Roll Yer Own Diplo

The rules

Roll Yer Own Diplo alters the standard game of Diplomacy so that all players literally choose their own nation. Each player draws their own part of the map and picks their starting position, subject to some restrictions. These maps are then pasted together, and a regular Diplomacy game then plays out on the resulting global map.

This version describes the simplest form of Roll Yer Own Diplo, which is for 6 players: each player's map is a square and gets pasted onto the face of a cube which is then projected flat again.

The game is best played with a designated "game master" (GM), at least for the initial setup phase. Drawing a local map is relatively easy; most of the burden falls on the GM in verifying the acceptability of each local map, following the pasting instructions, and drawing the global map. Much of this task could be automated.

Selecting a nation

First, each player draws a local map for their nation, which should clearly show:

• A name for the nation;
• A name for each playable space on the map: unnamed spaces are impassable and out of play, and any named space that is also supposed to be impassable must be marked;
• Which spaces are land spaces and which are sea spaces;
• Which spaces border which;
• Which spaces border the edges: the player can initially refer to these edges as North, East, South, and West, though in the pasting process these edges will disappear and the player's individual map may wind up rotated;
• Any land spaces which are meant to be navigable (like Constantinople on the standard map): if not otherwise marked, land spaces which have two or more coasts will be split (like Bulgaria);
• The initial placement for three units: the spaces they occupy will also be the nation's home supply centres.

If the game is played electronically, and a scanner is readily available, then a scanned hand-drawn map is the recommended format. If a scanner is not readily available, then a text description containing all the above information is acceptable. However, it is still recommended to draw out the map first, and then write the description while consulting that map, especially when it comes to figuring out which spaces border which.

The map must have four separate corner spaces. For instance, there must be one space that borders both the South and East edges. (The way the standard map is usually drawn, this would be Syria.) The corners must be land spaces. In the pasting process, one pair of opposite corners will become neutral supply centres.

There is an upper limit of 16 passable spaces in each map. (For comparison, the standard map has 75 spaces for 7 players.)

Things which are forbidden:

• HOLES: impassable spaces may not border more than three other spaces. (Switzerland on the standard map borders five and would not be allowed; Sardinia borders three and would be allowed).
• FOUR-WAY INTERSECTIONS: the borders of spaces must always meet in Y's (or T's) and never in X's.
• BRIDGES, TUNNELS, OR OTHER WARPS: It must be possible to draw the map on a flat sheet of paper.
• SEA CENTRES: All units must start on land.
• CORNER BUILDS: The corner spaces are potential neutral supply centres, and must be left open.
• SCUTTLING: It is not permissible to start with a fleet on an inland space, or even on a space which is potentially inland due to bordering only land spaces and an edge - if it happens that there are no seas on the other side of the edge, then a fleet would not be a valid build there.
• MOATS: From any sea space, a fleet must eventually be able to reach any other, and at least two edges must border a sea space.
• CASTLES: In each map, every path enclosing a home supply centre must be at least two spaces long, paths enclosing two home centres must be at least three spaces long, and paths enclosing all three home supply centres must be at least four space long. Each of the four edges also counts as a space for this purpose. Impassable spaces do not count towards the length. Sea spaces on the path which are not reachable from outside the path also do not count.

The Castle Rule is the most complex, but the issue shouldn't arise for "normal" maps. For example: on the standard map, Cyprus is enclosed by a single space, the East Meditteranean Sea. A map in which Cyprus was a home centre would be disallowed. Portugal is enclosed by a path of two spaces (Mid Atlantic Ocean and Spain). A map in which Portugal was divided into two supply centres would be disallowed. In fact, these things would be private stalemate lines.

Pasting instructions

1. If played with a GM, then the players can draw their maps in secret, and the GM checks the acceptability of each player's map. Once all players have produced an acceptable map, they are simultaneously revealed. If played without a GM, players will be checking each other's maps, and so the process cannot be entirely secret. However, all the local maps will be fixed before determining who borders whom on which edges.
2. If there are different nations or spaces with the same name, the affected players must select new names for them, but the pasting process can proceed up to step 10 while the players decide on naming.
3. A random selection is made as to which of the six faces of the cube each local map will occupy. One of these faces is called north, the opposite face is south. From the perspective of the north face, clockwise is west; from the perspective of the south face, clockwise is east.
4. For each local map, a random selection is made as to which of the four orientations it will take on its face.
5. From any sea space, it must be possible for a fleet to reach any other sea space. If this is not possible, then the local map orientations must be all be reselected until it is. Because there of the Moats Rule, and because sea spaces will be aligned in the next step, there will always be orientations which do connect all seas. To decide whether an orientation connects all seas, all that needs to be considered is whether particular edges have sea spaces on both sides; if so, then all sea spaces in the two local maps will be connected.
6. The adjacent edges of two different local maps are aligned to distribute adjacencies evenly, subject to the constraint that if there are sea spaces on both sides of the edge, then at least one sea space from each side must touch. Random choices are made to break up any resulting four-way intersections.
7. Spaces with split coasts are found and marked by direction. Because part of an edge of a local map can become a sea, spaces which were not split in the local map could become split on the global map, unless the player explicitly marked the space as being navigable.
8. A corner space of one local map is arbitrarily chosen, and a coin is flipped to decide whether that corner is a neutral centre. Then the other corners are assigned neutrals as follows: a corner space immediately beside a neutral is also neutral, and a corner space diagonally across a face from a neutral is also neutral. This will result in four clusters of three neutrals each.
9. The resulting global map has no boundary. A projection must be used to draw the globe flat. The recommended way is to designate one space in each of the north and south regions as the north and south poles, and draw the global map can with the western edge wrapping around to the eastern edge. The GM chooses the projection, and the shapes and sizes of spaces, with an eye towards readability. If there is no GM, the players will make this choice by mutual agreement. Note that this step only affects the visual representation of the map: the outcome of any set of orders will not be affected by the choice of global projection.
10. An official list of abbreviations is made.

