I’ve played in a few world games now and I’ve looking over a few dozen others in random players histories and I’ve come to a few conclusions. The interesting thing about them is they all eventually end up with a general arrangement. Unlike the normal games they are ruled by geography and by CD’s.
Here are the basic pattern’s I’ve noticed. Someone is going to come out on top in South America after outside interference. Occasionally it is Ghana or South Africa that influences this region, but typically it ends up being Quebec or the Unites States who has the greatest impact on this continent. The person who comes out on top in South America will peak between 12 and 17 supple centers unless they get very creative or manage to get some armies in Africa or NA immediately. It’s normally the South American power that ends up controlling a good portion of the Antarctic centers. If FA is not eliminated quickly he will end up in a draw at the end because FA accumulates fleets and has a spread out supple center region making it easy to take a few of his centers, but almost impossible to eliminate him once he reaches 6 or 7 centers.
An African power will either end up dominating the African continent, more often than not it is Kenya that comes out on top in this region, though occasionally you'll see 2 African powers split it down the middle and both end up in a draw. The dominate African power that has the greatest potential for a solo because to dominate Africa requires a large number of armies, between 5-10. Once a power secures Africa they can easily transport armies into Europe and Asia while leaving a strong circle of fleets to protect the coast centers. The unbalanced portion of this map is the ease with which an African power can get armies into Asia, compared to the extreme difficulty an Asian power can have entering Europe and Africa thanks to the narrow region of Iran, Kazakhstan and West Siberia. Since Africa, Asia and Europe’s concentrated centers combine for a total over 44 a power that gets off to an early start in this region doesn’t have to worry much about outside interference from the main North American and South American powers.
Russia/Europe/NE/and PR typically end up fighting too long to actually get any of the long term spoils. Though I’ve seen some wins where one of these countries will get off to an early start and end up with a secured spot in the draw. The best chance the Near East and India have in a game is cooperation and a mutual agreement to leave each other alone. These two countries have fairly poor starting positions so infighting will usually end with them both being some of the earliest eliminations. The Near East is one of the most important countries on the map in the long run because it’s his actions that will typically decide if an African power will be able to take control of the African continent fast enough to keep solo potential. Since African powers almost always head directly north after securing the continent it is in the Near East’s best interest to keep African countries in as much disarray as possible. As for Russia and PR, the mistake many players make is trying to take North American centers when they still have a fast growing African or Asian neighbor in the south. Anyone left to build armies and move them into African and Asia will end up in an end game scenario.
Either China or Oz will typically end up as the dominate naval power in the Pacific region assuming FA does not take over that role. Whoever ends up fulfilling this position normally ends up in the draw at the end of the game. It’s this “power” that makes it so difficult for a North or South American country to solo. A strong naval presence in the pacific forces a south/north American player to devote units to guarding the Western border of their control sphere.
North America usually ends in 1 dominate power with around 15 centers, but with much more opportunity to expand then South American powers. This is because the North American power usually has the opportunity to sneak into some European centers or even on occasion into African centers. The trio of North American powers seems to be the most balanced region from the initial start of the game which is why there is usually a few years of infighting which costs the winning power the chance at a solo.
The last part of World games, which is also the part with the biggest impact on the end game, is CD’s and NMR’s. This is a game with 17 people. 17! I have yet to see a world game without at least on CD or NMR. It is simply part of the game, and it’s the part that usually gives one player a huge advantage over his or her fellow players. This is why so many world games end in cancels and draws after 6 or 7 years. The players on this site have a choice. You can either choose to play in world games knowing that they will be unbalanced and unfair while accepting that any CD’s and NMR’s are simply an additional challenge. OR you can refuse to play them. Going into a world game and then requesting a pause/draw/cancel or any consensus from the group is unreasonable and naive. I encourage all players to try out the world games a few times, but I would advise you test them out in a low point game. And I say that for one simple reason, world games are not fair. Diplomacy cannot win you a world game. It can help, but CD’s NMR’s and starting countries are going to have a greater impact.
The diplomacy in world games is completely different from a normal game, but that’s something I’m not going to address here, because it essentially comes down to sorting out dozens of rumors.
Those have been my observations from a LOT of world games and I'm curious if you have all found this to be accurate. I thought I'd share this, feel free to ignore it if you're not interested, I know it's rather long, haha.