Intimate Diplomacy II
by Dave Allen Intimate
Diplomacy I is a Diplomacy variant for two players by Adrien Baird and Steve
Doubleday. 1. The standard rules of Diplomacy and Intimate Diplomacy apply save where
modified below. 2. There are three types of Powers on the board: 3. Home Powers (a)
Each player has one home Power. To select which player gets which Power, each
player makes a preference list of the seven countries, with lots being used in
the unlikely event that the lists are identical. (b)
Each player then receives an amount of credit as follows: England
/ Turkey - £18 France
/ Italy - £20 Austria
/ Germany - £22 Russia - £23 (c)
At the end of each complete game year, before the next auction, each player
receives £1 credit for each centre owned by his home country. 4. Mercenary Powers (a)
An auction takes place for the remaining mercenary powers at the end of each
game year. All bids must be in £1 units, and successful bidders take control of
the mercenary power until the next auction. Players may overbid, but if they end
up going bust (spending more than they have), then they lose all their credit
and all their opponents bids succeed at half price. If both players overbid in
the same season then they both lose the game. (b)
Loyalty Factors. For each consecutive year that a player controls a mercenary
country, he is allowed £1 against his next bid for that country to a maximum of
£4. Example:
Player A has controlled France in 1907, 08 and 09. In the pre-10 auction his bid
of £8 for France is successful, but only £5 is deducted from his treasury
because of France's loyalty to him. Loyalty factors only apply to the player
controlling the mercenary power immediately preceding the auction. 5. Satellite Powers (a)
During the first auction of the game, each player may selects a mercenary power
to become his satellite at a cost of £3. Satellites are allocated on the basis
of each player making a preference list - if the lists are identical then the
player in control of the first choice after the auction takes that country and
the other takes the second preference (and if the first choice is in anarchy
then the player who does not control the second choice acquires the first choice
as a satellite). If both first and second choices are in anarchy then both
players lose their £3, but may nominate satellites in the second auction. The
nomination of a satellite is a one-off event. To maintain a Mercenary power as a
satellite costs an additional £1 per year, over and above normal expenditure.
Even if one player's satellite is controlled for part of the game by the other
player, it remains a valid satellite provided the £1 maintenance is paid. (b)
The fact that a Mercenary Power is a satellite makes no difference to any of the
rules of this game except for the victory criteria. (c)
In postal games, a player can pay an extra £2 per game year to keep the
identity of his satellite secret. 6. Victory The
winner is the first player to capture one of his opponents home centres with a
unit from either his own home Power or his satellite Power. [This
is a long forgotten variant which was first published in The Norns No.1 (March
1974). I would be very interested in comments on this variant should any
of you try it face-to face.] | 