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?
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.