The global map is now set, and the game proceeds with the standard rules, except that there are 30 centres, so 16 is a majority.

Why this just might work

There is an element of chance in Diplomacy, namely the initial assignment of powers. Often Diplomacy variants are "unbalanced", so that some powers have large advantages over others, and the initial random assignment of powers has a large role in determining the winner, which is unfortunate. And it is not always obvious beforehand that the unbalance exists.

Sometimes variant designers go to the other extreme, and proposely highly or even totally symmetrical maps. But these never seem to catch on, probably because they are boring.

This addresses the issue in what is, as far as I can tell, a very original way. There's something very appealing about having the entire map being the product of each player trying to give himself a good starting position, in a relatively straightforward way. This doesn't completely eliminate the element of chance in the initial setup, but if a player finds himself at an initial disadvantage, it's hard to claim it isn't mostly a failure on his own part. At the same time, the map isn't boring and symmetrical, but is something new and fresh each time.

But what does this amount to in practice? It is not clear that this results in a playable game. There could be "showstopper" maps, which gives the player who submits it an advantage, but which, if all players submit it, makes the game unplayable. For instance, without the Castle Rule, castles are showstoppers. Once players realise it, each player will make themselves a castle so that they have their own private stalemate line - and when everyone has a private stalemate, the game is obviously dead from the start. It is my hope there will be no showstoppers, or if there are, that there is a simple, natural rule change that will rule them out.

There could also be a "spoiler" map, which is the best map any player can submit. If all players submit the spoiler, the game may still be playable, but the point of the variant is lost, because once players realise the spoiler exists, nobody ever submits anything other that the spoiler, and the global map always looks the same. It is my hope there are no spoilers, but rather a variety of good strategies that will keep the variant interesting.

Finally, of course, other people may simply not find this idea nearly as interesting as I do. It is my hope they will. It's worth trying out, I think.

An Example

Six players submit their maps. The first two are hand drawn:

Foolishness

  Dear GM,

    Please find my map attached. Let me know if anything is missing or unclear. 
  

Fifteen men

  Ahoy captain,

    Here be me charts. Arrrrgh!
  

Panama

  Dear GM,

   My map has 9 spaces: Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Colombia, Jamaica, Galapagos, 
  the Carribean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. The last two are sea spaces, the rest are land. 
  The adjacencies are:

    COS: NIC, PAN, CAR, PAC
    PAN: COS, COL, CAR, PAC
    ECU: S, COL, PAC
    NIC: N, W, COS, CAR, PAC
    COL: S, E, PAN, ECU, CAR, PAC
    JAM: N, E, CAR
    GAL: S, W, PAC
    CAR: N, E, JAM, NIC, COS, PAN, COL
    PAC: S, W, GAL, NIC, COS, PAN, COL, ECU

  I start with fleets in Costa Rica, Panama, and Ecuador.
  Panama is navigable; so are Jamaica and Galapagos, if applicable.

The other three players take countries from the standard map.

Britain

  Dear GM,

   I would like to play good old Britain. Please cut the following path out from the standard map: 

    ICE - NWG - NWY - NTH - BEL - ENG - IRI - IRE - NAO - ICE.

  I have made Iceland and Ireland passable. Iceland is my northwest corner, Ireland my southwest, 
  Belgium by southeast, and Norway my northeast. I start with fleets in Edinburgh and London and 
  an army in Liverpool, as is normal.

Austria

  Dear GM,

   I would like to play good old Austria. Please cut the following path out from the standard map: 

    VEN - TYR - VIE - GAL - BUD - SER - ALB - ADR - APU - ADR - VEN.

  Venice is my northwest corner, Galicia is my northeast, Serbia is my southeast, and Apulia my
  southwest. Note that the Adriatic sea surrounds Apulia and will border both the south and west
  edges. I start with a fleet in Trieste, and armies in Vienna and Budapest, as is normal.

Turkey

  Dear GM,

   I would like to play good old Turkey. Please cut the following path out from the standard map: 

    BUL - BLA - ARM - SYR - EAS - CRE - AEG - BUL.

  I have made Crete passable. It is my southwest corner. Bulgaria is my northwest, Armenia my
  northeast, and Syria my southeast. I start with a fleet in Ankara, and armies in Smyrna and
  Constantinople. Constantinople is of course navigable.

The Result...

After the following the pasting instructions, this is one possible map that results: