@ cypeg :

I did not pick Holland : those two games had a random country assignment.

I guess it could be a problem if you have ordered two builds in advance, but when the time come you have only one spare build...
That might be solved by just putting in build orders as normal but the units are "spawned" in the next year, although i ront know if thats possible.

Great idea though!

I'm curious why you think that this rule is necessary to balance the map at all. This map has been play tested hundred if not thousands of times before it made it's way to VDiplomacy. And while people have long screamed that Britain France and Holland are too strong, they are only so if the right scenario's play out. The reason the game plays in their favor so often as you have seen it is because of the generally poor level of player here. Most players are dot-grabbing fools, who open EVERY game with the same approach: "I want to grab as many of the neutral centers as I can before deciding what to do." This is a stupid strategy to play on the standard map, but it will get you eliminated for certain on the Imperial map. Imperial is a balanced map, but you have to work at the game to make it so.

When this game is properly played it's the Imperial powers who are at the disadvantage, particularly Britain. But Holland has two supply centers at risk right from the beginning, and has to work like hell to keep them. France is likewise heavily outnumbered in most of it's colonial possessions.

Yes, the European powers are strong if played properly, but so is Mexico and Brazil, and Japan. I think it does a bit of disservice to Retillion to suggest that he only played well because he played Holland twice.

The real improvements that this map needs are:

1) to bring on Spain as a 14th power with colonial outposts in Mindanao and Cuba.
2) add a few seas spaces and island chains to break up the monotony of the oceans, allowing for more fluid play.
3) to eliminate or modify the impassible zones for the deserts, jungles, and mountains (by modify I wrote and playtested a rule for this where units entering these spaces must hold for one turn, then may move again).
4) allow for a special order to construct canals (2 to 4 turns of uninterrupted action) at Panama, Suez, Kiel, and Baku

Ruffhaus, you're just saying that because you are so good at the map.

alright, I want to know how in the hell mexico is so great, I am getting my ass kicked in a game as mexico and in every game I have been in mexico gets her ass kicked. Ruffhaus if you can advise on how mexcio can be a power, let me know please because I HATE THAT DAMN COUNTRY IN THIS MAP.
Thank you.

Ninja: I've played an hand-GM'd this map 100s of times. It' not "just saying it" for any reason. I've seen it. I've got more experience with the map than the guy who created it over 12 years ago. I've played every nation on it, and had success with every one. Some more than others, but nevertheless success all the same.

Defiant: Mexico is one of the best power on that map. Get your head out of the box and open your eyes. It's not just about counting supply centers, people. That's why so many of you struggle to learn this game. You only look at what you can grab, right now. Mexico is a great position in spite of it starting with only three centers. It's best attribute is that it has build centers on both coasts, giving it a variety of expansion and alliance options. It's not just that though. While starting with only three centers they are all three compact and easily supported/defended from the others. It's fairly easy to expand to six in the first year depending on how well you negotiate, which doesn't sound like a lot on map where England can boast 18-20 centers by the same time. But Mexico has six compact centers, and that's a lot more valuable, safe, and easy to expand from. Then you get into the subtleties of which I am not going to be specific, but Mexico has more than most. Finally it's a fairly easy position to play. Your diplomacy is only as complex as you want it to be. It's not like playing England or France where you have to have "diplomatic" relations with at least eight or nine of the 13 players every turn. Defiant, you hate Mexico because you it looks hard. It's really not, but you have to think outside the box. It's not as simple as guzzling a PBR and crushing the can on your head.

Honestly, If I picked one country on that map that needs a leg up, It would be the Confederacy. Its much too easy for the US to take him out in the first few years.

Mexico isn't so bad. I've seen it become a superpower at least thrice now (once in which Ruffhaus was playing). And considering I have only seen Britain a superpower twice (once in which i was playing)...well in my (limited) experience the statistical odds favor Mexico.

