Also, the official map for reference.
http://www.malmobiketours.se/Bilder/GobbleEarth.jpg
Home area is marked with colour shading. All other areas are neutrals for building purposes.

Forgot to mention that it's made for WTA and will not behave as intended with PPSC. This will not chance, and problems with it on PPSC will not be attended to.

I'm bumping this for Snake IV because I think anyone that can bring a variant to the site, and would like some feedback, deserves some attention. I'll have time to post some thoughts in the next couple of days, I've played a few games of this and like it.

I've always enjoyed Gobble Earth. One of my favorite variants here.

I'm happy to hear you guys enjoys the map.
I will give some time for those who want to provide thoughts (doesn't have to be very extensive), and after that I'll start right off with analysing the main problem on the map.

Haven't played it but I do like historical variants (emphasis in "historical") and therefore I appreciate the concept and the very beautiful map. However:

1. I dislike the choice of Latin American powers: Argentina and particularly Colombia are medium sized countries, much like Spain or Thailand, which are not incorporated to the game. IMO Mexico, a much larger power and one that might have intervened in WWI (Kaiser's telegraph affair) should be picked instead of Colombia.

2. I have issues on the choice of colonial dots, for example scrap Vancouver, redefine North African dots (Morocco and Algeria are much more important than Tunis and Tripoli). Or also "Bengal": what the hell is that? Half of India as single province without a single dot? Sapporo? Why not Osaka?

3. If you push the initial date back a couple of years (to 1898), it'd be natural to introduce Spain as power, with colonial dots in Cuba and Philippines. Portugal, Netherlands and (wow!) Belgium could also be introduced as playable powers thanks to their colonial dots, although I reckon it is more complicated gameplay-wise, but Spain does make sense (large enough homeland, not less important than the Ottoman Empire and with possible colonial dots if the game start is 1898, which incidentally is also the date of the Berlin Congress that consolidated the partition of Africa).

Some ideas of mine but maybe I should just develop another variant myself?

Also if you want to care about historical details, it may be important to notice that Tripolitania (Libya) was an Ottoman vassal until 1912. Similarly Morocco was independent also until 1912 (formally) and at least until 1904-06 (informally).

And I must correct my previous comment on the year of the Berlin Conference, it was in 1884-85, not 1892.

Thanks for your input Luis. :)

I'll get back to gameplay aspects such as Bengal and Vancouver later (in order not to bias other possible early inputs). Right now I'll just clarify the aim of the variant, which is for it to expand Classic by the "design rules" of Classic. That means the map is 1914; just as Classic it "starts" at 1900 only for easy counting. Had I been doing a 1900 map I would certainly have given Turkey Tripoli and so on. For the same reason I do not include other European powers; since they are neutrals in Classic they have no place here. (Some other people suggested such inclusion too, and anyone who wants to make such a variant based on this variant has my full support!)

Also, Mexico is a power. It doesn't show very well when that map is zoomed out, so look closely. It's really a side now, but I'd disagree on the strenght of Mexico in 1914; I recon it was weaker than Colombia. It was in the middle of a decade long civil war, USA occupied Veracruz and the suggestions of the Zimmerman telegram 4 years later only shows the desperation of Germany. I was kinda like asking Iraq today to invade Iran to stop the nuclear program. Still, Mexico is in, and so is China. As an excuse I'm reconing that in the case of all out war these nations would form an internal truce to fight the outside enemy, like China did in WWII.

*"a side note" instead of "a side now".

I'd say it's a good variant (one of my favourites). The colonial build rule is also quite interesting but people doesn't really know it applies unless they red the rules. At least that was the case in the beginning

YW, Snake. My specialty is to criticize, so take my opinion with a pinch of salt.

You're right that Classic (I always called it "standard") is for some reason based on 1914 borders. Calhammer could have cared the historical detail a bit more, really.

I'm thinking the rules section might need a review. Also, a little box could be placed on the vdip map urging ppl to read the rules; I'm sure everyone pays attention to the map at least. This in order to tackle the colonial builds problem people have when not paying attention.

I usually call the ol' map standard too, but it says Classic on this site so who I am to argue I figured. Don't see any inaccuracies on the map though, it is a 1914 map and also follows the 1914 borders as it should. Some versions are better drawn that others though. Start year is only for counting, could as well have been year 1.

Well, I was thinking on inaccuracies relative to 1900, notably in the Balcans. However, now that you mention it, Tunis was French both in 1900 and in 1914. But never mind me.

Ok, so on to looking at some numbers. We've had 24 games so far. There has been 10 WTA, 12 PPSC, and two unrated, whatever the summary stats says. The core numbers are the solos, but they are too few to provide very much useful information. For anyone who thinks they would show the strongest powers now already, check out the stats for Pure, which is perfectly balanced but still have quite scewed results.

