I. Love. This. It's quite similar to a different design idea I had, but you actually built the code you mad man. I would suggest starting with a simplistic 5 player board, and only allowing each player to go back in time/space one time per game, splitting that board into a new timeline for a maximum of 6 potential active boards. Imagine, working with a player for a long time, relying on them, then falling into infighting later... only for someone to spawn a new board cloning the moment in time when you two were relying on each other's good will... and having to figure out if you're going to let your current bad blood taint it, or if you'll be friends in one universe and enemies in another simultaneously.

Hey Austria, if you support me into Rumania 5 years in the past, then I will help you get Bulgaria this next year. Russia

As a guy who believes that any game idea CAN work with the right approach, this video is absolutely fascinating to me and I can't stop coming back to it. If only I could wrap my tiny feeble mind around programming I could do more than intensely ponder about how it could work

[Achrom] is a RealTimeStrategy game with Time Travel, but it lacks multiverse-parallel-timelines and only has roughly 5 "Instances" in a single time-Line, that continuousky overwrite each other from the past into the future, thus undoing the "instance closer to the future with "time waves" from the past. those time waves progress slightly faster than time progresses forward within them (unit movement speeds). The timeline has 1 "first time", that slowly progresses into the future, and any time traveling event oscillates backwards through time, till it reaches the "first time" (that also slowly progresses into the future, so we do not use too much memory), where it then collapses any paradox into a single outcome (but this outcome takes some time to progress into the present time via time waves). Achron also has teleportation, and 3 factions, that all approach time travel and unit upgrading differently. The further you send commands in the past, the more "time energy" you need, which refills for free over game-time. This makes Achron a lower-actions-per-minute strategy game, where tactics are only possible close to the present time. While Achron constantly overwrites the past, it also extends a bit into the "future", to a point, where it tends to constantly warn you that you are about to lose the match to an ambush, that will then likely be aborted in the past, so it was just some kamikaze-scouting into the future. Scouting with time travel is a whole new experience. You can expand fast, and also cancel a big expansion in the past to prevent it from being ambushed in the future. At first glance, it seems nice, that everyone can undo everything (within bounds), but this just adds way too much micromanagement, that is rather spend in a clear strategy. It solves the grandfather paradox to a point, here you can clone units and construct units for the cost of sending a unit into the past, and then abort its construction in the not so far past, and then send that unit to the future (when it survived the grandfather paradox)

For your question about where do the other five players timelines go, I think the 'Occam's Razor' in this problem is just to remove this mode of displaying ownership of timelines. Instead of doing up and down, the arrows running through them could be the colour of the player with each newer timeline being further down than the last. Additionally, either keeping the number of new time lines capped to one more than the player with the FEWEST timelines ensures the same outcome as the 5D chess version.

this is really cool id love to play a "real" version of it and be driven completely insane

I have three thoughts. 1. I think a good generalization for diplomacy movement would be infantry being able to move or suport the same space or surounding ones one turn ago or be "convoyed" by ship how ever far away and back in time as you want but a past ship may only be used for one convoy ever. 2. Adjustment would have to be done on a per time line bases. You effectively sacrifice power in the current timeline until adjustment to try to press for an advantage in another timeline where you could loss the peice on the next adjustment if you fail to take a supply point . It gives it a risk reward setup. 3. The win condition should be control of half the supply points on half the timelines. It can't be on one board becuase at some point you would have enough infantry across all boards to just mob one board and you have a problem with ties.

I love and hate this concept. Let's do Media Wars 3 on this one

If you can actually flesh this out, it would probably be more popular than 5D chess.

Oh, how fascinating are the frivolous efforts at a that grow way too much for their own good. Love them!

Surprised that there isnt a valefisk video of this

Politic with time travel and multiverse? I can imagine young Hitler running on the streets and screaming “HELP!!! THERE’S A WHOLE ARMY THAT COMES AFTER ME!! AND AN ARMY OF CLONES OF THE ART COLLEGE PRINCIPALS WHO ACCEPTING ME!!!!”

Nicely done! I think you could balance the game with a limit on the number of jumps back in time you can make based on an energy score that refills over time.

What abomination have you created? ….and I’ve gotta play it.

This is a perfect example of the phrase "just because you can do something it doesn't mean you should"

Adjustment should be locked to the timeline. You win when you have half of the supply points in one timeline. Add an icon ware you traveled back in time. That is the time portal to the new timeline. If you control it you can destroy it and any linked timelines. Any destroyed timelines can no longer be interacted with.

Probably should have pieces only able to step back one step in time. The pieces only move one and anything more is far far too much to comprehend

I just finished your Diplomacy video and you perfectly matched what my thinking was.

That’s awesome, I love strategy games that look simple but are not :p

I would have new timelines entering in along the round edge of a cylinder, meaning you'd rotate through as you go. The number of timelines seems like it would be ideal to lock it at 1 more timeline than the lowest total. So in the beginning, everyone has one, meaning each person could create one additional timeline, but until everyone has two noone can rush a third. And that's about as much game design as I can pump into this nightmare.

