i personally like the classic the most.

Ancient Med, in my opinion, too often gets split into easily defensible thirds. I've heard some say that it's not as balanced as well, and based on my limited experience that is true. Five is also a difficult number, because it tends to make alliances pretty set in stone once one or two people start losing.
World games I enjoy very much--the early game has really fun diplomacy because there's so many people around you and so many people around your enemies. One issue I have is that by the mid-end game you usually have continents that can defend their bordering seas indefinitely. Though it does make for some fun convoy play if you hit at the right time.
The modern map is interesting, but I haven't figured it out so much yet. It's a fun map, with build anywhere built in. I'm not sure about how well the stalemate lines are built.
I've played one game of Fall of the American Empire, and I was knocked out early, so I don't have much to say about that.

I prefer any variant over classic. Like chess, Classic has been analyzed to death, sucking all the fun and excitement out of it.

Classic is best. Ancient med is good if you're stuck with only 5 players (in face-to-face games, when a few people don't show up) World sucks, because it is too big, too many people to have detailed diplomatic relationships with all of them... I'm not sure if this particular world variant also have crappy stalemate lines all over the place meaning solos almost never happen.

Classic is best. But there are other more interesting variants, gunboat (a totally different game) Fog of War (not available here, and has small bugs in the retreat/build phase, i think) and touch (where you can only talk to your neighbours) would be the most interesting. But especially played on the classic board.

As for variant maps, i'm surprised that we don't have Colonial or Youngstown here. Both are 'classic' in that they've been around since probably the 80s.

also, for variants, see vdip ( http://vdiplomacy.net/ ) our sister site dedicated to Variant.

World is conceptually interesting but in my experience, you either suffer from too much inactivity or too little time.

Ancient Med is decent but honestly always struck me as a poor man's Classic. Great if you can't get seven people who will actively participate, but the map design (though certainly not bad) is less dynamic and interesting than Classic's and the reduction from seven players to five limits the number of plausible midgame/endgame scenarios.

If you want a really great variant, try gunboat Classic.

Classic is the shit. All else sucks.

There are some fun press variants though. Backseat driver for instance, where each nation is played by two players, a driver and a backseat driver. The drivers basically play a gunboat game. They can't communicate, not even with their own backseat driver. The backseat drivers meanwhile do the negotiations via global messaging.

^^That's known by a slightly different name. I forget what it's called, but one is the Prime Minister, and the other Commander in Chief or something.

Ancient Med is enjoyable if you don't want to devote too much time to the game, or don't have enough people. Put 5 good players in there and you'll have a fairly balanced game (though Egypt is a bit too weak for my liking).

World does suffer, as ora and someone else pointed out, from easy stalemate lines. Once you control you're continent, you're pretty much untouchable, as there simply aren't enough sea spaces in that variant. Put more sea spaces in, and then I would play the shit out of that map.

My favorite happens to be fall of the American Empire (haven't played enough of modern to know it well) because it sets up some very interesting dynamics. The only truly unfortunate position is Peru...kinda like Turkey in Classic, but less dangerous.

Modern is a good variant, and I like Colonial too (I have a good many solos on colonial over on VDip)

Less then 7 people and the diplomacy part of Diplomacy starts to suffer, although the games are still enjoyable.

notice, it is World IX - ie the 9th iteration of that world map, after lots of play-testing. Vdip also has two other World maps. (not including 3-ish 'known world' stylie maps which exclude the Americas) Are any of them better for stalemates?

I prefer the classic map ( press or gunboat ) , although i also can enjoy a world or ancient games ....... the other variants i haven't tried so much here so i won't comment on them .

But what i m waiting for are the "fog"-variants , where you can only see your side of the map . Isn't there a possibility to get those variants here ?

just this one - http://vdiplomacy.net/variants.php?variantID=30

http://vdiplomacy.net/variants.php?variantID=57

Colonial is a great variant, and the fact that Hasbro actually manufactures it as a board version gives it a degree of legitimacy that other popular variants (Ancient Med, Youngstown, etc.) lack. Balance is always an issue in variants, though. Drawing Japan practically ensures you at least part of a draw, but getting China or France is essentially a death sentence.

classic all the way

i have never seen or heard of Colonial

indeed orathaic http://vdiplomacy.net/variants.php?variantID=30 is the fog version i m talking of

The colonial map is there, and is playable but there are still some problems with the variant .ie. the main problem at the moment is translating the rules governing the trans-Siberian railway into php. The Suez canal rule is also problematic (but who plays with this rule really?) Anyway if you can solve how to code the TS railway to fit into phpDip, then please let us know.

I don't understand that backseat driver/prime minister variant you guys are describing. If the players who actually put the orders in aren't privy to the negotiations, what effect do those negotiations have on the game? How are the backseat drivers different than people watching the game and whispering amongst themselves?

Oh wait, missed that it was global press. That makes sense, then.

@raffy, vdip is an extension of this site. I'd love to see the fog of war map drawing option extended to all maps/variants, but apparently that's too hard - still if not 'over here' i suggest you play over there, and even o so far as to advertise vdip games on this forum.

@prime minister/back seat driver: i prefer a version where the roles are even more finely divided, with a possibility of multiple players (a team) in each country. The more players that harder it is for them to communicate and work together, the less the harder it is to keep up with everything which needs to be done (potentially) so i don't know where the balance lies.

The roles being:
The President - can talk to his own team.
The General - can order armies around.
The Admiral - can order fleets around.
The Ambassador - public press only.
The Spy - can send grey press.
The Diplomat - can send private press.

With getting enough people to commit to the game being the biggest difficulty, i think.

oh, and votes to replace the President (who appoints the other roles to his team) every 4 years?

Would anyone be interested in playing a game of backseat driver?

on vdip do we keep the same user name or do we have to register there as well

register seperately, though i recommend registering the same username.

Most users keep the same name, though some change theirs between the sites.

I think all of the variant maps on this site (ie not gunboat/public press) were pioneered and tested on vdip. And they have a reliability rating system (for punishing CDs) which i guess is them implementing and testing a feature that may copied over to webdip in future (depending on kestas, and perhaps the community here... he held a vote for which variant maps to include.)

I think that the country swap function would be a very useful feature to translate over here.
http://www.vdiplomacy.com/wiki/index.php?title=Country_swap_for_sitters

I enjoy classic, ancient med, and modern. I've played American a couple of times, but it's too easy to get a country that's literally bordered on all sides by enemies. That one isn't quite as fun to me. World I've tried once, and never a second time. Just too much to keep track of.

I do like Modern diplomacy's more expanded map, though, as well as the feel of Ancient Med. The central sea means everyone has at least a bit of influence over everyone else, though a steady alliance between two adjacent powers is tough to break up.