I can't see it right now, but does england not still start with fleet london, fleet edi, army lvp? (or whatever names you're using)

Yes, start-up setting is unchanged for England. Here it is completely:
Austria-Hungary: Vienna (army), Hungary/Budapest (army), Dalmatia/Trieste (fleet)
France: Brest (fleet), Paris (army), Marseilles (army)
German Empire: Hannover/Kiel (fleet), Rhineland (army), Bavaria/Munich (army)
Italy: Piedmont (army), Rome (army), Sicily/Naples (fleet)
Ottoman Empire: Constantinople (fleet), Smyrna (army), Syria (army)
Russian Empire: St. Petersburg (south coast: fleet), Moscow (army), Warsaw (army), Ukraine/Sevastopol (fleet)
United Kingdom: London (fleet), Liverpool (army), Scotland/Edinburgh (fleet)
eet)

So england can still guarentee north sea, and prevent germany putting fleet kiel to use; this was a concern in the original game and hellgoland blight was added. I suggest lots of play testing to get an idea of what these changes result in, as a cursory glance by me is not likely to be particularily helpful :)

Yes, England can get Nth with Lon S Edi-Nth or Edi S Lon-Nth, but only if both fleets are used in the Spring; then England can't bounce Bre-Eng, nor move Edi-Nwg to get Nwy

@Nescio You are wrong. Berlin was the second most important industrial centre and the nearly as large as the Ruhrstadt by 1905 (2.8 vs 2.1 Mill. inhabitants). Further, it was the headquarter of the Generalstab, so it should be an SC. for the same reason I would argue for renaming Hanover to Kiel (HQ of the Marine).

X3n0n, the Rhine-area is much larger than only Ruhrstadt; for your information, this is how I've devided Germany:
"Hannover": the Prussian provinces Hannover and Schleswig-Holstein, increased by Oldenburg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Bremen, Hamburg, and Luebeck.
"Rhineland": the Prussian provinces Rheinprovinz (includes "Ruhrstadt"), Westfalen, and Hessen-Nassau, increased by Waldeck, Hesse-Darmstadt, the Bavarian Rheinpfaltz, Baden, and Alsace-Lorrraine (Baden and A-L are new additions compared to the classic map)
"Munich": the kingdoms of Bavaria and Württemberg (now excluding Baden, Saxony, and Thuringia)
"Saxony": the Prussian provinces Brandenburg (Berlin) and Saxony (roughly Sachsen-Anhalt), the kingdom of Saxony (Dresden, Leipzig), and those tiny Thuringian states
"Silesia": the Prussian provinces Posen and Silesia
"Prussia": the Prussian provinces Pommern, West-Prussia, and East-Prussia

I still believe the ""Rhineland" area is far more populous and more important than the "Saxony-Berlin" area. A possibility would be to make Saxony-Berlin a supply centre instead of Munich.

Hannover or Hamburg seem more appropiate names than Kiel; the former because the Hannover province only forms roughly half of this Diplomacy area, the latter because it was arguable the most important city in Northern Germany, the most important German port, and because it was connected to both the North Sea (via the Elbe) and the Baltic Sea (via the Luebeck Canal, which was used as an alternative to the Kiel Canal; both canals were too small around 1900 to meet the demands of the German/Prussian navy). I don't think it's really important the headquarters and some offices were located in Kiel.

Dixi.

May want to move the Gulf of Lyon/Tyrrhenian Sea border, right now whichever French province controls Corsica is on the Tyrrhenian. The same applies to Crete and the Ionian Sea.

Astrakhan not bordering the Black Sea is also really misleading when you look at the map; the city of Rostov-on-Don which would be its Black Sea area has like twice the population of Astrakhan itself, too. Maybe it should be coastal? Can give Turkey another territory next to the Black Sea if that's a concern, though Caucasus is no more accessible to Ukrainian fleets than Constantinople ones so I'm not too sure it is.

