A previous forum post (https://www.vdiplomacy.com/forum.php?viewthread=92581#92581) was discussing what the least played variant is. As it turns out, it is chaoctopi with only four games played so far. This got me thinking though, can we go even lower?
Cast your minds back. The year is 2020 and my friend alifeee creates a new variant: Scottish Clan Wars. It gets posted on this forum and it gets played around 20 times. But, disaster strikes! Oli, admin of vDip, creator of variants and hero of men went on hiatus. This meant that Scottish Clan Wars never got added to the variant table, but still existed deep down in the website. This got me thinking ... what if there were other variants that got affected by this ... perhaps there exists a variant with even fewer than 4 plays.
So alifeee and I started searching through the variants. Using Python, we compared the variants in the variant table with those elsewhere on the site. I now present to you the list of 'secret' variants on the site:
First are the most interesting ones, finished variants with a few games played but which aren't on the variant table.
-Scottish Clan Wars (24 games)(https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=141)
-Two different Bronze Age Diplomacies (6/10 games)(https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=142)
(https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=137)
-Diadokhi (2 games)(https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=139)
-East Europe(11 games)(https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=135)
-New York (1 game)(https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=146)
-North America(5 games)(https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=144)
-Western Europe 1300 (11 games)(https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=145)
So we have a new variant with the lowest number of games played! It is New York with 1 game played! I'm not sure how they managed to actually play that game, given that it isnt on the list when you click "create a new game" So it seems that there are three different lists of variants, the full list, the table list and the playable list.
Next we have some really cool looking maps that never got played/finished.
-Chesspolitik (https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=132) a really odd chess themed map
-Pits of Horror (https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=147) a really awesome looking lava hell world - interestingly it is the most recent variant to be added (id=148 doesnt exist)
-Africa (https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=124) a 7 player variant of africa
And finally we have some unfinished variants, an interesting look into variant development for those who never got to make one before Oli vanished :(
-https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=104
-https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=140
-https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=131
-https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=143
-https://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=126
Here's to hoping that Oli is alive and well, and that he will return to us when we need him most. Amen