As it is not always possible to gather seven players in one place people started playing Diplomacy by mail early on. The negotiations did not happen face to face in this case but via normal mail. A neutral, eighth person did then periodically collect the orders of the seven players took care of the adjudication and delivered the result back to the players.

Instead of playing via slow mail you nowadays play via e-mail and there are a lot of websites and communities that provide the necessary infrastructure. In play by e-mail you need to differentiate between automatical adjudication by a so called judge and adjudication by a neutral game master.

A prominent example of a platform that provides services for games with a neutral and human game master in the German speaking internet is Ludomaniac. In the area of automatic adjudications by a judge you have to name Lepanto. Depending on the country you are coming from and the language you speak there are lots of websites and communities that do the exact same thing in your language as well, just look around and you will definitely find something.

Compared to face to face Diplomacy the play by e-mail games ususally last longer as you can not talk to the other players directly but have to pass e-mails back and forth. This allows you to take more time to look at the board on the other hand so you can plan your moves with greater care.

Play by e-mail is a good start if you want to try Diplomacy and even if you are planning to go to a face to face convention the play by e-mail platforms are a good way to meet some people and learn the basics of the game.