2 new variants are released and installed

[Flame]

Two new variants are installed and ready to testing and playing (please inform of any bug is detected):
Speed Europa - https://webdiplomacy.ru/variants.php?variantID=253
Cold War Redux - https://webdiplomacy.ru/variants.php?variantID=128

[Jamiet99uk]

Are these only available on your Russian site?

As a general point of theory, can you articulate why increasing the number of non-SCs territories increases the "speed" of play?

[Flame]

Are these only available on your Russian site?

As a general point of theory, can you articulate why increasing the number of non-SCs territories increases the "speed" of play?

1. Yes. Only on ru-server by now (you can download the source-code of the variants any time from the variant page).
2. Please, address this question to the authors of the variants.

[JECE]

As a general point of theory, can you articulate why increasing the number of non-SCs territories increases the "speed" of play?

I tracked down the variant author's reasoning:

Some of the more exciting theoretical results for fall 1901 feature an Italian army in Spain (no more French monopoly on the Iberian goldmine), a French army in Liverpool, a Russian army in Kiel, a German army in Switzerland (a 35th Supply Center), an Austrian army in Smyrna, a Turkish army in Venice, and an English army in Tunis (the latter two require multinational convoys or a winter 1900 start). Italy might hold the most intriguing set of new possibilities.

Whereas most variants of Diplomacy’s Standard map tend to add provinces that increase the time it takes to traverse the board (a valid choice), Speed Europa operates on the opposite premise by overall removing obstacles to cross-board player interaction. Speed Europa substantially unravels the comfortable openings/stalemate lines/alliances/strategies so a fresh, bottom-up appraisal is necessary.

https://web.archive.org/web/20081120161 ... europa.htm

[kestasjk]

Ah nice I thought WebDiplomacy.ru had closed, good to see :)