Enriador -

It's called "East Indies" and made by David Cohen. It's a combination of two existing variants (already on vDip), "Maharajah" (https://vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=74) and "Spice Islands" (https://vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=116) with some very minor modifications to account for the new dynamics. It's a 14-player variant - plenty of room for intrigue.

You can check for more details and see the original map here: http://diplomiscellany.tripod.com/id23.html

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Thank you, Enriador. As I had mentioned elsewhere, when I designed Spice Islands, I drafted it to the same scale as Maharajah's. Since the two were in the same time period, I always had it in the back of my mind to combine them.

The rather land oriented Maharajah's map and the very fleet-heavy Spice Islands map complement each other well.

G-Man (2290 D)
New Thu 11 AM
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Thanks guys. Nice to have more 10-20 power variants (which are my favorites to play!).

vixol (1295 D)
New Thu 04 PM
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Why not put a power in China too?

GOD (1718 D Mod (B))
New Thu 05 PM
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Because nobody wants a powerful China (or Gina, as some world leaders might say)

vixol (1295 D)
New Thu 07 PM
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:D

David E. Cohen (1000 D)
New Thu 08 PM
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GOD is correct, vixol. China, at the time of the variant, was so much larger and more powerful than the other Powers in this setting that it would be weird to include it. Since China was also very inward-looking and on the edge of the map, making it impassable was an easy decision.

David E. Cohen (1000 D)
New Thu 08 PM
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G-Man, my latest variant should be to your liking. Dawn of the Enlightenment is a global, 15 Power variant set in 1701. I am quite proud of it. DotE is in playtesting now. I am looking at some map changes and rules simplification for version 2.0.

drano019 (2179 D)
New Thu 09 PM
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David -

Out of curiosity, what type of rules simplification are you looking at? In order for DoTE to get ported to vDip, you'd have to cut out some of the cooler rules like upgrading SCs to full strength (and units), the loss and recapture rule, and the different victory conditions. At that point, it's not even really the same game, much like the WWIV map here is nothing like NWO without the wings/nukes/voting.

GOD (1718 D Mod (B))
New Thu 09 PM
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Where and how would I be able to Play WWIV with extra rules?

drano019 (2179 D)
New Thu 09 PM
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GOD -

Games were run somewhat regularly on Redscape for the past handful of years at least, but the last one ended in March of 2017, and there hasn't been any push to pick up a new one yet that I've heard of. It has to be hand-adjudicated by a GM, and it's a ton of work (and often difficult to get enough signups for a full game), so it needs someone willing to make that sacrifice first.

David E. Cohen (1000 D)
New Fri 12 AM
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drano, I would rather not discuss specific changes with you while the playtest is still running. My thoughts on posible changes and the reasons for them could influence player perceptions in the playtest.

Enriador (1491 D (B))
New Fri 12 AM
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Dawn of the Enlightenment seems like a ton of fun (observing the playtest). With David's blessing I may port it to vDip too... some day.

G-Man (2290 D)
New Fri 04 AM
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I had looked over the info you posted previously on DotE and am very intruiged David. It will be interesting to see how you transfer that over to vDip. Thanks for all that you do.

vixol (1295 D)
New Fri 07 PM
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I used to play a variant created by Borger Borgersen that was called Global Supremacy. We played it in the Swedish zine Red Dwarf. That variant had a rule for "armyfleets" that made it possible for an army to embark a fleet and tag along. Also, the fleet could both disambark the army AND support the disembarkment.

Apropos nothing...

drano019 (2179 D)
New Fri 09 PM
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@ David -

Totally understandable. Sometimes I have brain farts like that. I look forward to discussing it after the playtest ends.

Can someone post this next part to Enriador since I think he can't see my posts:

@Enriador -

Be careful with porting games over (even with the creator's blessing) just because they look cool. DoTE has a lot of special rules that are simply not possible (I believe) to put into vDip. I do not believe the vDip code allows for some SCs to be half strength, and some full strength, nor does it allow you to "upgrade" SCs in the middle of the game. Also, I think the vDip code only allows for 2 unit "types", which means having half strength armies/fleets and full strength armies/fleets is not possible.

