I would include China in the east indies game

I had discussed that in the earlier thread. The big reason not to do so has to do with scale. China was so much larger and more powerful than all of the other powers in the game. If China hadn't been isolationist in this period, its neighbors would have been VERY nervous.

This strikes me as really unbalanced. There are way too many neutral SC's in the East Indies map down in indonesia, and not even close to enough in India and the Middle East. There are some powers, like the Dai Viet, who are going to get knocked out straight away in each game.

The other map is far more balanced. Brunei might be in a better spot than all of its neighbors, but its one of the only powers that isn't in a corner, so that's fine.

Thanks for the input, goldfinger0303, but if you do a little counting, you will find that the seven western Powers have access to a total of 16 neutrals in the first year, and the seven eastern Powers have access to 15 neutrals in the first year, with a 16th, Negara Daha, available in the second year. Four dots are available to both eastern and western Powers: Aceh, Arakan, Ava and Kandy. I think you may be mistaking the dots of Ternate for neutrals. They are a very pale pink--I think I am going to need to do something about that. It is just too close to "Neutral Dot White". Maybe I'll make Ternate white, and have the neutrals just be the tan of the land provinces.

I think I did mistake those dots for neutrals. Yeah, I would change up the coloring scheme a little bit to make that clearer.

So, looking at it with that in mind, the west and east seem pretty balanced on their own, but travelling from the west to the east seems to be blocked too easily. And again, I think Dai Viet is too sandwiched by neutral China to grow much. If it opens up for play testing I'd gladly sign up

West to east is blocked easily? Why do you think so? And what about movement in the other direction?

I am strongly leaning toward moving the border of Roi Et westward, so that it is adjacent to Pegu. This will give Dai Viet more of a shot at Lan Xang, which may help to alleviate your concern.

It's funny, I was listening to a podcast the other day about the Spice Islands and instantly thought of a Dip variant. That said, and I'm sorry to say, what's proposed is t what I think would be a historically accurate variant.

Personally I'd prefer to see the colonial powers fighting it out in the region. I visualise a three player variant between England, the Dutch and Portugal. If only there wasn't fifty million other things to do in real life and at least 5 other variants swimming around my head....

Is t = isn't

Going both ways, really. And just due to the lack of spaces. Draw a vertical line around where Assam is, and you'll count 5 spaces it crosses through. That's the second lowest of any point on the map (lowest being 4 on the eastern edge). That means its going to be very easy for small power to indefinitely hold a massive one coming from the other side. I can see it being done with 3-4 units.

Now, I see why its like this - to make the SC's of Arakan, Ava, Aceh and Kandy competitive. So maybe its not a problem worth trying to address, if its a problem at all.

Hello, Ambassador. It is fairly historically accurate (for a Dip variant, anyway--LOL), since it is for the period immediately *before* the Europeans started grabbing anything that wasn't nailed down. If you want a colonial variant, that's a whole different ballgame. To sbe historically accurate, you would need to add the Spanish and French, as well as the English, Dutch and Portuguese. Hmmm. This may be my next project... :^)

Thanks, goldfinger0303, that makes more sense. It is partly a function of geography, but maybe I will take a look at adding a province or two to increase fluidity.

Thanks David E.

I was originally thinking concentrating more on the Spice Islands themselves (just around the Moluccas), which lends itself to a balance 3 way game between Portugal, England and the Dutch who were the main players in the later colonial era in that area. I guess if you expanded it out more broadly to SE Asia Spain makes sense especially if it was in the earlier colonial era in the area. That said Britain wasn't active in that earlier period eg 1500's/early 1600's. Spain would be strong in the Philippines, but by the time the French were exerting their colonial influence in SE Asia the importance of the Spice Islands had well died off. That's my 2 cents.

A few additional changes, in response to comments from various quarters.

On both maps (see below), East China Sea now borders Eastern Ocean. The change was made to increase fluidity.


In East Indies:

Other than the cosmetic move of the legend/rules box from the southwest to the northeast for cosmetic reasons, the following changes have been made:

Sunda has been combined with Javadvipa.

Mentawai Sea has been divided from Southern Sea, and runs from the newly extended Javadvipa to Kandy.

The province of Sutiya has been created from the northern portion of Assam.

The province of Gartok, expanded and renamed Tibet, now extends eastward and borders Sutiya and Shan.

Kashgar has been renamed Taklamakan.

These changes as a group increase the number of provinces in the area of the intersection of the Spice Islands and Maharajah's subvariant maps, and should therefore increase fluidity and make stalemate lines somewhat more difficult to form.

The Spice Islands and East Indies maps can be found at the following links:

East Indies: http://diplomiscellany.tripod.com/id23.html

Spice Islands: http://diplomiscellany.tripod.com/id24.html

Looks good!

Thank you. The one further change that I am considering at the moment (actually a change *back* to the way it is in the Maharajah's subvariant) is to bump the border of Gulf of Aden back to Hadramaut from Yemen.