Courtesy of Wikipedia:

"Machiavelli was published by Avalon Hill. Set in Renaissance Italy, the board is controlled by the Republic of Florence, the Republic of Venice, the Duchy of Milan, the Kingdom of Naples, the Papacy, Valois France, Habsburg Austria, and the Ottoman Turks. The game introduces many rules changes such as money, bribery, three seasons per year, garrisons, and random events such as plague and famine."

From the description, it sounds like how my friends and I played risk before we found diplomacy.

I've played it a few times back in BC (before computers) days, it's a good game. A little thicker on the paranoia.

we used to play this in junior/senior year of HS, alternating weekends with Machiavelli and Diplomacy ... pretty good game, not as clean and pure as Diplomacy, but it is not like Risk, it's much more like Diplomacy

Hmm, also sounds like it could very easily be written up as a diplomacy mod.
Any volunteers?

There is a somewhat similar variation in place on olidip.net called Rinascimento thatbwe are playing

Rinascimento was a new variant created by one of the members there and doesn't have the extra rules of Machiavelli.

I agree with you, but it has a similar map and feel with some standing fortress army things, but it doesn't have the extra rules

This sounds really interesting but it won't let me login. When I click either button it tells me I need an 'OpenID Identifier'. What is that?

Wait it's fine now

@warsprite: " A little thicker on the paranoia." If that isn't a sell point, i don't know what is!! Definitely have to check it out.

@ ajb When you have a city garrisioned and you know someone may buy the garrision out from you, paranoia becomes a natural state.