This is what I think RUFFHAUS was trying to get at when he was attacking you over spamming variants. Taking all those rules away from DoTE means it's not the same variant anymore. There's no point porting a variant when all the special rules that make it balanced are taken away. Quality over quantity. David spent a ton of time designing the variant as it stands, and taking away a lot of those special designs makes the variant unrecognizable. That's the reason NWO never got ported (although a version of the map did, but not the actual variant), as it has too many special rules/units to work with vDip. I don't see any reason to port DoTE to vDip, as you'd have to make LOTS of changes to the game to try to recreate balance once all the special rules are taken away.

Enriador (1491 D (B))
New 07:00 AM
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@G-Man, the idea with DotE would be similar to what has been done with Maharajah. Maharajah actually had somewhat "complex" rules originally (http://diplomiscellany.tripod.com/id4.html) but David kindly adapted those to provide for the largest number of adjudicators possible. I expect the same attention will be brought to DotE.

@vixol, never heard about that! I think Fred C. Davis did a very similar rule regarding Army/Fleet rules. These could be used in any variant, and if I am not mistaken even got Realpolitik support at some point.



drano019 (2179 D)
New 07:08 AM
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Can someone repost my message for Enriador from before please? It appears I'm still blocked.

DoTEs come rules are significantly more game changing than the ones in Maharajah. Changing DoTEs rules would drastically alter the variant to the point where it's something completely different.



Sky_Hopper (825 D)
New 09:32 AM
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I'm blocked too, but maybe it can go through?
"@ David -

Totally understandable. Sometimes I have brain farts like that. I look forward to discussing it after the playtest ends.


Can someone post this next part to Enriador since I think he can't see my posts:

@Enriador -

Be careful with porting games over (even with the creator's blessing) just because they look cool. DoTE has a lot of special rules that are simply not possible (I believe) to put into vDip. I do not believe the vDip code allows for some SCs to be half strength, and some full strength, nor does it allow you to "upgrade" SCs in the middle of the game. Also, I think the vDip code only allows for 2 unit "types", which means having half strength armies/fleets and full strength armies/fleets is not possible.

This is what I think RUFFHAUS was trying to get at when he was attacking you over spamming variants. Taking all those rules away from DoTE means it's not the same variant anymore. There's no point porting a variant when all the special rules that make it balanced are taken away. Quality over quantity. David spent a ton of time designing the variant as it stands, and taking away a lot of those special designs makes the variant unrecognizable. That's the reason NWO never got ported (although a version of the map did, but not the actual variant), as it has too many special rules/units to work with vDip. I don't see any reason to port DoTE to vDip, as you'd have to make LOTS of changes to the game to try to recreate balance once all the special rules are taken away.
DoTEs come rules are significantly more game changing than the ones in Maharajah. Changing DoTEs rules would drastically alter the variant to the point where it's something completely different."



David E. Cohen (1000 D)
New 11:00 AM
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I am on the fence as to whether the special rules are worth the effort. I am an experienced GM, but it takes me several hours to adjudicate a turn and I keep making adjudication errors.

I may also go the route of having two "sister" variants, one with simplified rules.



David E. Cohen (1000 D)
New 01:28 PM
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Further on special rules, the more complicated/further away from Standard the rules of a variant are, the fewer the number of players who are willing to play it. So I do try to minimize rule changes. In the spectrum of my variants, DotE is definitely one of the most complicated.

I actually liked the separate topics, that had a little bit more structure to it.

I think this is a nice idea. Especially as plenty of discussions, ideas and concepts common to more than one variant were usually spread across several threads.

It can also help people looking to try their hand at variant development - don't think there was a place for it. It does have the risk of messing up topics a bit (this forum format isn't really dynamic enough to handle fast changes in a thread's flow).

Let's give it a try. =)

And damn you @Mercy, what do I do with my work-in-progress tutorial now? =O

Yours look good though, we sorely needed it. Thanks!

I’d have to disagree with you, Mercy. While I don’t have an issue with the multitude of threads, it does make it very difficult to comment, or even keep up with all the activity.

As such, I like this Idea. Thank you Kaner!

No problems. Not my idea btw/ this one came up from the discussion about forum etiquette earlier.