I think a major issue is that, like Ruffhaus said, Mexico is compact, while Britain is spread out. Another thing is that plenty of players are immediately screaming solo threat after the first or second year against Britain and gang up on him (unless the player's good enough to keep enough allies to fight back.

What I really want to see is a successful China. That country is becoming a nightmare for me to survive with.

@ Halt : gameID=12678

@ everybody : every country could have nice results in this Imperial variant. It is just a question of *Diplomacy* !

@Ruffhaus
Most of what you just said was completely uncalled for. The simple fact that you have prior knowledge of this variant and this superior strategical skills is not an excuse to assert claimed superiority over the rest of us on the site. I thought we tried to keep a decent ethical code here, and your condescension of anyone who merely bashes you is appalling. I disagree with your claim that so many fail to learn the game because they look at a picture and see nothing but the picture. Ask anyone who has never looked at the map before, and it would seem to them as though Britain, France, and Holland have distinct advantages in being able to grow so quickly in so many places. To use your example of being compact, one playing as a colonial power could act as different countries in each area, ie French mainland centers v. French Indochina. If one were to delegate their power as such, that would basically replicate your situation with Mexico, and the colonial powers can do it all over the board. That is the unfair advantage that people see when they play the game, so naturally that influences all nearby countries to act accordingly. Just because you can come up with one decent theory on how to play this variant does not mean that you have to call out anyone who struggles with this game as not interpereting things complexly.

As for the rule change, I think that would be interesting. If that could be implemented, that would add a whole knew path for the game to travel.

Ninja, your ignorance is not my problem, nor does it refute my position. All of what I said above is correct, and I have the perspective to say it with credibility. I play-tested the precursor to this map and this variant as well with the map designer. I'm not claiming that it's perfection personified, but it is a balanced map.

Most of the players here are extremely naïve. Most of them never get better because the site implements welfare rules that keep the lemmings ignorant of the game, so that they never improve. That's an observation, and an opinion. There's nothing uncalled for about that, and certainly nothing unethical. Ethics deal with integrity and honesty, which makes what I said not only accurate, but highly ethical. You may not like my delivery, but if you're going to criticize it, get you argument straight. An example of behaving unethically when you refuse to ally with a player solely because he attacked you in another game. Stupidity is actually telling that player's teammate that you are being unethical. Sound familiar? It will come to you if you think about it.

My defense of the variant is accurate. The reason some players here think it's imbalance is because they can only see and play the game one way, as dot-grabbers. Imperial2 will chew up dot grabbers. It requires developing a strategy beyond racing to the neutral centers and waiting to see who NMRs and who is weak. That's the basic dot-grabber Diplomacy approach. And that is why most games are imbalanced, it's not just this map. There's nothing uncalled for there either. If you're happy being a dot grabber and getting your ass handed to you every game, then by all means continue.

Ask anyone? Why would I ask someone's opinion who has never played the map before? They can have a knee jerk reaction to the map, but it would likely be an inaccurate one.

The rule change is a horrible one, an the whole new path to travel would be right into the toilet. And if you or had played the game enough times to study it, you'd understand why. It effectively cripples the affected nations and makes them sitting ducks. If you had the capacity to understand how weak Britain, France, and Holland were to start the game, you would understand that. But when all you can do is count dots, it doesn't register.

Yes France or Britain or Holland could operate as you suggest. But once again if you'd actually played the game enough times to experience it, you'd understand how difficult what you are describing is. There's the matter of the other twelve players on the board, and how you interact with them. And there's the fact that one player may not appreciate the actions you are taking in Indochina, and use it against you on another front unexpectedly. Once again you have to work at the game to play it properly regardless of what nation you draw.

Hi people.
I'm the man behind the colonial rule and the variant cypeg mentioned before you all went over to Imperial. I'm not going to have an opinion on if this rule can help Imperial or not, but I do know it is useful for the balance in my variant. The name of it is Gobble-Earth and it is based on the idea of a world beyond the Europe of the standard game.

