A World at War - 1937 by michaelb

I've not played much of A World at War - 1937, but I think it might become one of my favorites if it gained sealanes. It's a little stalemate-y for my liking, in the 1 maybe 2 takeovers I've had.

Colonial 1885 is one of my personal favorites as well; I love it when powers are not contiguous and as a result have to interact with more players out of the gates. Though being build-at-home and being riddled with very easy stalemates makes it nearly impossible for some countries like China from actually winning the game. And RIP Turkey lol.

I think Europa Renevatio is very nice and well designed: big, sealanes, and not many perfect stalemates. And has Venice and Genoa for non-contiguous powers!

Divided States would also be a top-tier, but it's too easy to stalemate large chunks of board for my liking.

Mine. LOL

I like Duo, I just think it is an interesting map because it is perfectly symmetrical yet so many different strategies can emerge. It poses the touch question of, "I could take this SC in the first year, but should I as it will hinder next year's moves?"

Alacavre, it's good and balanced and the best one.

NWO Dip - PBEM for the win!

Alacavre is also a fantastic one! Nice call out by Uber!

Colonial 1885 needs either a wrap around map or sea lanes and build anywhere and it'd be even better. As erikip mentioned, it's super stalematey and very difficult to win for powers like china that have a hard time getting units past some of the stalemates due to restricted building. But still a fun map to play.

I've also got a soft spot for Rinascimento and Imperial II. The unbalanced starts are a personal favorite.

Canton and 843: Treaty of Verdun are definitively among my favorites. Pirates gain major points for creativity, never saw a variant that had roaming hurricanes in it.

1862 - by SuperstitionDawn: modular maps that span the globe. Has a really cool mechanic of controlled territory. Well balanced.

Sengoku Jidai - Ben Hester: Build anywhere gets a lot of down-nosing. Works really well on this one. Very fun

World Diplomacy - TheHillsHaveAviators - really popular on discord

I have a channel on The Embassy that asks for people's top lists, you might be interested: https://discord.gg/JkTDVSwY85

Thanks Enriador ;)

Spice Island & Europa Renovatio

There's a lot of data on games here. Would be neat to sort variants by the standard deviation of the 'performance' values.

MODERN DIPLOMACY II is brimming with tension and has great playability.

GREEK DIPLOMACY just works.

A few of the larger 20+ player variants come close, but I feel they all suffer from lack of play testing and game creators who have burned out on the variant before they can create the ultimate iteration.

Thanks, Lei. :)

Europa Renovatio - my current favourite
Greek Diplomacy - yup, hard to argue with the unique starting rules
Known World 901 - loved this one to bits
Rinascimento - love it despite the imbalances
USA - because it's not a war without the USA
World War IV (I prefer the sealanes version)
Zeus 5 - doesn't get enough love

imo any variant can be improved by playing it 'Public Press Only'.

But it especially takes Europa Renovatio and Divided States from high tier to S-rank.

By far : Known World 901.

Another vote for KW901 here

The best variant ever made is Bronze Age Diplomacy. 9 players, large map, balanced. I play it every time the opportunity arises. I also like the 1648 Hapsburg Germany variant. Very challenging.

Thank you, kaner406, Retillion and Captainmeme.

It is 1900 for me. A fine rework of the original concept, in my opinion.

1600 and 1900 are the ones that appeal to me the most, but some of the variants mentioned above sound really interesting!

Atlantic Colonies is just awesome. Great Design, Great Balancing.

What is the „Bronze Age” variant mentioned by fourofswords? I could not find it now

A variant that has been in development, but sadly got stalled. It is on the site but not currently playable.

https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=142

Thanks for the link! Looked great indeed