States start with a different number of SCs based on their votes in the Electoral College. States with 3-4 votes start with 2 SC, states with 5-19 start with 3, 20-29 start with 4, and 30+ start with 5.

Because states with only 2 SCs start with a huge disadvantage, they will annex all occupied SCs after the first spring turn and get an additional build phase in the summer of the first year. This way, they will have 3-4 units during the fall turn like the rest of the nations.

All islands with a border in the water are centers at sea and can be convoyed through.

The Canadian and Mexican governments collapsed with the fall of the US, though partisan groups and drug lords were able to establish local control. Some SCs in Canada and Mexico (basically any more than 2 territories away from a starting SC) will have standing armies.

Oh, and I almost forgot:

The game is build anywhere and starts with a build phase, so nations can choose what to build.

There are a few strait crossings throughout the map marked with a maroon bridge. Both armies and fleets can use these crossings and there is no penalty for using them.

The only point on the map where 4 territories meet (more obvious on the large map) is the Four Corners monument. At this spot, you CAN move diagonally (from Arizona to Colorado and from Utah to New Mexico).

Since this is such a large map, I would highly appreciate feedback regarding its gameplay and balance as well as technical advice for how to make this map work.

You'll have to forgive my lack of knowledge of US geography...

There's a state just east of California which appears to have no HSCs. Is that intentional?

Thank you for spotting that. Nevada's supposed to have home SCs at Carson City (the southernmost of the two SCs in the west), Las Vegas (the northernmost of the two in the south), and Elko (in the northeast). I'll be sure to add that.

It's a fantastic idea. Great map. I recommend you reduce the right and left - shrink it downs some. I think there will be a lot less desire or use for fleets, unless you add a lot more navigable rivers. So, a suggestion, cut out the Canadian areas easy of Continential New Brunswick, and consider shrinking Canada and maybe (perish the thought I know) just doing the lower 48. It's mostly a continental army game anyway. Practically, Fleets on the rivers will not be able to attack inland.

That or consider consolidating and making a lot less sea spaces. I'm not sure that will help - the "Sea Lanes" definitely does though.

When designing the map, the potential for an early stalemate, especially in New England, was always a concern for me. Sealanes help to get around that by creating extra adjacent territories, while more ocean increases the area you have to cover to create a stalemate and thus delays their formation, at least along the coasts.

You bring up a good point about rivers, though. As Fall of the American Empire shows, the rivers are just about useless in the Mississippi watershed and only truly useful around the Great Lakes. In addition, I was rather constrained by only sticking with navigable waterways (according to this map: http://www.stlgateway.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/national_waterways_lg.jpg), though lighter craft could probably make it much farther up a river.

Perhaps I could make rivers more useful by giving fleets a speed boost along them - perhaps they could travel two spaces at once along a river instead of just one. Combine that with extra navigable rivers (Rio Grande, Colorado, Yellowstone, Snake, Arkansas) and fleets would be significantly more viable farther inland.

Would this help make fleets more useful?

You could also implement Known World's transform feature, allowing armies to become fleets and vice versa.

What did you name the Oregon territories? Asking for an Oregonian friend....

Top row: Portland, Cascades, Colombia Plateau
Middle two: Salem, Bend
Bottom row: Klamath Mtns, Medford, Harney Basin
The lovely map where I got the names: http://www.worldatlas.com/img/areamap/96a71d87e6aa8ec01cf6eb51a27be933.gif

As for the transform option, perhaps that may be the better (and easier) choice. I would keep the Mississippi river valley as an option if I did that, though it wouldn't be as necessary to add the extra rivers.

This is amazing. I would love to follow the progress on this one!

Great job Technostar, I've always had in the back of my mind a variant where you have each player playing a US state.

My one and only concern is your ability to get 50 players to sign up. We see how hard it is with WWIV.

I just hope the compelling nature of the game (and dare I say state parochialisms of some of our players) will get enough sign ups.

Thank you! It's always been a project in the back of my mind as well, so I decided to do it with what little of summer vacation I have left.

I'm sure games of this will be sparse, but spectacular when they do happen. Perhaps you could set up a Choose Your Country game so people could pick their state. I'd call it Statriotism.

I also have a progress report:
https://i.imgur.com/K6BkGNn.png
The large map is complete and I will now be adding in names and cataloging all the territories on the board.

It is about time someone made a map like this.

Actually one other thing. I remember in one of our podcasts Kaner was going on about a limit to the number of territories. I thought it might be 256.

Technostar - have you checked with Oli on whether the number of territories would be possible?

This variant looks great. Awesome job, Technostar! Hope it could be implemented in the near future :-)

"Because states with only 2 SCs start with a huge disadvantage, they will annex all occupied SCs after the first spring turn and get an additional build phase in the summer of the first year. This way, they will have 3-4 units during the fall turn like the rest of the nations."

I should point out that this rule will be very hard to implement. I'd recommend trying to find some alternative solution...

When simulating reality diminishes playability, chose the latter.
Make the smaller states playable, and the big guys smaller:
instead of the 2 to 5 starting units range, make them 3 or 4 only.

Captain and CCR, you make good points. Aside from Rhode Island and Vermont, all states have at least 3 SCs in their borders. I may have to shift around Rhode Island's borders to include Martha's Vineyard, however. It's such a tiny state that anything else would be too small even on the large map.

Amby, I'm checking with Kaner to find out how he did WW4. 256 is not a hard limit per map, though it needs some trickery to get around.

I don't know if we could ever get such a big game going but that looks so good! So, so, so so very good!

There are only 14 more players in this than in WW4. Chances are we could find enough players for a game.

As I'm doing names and acronyms, what's really bugging me is how unoriginal US place names are. I'm having to include the state in the name for places like Charleston (big city in South Carolina and capital of West Virginia), Bloomington (fairly large city in both Illinois and Indiana), Augusta, and Columbus (the last two are both large cities in Georgia that have the same name as the capitals of Maine and Ohio).

Is New Orleans the only province crossed, rather than bordered, by a river, or is there a 4-way corner between it, Baton Rouge, and the two provinces on the other side of the river?

You're correct, New Orleans is the only province crossed by a river. I only included this because there are 3 provinces that take you out of the Mississippi River system into the Gulf of Mexico already. I'll be sure to clarify that by placing the name across the Mississippi river there.

Fun fact: The Atchafalaya River (try saying that 3 times fast) is actually the steeper route down to the Gulf of Mexico, not the current path of the Mississippi river. The only thing keeping the Mississippi on its current path is a dam maintained by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Dustin doesn't care about fun facts!

I have finished assigning names to the provinces. I will now be going through them and giving them unique abbreviations, then adding them to the maps. Creating the color map for PHP will not take too long after that, then I'll move it to the Russian lab for development.

Unfortunately, school started for me yesterday, so progress will be a bit slower.

Why do you tease us so, Technostar?

WHY???

Alas, I have a life outside of Diplomacy. But here's a progress report:

https://i.imgur.com/Rkx0gD5.png

I am about a third of the way through adding names to the small map (though thankfully the toughest areas are done). I'm glad there's also a large map, otherwise, the game would be just about unreadable. Any advice to improve readability on the small map? Otherwise, I'll proceed as normal and keep adding abbreviations to the map.


For reference, here's the list of provinces and their abbreviations:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tR_-ELS7_yuejImW6XTAO4aHvLlFwVugOfm0FjPuwi8/edit?usp=sharing

Thats amazing Technostar. You have a ^&*ton of provinces though! I hope we can both get our maps implemented. I will update you on progress of integration.