First of, here is a map of my variant in its current form:
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9459/positions.gif
Bright colours are home centers and faded colours are starting centers which are not home. This map has been tested a bit in GMed games and is quite adequately balanced, but I hope to imporve the balance further when I have more games to analyse.

As for the colonial build rule, the specific rules is that you save a build year n in order to raise a unit in any center year n+1. So you don't have to say one year in advance which center you want to build in (we tried that first, didn't work out), you only have to be one unit short for a year.

The formulation of the rule:
3. Colonial builds can be ordered by any power in any owned empty supply center that is not a home center of an excisting power. For a colonial build to succeed the building power must have building capacity for that build, as well as having waived (refrained from an avaible build) one building capacity the previous winter for each colonial build. A colonial build is ordered with the syntax of a usual build.

If this rule can be implemented I will make my variant available for play here and we'll run some games. :)

Greetings Snake. Good to have you back.
Btw in case anyone is wondering about the map-units format is that of Realpolitik, a useful dippy gadget-program!

Hi people.
I'm the man behind the colonial rule and the variant cypeg mentioned before you all went over to Imperial. I'm not going to have an opinion on if this rule can help Imperial or not, but I do know it is useful for the balance in my variant. The name of it is Gobble-Earth and it is based on the idea of a world beyond the Europe of the standard game.

First of, here is a map of my variant in its current form:
http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9459/positions.gif
Bright colours are home centers and faded colours are starting centers which are not home. This map has been tested a bit in GMed games and is quite adequately balanced, but I hope to imporve the balance further when I have more games to analyse.

As for the colonial build rule, the specific rules is that you save a build year n in order to raise a unit in any center year n+1. So you don't have to say one year in advance which center you want to build in (we tried that first, didn't work out), you only have to be one unit short for a year.

The formulation of the rule:
3. Colonial builds can be ordered by any power in any owned empty supply center that is not a home center of an excisting power. For a colonial build to succeed the building power must have building capacity for that build, as well as having waived (refrained from an avaible build) one building capacity the previous winter for each colonial build. A colonial build is ordered with the syntax of a usual build.

If this rule can be implemented I will make my variant available for play here and we'll run some games. :)

(Stupid refresh)

@ RUFFHAUS_8:
My ‘ignorance’ was never a part of the discussion. I merely pointed out the same thing that you mentioned in your first post; that you have extreme amounts of experience with this variant. As has been stated before on the forums, balance is a matter of perspective. I am not claiming that you are wrong, just stating that I don’t think most people play it as they should.

What is this ‘welfare system’ you refer to? The fact that I don’t play this game 24/7 and sometimes lose my bets should not be a reason to completely lose all of my points. Without this so-called ‘welfare system’, people wouldn’t be able to learn the game at all. Were you not at one point reliant on having points given back to you after you lost them? As for ethics, I believe I told your ally that I had bad premonitions of an alliance with you. By your definition of “ethics”, that is perfectly “ethical”, and, just in case you didn’t notice, it was correct- you ended up stabbing. But that is irrelevant to the situation.

The point of the board game Diplomacy is to get as many “dots” as you can before the others can. That’s why most people can’t see past the lots of blues and pink and the little bit of orange. And the main thing here is not one specific person’s perspective. If the entire board –or even a majority of it- sees the map as unbalanced in some favor, then that will influence their style of play.

As for asking anyone, the knee-jerk reaction is only to get a sense of what newcomers to the map will see. And since apparently, a majority of the players according to you are not experienced, that is an accurate portrayal of people’s influence behaviors.

Without having playtested the rule change, how can you be sure it is terrible? If it does take a while to learn the game, then surely it would take a while to learn and test a new facet? It is a new idea, not an already established failure.

And If it is difficult for colonial powers to play as such, then why isn’t it so hard for Mexico to play as you suggested? Same thing, basically. There are no players (other than colonials themselves) that would border both pseudo-countries.