I am of two minds on this, but on balance, I do not agree that all these threads should be combined.

There are some discussions that, while discussing a specific variant, have wide applicability. For example: "The map of variant X should be expanded to include Blah Blah Island to improve the balance of army and fleet play". It would be good to see that in a general variant development thread, for obvious reasons.

But there are other posts, often but not always technical in nature, which would just be noise in a general variant development thread. For example: "Province Blah Blah in the map of variant X is colored green but should be colored orange."

I think on balance the former is so much more common than the latter to outweigh the annoyance of having those posts in the megathread.

Hmmm. Seems like there needs to be a thread to talk about what threads are needed.

Methinks what you need is a forum with support for subforums that can group threads by category. Announcing a new variant strikes me as something worthy of a new thread, but it would be useful to keep all such threads near one another so as not to overshadow threads on other topics.

> a forum with support for subforums that can group threads by category<

Wonderful idea. Bonus points if it can look better than webDip's new forum, though I admit that one is perfectly functional.

"a forum with support for subforums that can group threads by category"

I don't think that it is such a good idea at all because this forum has rather little activity. The current format of the forum allows :
• to see immediately, with one single click on "Forum", all the threads that contain a post that we haven't read yet.
• to access any recent thread with one other single click.

Actually meant that last as a joke. Guess I should have stuck on a smiley.

@Retillion

Most modern forum software includes similar links. Even phpbb, which can be a bit kludgy, has links to track "Active Topics" and to see threads you've posted on (or subscribed to) that have new replies.

This conversation seems off topic for this thread, but I would once again like to express my lack of desire for a Subforum format. rather than repeat everything that Retillion has said, I'd like to also point out that, without any clicks, from the home page you can get a brief summary of all the current activity. This is the reason I started participating in the "winning" thread, which is the primary reason I have continued to return to this website even during long breaks from Dip.

Being able to see this activity is the current cause for concern, But I genuinely hope it remains as is.

So returning to an old topic, Scoring.

Do most PPSC games use the “end after X years” option?

If so, wouldn’t it make more sense to score a time-ended game as a draw instead of a win, albeit using a scoring system that awards points in a draw based on lead, rank, or SC count?

That way, the whole pot could go to a player that manages to pull off a true solo before hitting the buzzer, and you’d have more incentive to stop such a solo.

>If so, wouldn’t it make more sense to score a time-ended game as a draw instead of a win, albeit using a scoring system that awards points in a draw based on lead, rank, or SC count?

That way, the whole pot could go to a player that manages to pull off a true solo before hitting the buzzer, and you’d have more incentive to stop such a solo.<

In other words: just like webDip (win always gives 100% of points, draws are either DSS or SoS). The timed aspect making the difference of course. I prefer timed games (which better remind me of the FtF aspects) and having such a system here would be most wonderful.

Yes, roughly like that.

https://i.imgur.com/vFcYQ5z.png

I've been working on adapting and tweaking the New World Order variant for vDip play. I've scrapped most of the extra rule changes (aside from neutral colored SCs and no custom start, the rules are the same as WWIV) and tweaked the map some to account for the changes.

Thoughts?

Thank you, Technostar, for your work !

I see two major problems for that map :

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1° I can see immediately that that map was designed by somebody who thinks very much from a USA's bias point of view. Indeed, there are too many territories that are under the USA's control :

• OKI : even though Japan is in reality militarily occupied by the USA, Okinawa is part of Japan.

• DIE : even though it is in reality occupied by a USA's base, Diego Garcia is a United Kingdom's territory.

• BAG : isn't Irak a sovereign country ? Well, the answer is obviously no, but is it necessary to show on that variant that Irak is a USA-occupied country ? And if it is, then why isn't Afghanistan, for example, also USA-controlled ?

• WIE : again, it is true that Germany is in reality militarily occupied by the USA but is it necessary to show on that variant that it is a USA-occupied country ? And if yes, then why aren't Belgium, or South Korea, for example, also USA-controlled ?

• If one argues that all the above is for accuracy, then why :
- aren't FLK and STH under UK's control ?
- isn't NCD under France's control ?

