Variant?

[David Yun]

Steve W., who will be adjudicating the next game, suggested a couple of variants to me:

"Gunboat" - no open communication between players is permitted.

I personally think this is a bad idea for us. Beyond the issue of the honor system required (no way to enforce this), this would only serve to expand the divide between the stronger and weaker players as this variant demands even greater subtlety and strategic thought.

"Open Press" - all communication is shared with all players.

Enforcement would be problematic. Some communication naturally occurs over IM or even in person, just over the course of discussing the progress of the game. Ironically, we'd all have to muzzle ourselves, and ONLY discuss the game over bulk emails. I'm also personally against this because I find intelligence work to be the enjoyable core of the game for me. Steve suggested (correctly, in my estimation) that this would curb the random stabbiness of the more paranoid players. However, I strongly feel that that's part of the game.


Nevertheless, if the bulk of the players wish to enact one of these variants, we shall do so. Use this thread to discuss this possibility.

[Kodi]

The biggest problem with both of these is the honor system... Not that I'm not honorable, but when the chips are down, sometimes its hard to resist pressing the win button.

You might be able to pull one of those off if you could do some kind of anonymous varient... people who play don't know who is playing which country. I don't know how you would enforce that or make that feasable, but as long as we're toying with ideas...

A quick google search for some interesting variants turned up hundreds of ideas, but heres one that caught my eye:

Ancient History in 2 years variant: Each "power" picks (or is randomly assigned, whichever) a home supply center and one unit to occupy it, then all centers they can capture in two years become "home" centers, and play proceeds normally from there.

I think if we were doing a varient it might spice up the game so I'm for the idea in general. But if theres not a feasable way of pulling it off, then no worries.

[Zeke]

Ahem, /points to self...Hapsburg SWINE! HELLO!?
I'm in for the standard rules as we've used them previously and I personally don't want to diverge attention from the core game itself, which is diplomacy AND stabbery.