Still, as far as balance speculation goes we can't afford much in the name of statisitcal significance yet, so some moderate guesses based on the numbers that exist is what is possible. The average SC count might be slightly better than the solo numbers in terms of approxemate strengh. So England looks sufficiently strong for example; no reason to boost her unless future data shows otherwise. (Do note, however, that England soloed only once under WTA and was eliminated in 7 out of the 10 WTA games, so PPSC seems to boost her as would be expected from bandwagoning).

I also counted the number of times a power ended on 20+ centers, which should approximate solo chances somewhat. For WTA that is currently
Austria 1
Britain 1
France 1
Germany 0
Italy 1
Russia 1
Turkey 5
China 2
Japan 1
Argentina 3
Brazil 2
Colombia 1
Mexico 1
USA 1

And for PPSC + unrated
Austria 3
Britain 5
France 1
Germany 6
Italy
Russia 2
Turkey 1
China 3
Japan 2
Argentina
Brazil 1
Colombia 2
Mexico
USA 1

Another positive note is that more than half of the games have ended in solos. This is around the same level as standard/classic, so there are no indications that the stalemate lines are too much of a problem.

First section of the map to come up is North America.

Not that it is a big deal but a piece of northern morocco should be neutral since it belonged to Spain and Spain are a neutral centre.

Northern Spanish Morocco is a case of "Calhammer did it" and being quite small (although, was it smaller than Albania? Unclear), but thanks for pointing it out. There's bound to be some stuff of 1914 that excaped my attention.

While we're at it, inclusion of smallish entities were generally decided by the rule: anything smaller than Albania is out. Then we have two cases I remember where I excluded bigger entities because they would still be worse than Albania in fitting units. Guinea-Bissau looks smaller than Albania due to map projection and sits lonely in a French Sea; Togo & Benin were merged since they were too narrow otherwise.

(Haiti is smaller than Albania and was merged into Dominican Republic, but I named the province Haiti anyway for obvious reasons of space)

Oh I didn't know that. Still it's a good map, just wanted to point it out. Just a proposal here: could you not merge northern morocco with the Spain province?

You mean like in making the province non-continous?

Yes that for instance

Seems a bit radical, and this is a thoroughly conservative map (as in don't change unless necessary). I wonder what a non-continuous province could have for gameplay effects though; could be interesting.

An idea I thought of just now is to copy to approach I have to border when they have to be redrawn not to be messy (Afghanistan and Yemen). On the official map the actual borders are indicated with a dotted line. Omitted areas like Spanish Morocco or Montenegro could be indicated by a line in a similar fashion. It's not part of the game, but still acknowledges the 1914 situation. Of course, it can't translate to the vDip map.

Ok, North America. Here we have 2,5 powers. Mexico, USA and UK (Canada).

One suggestion in already. Scrap Vancouver. The reason to do so is not obvious to me, so I would like to hear the motivation. Did I miss something?


The performance for Mexico is one draw, 6 survivals and 17 eliminations. The performance score that gives is the worst of all powers and less than half of the second lowest score (Russia). Mexico's average SCs is 2.96. WTA stands for 2 of the survivals and the one draw (10 WTA games in total), with an average of 4.3 SCs while PPSC (+unrated) has an average on 2.15 SCs. As posted above Mexico has one game above 20 SCs, which is the draw game. In that game USA went CD early on and was quickly eaten.

The performance for USA is 1 solo, 3 draws, 7 survivals and 13 eliminations. The solo was a Gunboat PPSC game, won by Dr. Recommended. WTA stands for 2 draws and 3 survivals with an average of 6.3 while PPSC comes in at 6.92, with a total average at 6.38. The US has two games with more than 20 SCs.

The performance of Britain is higher than these two, all categories. I don't have Canada data, so we can wait with stats for Britain a while.



On this arena I've focused on trying to maintain choices, so that US and Mexico does not have to attack each other. The general jizz was to reduce the distance to other powers compared with the first version of the variant. Therefore Canada is close to Britain and units can quickly go between, making it possible both for a British re-taking of the USA as well as a US landing on the isles themselves. Cuba and Haiti are closely linked to USA while sitting on the Caribbean that is central in Colombia's powerhouse, made to cause war between these two. Japan and USA can bounce already in 1901 in more than one province, Manila is a sought after gain for Japan, and USA does have to fleet power to try a counter attack if not bothered with other stuff, causing a war of control of the entire Pacific. Mexico in turn can reach Colombian areas quickly on both coasts and also has only one sea zone to cross before being able to fight Argentina. Meanwhile, to reduce US-Mexican tension, Rio Grande sits in the way of any attempts to move in two armies at once to make a surprise strike at a home centre from either direction. Oh, and USA is not that far from France, and a foothold in Europe is great when trying to secure the 37 centres.

I'm feeling that I probably took the wrong approach while thinking of how to bring more "neighbours together". I will bring up my ideas for possible edits soon. Meanwhile, for anyone who played on this part of the map, feel free to give your opinion on:
1. Whether the nation(s) have a fair chance (i.e. balance).
2. Whether the area is fun to play
3. If it feel likes there are many options to pursue, and which ones these are.
4. Anything else.