• There are also several mistakes. For example :
- Crimea is part of Russia and should be colored in Russia's color and not in Ukraine's.
- The Land Zone named ARM is not Armenia in reality : it is Georgia.
- Why is Labrador (GOO on the map) under UK's control ? It is Canadian territory.
- Why is the territory of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) given the name RHQ ? Is it because in reality the country is controlled by the US and because they have established there a Regional HeadQuarters ?
https://www.unisdr.org/partners/countries/mkd
May I please suggest that that Land Zone is correctly named MKD ?

This is ridiculous : that map looks like it has the purpose of showing the worldwide power of the USA.

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2° That map is extremely unbalanced. Theoretically, the differences of strength between the different countries should be balanced by efficient diplomacy made by highly competent players who, additionally, do not NMR. We are very far from having here the necessary ammount of such players. As a consequence, that map is hardly playable.

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Technostar, I appreciate your work. Please understand that this is a constructive and respectuous criticism whose purpose is to offer you my opinion so that you can improve your work.

Thank you for your feedback. This map is meant to mostly be an adaptation of the New World Order variant by Tomahaha, though with a few changes to make it more suitable for vDip.

The variant's webpage, including the original map:
https://www.freewebs.com/tomahaha/newworldorder.htm

Believe it or not, the map was originally much, much more unbalanced, with many nations starting at only 1 supply center under their control and certain nations starting with nuclear weapons (units that could be built in a similar way to Gobble Earth's colonial builds, then launched at any point within a certain distance to instantly destroy any SCs and units in the territory that got hit). The only thing that smaller nations had going in their favor was a sloppily-designed terrorism mechanic that ultimately boiled down more to luck than negotiation.

I'm pretty sure Tomahaha's intent with this design choice was to somewhat simulate the modern (well, modern in 2006, when the map was made) diplomatic situation of the world, where certain countries are significantly more powerful than others. This is in contrast to WWIV, which he created to have a much more reasonable level of balance but only a vague resemblance to real life. With this adaptation, I am trying to maintain the variant's resemblance to the modern world's diplomatic situation while also reigning in some of the more ludicrous design choices Tomahaha made.

Since I scrapped many of the rule changes Tomahaha had made and wanted at least some degree of balance, I've already tweaked the map a fair bit. I've given all powers two SCs to start. Due to the lack of wing units (which were the only units that could enter the Himalayas, Caspian Sea, the poles, and a few other lakes), I've opened up most of those territories to travel. Some major powers also started with wing units in their military bases, as wing units couldn't capture SCs and made it hard for the superpowers to expand overseas. I intend to either scrap those parts of the map or have most of these centers start without a unit, forcing the stronger powers into difficult negotiations if they want to have a chance at keeping the center. And due to the lack of stalemate-breaking nukes, I've added a few extra ocean and land territories to make it easier for other countries to reach places like the United States.

Of course, this map is far from done. I may tweak the map further by cutting out several of the excess neutral SCs in North America and China. I also want to fix some of the more glaring inaccuracies. While some of the inaccuracies are because the map is from 2006 (such as Crimea being Ukranian and Montenegro being Serbian), others (such as islands under UK/French control not even being colored neutral centers, Goose Bay - which the British military left in 2005 - still being British, the US only controlling certain military outposts of theirs, Georgia being Armenia, or Macedonia being called "RHO Rhodope Mountains" instead of "MKD Macedonia) just don't make any sense and are on my list of things to change.

I do not intend to make this variant even close to perfectly balanced. Instead, I'm shooting for somewhere around Gobble Earth's level of balance, which, while nowhere near well-balanced, is balanced enough that every power has a shot at making it to a draw if in the hands of a competent diplomat. This variant is definitely not suited to ranked play, as it is more about the fun of assuming the role of a modern-day country than having a fair and balanced game.

I want to start by saying - Technostar, great to see someone's putting in hard work to try to get new variants ready for vDip! That said however, I think this is a prime example of a situation where we shouldn't try to modify an existing map in order to meet the technical limitations of vDip. Allow me to elaborate:

As Technostar noted, this map was modified from Tomahaha's map of the NWO variant. For those of you who don't know, NWO is a variant that has massive differences from regular Dip. There are additional unit types (Wings and Nukes), a board that can change during the game (Nukes wipe SCs off the map and make the territory just an empty territory), complicated rules (How to bank builds and build nukes and the nuke transfer and range rules), and a different victory condition (victory is earned in coalitions of 3 via vote, which is based on voting SCs (the stars on the map), not purely by size of power). As such, the map is designed based on those special rules, and will NOT probably be able to be toned down into a "regular" vDip style map without some serious changes to balance.

