a much larger 1066 though preferably?!

the question we have to answer for that would be fleets, no canal back then, so no crossing between pacific and atlantic, perhaps try to make it more land-based than 1066?

I'm wondering if maybe something more like the Germany map might work best, with no naval units at all.

Indeed, maybe make archers and (what would be the equivalent of a native american swordsman?) I can't think of the name... anyways, movement for both types is the same, but Archers can Support attacks and Holds from 2 moves away(like the knights in German map, but they can't move 2 spaces).

well it depends aztecs had a sword of obsidian and wood club-sword, id just call the units warriors and archers

yea, guess warriors works... but I think that would be the best plan, because back then they really only had Canoes anyways, so It would be pretty hard for them to make any major fleets sailing realistically...

[Jumping in super late in the conversation] Interesting conversation, and no I'm not ease dropping... to get the South American thing going, you should post it on Google Wave
ps there's already a Ancient China variant in development... I'm kinda in charge of the drawing of the map... if anyone's interested, PM me and I'll add you to the Google Wave...
ps is it the decline of the Mughals o the Mongals because just to let you know, Mughals is an Empire in India...

If you're going to have the Iroquois, I suggest combining all of the Five Civilized Tribes and having an Algonquin Confederation to go with the Iroquois. Are the Inca going to be left in South America by themselves?

@BenGuin----I suggested a decline or ascendency of the Mughals. Then Amby brought up that several of us had played airborne's Decline of the Mongols variant. A game that I destroyed, when my home computer died. When I started making moves in all of my games at work, I forgot about the game on the development site. I generally just keep this site on a tab in the background. I'd never remember to log in every day.

ahhhh good to know

id start a google wave on this, but im not sure how to do that lol, ive only been invited to existing waves, never started one

Ancient America could also concentrate on the older MesoAmerican and South American civilizations: Caral Supe (3000 - 2500 BC), Valdivia (3500 - 1800 BC), Purhepecha (1300 BC - 1500 AD), Olmec (1200 - 400 BC), Huastec (1000 BC - 1500 AD), Chavin (900 - 300 BC), Nasca (1 - 700), Teotihuacan (100 - 250 AD), Chibchas (300 - 600), Moche (300 - 600), Zapotec (500 - 750), Maya (500 - 800), Tiwanaku (550 - 950 AD), Wari (750 - 1000), Toltec (800 - 1000), Canaris (1000 - 1300), Totonac (1000ish - 1500), Inca (1250 - 1532), Mixtec (1000 - 1400), and the Aztec (1430 - 1521). There are also a number of civilizations in the Caribbean from these periods that could be used.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/World_1_CE.PNG
heres a map of the world in the first century whose section on the americas could be helpful depending on how we defined "ancient"

http://home.comcast.net/~DiazStudents/NativeAmericansMap.jpg
and here is a map for north america

the second map would be helpful for a possible pre-european north america
and for a 1066 styled mesoamerica, I suggest Aztec, Maya, and Inca as the factions

I'd suggest that instead of the Maya (since Aztec and Mayan civilizations would be pretty squished together) using Diaguita, since they're actually famous for fighting the Inca expansion into what we'd call Argentina/Bolivia.

Brief input: Native American civilizations south of modern-day USA would not have interacted much with those in or north of modern-day USA. The deserts in northern Mexico successfully prevented any serious interaction between civilizations on either side of the deserts for thousands of years. Likewise the difficult climate in and around Panama isolated South American cultures from anyone north of the Isthmus.

So if y'all are planning maps, I would highly advise you make Canamerican (Canada-America; my abbrevation), Mesoamerican and South American maps if you want to be historically accurate. The Aztecs and Incas would never be able to go to war, Aztecs and Navajo/Mississippians/etc. so a historically accurate variant should factor in climate as well.

Did Inca and Maya/Aztec actually have any contact at all?

