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.

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?