And as for opinions, I am defending mine, not attacking yours.

@RUFFHAUS- Why is it everytime I see your name on the forums, you are throwing some insult at someone, or the entire gaming community, or the site itself. If you are so big and powerful and amazing, go start your own site and only invite players you know are "superior beings" like you see yourself as. Sure you are one of the top players here. but that gives you NO right to say some of the stuff you say. you came to this site, so show it, and it's other players, a little respect huh?

First of all Ruffhaus knows this map inside and out so you better listen no matter your personal feelings.

@Ruffhaus,
I did get to six centers and if wouldn't have made one mistake I could have had seven, then France decided with fleets coming out of his ass, and with help from Holland, are squashing me like a bug, now, USA is jumping on the bandwagon to grab what they can. Every game I have seen in this mexico sucks! I would like to see a game with, no unfair advantages given to mexcio like nmr's and pre game alliances(that don't go on) and do well. Or give 1 more army to mexico, but I think starting with 3(even well defended) is too much of a draw.

And it's Bud Select that I have crushed on my big polish forehead during this game.

Here are the stats, and Ruffhaus has a point, Mexico is about in the middle, not much I can say except maybe better diplomacy on my part. But it also shows that Britain, France and Holland do a bit better.
Now again i am sure there are factors that influence some of the countries here like NMR's and some metagaming but it does give you an idea.

The last numbers is the nation's rating for the game.

Austria 0 6 3 9 11 1.83
Brazil 0 6 2 10 7.17 1.78
Britain 2 4 3 9 14.17 2.94
China 0 5 1 12 5.72 1.44
CSA 0 5 4 9 11.33 1.61
France 2 6 4 6 22.67 3.56
Holland 3 7 4 4 28.94 4.67
Japan 0 8 6 4 12.06 2.56
Mexico 0 8 2 8 10.22 2.33
Prussia 0 7 3 8 9.11 2.11
Russia 0 6 5 7 15 1.94
Turkey 0 4 6 8 12.44 1.44
USA 0 6 6 6 11.72 2

The new map we are talking about. So Imperial discussion ends now.

http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/9459/positions.gif

Wow -- that map looks awesome!! I like how the European sphere is reminiscent of the original Diplomacy map.

It looks like it was developed for Realpolitik lol
Seriously though, this map looks much improved. I particularly like the shift of the African impassable zone and the enlargement of sea territories.

That map looks very nice and I would be most interested to play it !

Thank you very much !

It is also playable for RP :)
Lets see if the colonial rule can be implemented.

Cool! Does the RP version have this rule?

Just a knee-jerk reaction from first viewing of the map:

-The sea zones look far too big. Big sea zones leads to easy naval stalemates because the naval forces can easily be supported from the shoreline.

-Is the intent of this map to have immediate conflict? Just using the US as an example here, but of their starting SCs, every single one can be threatened by the enemy by the second turn. Alaska: threatened by GB and Japan. Southwest US: threatened by Mexico. NE US: threatened by GB. SE US: threatened by Mexico. Hawaii: threatened by Japan and Germany? (is that Germany in New Guinea?). Philippines: threatened by Japan, China, and France.

In addition, the US only has 4 neutral SCs it can reach in the first year (Cuba, Haiti/Dominican Republic, Borneo and W. New Guinea), all of which can easily be blocked by France, Britain, China (Borneo), Britain/Germany (W. New Guinea), Mexico (Cuba, and can threaten SE US at the same time!), and Colombia (is that who the gold power is?) who can block Haiti/Dominican Republic.

I'd be interested in seeing how it plays out since it appears other powers have a similar problem (China comes to mind).

-The emphasis on Europe is understandable (as this is basically the Classic map expanded), however when you have 36 SCs in Europe/N. Africa and only 29 in all of N. and S. America, something seems off.

