would be a good variant option, it would never fly at webdip ...

What would the X be? would it be a option you set up for each individual game of that Variant? or would it be one specific turn number for every time, say 5 game years or such? It sounds very intriguing...

Interesting...

The way the variant-system work it's impossible to add a feature to all games/variants. I would have to create a new variant just for this. I might add this to the ClassicVS-variant.

Would be an interesting way to play a tournament

Oli -- that would be outstanding. Thanks again for your amazing work.

Butterhead -- That's exactly what I was thinking; you can set what X is. A Diplomacy game that ends in, say, 5 game years is like playing with a ticking time bomb. It'll be a great way to try it.

well until Oli can figure out if/when this may become doable even as an individual variant, we could try a version based on Honor Code... get 7 people interested(you me and 5 others) and we could all agree to end the game after say, 5 years, we of course would have to draw if nobody solo'd, but we could all agree that the technical "winner" would be whoever was leading the centers... its just a test anyways, so a draw would reward all that helped us try it out anyways...

@butterhead -- I'm definitely interested. Anyone else want to give this a try?

I'd be down, the buy-in would need to be low though

this is one of the best ideas i've seen on the forum. i'm definitely interested in the test game.

ok, so we have Taft, me, Hugo, and yourBALD... 3 more and we can try this out???!!!

I'm willing to try it.

I will if this is a 2-3 day phase since I'm starting IB along with trying to start my own Mock Trial Club so it's bound to get ugly and won't have much time to neogociate... one thing that you should consider... it will be very interesting if through neogociation, there's a stalemate... one way to solve this is through a gunboat game... you can always allow the Global Press so that non-neogociation related game updates can be discussed... :D

@BenGuin

I think it would be easier to try this with a "vanilla" game before we start making it a gunboat

True

i don't understand what benguin means with "through negotiation, there's a stalemate". can someone explain?

I think he means when a coalition of more than one nation forms one side of the stalemate

When my old group of friends and I used to get together and play we would sometimes say whomever had the most ports at the end of X hours would be declared the winner (usually 8 or 6 hours) unless someone achieved the number of centers needed for victory before then. This worked great and actually made the end of the game more enjoyable. I can't join this one right now, but would love to see five, ten, and fifteen year options for Classic and Modern Diplomacy in the future. Great suggestion.

Ok so we have Sacred in and BenGuin if its 2-3 day phases.

@G-Man

Ports? You judged the game by number of costal centers?

Thanks for your interest, everyone! Hope we can get seven players onboard; as you've seen in this thread, Oli is interested in making this available, so helping out with a test run would be invaluable.

I've set up a new game here:

http://vdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=3344

(Anonymous classic Diplomacy; Low buy-in and 2 day phases, as requested.)

If you're interested in trying this out, you must agree to the following:

* The game ends in five game years. If nobody solo'd, we must agree to a draw on Spring 1906; the person with the most SCs will declared the unofficial "winner."

If that all sounds good, the password to join is: test

I have joined.

So, as a prediction, I imagine this is going to reward aggressive openings to a degree, they're still very much rock paper scissors though.

A comment you can take or leave, but after thinking further on this point, 5 years is pretty short. You might want to adjust for 10 years. That seems like a more appropriate amount of time.

Hugo--Sorry, I should have said "centers" instead of "ports."

@G-Man: That's probably right, but I think a very accelerated game works for the purposes of testing. Besides, plenty of games end within 10 years regardless; keeping it short ensures that we get all the dynamics of a restricted time limit. But let me know if there's any strong disagreement.

Alright lets do this! I'm excited too see how this goes down.

We'll do five, and if that feels too short afterwards, we'll try 10.

I still wanna see another game like the facebook game that went on for 70+ years. haha.

i am about to join.

Actually, since this is short and looks fun, I'm going in! Cheers.