Mmh, well, it should be a lot easier to categorize diplomacy openings than chess openings, and there are still lots of treatise and study on chess openings. Personally, if I were to use this essays for something, I'd be more interested in studying what the openings of my rivals could mean, than how should I open.

Whatever, I certainly would follow ScubaSteve to another map, cos that would be too professional. It's exactly the same reason for which I'm not so a fan of chess: to be really good, you'd need to study too much, and... what? study? What I wanna do is play a *game*.

But we should recognize that for others it could make it more like a sport and get more and more obsessed.

ScubaSteve - Yeah, I also want a bigger map, specifically a hyper-detailed ~60 player world map but even if someone would take on that beast of a task, I don't think this site (at least at present date) could support it. But I still want it and it would be awesome.

What about a map with like 30 players, but with 2 (or more)levels, like Haven, so you can realistically go for half of the supply centers?

Quite impressive stuff here. I think Texas is a tough draw but any power can win it all. Someone mentioned Congo and while Congo is often eliminated early they do well in those situations where they are not ganged up upon. Africa is funny that way, you almost always see the African powers try to sell to each other a united Africa front while they are all conspiring to be united after Congo is gone! (and is standard in Diplomacy, then they pick another and another to gang up on)

I'd like to echo Jimbozig's thoughts concerning another variant when it comes to speculations as to whether Congo (or Egypt - the popular statistical myth here) is any weaker that the other nations on this map. The previous recorded statistics have more to do with the player that have commanded Congo (and Egypt) than any speculative inherent weaknesses in the map. For one thing there are only 40 completed instances of the game here, and that's an incredibly small sampling to be suggesting trends of any kinds based on statistics. On top of that the above poster (designer of this map) has extensive experience in variant design, backed up by extensive play-testing and tinkering, and goes to painstaking efforts to make each position as playable as possible. This map is specifically designed so that all 35 countries are relatively equal, although they are clearly NOT the same as some have strengths and weaknesses, while other may have neither. Some are landlocked while others are island nations dependent open fleets. Each of the nations starts the game with a unique set of challenges, opportunities, and risks, and no one is safe from a pig pile. In all the game is very well balanced, and the performance of a nation is tied to the performance of the player strategically, diplomatically, and tactically.

++++

I agree with bluecthulu that it would be fun to take this map with 50+ (as many as 75) players, and perhaps play it as a Chaos game where everyone starts with one SC on randomly determined locations and then it's a gigantic free for all.

Exactly, maybe some nations have it slightly better than others but all have a very real opportunity to do well. Look at Italy in the standard game, she is quite different than any other country and stats show she performs a bit worse than the others but Italy is fun to play and certainly is not winnable either! Vdip has hosted a heckuva lot more games than I have but I can recall Egypt winning at least one time.
Then again, the game played here is not the same as was designed. The original design (hated by some mind you but loved by others) was to allow for a coalition win of three powers, there was a political game within the game that helped the game end sooner (maybe 12 game years or so) and allowed real world type of alliances to be strengthened, UN voting "capital cities" were extra special centers as well, the game was designed to be played a different way yet balance for an entire game never was ignored!

Maybe take the current WWIV map, increase the number of land spaces by 25%, double the sea spaces (to make the standard sea stalemates tougher) and 50 countries start out with 2? Doesn't seem that difficult.

The SIZE isn't what matters, it's the BALANCE. It's very easy to say , "just double everything" it's another matter to actually do it with balance, and to do it with any sort of real world semblance ...have at it Steve!

Size matters.

no, he did say we should only make the sea spaces a mere 25% larger so it would seem it's really more a matter of it being "motion of the ocean" is what REALLY matters?

25% more motion in the ocean would be fantadtic.

I think the "real world" semblance would make it impossible. I think that doing it with an "alternate history" i.e. a rich guy finds oil in Ankara and Ankara divides into South and North Ankara might be much more doable. My thought is that the more massive the map becomes the harder it is to make to both balanced and historically accurate. Although maybe historical accuracy could be obtained by having 2 countries in Africa which would encourage a rush to Africa to exploit the resources there? Having a continent that is unoccupied initially might avoid the problem inherent in the WWIV map where the continents consolidate and the oceans become stalemate lines? Maybe do the same thing with the Middle East? Maybe make the point of the game to occupy Africa, Antarctica, and/or the middle east? Maybe this conversation is more appropriate for the lab?

Exactly, having "some sort" of real life resemblance takes some time. That's why I did a world war 4 theme to help explain it away. But picking two SC pairs willy nilly or having a unique storyline built for each pair is off-putting, a nice easy situation works best and you would want to have the new countries make some sense to today. Lumping Jerusalem with Tehran may make game sense (depending on your map of course) but I don't think it would make sense to most?

And even if you do find some sort of theme to play off of, again, balance is the biggest problem you need to resolve! If someone is really interested and can get that many people to play, I can design something to review but it takes a lot of work and doing it for the folly of a few people is not something I would want to do, to PLAY...you bet!

Gimme some details, give me some assurances and I can get to work

world war 5 perhaps?
..the aftermath of our WWIV mess!?

