Post by Dr. Hendrei Gromsinger on Feb 10, 2020 3:07:31 GMT
So, to begin, I want to say that this is a great variant, and I enjoyed it immensely. Hats off to nopunin10did for making it, and Santa Anna for running it. You rock!
With that said, I thought of some suggestions for improvement, if you don't mind. Here they are:
1. St. Pete's Cul-de-Sac:
Much like in Vanilla, St. Petersburg is three cul-de-sacs merged into one. You can come at it overland from the south (Mos, Smo, Lvn), along the Baltic coasts (Fin, Gbo, Lvn), or from the north (Bar, Fmk), but whichever direction you came in from, that's the one you'll be leaving from. Don't despair - Vanilla was the same way.
A possible remedy for this is taking away StP's north coast, and connecting Ark to Fmk. The expanded Ark can be made a build site for Russia, or not, depending, but it would reduce the bottleneck effect by letting armies come around StP, from Fmk to Mos via Ark in two moves.
2. The Spanish Situation:
Madrid is a bit of a bottleneck - like StP, but with much less on the one side of it. This essentially coaxes New Spain (and, more significantly, her European counterpart) into an alliance to keep France from sweeping the Iberian peninsula with two armies and three moves in 1812-13.
I believe Tolbethessar has suggested connecting Gra and Brc. I think that's probably the neatest solution to the situation.
Another facet of this is Cadiz's status as a bottleneck on naval movement, and a Supply Center at the same time. Making Mor border Wes may alleviate this.
3. The adjacent home centers:
Ams-Cop is a Ven-Tri situation - hardly desirable. The neatest solution may be to cleave Ams in half, with the western half being Amsterdam, Brussels, or Antwerp, and the eastern half as the German North Coast (or, if the SC is now Brussles/Antwerp, "Netherlands"). You could even make the eastern half into a neutral SC named Hamburg, although that is not historically accurate.
4. The NS-RU combo:
Together, these two powers are simply too powerful, having three home SCs and a corner position each. GMs may see value in disallowing this pairing.
5. SC clumps:
There are two "clumps" of SCs that are big and uninterrupted: one around Germany, the other in Mid-America. Each of these forms the centerpiece of a continuous ribbon of SCs spanning the continent. I'd recommend tossing in more non-SCs somewhere there.
One option:
Split Kon. The western part is a non-SC named "Brandenburg", while the eastern part is Kon.
Split Sav. Leave the present Sav in the eastern half, while the western half becomes a Cherokee home SC. Cng then becomes a non-SC, perhaps called Tennessee.
6. The North American stalemate line:
I don't know how concrete this is, but I get the feeling that the Mason-Dixon Line makes for an easy Stalemate Line. If this is a trend that holds regularly, it may be worth some tweaks.
7. The single-continent powers are in a precarious position, being rather big and scary to their neighbors starting out. If they can somehow be helped to a more defensible position (solving the Ams-Cop adjacency is a good start in Europe) may give them a better chance against a would-be Coalition.
8. The Italification of Denmark:
Denmark strikes me as prone to taking its build in Stk, then being bottled up in its corner, much like Italy with Tun in vanilla. Solving the StP bottleneck and the Cop-Ams adjacency might just solve this.
Now that I've complained, I'd like to share what I loved about the variant, because there's a lot:
1. The two-power concept:
Having two powers and two theaters makes the diplomacy and brainwork of the game that much more complex, without complicating the mechanics - this is beautiful, and I love it.
2. The Major Harbor rule:
This rule helps make the map much more dynamic, in addition to avoiding the Turkey-in-Vanilla situation where all of one's build sites are stupidly far away.
3. The two-build cap:
This is a pleasant block to prevent steamrolling. I like it.
4. The simple mechanics:
The learning curve from Vanilla is fairly minimal. While the cross-continent convoy rule isn't simple, it's also not too likely to come up, so that's quite all right. The naval geography around Naples isn't planar, but that's just fine. Much of Dip's beauty is simplicity, and you held up that tradition nicely, when all is said and done.