Speaking of balance real quick - Technostar said:

"The only thing that smaller nations had going in their favor was a sloppily-designed terrorism mechanic that ultimately boiled down more to luck than negotiation."

This is simply not true. The NWO map has a voting mechanism that heavily favors the small powers. An outsider might think that the USA, with it's nukes and huge size, would be heavily favored to win. That's not true. In the last 4 games that have been played, the winners have been made up of primarily smaller powers. They've included Argentina: won twice in last 4 games (2 SCs starting position), Australia (2 SCs starting position), Chile (2 SCs starting position), Kenya: won twice in last 4 games (1 SC starting position), Sweden: won twice in last 4 games (1 SC starting position), Cuba (1 SC starting position), Zambia (1 SC starting position), and Orang Laut (a pirate nation that started small). Only ONCE in the last 4 games has a larger power managed to get in the winning coalition, and that was a Chinese victory along with smaller powers.

So what's that all mean? It means that the smaller powers had a lot more going for them than just a terrorism mechanism. In fact, they have had far more success than the larger powers. While the larger powers were more likely statistically to survive, survival means nothing, and the smaller powers were more likely to win.

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What happens when you take all those special things away? Well, the entire delicate balance of the map is thrown away and the game becomes unwieldy. It was already hard to balance physical strength on the map with voting requirements, and now the map simply becomes a brute force map. The large powers, especially the USA, now have nothing to fear from nukes, so the snowball effect of growth becomes more pronounced. Unless the smaller powers have significant cooperation between them, the larger powers will enjoy safety and security and will almost assuredly dominate the map. USA especially has only 2 land neighbors, which would make him nearly impossible to defeat once he gets rolling. And as Retillion noted, NWO takes a LOT of players, and vDip tends to not have dozens of players ready and willing to invest significant amounts of time and effort into larger games all at once. Look at any WWIV map and we see lots of NMRs. In this proposed map, NMRs and CDs would warp the game even further since it already starts unbalanced, unlike WWIV, which at least starts everyone the same size. NMRs and CDs, or even just players who don't talk alot (which we have a lot of here), would completely and utterly destroy any chance for the smaller powers to combine and defeat the larger powers, especially without nukes.

My personal opinion: NWO is just not meant to be adapted for vDip, as you take away everything that makes it special, and everything that make NWO what it is.

"My personal opinion: NWO is just not meant to be adapted for vDip, as you take away everything that makes it special, and everything that make NWO what it is. "

I agree with your assessment drano, this variant is an awesome variant that will just not lend itself to any attempt to recreate on vDip so long as we have certain technical limitations.

That being said, a WWIV type map that does add imbalance to roughly represent nation's relative force strength would be interesting to see, it would just simply be a different world variant with vastly different dynamics than NWO as NWOs character is derived from the nuke/voting ruleset. It simply isn't NWO without that basic ruleset.

Of course I would probably prefer to see it be implemented with sea lanes.

it's also important to remember that NWO has gone through many revisions and rule adjustments over time, some valuable, and others not so much. While Tomahaha did indeed design the original variant, the PBEM version of the game has been shepherded by several others who have refined and improved it over decades.

The game could in theory be replicated here in some capacity, but it would still require a human moderator to manage the various aspects of it that do not translate to coding.

Hi, has there ever been a variant based on Genghis khan and the Mongol empire.
With players being the khanates?

Probably, though none immediately comes to mind. There are literally thousands of variants which have been developed 60 or so years since Dip was first developed. Of course, a lot of them are garbage, for one or more reasons, but then a lot of almost anything is garbage. LOL

Yes I couldn't find one, i know what you mean, i think I would have some half decent ideas for some but It doesn't mean the gameplay would be any good. No Matter how novelty the idea

http://lab.diplomail.ru/variants.php?variantID=95
This one fits the bill