If anybody want to make a map variant the most important thing is to create a smallmap (width not bigger than 720pixels), a 2nd graphic with the mapnames and the same for ther largemap.
You can get some hints here: http://forum.webdiplomacy.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=658

kaner: Nope. Your big dividing lines for the three areas of pre-Columbian America you could use for a map are the deserts in northern Mexico (dividing Canamerica and Mesoamerica) and Honduras/Panama (dividing Mesoamerica and South America).

@Eden----The Aztecs were from Arizona. So they definitely could have gone to war with the Apaches and from there onward to the Sioux or Comanches and so on.

@Eden- aren't you at all curious what would have happened if the Aztecs and Incas COULD go to war though? where's your imagination man?

I didn't think that the Incans had writing, and that the Mayans/Aztecs didn't have potatoes/Limas(mule animals). And by inference (seeing as these technologies would have benefited both civilisations) that there was little, if not any, trade/contact between these groups after they split from their roots in the pre-Olmec empire.

The Incas used a system of knotting strings in place of a written language.

well we could have the aztecs fight the various other groups that they routinely warred with to obtain sacrifices,
the "Aztec Empire" was actually a triple alliance between the Mexica (Tenochtitlan, the capital), the Acolhuas (Texcoco), and the Tepanec (Tlacopan), so we could make an Aztec Civil War map and there would be some historic accuracy to it in the Tepanec Civil War

or you could have something similar to Fubar where it's everyone trying to take down one superpower and to win, the superpower just has to die :)

The Aztecs as the civilization we know are not from Arizona. Their ancestors probably migrated from there, sure, but that's just like saying Aztecs could fight Romans because the ancestors of the Aztecs moved from the Middle East to South and Southeast Asia then up to Siberia and across the Bering Strait then down to Mexico and the Romans at one point controlled the Middle East. The Apaches, Sioux, Comanche, etc. never met the Aztecs as the term is used here, referencing the Aztec state that dominated Mexico until the arrival of Europeans.

The Mayans/Aztecs vs Inca argument is even clearer. The Inca had the only domesticated beast of burden in the Americas, the llama. If there had been any contact whatsoever between the two groups, the Mayans and Aztecs would certainly have recognized the value of the llama and used it themselves. The climate was suitable for raising llamas in the Mayan/Aztec lands because it's the same climate as the Incas.

There's no record of Mesoamerican and South American pre-Columbian cultures interacting and there's no way there would be. The deserts of northern Mexico and harsh tropical jungles around the Equator made it impossible for any communication of significance to occur between those three areas I listed before.

...

On all of this note, though, Diplomacy can't really be historically adapted to the pre-Columbian Americas anyway. The game is in practice a battle to control major cities and smaller nation-states in Europe; while it could be adapted to different times (i.e. Ancient Mediterranean, Modern Diplomacy) and different areas in the industrial/post-industrial world (i.e. World Diplomacy IX), it can't be realistically adapted to pre-Columbian America because there weren't major cities to conquer. I guess if you have supply centers represent geographical areas instead of cities it works, though. It's just a different game, and while the discussion about hypothetical encounters between different American cultures is compelling, it's probably not going to matter too much in developing the variant because we're already bending conventions to fit this into the timeframe and place we want.

On a side note, as well, the Aztec Civil War (for lack of better term) should make for a nice one in theory. There are four powers -- Azcapotzalco, Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopnan city-states. I'd hate to leave it at four powers, though. 3-4 player variants don't really work too well. The Mayans are a nice candidate for #5.

well supply centers for a north america could be expanded to represent sacred sites like the black hills, angel mounds, etc
although I do agree that the Aztec Civil War idea would be the most accurate to do, since they actually did have major cities instead of nomadic encampments and small villages
heres the wikipedia article that talks about the conflict that gave me the idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_Triple_Alliance#The_Tepanec_Civil_War_and_the_Triple_Alliance

and if we wanted another state to add theres Tlaxcala (Nahua State) since they Aztecs often warred with them to obtain human sacrifice and since Tlaxcala allied with the Spaniards, so the possible power list could include:
Azcapotzalco
Tenochtitlan
Texcoco
Tlacopan City-states
Tlaxcala
Maya (?)