Honest AI beats dishonest humans in the board game 'Diplomacy'

In 'Diplomacy', you play a country that needs to win ground by working with allies – and way to do that is by keeping your word, something the politicians in Malaysia's current unity government need to learn quickly. — Wikimedia Commons

We've had a number of long weekends in December, which is very convenient if you’re the sort who enjoys large, complex board games and can get enough friends over to play them.

The granddaddy of large, complex board games that can take the best part of a day to finish is Diplomacy, a war game that is like Risk if you didn’t need to throw any dice. You win battles through negotiation, and it’s probably a failure if at least one player doesn’t want to kill another at the end of four hours.