vdiplomacy.net

If it's not on vDip it's got a 0% chance of being on here, as we don't develop our own variants.

If it is on vDip it has a <0.1% chance of being on here.

Chaos, Haven and South America are all on vDip.

Oli (the guy who runs vDip) doesn't want to put up Westeros in case of copyright issues.

I've never heard of Dragonlance...

Im aware of what is and is not on vdip. You know what else isnt on vdip?
Players i'd actually want to play those variants with.

Which is ironic, given that most people who actually want to play Variants are on vDip.

im not a troll

I don't think that's a fair comment, HR. The main reason people play variants at vDip is because they're there, not because the players who want to play variants are there. I would love to have more variants on webDip personally. I don't think "striving to be the best site for classic Diplomacy" and "striving to have good variants" are conflicting goals.

I love playing variants, and I would, but vDip is pretty dead compared to a few years ago and it's hard to get anything going.

As for Westeros... I had a variant about halfway done, it was looking pretty good, but I was told it couldn't be had at vDip so I stopped. No chance of it happening due to copyright concerns apparently, which I think is a bit unrealistic considering Diplomacy itself is already copyrighted, but whatever.

Sure, but most webDippers who want to play variants already have accounts on vDip too, as was my point.

I guess. But it's a moot point if vDip is dead, isn't it? Which it pretty much is, as sad as that may be.

webDip is never going to have a large number of variants. Five or Six is probably going to be the maximum for the foreseeable future.

Whether those variants remain the same, on the other hand, can be looked in to. If people wish to discuss replacing certain variants with others here, we will pay attention - though no promises are going to be made. Adding Colonial, if possible, is on the agenda as a possibility already, due to its status as the only 'official' variant.

Heres my suggestion:
Get rid of Ancient. There is rarely ever a quality gunboat or press game of Ancient. Every Ancient I have ever played there was 2,3 CD's and the game winner slopped their way to a solo.
Replace it with South America which is imo a thousand times more interesting of a variant.
Secondly when webdip added Modern and Fall of American Empire they essentially added two larger sized variants simultaneously. If you do that you cant really say "weve added plenty of variants" youve added two variants that are roughly about the same as far as game size. What is the big difference? you can build anywhere in Modern? okay so sweet, keep modern get rid of American Empire and replace it with Chaos. It would be far more interesting to play a gunboat of Chaos or a Fog of War than it would be to try to muddle through a gunboat of either Modern or American. Now I admit, gunboat isnt the only reason to add a variant but as it stands the only playable gunboats on this site are Classic and Ancient.

Chaos isn't happening. Modding such ridiculously large maps is just a total nightmare; you'd have rampant cheating. World is bad enough as it is.

I stand corrected I forgot how many players Chaos is. but this thread has inspired me.

I actually setup a game of chaos on vdip.
http://www.vdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=24885

What about Machiavelli. That was an official Diplomacy game release, no?

If it's not on vDip, it won't be added.

Modern is, imho, the best variant on webDip. PLEASE don't take it away.

I agree. I would not get rid of Modern. but Ancient? do any serious players still play Ancient?

I know this is a long shot but it would probably help both sites if the username and pw for access to each was the same or if you could link your profiles so that you could access webdip from vdip via a menu option next to the "help" option. and visa versa. how hard would that be? (not suggesting it is easy legitimately asking how hard it would be. )

Pretty much impossible, Byron, without losing all stats, etc. Different databases.

Given the relative sizes it'd essentially be a webDip take over of vDip. Not only would the massive issues regarding merging the DB's be an issue, but also the vDip specific code they have for their own systems and orientations would need smoothing out, and then you have the problem of users who are banned on webDip but not on vDip, or vice versa. A nightmare all round.

Anc Med 1415
Modern 497
FotAE 328
World 275

This is a quick mockup of the average games played per year of each variant, by the way.

Which basically seems to be based on the number of players needed to play each game; it's so much easier to find 5 than 17

Interesting. I know people are very attached to world games, as there always seems to be a few going on. Ive seen famous players like Split even in world games before. I used to play more world games but it seemed like they took forever for someone to win. I guess I would have a harder time getting rid of World than I would getting rid of Anc despite those numbers.
I wonder too how many people joined Anc games thinking it was a normal game on accident.

Sure. So if you multiply each of those by the number of players required to play said game:

Anc Med 7075
Modern 4970
World 4675
FotAE 3280

Anc Med is without a doubt the most popular by a pretty long margin.

ah, how difficult would it be to have it so that a click of a "Variants" option in the place suggested before brings you directly to vDip? Maybe if we could drum up site participation on vDip then not only could our community benefit because the whole PPSC vs SoS debate but also our community could get a wider range of variants and experiences without the devs here having to transfer anything over. Maybe some webDip sponsored vDip tournaments? or maybe a variant SOW or making a variant that is catered for the use of SOW to move it to Vdip. basically seeing if we can somehow boost their community involvement to help our own community.

sigh. I yield to the truth. I bet you South America would double those numbers in a year though.

I will say that Ancient Med benefits from its small size. People will in desperation to play a live game create a Anc Med because 5 players are easier to find than 7. Honestly HR if it isnt too much im curious what the ration live to not live is for Anc Med compared to the others. if its diificult dont worry but now that im thnking of it im curious.

Why do we have the variants we do? I've heard that variants like Milan or Abberation actually improve the classic map.

Which South America? There's 4 player, 5 player, and 8 player version. I remember one of the smaller two has a ridiculously OP Colombia, and the large one has a very strong Argentina, but that's about all.

5 player and 8 player SA are both pretty fun.

Live:Non-Live isn't something I can pull so easily. Sorry, CB.

I quite like the idea of putting a link to vDip on our variants page. Might look into that. The rest would require co-ordination with vDip, and a lot of community effort from both sides.


@PF
Modern and American Empire were chosen by the community about two and a half years ago. AncMed and World were added just after I joined in 2010 so I don't remember or know why for those.

HR already mentioned a few of my concerns with adding variants - mostly issues related to moderation difficulty on larger boards. We have been and always will be a Classic oriented site. Any variants we include necessarily need to live up to the standards and expectations of the original board in terms of balance and playability. I do like variants that either reduce or expand the number of players who can play while still keeping the game intact. Ancient Med does this well - only requires five players but it is well balanced and can be played multiple times without getting boring. Modern fits this description as well, I think, plus having the benefit of adding more players to the equation.

World does not do either of these and it only really exists to cram 17 players onto a board. There are far better large map variants on vDip. North America is similarly problematic - not balanced and only really exists for change of scenery from the Classic map. I'm not a fan of either.

Colonial is being discussed but no promises - its not perfectly balanced (France is awful and Japan too powerful) but does come with the Avalon Hill stamp of approval. I would also be in favor of replacing World, but I wouldn't want to add a large map variant just for the sake of having more players - like I said, Modern does this already.