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Diplomaticcorp Discussion Forum:  Variants

(Discuss your favorite Diplomacy variants, new concepts, and technical challenges.)


Post:< 12489 >
Subject:< Interesting idea... >
Topic:< Variants >
Category:General >
Author:Kenshi777
Posted:Aug 24, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Viewed:1288 times

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I had to study Huntington's rather biased book during college (where Africa was reduced to a quasi-civilization) - but nonetheless the idea of a religion based Diplomacy variant remains an interesting one.

A possible alternate twist on this that I would propose would be to either make the variant anachronistic (or take a particular snapshot in time when most of the religions were still young) and have them expand, rather than try to capture them in the modern day, where the major religions have saturated the far corners of the globe.

I think the exclusion of Judaism is perhaps unwarranted, though it would certainly make for a difficult balance (with Arabia and Constantinople/Moscow containing them sharply in Israel).

Let's see - where would the powers be in the Middle Ages...

Orthodoxy in Moscow, Constantinople, and Athens???
Catholicism in Rome, Paris, and Vienna perhaps?
Protestantism in London, Amsterdam, and Berlin? or maybe a Scandinavian or Swiss SC?
Islam in Makkah, Madinah, and Jiddah? (split into Sunni and Shi'a?)

- Sunni - Makkah, Madinah, Jiddah
- Shi'a - Najaf, Karbala, Damascus

Hinduism in Varanasi and...? Angkor? Delhi?
Buddhism in Bodh Gaya and ...? Lhasa? Angkor? Yangon?
Atheism in Beijing, Moscow?, Wall Street? Smile
Judaism in Jerusalem, (several others to choose from here, depending on the period of history) - Persian, Ethiopian, Syrian, etc.

All random thoughts...but this is an interesting idea. Someone should run with it...perhaps multiple flavors of it.

Perhaps Jerusalem should have some special status, like being a home SC for any Christian, Jewish, or Muslim power. In fact, if you split them into their sects, you could have a whole variant comprised exclusively of those who consider themselves Sons of Abraham, with a map radial from Jerusalem. Finding a start date would be a challenge though, as the Protestant Revolution occurred rather late in the game...

B.

This message is in reply to post 11715:

I think world variant tend to have the problem that for much (all?) history, state power and territorial control has been most uneven. There are plenty of variants which as a consequence adopt a purely ficticious scenario. Personally I find such an approach lacking in appeal.

So I thought a global variant giving players the role of world religions might both create both a reasonably plausible and thematic scenario (think Samuel P. Huntington's Clash of Civilizations scenario!), while also having powers roughly correspond to another in size.

SCs would be distributed according to the respective strength of each world religion, whereas religiously (very) mixed areas would be represented by neutral SCs. Consider these playable positions:

Protestantism: HSCs in N America, N Europe, Africa, Oceania and other enclaves

Catholicism: HSCs in Latin America and to a lesser extent N America, S and E Europe, Africa, Philippines, Korea and other enclaves

Orthodoy Christianity: HSCs in E Europe, Russia and perhaps the odd enclave in N America

Islam: HSCs in the Middle-East, Africa, Central Asia, Indonesia and enclaves in Europe/N America.

Hinduism: HSCs in India and enclaves in SE Asia, Africa and N America

Buddhism: HSCs in Japan, Tibet, SE Asia and enclaves elsewhere

Atheism: HSCs across the northern hemisphere

I don't think Judaism or Animistic Religions cut it. Nor really Confuscianism and other forms of Chinese spirituality. China works better as a mix of atheism with some Islam, Protestantism and Catholism thrown in, I should say.

This very jumbled pattern of player HSCs would make for an interesting game, while players would also be able to relate to the position they're placing, I think. Could for instance lead to some fun tongue-in-cheek trash-talking. Smile

Now, my main interest almost exclusively lies in well-researched historical variants, yet this idea strikes me as a fun approach to a world variant. Has anyone ever designed such a variant?

There are 3 Messages in this Thread:


World Religions Variant? (charlesf) Jul 03, 07:55 am

Interesting idea... (Kenshi777) Aug 24, 03:36 pm

map for religions variant (Kenshi777) Sep 01, 11:23 am

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