In fact, the Middle East and Asia (east of the Russia home SCs) have only 27 SCs (including Australia, Hawaii, and the Indonesian area), which combined with N. and S. America makes 56. Europe and Africa have 51 by my count. Which means that the vast majority of the world has almost the exact same value as Europe and Africa. Not only that, but areas of E. Asia and N. America are built out already, meaning the powers there have to fight enemies for their SCs instead of grabbing neutrals like in Europe.

Perhaps I'd be proven wrong in playtesting, but it seems something funky is up.

Sorry to disappoint, drano, but apparently this site is ruled by Ruffhaus. Thus, your knee-jerk reaction is inaccurate.
In all seriousness, I agree with most of your points. I think that with the sea territories, the attempt is to make global travel quicker.

Also, I just noticed this, but I dislike the fact that Australia is only one territory. Maybe divide into 6 territories, 3/4 centers? Just a thought.

Ninja -

Ruffhaus was referring to the Imperial II map, which is completely different in terms of SC distribution (and number) and size of territories. So his points are valid, and so are mine, at least until I get more feedback on the playtests.

As for global travel being quicker, that's not necessarily a good thing. Starting SCs being only 1 space apart via water would cause a lot of headaches IMO. Much like the English Channel in classic, except now we have lots of them. I mean, the US can threaten Liverpool technically after 1 turn! Of course, Britain would block him with his canadian fleet, but that's only because with no other SCs up there, there's nothing for that fleet to do BUT move to the north atlantic.

Thanks for redirecting the focus cypeg. :)

I like talking about the map, so I'll give you my thoughts on the issues you bring up. There's not necessarily a right and wrong way to design it, nor do I think I always am right on how to balance it, but I have opinions and I'll bore you with them. ;)

You're already onto the issue with sea zone size and the pros and cons of big sea zones. Bigger sea zones makes for easier defending of unified continents while smaller isolate the continents from each other. I went for big sea zones because I wanted cross-continental interaction, which I believe adds to game play and increases options for players. It might cause a few headaches, but hey, it's not a feel-good game. :) The main trouble is stalemate as I see it.

I was looking a bit to the standard map on the sea zone issue, and I would like to say that the North Sea is one solution to the problem of sea stalemate. The North Sea is a big province, but it is surrounded by a bunch of small provinces (if you check the original plans for the standard Diplomacy map, it looked a bit different I believe). This means that you can bring in a lot of support for a unit in the North Sea, but the enemy can also bring in a lot of units to attack it. Thus the defense falls against a stronger enemy. The worst thing you can have is big provinces border each other, as that means you might defend with 8 from one side and only attack with 2-3 from the other. This line of thinking is rather new though and might not reflect everywhere on the map today (but NAO is a result of it). It might not be possible to use everywhere either, and it does not remove all the stalemate lines, but maybe it removes much of the problem they create.With this approach I believe stalemate lines will rarely be around in the early and mid-game. They appear when someone essentially owns a continent. The recommended solo number is 37 (out of 107; and you need to be at least 2 ahead of the runner up), so when all neighboring continents are defended we are talking about the last handful before a victory, which is quite normal. Playing to 50%+1 might be another story altogether, but world maps take quite long as it is so people are usually happy by 37.


USA tends to fight UK over Vancouver first, otherwise I have not noticed any necessary immediate conflicts of USA (Manila mostly falls to Japan, but the idea is not that they should try to hold it very often). The USA-Mexican relations though seem to be necessarily hostile in all games, and they fight happily after two years or so, always. I'm hoping to make the relation more dynamic and less predictable. And yeah, Germany has New Guinea. A real game maker, that fleet :p

Europe do stand for a big chunk of the map, but it is after all a 1914 map. Europe hosts 1/3 of the centers perhaps, but 1/2 of the powers so competition is fierce (remember the colonial build rule means you still are quite screwed if you lose your home centers). True that they have more neutrals than Asia, which is partly due to how the world looked like 1914, but in return there are plenty colonial outposts to grab that the Europeans have a hard time to defend. Japan is however a bit slow, so I'm looking at how to promote Japan without making it impossible to take for a successfull attacker.

