can you send a direct link?

That's the thing: All the information I can as far as mechanics and map come from Wikipedia, which are distressingly short on solid data. All the other sites refer to the stories built up around the game.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slobbovia
http://www.costik.com/slobbovia.html
http://playthisthing.com/slobbovia

Besides, where's the fun in resurrecting a map and story that's already been used? =]

and we basically invent stories to go with it?

Well, that's a possible side-effect, yes. Really, it's just a magnified version of the normal press in standard games. I'm more interested in the whole sub-commanders and governors aspect to be perfectly honest.

i feel like that would be interesting with the sub-commanders and governors, but the story-telling part would get too confusing

the story telling would turn into a spam game times 1,000 on this site lol

I would be interested. How exactly would it be done, though? I imagine that a variant for it would be very difficult to program.

@TBroadley: That's what I'm still trying to gauge. I don't think that a revived version of this would do well as a simple variant, but at the same time I don't think I could find the time to create and host a separate site for it. I might take a shot at adjudicating by hand for a few turns if this ever actually gets off the ground. Otherwise it would require a near-total rewrite of phpDiplomacy's code.

@the rest; Like I said, I'm mostly interested in it as an extended game of Diplomacy, not as some epic ballad that needs to be written.

@Triskelli: I offer my manual adjudication services.

This sounds absolutely brilliant beyond belief. The links Triskelli supplied give a wonderful backstory. I guess the main issue is how in the world would such a thing be coded. In the past on OliDip I organised games that were more for the pure entertainment value, and while that generally worked, we'd all end up inevitably falling back to our traditional Dip ways of trying to kill each other and win.

So some kind of entertainer's code (rather than warrrior's code) would need to prevail so that while Dip game-play was a major factor, it wasn't the contributing factor to winning.

There are so many twists and turns with this variant/version though. That said, if its going to work anywhere, here's probably as good a place as any!

Okay, it'll be a while before I can devote full attention to this idea.

But in the meantime, a quick poll: At about how many units do people start feeling overwhelmed by the options available to them? Personally, I start losing track at 6 or 7 units per front. Anyone else?

the number of units should be that it does not allow a person to win bi himself, because he would have to split his army, and could then be attacked by his brand new "subordinate"
Apart from that, i have managed armies of 20's in number with no problem. it just takes more time.

PS: i really love the idea of lituenants and commanders, since it could allow players to join an already started game as a subordinate, amog other things.

We could split off a smaller country every time a country is eliminated, making the eliminated person the new smaller country. Nobody would ever be eliminated fully, and the game would go on and on and on... You could base score on number of eliminations.

Tactics starts to get annoying around twelve or thirteen units, I find.

I'd vote about 10

Precisely, Daiichi. But perhaps I've phrased this question the wrong way.

Instead, how many units do you need to feel like you're accomplishing something? I would go with three, since that's how many people usually start with anyway, and because it allows one forced attack while giving a chance for expansion.

@Broadly: I do like the idea of making a conquered player a subordinate, but that'd be for games with a set end... Plus, it'd be too easy to push someone out of their lands WITHOUT eliminating them, letting one player accrue power artificially.

Just a quick update, I think I've found an elegant solution:

A commander is able to own a maximum number of units equal to half that of the units owned by all his officers combined. If this number is exceeded then he must give a center captured that turn to one of his officers.

I'm still trying to figure out how space ownership would go, any ideas?