You are, indeed, an absolute mad lad for making this. I can’t even imagine how many classes and methods you needed to make and how you managed to debug everything. This is the kind of programming skill that could take over the world.

I wonder what 5D chess would be like if going back in time rewrote history instead of splitting it... I also think about what it would be like if you were able to send peices to the future (staying in suspended space until the spot they're travelling to becomes the present)

You madlad you did it

This looks fun as hell. I hope someone turns this into a full blown game

Ok, I know this makes me a massive geek, but this was by far the coolest thing I’ve seen all week!! 😅❤

Nice presentation, hopefully, you get full marks!

Don’t let Valefisk see this! Actually do that you be fun to watch!

very impressive work :) ty Oliver, very cool

I really hope this blows up and you or someone makes this game.

I had a dream about 5D Jenga last night. I googled 5D chess today, came across Diplomacy in the title, remembered playing Diplomacy in the past in high school, and watched and liked your video. I see your signature in the description- the 5Dness there is that I have been watching Highlander on Amazon of late and am thoroughly enjoying the fact that the main character's last name is listed in the description. Could not have known that just clicking at random. So 5D.

3:00 So basically, what you are saying is, that you have finally made an accurate Fate RTS...

You have hiven me an idea, two years in the future, and to be honest it'll probably die with all my other ideas but might as well try to make my own version of 5D diplomacy With Multiverse Time Travel.

Valefisk needs this. It’s perfect.

Amazing idea and great video

omg, this is such a good concept, better ui and controls would make this into another wonderful time travel game!

The potential of legitimate in game temporal manipulation in a strategy game is very exiting. I can both imagine the scenario of the very direct application like diplomacy, but also a abstract concept like imagine a Cold War game where your actively fighting US vs USSR in some scenario, but each player can send troops to past events to improve their present position, such as a temporal proxy war in Korea to strengthen themselves in Vietnam in the future. In a long term game, imagin a tech race to unlock different jump points, such as the USSR gaining a jump point to ww2 and trying to gain more post-war concessions, then the US discovers the jump point and starts amping up D-Day. Each turn would have to be stored of course as the issue may be continuous restarting of the main battlefield, but I have some ideas for that. For one, maybe it could lead to just a stockpile boost, but that seems cheap. I instead have the idea of “Jumpstart” points. Basically, a nation can build up Jumpstart points, and when a major shift happens in the timeline, the main battlefield would reset, but a player can spend Jumpstart points to force through a number of previous actions. For instance, say the US had had a heavy investment into the main battlefield and the USSR kept having nearly won battles with them on the main battlefield but lost. But the USSR wins a event shift, say securing more of Germany for negotiations. They then have more recourse at the start of the main battlefield, but they made a lot of Jumpstarts and forced through all previous actions. Suddenly all those near losses are victories, and the US loses battles, and since their actions are forced through, each consecutive forced battle is worse and worse in casualties and suddenly the USSR is on good main ground and the US is in a bad place, maybe having so many consecutive loses triggers a anti-war-sentiment effect that can only be fixed via main battlefield victories or altering the timeline again. The Jumpstart points have lots of potential rules, such as when a big temporal shift happens, can either side put in points? Can they cancel out or are they only additive? With increased point usage, maybe the default reset point is slowly moved forward, setting previous actions in stone, only effectible via temporal shifts? Went on a bit of a tangent, but I am now hooked on this concept and Im only at 7:45!

Hands down best video of the year.

had so much fun watching this

If someones want a make playable version I think the first thing to do is to make rules that make this minimal version easy. i.e. things mentioned in other comments like collapsing identical board positions into a single board. And restrictions on moves until the 2 players 1 army each 3 region becomes trivial to play then move to a larger board. Rules that restrict play are your friends :)

I have never played Diplomacy, but I have played 5D Chess and Risk, and I absolutely want this to be a full game of some sort.

The Kestrel wallpaper hits pretty hard ngl

This is my first video of yours that I have seen, and I am already upset that you have heavily tempted me to do something with this. Some immediate thoughts to problems that you have mentioned: As for multiple players being involved and picking where to place timelines. I think sort of doing a "barrel roll" sort of thing is ideal. Sure it'll be confusing, but even if it were flat, adding a third player would already make it (more) confusing. Generating armies could work as a "you develop in each timeline as normal" but I think there's also a good argument to have it stay just... Not natively generating armies. You get them through timeline shenanigans pretty nicely, and that'll only ramp up with more players and a more complex board.

Imagine being göring,completing the invasion of europe,and loose because the french partisans in the fifth parallel timeline defeated the soviets

How did I not see this when it got released! This is a masterpiece

I can imagine playing a daily version of this using an ever updating photoshop of the game board via discord

First I now bow down at your feet to get this working! Also I’ve been thinking since 5d chess does have the arbitrary limitations of only one more time branch than your opponent, we could also have an arbitrary rule: Every other increment of time is used for retreat even on turns where no retreat occurred, this way “Future Past” retreats by players all attempt to collapse into one single new branch in that time interval. I’ll join the discord

Oh dear god it's coming. The ultimate game, it comes. We aren't ready, Oliver. Spare us!