Australia sure looks big, being only one province. What I would worry about splitting it up is that since it is all British nothing would happen there, so it'd basically just be a bunch of guys catching crocs and drinking beer.

A big and tricky question is how you promote Austiran opportunities. I've done alot to direct other powers attention elsewhere, but I'm not sure if I'm closing up on my one in every twenty solo objective which I have as lower limit for how often any nation should win. Europe can't be changed so it's really not easy.

Thanks for redirecting the focus cypeg. :)

I like talking about the map, so I'll give you my thoughts on the issues you bring up. There's not necessarily a right and wrong way to design it, nor do I think I always am right on how to balance it, but I have opinions and I'll bore you with them. ;)

You're already onto the issue with sea zone size and the pros and cons of big sea zones. Bigger sea zones makes for easier defending of unified continents while smaller isolate the continents from each other. I went for big sea zones because I wanted cross-continental interaction, which I believe adds to game play and increases options for players. It might cause a few headaches, but hey, it's not a feel-good game. :) The main trouble is stalemate as I see it.

I was looking a bit to the standard map on the sea zone issue, and I would like to say that the North Sea is one solution to the problem of sea stalemate. The North Sea is a big province, but it is surrounded by a bunch of small provinces (if you check the original plans for the standard Diplomacy map, it looked a bit different I believe). This means that you can bring in a lot of support for a unit in the North Sea, but the enemy can also bring in a lot of units to attack it. Thus the defense falls against a stronger enemy. The worst thing you can have is big provinces border each other, as that means you might defend with 8 from one side and only attack with 2-3 from the other. This line of thinking is rather new though and might not reflect everywhere on the map today (but NAO is a result of it). It might not be possible to use everywhere either, and it does not remove all the stalemate lines, but maybe it removes much of the problem they create.With this approach I believe stalemate lines will rarely be around in the early and mid-game. They appear when someone essentially owns a continent. The recommended solo number is 37 (out of 107; and you need to be at least 2 ahead of the runner up), so when all neighboring continents are defended we are talking about the last handful before a victory, which is quite normal. Playing to 50%+1 might be another story altogether, but world maps take quite long as it is so people are usually happy by 37.


USA tends to fight UK over Vancouver first, otherwise I have not noticed any necessary immediate conflicts of USA (Manila mostly falls to Japan, but the idea is not that they should try to hold it very often). The USA-Mexican relations though seem to be necessarily hostile in all games, and they fight happily after two years or so, always. I'm hoping to make the relation more dynamic and less predictable. And yeah, Germany has New Guinea. A real game maker, that fleet :p

Europe do stand for a big chunk of the map, but it is after all a 1914 map. Europe hosts 1/3 of the centers perhaps, but 1/2 of the powers so competition is fierce (remember the colonial build rule means you still are quite screwed if you lose your home centers). True that they have more neutrals than Asia, which is partly due to how the world looked like 1914, but in return there are plenty colonial outposts to grab that the Europeans have a hard time to defend. Japan is however a bit slow, so I'm looking at how to promote Japan without making it impossible to take for a successfull attacker.

Australia sure looks big, being only one province. What I would worry about splitting it up is that since it is all British nothing would happen there, so it'd basically just be a bunch of guys catching crocs and drinking beer.

A big and tricky question is how you promote Austiran opportunities. I've done alot to direct other powers attention elsewhere, but I'm not sure if I'm closing up on my one in every twenty solo objective which I have as lower limit for how often any nation should win. Europe can't be changed so it's really not easy.

Bonus: Another map layout, a bit more 1914 perhaps.
http://www.malmobiketours.se/Bilder/GobbleEarth.jpg

Now THAT map looks like a board game!