Bump

Sounds like a fun one, I'd be down. How long will phases be? My personal preference is 1d12h

1. Butterhead
2. Rainau
3. ubercacher16
4. General Treanor
5. M Shadow
6. Amby
7. xXDoritoJunkieXx
8.

Can we get one more brave soul?!

I would try to defend my runner up title… but I just hate that Who Controls America map so much. And I’m in too many games already

As the variant creator (not that we can actually make/edit maps currently on vDip), what aspect of it puts you off it Jacob? Interested to know.

I forgot that was yours. I would say I dislike it as a symmetrical map with the checkerboard of spaces. I personally would have liked it if there was some asymmetry, all wedges still with 3 SCs, just some factions clustered further out from the center, some closer in, etc to influence the decision making a bit. But that's just me. It's more pure diplomacy with the checkerboard, that just isn't my strength as a player

@Amby: apologies, no offense intended. Like DoritoJunkie said, it doesn’t play to my strengths. I consider myself especially good at diagnosing the critical locations on a new map and adjusting play to gain those before others do. This small tactical advantage often plays a large factor in success. It’s why I enjoy playing variants so much. In Classic, everyone knows how important English Channel/Burgundy/Black Sea/Galicia/etc are. But with a map so symmetric, all the spots are of somewhat equal value and my advantage is negated.

Also I think I still have a bitter taste in my mouth because at this stage of the tournament last time, I needed a solo to jump from second to first. All Uber needed to do was prevent a solo. That is incredibly easy to accomplish on this map…

Thanks guys. Kind of hard to fix when the intent was to create it to iron out things to make it equal. Do really appreciate the feedback though! Will keep that in mind when variants can be created here again and I make a new one.

Yeah absolutely. I think the variant accomplished its intent. But not every person will enjoy every variant, and that’s perfectly fine!

On the plus side, I enjoyed the territory names - very clever and amusing!

Haha, probably some territory names need to be given a 2022 update!

To add to this: I find it more entertaining to play as nation-states in variants, rather than political entitites. It's fun to imagine armies and navies moving just as you've ordered, creating alternate histories of the past or of the present. Whereas for ideological wars, such as in 'Who controls America', it is difficult for me to visualize the "patriot" unit moving and occupying an area, even though I fully understand what is implied with each territory. No offense to those who like the variant, but it's just not something I would be excited to play. Of course, I can cope with it being included in the tournament due to the player count. It is a balanced variant, after all.

Jacob- sounds like you need to try to improve your runner up title, not just defend it! Let’s do it, join up! No such thing as too many games!(j.k, I know there is because that used to be me, 13+ games at a time overextending myself, if you really think it’s too many I get ya, but it would be a pleasure to have you!)

Perhaps we start with Who Controls America so it can’t effect the final calculus as much as it did last time.

I was quite pleased that it was the last variant since my solo made it nearly impossible for Jacob to catch me.

There are a couple other 8p Europe variants, maybe we consider another one of those? Just to shake things up a little?

And on phase lengths, 36h is an absolute minimum for me. 48 is preferable

Perhaps Karibik could count for North America? I know it’s half south. Viking Dip is also an option for Europe which is nicer than USA

Also, I’m still a little salty about your solo on the South American variant… we had you stopped, but somebody messed it up for no good reason (I forget who/the exact circumstances, it was a long time ago)

It looks like I'm going to have a multi week business travel coming up here, so I'll probably have to back out to avoid overcommitting. And it sounded like a fun one too!

1. Butterhead
2. Rainau
3. ubercacher16
4. General Treanor
5. M Shadow
6. Amby
7.
8.

I spent a lot of time looking at that map, and as far as I could see there was no stalemate in that position.

Not to say you didn't, just my memory

Looking back more closely, had you guessed right on one turn and kept me from taking a nearby non-sc province Paraguay would have been able to build another army and the line would have been secure.

@Uber: Autumn '44 was when we screwed the pooch. There was some bad blood between Peru and Paraguay that led to each of them independently threatening to throw the solo to you. I wasn't able to talk sense into them in time, you got into Antofagasta, and it was just a slow march to the inevitable from there.

Ah I see.

Anyway, hope the salt isn't too bad

buuuummmmpppp

If you need an extra player to deal with games, let me know!

1. Butterhead
2. Rainau
3. ubercacher16
4. General Treanor
5. M Shadow
6. Amby
7.
8.

Backup
1. frostwind
(I do have other commitments so would prefer to see how those shake out before committing to something like this in earnest)

Hey everyone!

It's getting quite late in the year, and I don't want it to run over too much. If we can't get off the ground by June, I'm gonna call off and wait 'till next year.

NOOOOOOOO

Quick we need one more and frost will play, somebody join!