Need a few good men and women to play-test the second version of Europe 1615 (RE002). A great thanks to Mark Utterback, Max Victory, Steven Caponigri, Aaron Havas, and Greg Bim-Merle for helping me play-test the first version (DC457). Witnessed some very interesting strategies and tactics employed, and, of course, some missed opportunities, which could have altered the course of the game. After carefully observing the first game, I made some significant changes to the rules. The variant borrows concepts from Ambition and Empire, Payola, and a distant relative of Diplomacy called Origins of World War One. Although the game runs with 5 players, in the new version a sixth power (the Ottoman Empire) is now present and its units can be anonymously manipulated by one of the players. This situation is akin to the Juggernaut Diplomacy variant with the difference that control of the Ottoman Empire can possibly shift one player to another or take a neutral stance.

Some other changes from the first version:
- influence phase (which was at the beginning of each year) is now part of each movement phase; influence points will now be submitted with the orders and the status of the minor states resolved at the beginning of each movement phase before the adjudication
- map changes; added some new provinces and removed a few armies from several minor states
- diplomatic attacks were not used in the first version due to chunkiness; it is now incorporate with the orders; hopefully this’ll be more streamlined
- scoring system has been completely revised

If I can get a game up and running, I’d like to adjudicate on a weekly basis. Since the game is limited to 5 game years, with 3 movement phases per game year, it shouldn’t run over 4 months.

Thanks for your attention.

Matthew

http://www.dipwiki.com/index.php?title=Europe_1615:_Prelude_to_War