WW2 is a balanced variant comparing to many other variants in my opinion :)

Africa is a stupidly broken variant imho. Morocco is just too damn strong in it.

Modern Europe, both broken balance wise and also broken code wise (as in there's a lot of weirdness with it, a number of provinces not seeming set up right in interactive map mode, provinces that don't color in right, fleet in Madrid...)

The whole point of FUBAR is to be unbalanced, just Google the acronym.

I do think there's a valid point in this thought process that some maps need to be looked at again potentially for some minor balance and playability changes.

I'm sure many people have noticed how Divided States and Europa Renovatio tend to just end up at the same stalemate lines most of the time, leading to games that feel a bit "incomplete". And that these lines are significantly easier for some people to get to than others, leading to differing ability of powers to basically "guarantee" a draw fairly early on if they rush certain spots.

I would say there's rationale for some experienced players and map makers to go through some of them and potentially consider a "2.0" map for some of them like Modern Europe, Europa Renovatio, Divided States, Africa, etc.

Sail Ho II. I think South having that much space and leeway is a massive oversight compared to the cramped location North, East, and West share.

But yeah. Unbalanced maps are annoying in gunboat and regular dip. I think some maps are meant to be unbalanced and that imbalance can be counteracted by good dip and targeting board leaders, and overall keeping everything and everyone in check like in Imperial. Though at the end of the day, I think one must make do with the hand dealt with them. I have no qualms targeting a specific power right off the bat just because I don't want to deal with their nigh invincibility but at the same time, I ask myself if that's really a fair assessment

Of course, we can't forget about Chesspolitik! Man, that map is hella unbalanced. Russia is too strong! There needs to be a rework soon /j

I'd also love to add: South American Supremacy. Although there are few games on vDip and thus there's a small sample size, it's been almost unanimously agreed upon to be the worst and most unbalanced map in Conspiracy as soon as it was released. I can only imagine the nightmare of gunboat when you're playing as a power that's neither Argentina nor Colombia

Personally I think Duo is the most unbalanced map

The WW2 variant being referred to is WW2- a world at war.

No, but by far the most unbalanced is the 13th century Mongolian empire!

For one thing, you have to remember the purpose of vDip has been to test out variants. There's never been much quality control, it was always more wild west. If the creator wanted to release it, it would be released. Hence how you get stuff like that A World at War abomination.

Balancing a variant is really hard, and it needs a lot of testing. Another thing to keep in mind is that balance kind of depends on who's playing. If all the players are familiar with the variant's balance, they can adjust their strategies accordingly. That only goes so far. I think Renascimento is purposely unbalanced and that's why games of that never affect the players' scores.

I don't know how difficult it is to do a 2.0 of a variant after it's already been released. I remember something Oli telling me that once a variant's released, it can't be changed. Not too sure about that. I guess someone could revise and existing variant and release it as a new one.

There is precedent with the 1066 variant having undergone two rounds of revisions, or WWIV. I think that the way is to release the updated version as a new variant.

Or perhaps something like the Rinascimento variant’s scoring, where the unbalanced starting positions should be factored into the final result.

yeah,scoring is a way to solve the problem

Or different victory criteria for each Power. My Dawn of the Enlightenment variant (which is unfortunately not on vDip), has victory criteria on a sliding scale, based upon the starting size of the Powers.

Nah, my win in gameID=54114 was hard-earned