I remember seeing a variant on Diplomacy which was abstract in that it wasn't based on a map. It was simply a radially symmetrical board for seven players in which it was balanced by definition.

I don't think it work too well on a Go board, and definitely not with just two players. The whole idea behind Diplomacy is that it's not a tactical challenge, but a social challenge, though the former still goes a long way in improving your results.

On a side note, I wouldn't suggest jumping into five games immediately. I hope that a few of the games that you joined will not be started because of a lack of players. The 12- and 18-hour phase games may prove especially difficult to keep up with. I would recommend two games at a time for beginners. As for myself, I usually only play in one game at a time when I have a few weeks/months free.

@Chris, yes, for Diplomacy-style game mechanics I would be considering an irregular grid or a uniform pentagonal or hexagonal grid...
@yellowpajamas: thanks for the suggestion, I am unsure how to leave games though... I usually am on my computer all day and I play on loads of other turn-based servers where I have hundreds of games going (OGS, Little Golem). Is it the talking that takes time? I reckon that I won't spend much time at all "analyzing" or predecting the moves of other players, since most of all I just want to get some experience with the game; I don't care much if I lose (which I will). Even when it comes to other strategy games, I tend to be a "blitz player" -- if I don't sense any complications, I just move on instinct (too often I watch beginners in go think and think for the longest time, only to come up with the most random moves, all that energy wasted when they could have gotten the experience of many games: likewise, an hour of my inexperienced analysis is probably equivalent to a 10 second glance by an experienced player -- not a good trade-off yet).

"Is it the talking that takes time?"

Generally, yes. Unlike you, a lot of players only check the site once or twice a day, so you will often be waiting several hours for someone to reply to you.

Add to that the fact that we have players from all over the world here, and, even though a player might spend a lot of their day on Dip, you'll never actually be online at the same time. That's why I think most people prefer 24+-hour games, so that you can actually have some time for diplomacy.

Perhaps the ASCII map is what you are looking for:

http://www.diplom.org/Email/judge/map.top.html

@knulle if you want play on instinct with blitz moves that might be okay (depending on how good you are it of course), but the biggest part of this game is getting other players to play the moves that you want them to. So if you do like to play a quick game just try to take the time to write to the other players; otherwise you might find the other players will gang up on you.