Corsica is ruled from Marseilles, yet Mar is not adjacent to TyS, only to GoL; Crete is ruled from Smyrna, yet Smy is not adjacent to Ion. I could slightly move the sea-borders if you think that's necessary.

"Astrakhan" consists of the gubernii (in 1900) Astrakhan, Don, Samara, Saratov, and Stavropol, none of them was adjacent to the Black Sea
"Caucasus" consists of all of the historic Trans-Caucasian Provinces as of 1900, which were ruled by military law different from (European) Russia. Kuban, Black Sea Province, and Kutais were part of these; their combined Black Sea coastline was longer than Bessarabia, Rumania, and Bulgaria put together.
"Ukraine" consists of the historic gubernii (in 1900) Tagrida (includes the Crimea wih Sevastopol), Kherson, Bessarabia, Podolia, Kiev, Poltava, and Ekaterinoslav.
Ast-Cau: land; Ast-Ukr: land; Cau-Ukr: coast.

The pdf (above) is now updated to include information on how all Great Powers are subdivided; each territory on the map has now a list of historic areas which are included into it.

I know the sea borders things is pedantic, but we're leaving processing in the hands of computers, and those things are the biggest pedants imaginable. You're telling the machine that the pixels which make up Corsica are part of Marseilles, and the machine detects that those pixels border the Tyrrhenian's pixels, so it'd make Marseilles adjacent to the Tyrrhenian.
At least, I assume that's how this stuff is coded; it's the only way I can explain Corsica going to Tuscany in the original, since they just happen to share the same adjacencies, and Crete's adjacencies don't match anything therefore permaneutral. Doesn't explain why Gotland was Livonian though, that was just silly.
If it's not true that it's coded that way, moving the sea borders at least makes it impossible for players to misinterpret things, or claim they "totally thought moving there was attacking French/Ottoman SCs, I swear I'm not gonna stab you Italy".

I was reading the Sea of Azov as part of the Black Sea, which it isn't really, my bad. Still looks like it. I'd probably move Don (which contains a significant port to the Sea of Azov) to Caucasus or Ukraine anyway, its presence in Astrakhan makes it look like A) Astrakhan is coastal and B) Caucasus and Ukraine do not share a border, so it's pretty misleading. Maybe either move Don or distort the Crimean peninsula to physically join Ukraine and Caucasus, turning the Sea of Azov into a lake.

Also have you considered renaming Holland to Netherlands? Long as you're renaming Turkey to Ottomans and England to United Kingdom and that sort of thing, it seems like it would fit better. "Net" couldn't stand for any other province that I could see.

I do like the variant's history stuff in general and would like to see how it plays. Not familiar enough with regular Diplomacy to say how much the balance has changed, bit concerned your efforts to weaken the Ottomans are a "history was imbalanced and history trumps gameplay" move, but you're changing a lot in the countries around it, too, so I dunno.

@ljtzoi, that is no how thigs are coded (at least on webdip) each connecting territory has a list of land and sea borders. Completely seperate from the map.

Infact the map merely gives the humans an understanding of thiese connections.

Huh. Dang, I liked that theory. Made giving Corsica to Tuscany or Iceland to Clydesdale somewhat reasonable.

Ijtzoi, as orathaic said, the map is a visualization of the code, but not the code itself. It's fairly easy to convince the computer code that Morocco and St. Petersburg are adjacent, or that there is no border between Vienna and Budapest (or an impassible one).

I don't think names are very important. Yes, Holland was officially called the Kingdom of the Netherlands, however, Holland was (and still is) by far the most important part of it, Holland economically and politically dominated the other provinces, and abroad Hollland was considered an equivalent (and at least as well known) name to the Netherlands. Besides, the historic region of the Netherlands also includes Belgium, parts of Northern France, and parts of Western Germany. Therefore I think "Holland" is a better name for the country to the North of Belgium than "the Netherlands" would be.

