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Anarchy: Return to Dystopia

Anarchy! - the variant where you choose your own home centers and where, therefore, nobody has a starting advantage. It's a fresh look at a familiar map.

This variant is every bit as awesome as you think it is... only more so. Like if science discovered an all-doughnut diet that fulfills your nutritional needs, sends you to your target weight, and prevents cancer. This is what we're talking about.

Anarchy is played like standard Dip, except players choose their own initial home centers. The selection of centers is exciting and involves a lot of clever outwitting of your feisty-but-dimwitted opponents. Do you cluster your centers for security? Or do you spread them out for mobility? Do you establish a corner position? Or do you try to straddle the stalemate line? There's so much to consider. However, in all the thrill of selecting centers it's easy to forget: afterward, a game of Diplomacy will break out, and you will need all your negotiating skills!

How are home centers selected? There will be three rounds all in one week. Each round, you submit a preference list of supply centers, and (using black magic) the GM awards each player a center as high as possible on his/her preference list. After the third round, the GM sets the clock to Winter 1900, everybody builds, and the game begins.

19 months ago, I GM'd a game of anarchy: DC 345. It was one of the best games I've ever GM'd. You can look up the results at http://www.diplomaticcorp.com/game_page.php?game_id=dc345 (You might be interested in the Winter 1900 map to see how center selection turned). The selection process was fascinating, but after the dust of ten years cleared, the players with the 'worst' starting positions won because of better alliance.

A few notes of importance:
- Anarchy uses chaos builds (so that landlocked nations can build fleets later)
- There will be eight nations, not seven (this helps avoid a standard AEFGIRT feel to the game)
- I am implementing a couple of player-suggested changes based on experience from DC 345: (a) instead of the crowded feel of eight 4-center nations, there will be eight 3-center nations with some room to grow; and (b) I will not award adjacent centers to two different powers during the first round of selections.

Lastly -- and this turned out to be unexpected fun -- you will have to name your own country and choose your own color/pattern on the map. You are further invited to invent a flag, national animal, governmental structure, historic lore, key exports, national soccer team, anthem... you can imagine as much or as little as you like. What with the draft and the naming/coloring, I found players were already quite engaged long before the first units even moved.

[Note: if there is enough interest, I will run a second game, so keep signing up.]