Congratulations.

The maxim of Olympic games states : "There can only remain one!"

And it is Mittag

#1 : 14 pts - Mittag
#2 : 10 pts - Badivan
#3 : 06 pts - Ubercacher
#4 : 05 pts - Frozen Dog
#5 : 05 pts - CptMike

Congratulations Mittag!!!

And well done everyone!

Some extremely varied games here. :)

Thanks!

I hope we can do more of those - with different variants each time.

IvG, EvT, Cold War, and Civil War comes to mind.

But the rumble in the jungle - AvG - could also be fun!

congrats !
just to chime in, EvT is very England favoured, so i wouldn't recommend it. however, Frankland vs Juggernaut would be more interesting imo

If we make Civil War, I just recommand that we limit the number of years. Else it can take weeks to finish a game...

I thought EvT is more balanced than Frankland vs Juggerland, but I might be wrong.

The statistics on the site indicate that EvT is actually more balanced, not only compared to FvJ, but also FvA!!!! Which is very surprising to me.

I am also surprised, actually, about the big advantage Austria has in the statistics. I genuinely always thought France was stronger.
FvA
https://www.vdiplomacy.com/stats.php?variantID=15
FvJ
https://www.vdiplomacy.com/stats.php?variantID=26
EvT
https://www.vdiplomacy.com/stats.php?variantID=62

in EvT, England can get to Tunis and Munich/Berlin easily (St-P is basically free). Turkey either has to sacrifice a build to contest Tunis or make guesses for Tunis/Germany if they don't rush. at best, it's a draw. at worst, Turkey loses.

in FvA, Austria usually rushes (they try to win in 1905); France tries to disrupt Austria. i guess it's easier to rush

Frankland vs Juggernaut statistics is very misleading imo. i don't think ppl piloting Juggernaut were playing optimally. with some experience, it can be relatively balanced.

FvA is very balanced - bot most players don"t know how to play France.

I am also not sure about EvT. I agree that E is the easier power to play. But I think if T plays optimally then it might be a 50/50.

Either way - if it ia a tournament then it doesn"t really matter if it is perfectly balanced or not.

FvA is definitely 'France wins if they can stop Austria from winning'.

Frankland v Juggernaut is pretty much 'Juggernaut wins unless they misplay badly' though. The extra unit is very strong.

Yeah, my impression of Frank v Jugg is also that it is unbalanced in Jugg's favor.

On my side, I think the most balanced is American Civil War. Nato vs USSR is also balanced but it relies too much on luck in some flip coins.

Of the six civil war games I have played, all was won by the confederacy..

Yes, cold war is too little strategy and too much guessing to be really fun. But it does seem to be balanced.

Reviewing these, I have lost against you with the Union but I have several times and among these against Badivan and mouse... The fact you can choose your armies the very wide map open the possibilities.

if we were to do a Civil War tourney, i think we need to have all the games to be ongoing concurrently to finish at a reasonable pace

10 years ?

Biased but I think Cold War has a strategy coming simply from the idea that you don't want to be in a coin flip situation. Or at least, if you do, you stand to gain from it. There's a lot more luck in terms of guessing when someone is going to fall for a move, but I feel like that's consistent with most diplomacy variants.

Also, the Diplomacy Nexus site had a cold war tournament where it was set up with two sides, where everyone played once as USSR and once as NATO, here's an article on that setup: https://tourneygeek.com/2019/05/19/do-two-singles-make-a-double/

Yeah I think cold war is about creating 50/50 guesses where your worst outcome is status quo. Still, that variant always give a lot of 50/50's.

A little bit like IvG. But in IvG you have more like one big complicated situation involving a lot of units. You still have to guess but there is more than two choices. In cold war it's more a lot of 50/50's spread out all over the map.

I think FvA is the 1v1 variant which has the most amount of tactics and the least amount of guessing. I am ignoring Duo of course. Because Duo is not a 1v1 variant. Duo is a sleping pill.

One 1v1 variant that I think has some potential is AvT. It's crazy setup, complete chaos. Almost no strategy and a lot of guessing. In the long run Austria alwas wins. So victory conditions has to be set differently. E.g., T wins if game is not decided by 07 or something like that. Not sure what the fair year is. Would anyone be up for a set of test games?

if we are going to suggest unusual 1v1 variants in the classic map, how about France vs Italy?

I'd be up for a few test games of that too. Think I played one a while ago. Seems unbalanced in France's favor

I wonder if a "fog of war" version of FvA would re-equilibrate the game and also open the doors to new opportunities.

i never tried fog of war on any map, but i can imagine 1v1 rushing strategies taking advantage of it