I disagree with "history was imbalanced and history trumps gameplay". History has sometimes to be compromised to improve gameplay, this variant is no exception. Algeria (part of France proper) and Tunis (French protectorate) are now lumped together as one independent state, to allow Italy a supply centre in 1901. Calais and Lille are both part of France, yet they're still included in Belgium to make Belgium adjacent to the English Channel. In reality Boh and Bud shared a border, Vie and Gal were not adjacent. Nevertheless I decided to keep all these historic inconsistencies uncorrected to preserve the game's balance.

In the standard game Austria is usually the first nation to be defeated, Turkey is often partly to blame for that. Turkey has a corner position, and is much harder to defeat than Austria. I think a slightly disadvantaged Turkey is not only historically more correct, but also improves the balance in favour of Austria.
Likewise Italy has now Piedmont as a supply centre instead of Venice, and Switzerland is passable. This is not only historically more correct, but should also make attacking France in the first turn a viable alternative to Austria. Besides, Germany and Italy are in a better position to attack each other.

Right now I'm working on it to make this map playable ( http://lab.vdiplomacy.com/forum.php?viewthread=1869#1869 ). This variant can be changed if it's unbalanced, of course, which could be clear after a few test games.

Your first few test games should be no press, anonymous, so you can see how the countries play without say all 6 countries gaining up on the strongest country after 1901.

Also, I think it's important that you consider changing the name. 1900 is an already well known variant with similar goals to this one. Calling it 1900 will be confusing.

3 essentially uncontested SC's is lopsided for France, imo

Are Name suggestions being accepted?
"WW1 historical diplomacy"
"geographically accurate classic"
"Geo-classic"
"The Great War"

really like how you opened up Swi, and positioned Italy sc's

@myx - I totally agree.
@nesico- would connecting the Iberian peninsula and Italy with a 1 territory naval opening be more balanced?

Say if an Italian navy could take one of those SC in 1901 and dispute Iberia with Spain wouldn't that balance it a little more.

For example: make gulf of Lyon touch Rome and Rome starts a fleet?

A_Tin_Can, when I made this map and posted this thread, I was not aware there already existed a variant called "1900". Right now the working name of my variant on lab.vDip is "Europe 1900". (The older "1900" variant also includes Egypt, Palestine, and Siberia, my version doesn't).

MyxIsMe, those three Iberian centres are not completely free for France. Por can be reached in 1902 at the earliest, Bel and Bur are no longer adjacent. Italy can open with Pie-Mar in the first turn, Germany with Rhi-Pic, Mun-Swi, so France has a larger chance to lose one or more of its home centres.

CommanderByron, I don't think a fleet in Rome and making it adjacent to GoL is a good idea. Right now Italy is already closer to Iberia than it used to be (two steps from Pie, instead of three from Rome). More importantly, a start with armies in Rome and Pie allow an anti-Austrian opening (Ven, Tyr, Ion), an anti-German (Swi, Ven), and an anti-French (Swi, Pie, TyS). Italy has now more options than only the "either alliance or war with Austria" situation.

By the way, I also have a historically alternative version available:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/54160351/Diplomacy/Europe1900alternative.pdf

There is no supply centre in North Africa, and both Austria and Italy have significantly less flexibility, so I think the first version I posted is more balanced than this alternative version.

I'll agree - this is even more unbalanced : )

Anybody willing to participate in a test game? Full url:

http://lab.vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=229

I actually think the start in Salonica for Turkey helps. Because Turkey can't ensure a build without giving up the BS in the first version.

Let's first try out the first version; the alternative could be coded at a later stage.

Which is tue full version and which is the alternative? (also, only two slots left)

Diplomacy1900.pdf (thread start above) is the first version, which is now playable in the lab.

Europe1900alternative.pdf (link posted yesterday, six posts before this one) is the alternative, uncoded, and unplayable.

Both can be discussed here :)

Thanks for joining, the full press test version has started.
There is also a gunboat test version, full url:
http://lab.vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=231
Anybody willing to participate in this one?