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Now, that stuff is just a tad complicated for me...but I was wondering if I could assist in designing the territories and boundary locations. Granted I could be allowed on a team organized to make such a map...if such a team was organized. Anyways, I'd seriously like to play on a LOTR map with people other than my geek friends...is it just me and Diplomat here?

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I'm not really into LOTR (I even recently forgotten Elrond's name) but I find the idea of collaborative variant creation intriguing and since you guys seem indecisive and stucked, I'm here offering my help with some food for thought.

Was sea combat important enough to have fleets in instead of another land unit? The maps posted here offer limited fleet interaction so I guess 4 variants come in play here:
1) Normal diplomacy rules, meaning few countries could even build fleets which could possibly lead to situations where clusters of SCs could be defended from sea indefinitely thanks to elimination of other naval oriented powers. The problem of limited operating space for fleets remain.
2) Build anywhere, meaning all powers could engage in naval once they reach a coastal SC but the problem of marginality of fleets remain.
3) Similar to DutchRevolt variant, make rivers important factors. Rivers are borders between provinces and those provinces are passable for fleets. Can be combined with Build anywhere.
4) Treat sea provinces as any other so that armies can travel on them and limit sea to one space from coast to simulate simple coastal transportation. Frees up space for another unit type.
5) Scrap sea altogether as in Germany1648. Frees up space for another unit type.

Regarding diplomacy, will it be fixed alliances (boring shit and not Diplomacy) or fluid?

Building on that, what amount of powers are we aiming at? The more powers, the more complex topographical adjustment will be needed on the map to make it fun and balanced if the alliances will be fluid - corner spaces will be huge to make corner powers more interesting to play and central powers less prone to be gangbanged upon by the same powers every time. Every power should have at least 2 direct and one less direct threat to allow diplomacy to begin. Expect fanboys shouting about you raping the realism of the map.

Fog of War? This could only affect countries without access to a palantír or anyone not named Sauron.

how about expanding on middle earth to include the lands the elves where sailing to... that way you'd get the fleets involved. Maybe start with 2 human, 2 elves, dwarf, orcs,.. who else? I would assume hobbiton would be a neutral SC, but perhaps with a unit on it to start.

sounds fine

I guess you could include all of Arda (the bonus being that Tolkien wasn't exactly specific on geography apart form western Middle-Earth so one could adjust it for gameplay) but western Middle-Earth is what people know and love. Mortals reaching Undying Lands won't be applauded by many fanboys either.

Why? Frodo and Bilbo got to go to the Grey Havens and they were mortals.

That's like saying people can count to infinity because Chuck Norris did it twice.

No, chuck Norris isn't a mortal person. Chuck Norris has been to the Grey Havens and come back. He has a summer house there.

Game of Thrones has 7 Kingdoms in Westros. Just saying.

Point taken, Draugnar. Although I think Tom Bombadil and Chuck Norris might be the same... entity. Still, one does not simply into Aman. Valar would simply say fuck you and destroy Straight Road. Your ass would hang in the space indefinitely after that.

My experience with Game of Thrones is only second-hand but I think the political landscpae has too much granular nature for Diplomacy purposes. That's why a game engine as that of Crusade Kings is perfect for it, unlike Diplomacy.

This idea is Fabulous, thing like this didn't even cross my mind,
I would love to play map of the Middle-earth, and I would have couple Ideas on it.
Just want to mention in the start, that I'm not a Geek or something :P

1. (SIZE)
I know that it is hard to cut the land in sections, but it should be big, like the World Map we have now, either, containing alot of players.
I can pretty easily figure out 10 or so, (for a game where starting could be equally sized).

2. (Extra Areas)
Just counting the most known Middle earth, could make it harder to think out, and would not have so many verieties. So here I would have couple
- Add the lands of Haradwaith (south from Mordor), I believe it was the place where came the People with Mumakils, it is vast area, so It could be like the Russia in the classic game.
- Add the Island of Númenor. The isle where the early, mostly known as, Dunedains lived. Would be compared to England in the Classic.

This would add the Fleets in the game more vastly.
As the Haradwaith and Númenor would have them, Of course some other places would have them, like Grey Havens.

And question,
What would happen to the mountains?
Would they be like nothing, or like unpenetrable like Switzerland?


I will think about this more closely tomorrow.
I hope this Idea would pass.

Númenor was sunk in the Second Age so I guess the most important issue to resolve in order to have some starting point is: when and where is this Lord of the RIngs variant going to be set?

*Tolkien variant, LOTR variant would be pretty self-evident in this aspect :)

@KalelChase and the Game of Thrones board game feels pretty similar to Dip. I bet a simple port of that map would be tweakable.

Alright, I have a model that is designed for eleven, but could easily be altered to hold less (or more). Mine is build anywhere and is shown pictured in a link above, although you cannot see it very well. I believe that we should make fleets heavily involved for certain people. I incorporated rivers into mine and I believe that will allow everyone to build fleets to some degree, which may eliminate the need for build anywhere. But I've suddenly lost interest in making such a game...

And of course the easiest way is to adapt one of the existing Middle-Earth variant for webdip use. Trace the map like this http://www.variantbank.org/results/rules/m/mearth8.gif and hope the author doesn't mind.

Haha, yeah, KA, once you realized it's sort of hard.

@ulytau: I've seen that one already and I think we can do a lot more with a LOTR map.

"Alright, I have a model that is designed for eleven, but could easily be altered to hold less (or more). "

This fact shows you don't really understand the art of making DIplomacy variants. "Easily" and "altered" do not go together well.

And I also find that map I linked unsatisfactory. I said it would be the easiest way, not the best.

I have it set so that you can remove an SC or two and eliminate the need for certain countries. It works when I play it with six or seven.

Adding Numenor or Aman would not work. Not only is it not accurate to the books, but they are both too far away, and too powerful compared to Middle Earth.

I was considering another option for after the 3rd Age or even 4th Age map as Draugnar suggested (and I like, but not much) was created, but we could create a map based on Beleriand in the 1st Age.

This is a land that extended the continent in Middle-Earth, and was later completely flooded at the end of the 1st Age. Creating this map would create a much more land centered map. Water is of even less importance (so it would be easier to just cut the water out of the map). There are also a lot more options as countries change radically over the course of a few hundred years, and fighting among the good side was reasonably common, and so more attractive to fanboys like myself. That and I've played a map for this on Warcraft 3 with options for free-for-all. Once you play, you get past all that crap about elves versus elves.

It might be difficult to create though since maps of it are limited. To anyone interested in creating this map or just interested in the maps of Tolkien books in general, I would highly suggest the Atlas of Middle Earth. I literally open the book by accident sometimes and get sucked into it for hours. It has detailed maps of everything that might be needed here. It may not be fully accurate, as it was not written directly by Tolkien, but it's still awesome.

You scan it, I trace it. It's fair use so we're cool. 1st age would be a fresh take on the subject.

i think it would be better taking place in the war of the ring, as that is the part of history most are familiar with, but i suppose another age could be contemplated.

There exist many LOTR diplomacy variants already...did anyone go and look?

where?