@Tomahaha - The issue about the sea lanes getting blocked came up a while back so I proposed a potential solution of the blockades in the sea territories:

http://forum.webdiplomacy.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=892

Tommy, I'm not sure if it's feasible on this map or not, but one potential (partial)answer to the sea land blockage might be to use the concept that you used in hemispheres were there are special sea space, called 'deep ocean', 'north deep ocean', etc. where and unlimited number of fleets from any nation canbe present at any given time. I don't know what the necessary adjudication coding would be, but that little wrinkle added loads of dynamic fun to a large global map the last time we tried it.

that was a pretty cool idea, especially when such "distant" sea spaces are normally avoided. A fine idea!

@Ruffhaus - This is where the programing let's us down. In real life we can easily have an additional sea-space that can hold as many fleets as you desire. For the sake of the program however, this is impossible.

More than one in a sea space is a great idea. What about just dividing up the sea spaces into more spaces? The negative is that it would take longer to cross the oceans. The advantage would be that stalemates would become much more challenging. Personally, I think that an armada from Japan, Australia and Oceana that takes a few years to develop on their way to the Americas could create tension and be fascinating.

The problem with more sea spaces is not as simple as "make more spaces" you need to maintain balance and if you isolate a nation, that's not a smart idea at all, some sea spaces are so big to bring distant areas closer together, again, BALANCE. More spaces makes traversing the ocean less likely and anything that takes a long time simply doesn't happen too often. adding say a long skinny space running north/south gives you an extra space and does not really create too many problems with that n/s movement but movement east/west is now slowed, it isn't a simple task!

The Overseer Zones are a great compromise. All OZs are adjacent to each other, meaning expansion proceeds at the same pace as before, and all convoy lines are there as well.
The Sea Lanes are simple sub areas that provide alternative ways to expansion, without the clogging of the ocean territories.

no idea what an OZ is?

http://forum.webdiplomacy.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=892

Looks very confusing to me, I don't know if I fully "get it" (I think I do) nor do I see a reason for it. Confusion is never a good idea and over-thinking things is also wise to avoid. Maybe because you guys play the game longer and don't have the designed UN vote the late stages end up with stalemates? But all games that play too long have stalemates develop (another reason to consider the UN coalition voting?) I never had stalemate problems and I just don't see this being a very good alternative to be honest. Are you saying stalemates do not develop in land spaces?

In the WWIV map the sea spaces are fairly large relative to the land spaces. This does allow theoretically quick access from continent to continent however it also allows for an easy and obvious stalemate line around a continent because a relatively small number of spaces filled with fleets can cause an impenetrable blockade. It has been my experience that this usually occurs. The result, it seems to me, is a handful of regional conflicts occurring simultaneously and independently on, ostensibly, the same map.

happens late in the game?
that's par for the course in any Diplomacy game that runs long, sea or land spaces both. If we see a sea zone that has too few bordering zones, that is a problem! If we see pinch points, that is also a problem. But lacking these situations, I see no big problem. It's simply nature of the game. One possible option, look at the games webpage ( http://www.freewebs.com/tomahaha/ww4.htm ) and think about the way the game was actually designed. Yes, I had a long game, standard play in mind when laying it out however, I wanted to achieve several things and I did succeed in those.

I saw a few major problems with large games, dropouts could spoil a good time. A large game of this size could run longer than "most" players interest span (leaders would stay interested but all others interest would wane), having only one player win out of 30some players saw a chance at victory incredibly slight, the standard game you have a one in seven chance of winning or about 14% in this game you have 36 players, 1 in 36 is a measly 3% chance of winning, by adding a 3 player coalition option that chance of taking part in the win rises to a still slight 8%, by allowing a coalition win it added a new element to the game, a political "game within the game"and lastly (and least) it also avoided late game stalemates and apathy.

This odd victory condition was appreciated by some, loved by others and absolutely hated by still others. The "purists" wanted a solo win, they didn't care about the other issues and they had no foresight nor any interest in even trying something new. It really does work VERY well and is a lot of fun if you allow it to be. In fact, this also allows any and all players to have a real shot at the win, stay true to your alliance, work the political angle with your other allies and you may very well see a single center power taking part in a win (and yes that has happened one time)

It is a great map. I love playing it. I'm addicted to the gigantic games. I just wish more people were. I would enjoy playing a 300 person game if such a thing existed. I understand that that is my mental issue.

actually that sounds like fun, the biggest I ever did was my NWO variant. It's a BAD game (and by bad I do not mean some sort of slang for good, it's terrible but some like it for some unknown reason to me) it has 50 players! (check the website referenced above, terrible balance but lots of gratuitous bloodshed with nukes going off all over the place, stupid fun I guess?)

I think that it's important that the map clog up with units in the end game, HOWEVER this map does suffer from a premature stagnation simply because so many players play a very defensive style and the continents are able to be insulated from all attacks because of the number of supply centers within, outnumbering the coastal provinces. It's a very enjoyable map, but adding a few wrinkles to the seas spaces to increase the avenues of seat to land travel might help out.