I think the thing with timeline direction only really applies to chess specifically because of pawns - since pawns can only move forward on a board, it applies that they could only move forward through timelines. Because that limitation doesn't exist in Diplomacy as far as I'm aware, there's no reason you couldn't just lay out timelines in the order they're created

some feedback on your limitation questions: - every two spots on the time axis makes sense, as it represents two turns' worth of time for each timeline on the axis. - over half the supply centers works, either on the main/original timeline or overall for every active board. (the second one might make for interesting alternate-world scenarios with worlds controlled by single players amassing their forces and sending them at other dominated worlds) - maybe a timelines tab for each player? say, they all appear under the original timeline but you can click between each player's set of created timelines for your move/s i don't really have any particular answers for the rest of the questions though

i thought for a moment, "Hey, what about first person to control one entire board", but thats too fragile a win condition, even for a 1v1 so what about whoever controls 18 More enemy zones than the opponent, or has the most complete boards at once after all boards are locked. -when an enemy zone is captured it'll count for the 18 count Tug of War until contested and a new timeline is created(cancels out 1) or the enemy captures yours (adds 1) -when all 3 zones on a board are controlled by an army, the whole timeline becomes locked out from captures and grants that player 1 point. -with the catch of the player who owns that point board can freely sent troops out to sacrifice the point for the turn. the game ending when one player wins the Tug of War, all boards are locked out and a count is done, or someone surrenders,

This is a great idea, hold onto it I would enjoy this very much if it had polish and could be on mobile, this would be addicting and could potentially work like "words with friends" like games where you come back to do your move or are notified when your player makes their move

Solution to the Many Players, Too Many Timelines thing: When time travel is attempted by more than one player on a particular boardstate or perhaps more restrictively in the present, they must all be going to the SAME destination boardstate or *everyone bounces*. That forces luck or coordination to be involved when multiple players try to travel.

Well done: this is the first time I've ever screamed with fear at a thumbnail pic.

Mmmm, the -,1 hurt didn't it? Xd. Amazing video, as a software engineer student I can imagine how hard and painful it must have been to make that!

I don't know how well full 5d diplomacy would work.... but I think you have the bones of a pretty kickass temporal cold war game

Valefisk must play this with his friends

I love how youtube recommended me this video because of a 5D chess video that i watched a year ago

I approve of this development. 5D board games overtaking the video game scene soon?

"We have split off into a new timeline" is gonna be my new line for when my friends (myself included) do something really stupid

The best part of 5D Diplomacy would be when you and half of your alternate timeline versions start plotting to betray yourself.

I'm running on 4 hours of sleep I'm too tired to even understand what's going on. But the title is probably the best thing I've read in a while

Beautiful!

Time to blow up... But yours seems to be a great channel!

Here’s how I might do it: There are a maximum of eight timelines. One ‘core’ timeline, plus one for each player (each player’s only allowed to ever create one new timeline). A piece can move/support/convoy etc one movement through time, multiverse, OR space (eg could support a unit from the last turn (but not the turn before that) in the space it is in the present, or another piece in the same space and also in the present, but in another timeline) (ie itself- good luck balancing that). (P.S a fleet could convoy an army from an adjacent point in time/timeline graph to a space next to it on its own board) I don’t play diplomacy, don’t really understand the adjustments, but I guess you could do it on a case by-case basis: adjust for each board based on units on it, regardless of their origin/location. If they’ve left the board, they’re essentially dead (until they return, if they do), and if they’ve entered from another board, they’re treated as if they were spawned on it last turn In terms of victory conditions, I’d go with probably first player to control half of all supply points in the present, across timelines or first to control all/80-ish% of the present board in any one timeline (obviously, this would require the normal board, rather than the triangle used for this demo)

Valefisk is frothing right now, i know it. Its perfect

Incredible. Can't wait to invert the timeline

Inspiring. Truly

Cant wait to play 5Dplomacy for myself

And just when I thought Diplomacy was complex enough, you went and added a 5th Dimension, with multiverse time travel

omfg... the idea im getting from just the two problem slides... fucking brilliant... holy shit yes yes yes

i know you say this wouldn't be a very good game but my writer brain instantly latched onto this idea of a universe set in the WW2 era but humans have access to time travel and spatial and temporal weapons'. Hell psychic powers and anomalous objects would fit right in with the theme. This feels like it would fit perfectly into the universe of Control or the SCP foundation as some alternate universe. Don't know how to code, yet, but this makes for some compelling motivation.

Adding a mouse click user interface would have saved you so much time in testing.

i am currently trying my hand at creating a game like this, i expect it wont be like diplomacy as i dont know what that is, but i shall make sure to credit you for the idea

I think one thing would be to have a new multiverse every 20 turns in the game. Have some way to destroy a timeline too.

good job oliver

New Valefisk video just… wait a minute

Oh great now we have a Temporal Cold War. I’ll get Captain Archer on the line.

You are an absolute madlad