With that said, I thought of some suggestions for improvement, if you don't mind. Here they are:
1. St. Pete's Cul-de-Sac:
Much like in Vanilla, St. Petersburg is three cul-de-sacs merged into one. You can come at it overland from the south (Mos, Smo, Lvn), along the Baltic coasts (Fin, Gbo, Lvn), or from the north (Bar, Fmk), but whichever direction you came in from, that's the one you'll be leaving from. Don't despair - Vanilla was the same way.
A possible remedy for this is taking away StP's north coast, and connecting Ark to Fmk. The expanded Ark can be made a build site for Russia, or not, depending, but it would reduce the bottleneck effect by letting armies come around StP, from Fmk to Mos via Ark in two moves.
2. The Spanish Situation:
Madrid is a bit of a bottleneck - like StP, but with much less on the one side of it. This essentially coaxes New Spain (and, more significantly, her European counterpart) into an alliance to keep France from sweeping the Iberian peninsula with two armies and three moves in 1812-13.
I believe Tolbethessar has suggested connecting Gra and Brc. I think that's probably the neatest solution to the situation.
Another facet of this is Cadiz's status as a bottleneck on naval movement, and a Supply Center at the same time. Making Mor border Wes may alleviate this.
3. The adjacent home centers:
Ams-Cop is a Ven-Tri situation - hardly desirable. The neatest solution may be to cleave Ams in half, with the western half being Amsterdam, Brussels, or Antwerp, and the eastern half as the German North Coast (or, if the SC is now Brussles/Antwerp, "Netherlands"). You could even make the eastern half into a neutral SC named Hamburg, although that is not historically accurate.
4. The NS-RU combo:
Together, these two powers are simply too powerful, having three home SCs and a corner position each. GMs may see value in disallowing this pairing.
5. SC clumps:
There are two "clumps" of SCs that are big and uninterrupted: one around Germany, the other in Mid-America. Each of these forms the centerpiece of a continuous ribbon of SCs spanning the continent. I'd recommend tossing in more non-SCs somewhere there.
One option:
Split Kon. The western part is a non-SC named "Brandenburg", while the eastern part is Kon.
Split Sav. Leave the present Sav in the eastern half, while the western half becomes a Cherokee home SC. Cng then becomes a non-SC, perhaps called Tennessee.
6. The North American stalemate line:
I don't know how concrete this is, but I get the feeling that the Mason-Dixon Line makes for an easy Stalemate Line. If this is a trend that holds regularly, it may be worth some tweaks.
7. The single-continent powers are in a precarious position, being rather big and scary to their neighbors starting out. If they can somehow be helped to a more defensible position (solving the Ams-Cop adjacency is a good start in Europe) may give them a better chance against a would-be Coalition.
8. The Italification of Denmark:
Denmark strikes me as prone to taking its build in Stk, then being bottled up in its corner, much like Italy with Tun in vanilla. Solving the StP bottleneck and the Cop-Ams adjacency might just solve this.
Now that I've complained, I'd like to share what I loved about the variant, because there's a lot:
1. The two-power concept:
Having two powers and two theaters makes the diplomacy and brainwork of the game that much more complex, without complicating the mechanics - this is beautiful, and I love it.
2. The Major Harbor rule:
This rule helps make the map much more dynamic, in addition to avoiding the Turkey-in-Vanilla situation where all of one's build sites are stupidly far away.
3. The two-build cap:
This is a pleasant block to prevent steamrolling. I like it.
4. The simple mechanics:
The learning curve from Vanilla is fairly minimal. While the cross-continent convoy rule isn't simple, it's also not too likely to come up, so that's quite all right. The naval geography around Naples isn't planar, but that's just fine. Much of Dip's beauty is simplicity, and you held up that tradition nicely, when all is said and done.
