
The draft above is a version of the map that uses the latest version of the map as played in PbF as a basis, tweaking only aesthetic matters like border appearance and region naming. It does not yet include the rivers that are a significant aspect of the North American map configuration.
Basic Information:
- Variant Name: War in the Americas
- Player Count: 10
- Setting & time period: North, Central, & South America, circa 1840.
- Variant's rules changes:
- Very few rules differ from classic Diplomacy.
- Most of the "special" rules are standard matters of geography, adjacency, or the SCs required for victory.
- See notes below regarding the victory condition, which may be recommended as less than the majority (31 of 61).
- Rules:
- The latest rules, as played on PbF, can be found here.
- The original rules of the variant were a casualty of the untimely termination of the Variant Bank.
- I was able to harvest a copy from the Wayback Machine, and I will post them in a reply downthread.
- Has this variant been played via the PlayDiplomacy forums or Discord?
- Yes. It has been played a total of 8 times on the PlayDiplomacy forums.
- Is this variant already supported on another Dip site? If so, which one?
- Currently, it appears the answer is no, though I've been told that it was previously supported on DPJudge.
- Where have you played or GM'd this variant before?
- I was a player in one of the latest PbF games of WitA (WitA 8).
- What about this variant would distinguish it from those the site currently supports?
- It supports ten players, which is higher than any variant we currently support.
- It would occur in a setting for which we have no variants.
- If there are multiple disparate versions of the variant, why do you like the particular ruleset for this version?
- I would use the most recent PbF standard rules for WitA with the following caveats:
- Borders
- As stated above, early copies of the rules for this variant were difficult to retrieve.
- What I was able to find was ambiguous with regard to several unclear borders on the map.
- Should we elect to add this variant to the site, I would actually like to discuss a few minor border/adjacency changes that would improve the visual clarity of the map, particularly with regard to the Great Lakes region.
- Victory Condition
- The PbF community has also tried out a few iterations of build rules and victory conditions.
- At this time, it seems that maintaining classic build rules (build in home centers) as the default would be preferred.
- I expect that the exact number of centers required to solo will be a matter of some debate, but it appears that acquiring a majority of 31 may be far too high a threshold.
- Should the victory condition be set lower than the majority, WitA would follow the standard set by 1900 in regard to handling scenarios in which multiple players achieve the victory condition simultaneously.
- NanookTheEskimo, who has played and GM'd this variant multiple times, will probably recommend a number between 21 and 31.