And also don't forget the legal issues using a well known IP to get users on a webpage....

Westeros Total War doesn't seem to have had legal issues. It is still up online after a couple of years.

It sounds to me like you're too wrapped up in whatever parameters that the Total War game has taken on, and/or fixitate on a hypothetical Diplomacy variant taking place in the period in time that the HBO series is currently viewing at. Neither one is productive to developing a Diplomacy variant for this world.

Who says that a game of Diplomacy has to follow the story line of the books. The comments about Joffrey and Renly are completely irrelevant. And your assement is flawed in many ways. Stark doens't have to go through Tully at all. The map could be designed to put a supply center in Deepwood Motte, and White Harbor is clearly a naval center in the stories. Lord Manderly has a decent sized fleet. Tully may (or may not) touch seven powers. This again depends on thow the map is designed. Aside fromt he fact that bordering multiple natiosn is NOT necessarily a bad thing, there are numerous factors that could be built in to make tully better protected such as Moat Calin, special movement rules for the Riverlands, and starting positions. Greyjoy is not the only naval power in the west. The Lannister's have ships, as do the Tulley bannermen on the coast, and House Redwyne has the most powerful fleet in the Seven kingdoms. Furtermore the river leading inland into The Reach is navigable by Sea going vessels. Wrong again. The Vale of Arryn is still exposed to the sea, and any benefots of defense would be offset by limitations to expansion. Once again the map design can terrain movement rules can easily offset this. Stannis isn't a power. House Baretheon is the power and the Stormlands are their territory. It's not just Dragonstone, which isn;t actuallytin the Stormlands to begin with. The Baratheons have as many bannermen as any other house. Martell could build fleets too. There's no issue there at all.

The real challenge in designing a Westeros variant would be how to bring in House Targaryan. But this could be done as well, by giving them Kings Landing, Dragonstone, and either another smallercenter on the map, or simply a fleet (or Dragon!) in Blackwater Bay, or even a supply center in Pentos.

This could be made like in the US of A variant: the US (or here the disputed lands) are put a few sea fields away from westeros on the map and then they can advance...or you put the disputed lands on the map too, with the free cities as SCs and one player plays one of the cities (maybe Braavos or Norvos), while Dany starts in Volantis and her little bastard nephew starts in Lys which actually isnt totally corract but its better than extending the map even more east and it gives the boy a chance to land in southeast westeros like in the book...

Also, you can maybe simplay take the alliances as one country (the northern kingdom, the arryns, greyjoy, lennister, martell and stannis and renly), which would espessially solve the problem with the river lands...

:))

There is a board game which is released with expansions for almost every book. It has many similarities to Diplomacy. The one I played includes, Stark, Greyjoy, Baratheon, Lannister, Tyrell, and potentially Martell depending on how many players there are. Tully, Arryn, and Targaryns are not included, but neutral armies occupy each of the major cities of the Eyrie, Kings Landing, and Sunspear.

http://boardgamegeek.com/image/120724/a-game-of-thrones

I'd think that playability would be best with Stark, Greyjoy, Baratheon, Lannister, Tyrell, Martell, and Aryn, and possible neutral armies in Kings Landing and Riverrun. Otherwise I agree with most of what Ruffhaus said. Somehow the newest version manages to cram in the Targaryns and the Tullys.

http://boardgamegeek.com/image/187579/a-game-of-thrones

It turns out that that 9 player one is not an official version. Its fan made, but the one that is coming out this year will have adjust players so that they are playing with Stannis, Lannisters, Bolton, etc in their positions at the end of the fifth book. I don't think I'd like that.

Bumpity.

http://dipwiki.com/index.php?title=Game_of_Thrones

That looks pretty cool, Gman, thanks for sharing.

I posted this with no knowledge of Song of Fire and Ice whatsoever. I think that the only issue for implementation would be King's Landing. I think we'd have to split it into two territories and make each adjacent to all the territories that King's Landing is adjacent to. (Even though that wouldn't be clear on the map - It would be specified in the rules or even a note on the board). The other issue with King's Landing would be that Baratheon and Lannister both start there but no one can build there. This probably wouldn't be too hard to implement since there are already variants (eg. Pirates, Hundred) where players start where no one can build

Looks like a pretty good map. I'd like to see Arryns included, and the Targaryns moved around. They could have an army and a fleet coming from the southern seas rather than Dragonstone, but I can also see the appeal for the current positions.

Nice!

I have only just begun watching Game of Thrones and this looks like an extremely fun variant!

So, I read a bit of stuff on Wikipedia and I think it would be cool to have "The Others" included somehow. I have no idea what the books are like, but I think a possible mechanism for "The Others" would be as follows (This is similar to the hurricanes from the Pirates variant):
Once someone takes Beyond The Wall, the Others launch an invasion every year for the remainder of the game. During the build phase, the Others build an army or fleet ("Flarmy" simply for ease of programming?") in a random empty territory adjacent to Beyond the Wall. In the following year, this unit moves each season and disbands after the fall when a new invasion force is built. However, so that the northerners aren't the only ones getting screwed by this, the new force can be built in any empty territory beside a territory once owned by The Others. So, they could propagate downwards over time.

I have no idea how this would work for balance, and I have no idea if Song of Ice and Fire fans would be offended by my portrayal of "The Others." It's just an idea.

I don't know much as far as context goes, however from a gamers standpoint this would get extremely annoying and make the game more fun :]

That was the idea. :D
I think the only problem would be that House Stark would get screwed by the Others while House Tyrell and House Martell would never see them. Maybe, to increase the speed of southern propagation, the Others could appear beside where they disbanded. This would make them more predictable and would make it so that you wouldn't perpetually have the Others appearing in the same location.

However, they could oscillate for a while, or they could still stay in the North for quite a while but this way, if the Others did get South of The Shivering Sea, Stark wouldn't have to worry about them appearing in Bay of Seals again.
And a note I forgot: If the Others enter an SC, either in the Spring or Fall, it becomes neutral!

If the Targaryens are just being given 2 units, I'd argue for the Greyjoys to start with only the 2 fleets. The Ironmen are not really the soldiering type and they are weaker than say the Lannisters or the Tyrells.

I'll vote against The Others being included.

Yep...they are nearly undefendable, only the wall holds them away, also it would be too unfair for the Starks...
How about making all neutral SCs like in known world? That would fit better...and yes, the Arryns should be included...of course i dont know for shure, but i think Littlefinger will start to expand and try for some throne in the next book :))
Also id like it more if the Starks were put to the Kingdom in the North and given some parts of the riverlands...this would be closer to the books and their are more forced to fight hard right from the beginning like the southron Lords are...of course some SCs should be taken away from the north and put to the middle of westeros to force the fighting more...