by Dave Allen

Intimate Diplomacy I (on which this is based) is a Diplomacy variant for two players by Adrien Baird, Steve Doubleday and Steve Wyatt.

1. The standard rules of Diplomacy and Intimate Diplomacy apply save where modified below. 

2. There are three types of Powers on the board:

3. Home Powers 

(a) Each player has one home Power. To select which player gets which Power, each player makes a preference list of the seven countries, with lots being used in the unlikely event that the lists are identical. 

(b) Each player then receives an amount of credit as follows:

England / Turkey – £18

France / Italy – £20

Austria / Germany – £22

Russia – £23

 (c) At the end of each complete game year, before the next auction, each player receives £1 credit for each centre owned by his home country.

 4. Mercenary Powers

 (a) An auction takes place for the remaining mercenary powers at the end of each game year. All bids must be in £1 units, and successful bidders take control of the mercenary power until the next auction. Players may overbid, but if they end up going bust (spending more than they have), then they lose all their credit and all their opponents bids succeed at half price. If both players overbid in the same season then they both lose the game.

 (b) Loyalty Factors. For each consecutive year that a player controls a mercenary country, he is allowed £1 against his next bid for that country to a maximum of £4.

Example: Player A has controlled France in 1907, 08 and 09. In the pre-10 auction his bid of £8 for France is successful, but only £5 is deducted from his treasury because of France’s loyalty to him. Loyalty factors only apply to the player controlling the mercenary power immediately preceding the auction.

5. Satellite Powers

(a) During the first auction of the game, each player may selects a mercenary power to become his satellite at a cost of £3. Satellites are allocated on the basis of each player making a preference list – if the lists are identical then the player in control of the first choice after the auction takes that country and the other takes the second preference (and if the first choice is in anarchy then the player who does not control the second choice acquires the first choice as a satellite). If both first and second choices are in anarchy then both players lose their £3, but may nominate satellites in the second auction. The nomination of a satellite is a one-off event. To maintain a Mercenary power as a satellite costs an additional £1 per year, over and above normal expenditure. Even if one player’s satellite is controlled for part of the game by the other player, it remains a valid satellite provided the £1 maintenance is paid.

(b) The fact that a Mercenary Power is a satellite makes no difference to any of the rules of this game except for the victory criteria.

(c) In postal games, a player can pay an extra £2 per game year to keep the identity of his satellite secret.

6. Victory

The winner is the first player to capture one of his opponents home centres with a unit from either his own home Power or his satellite Power.

[This is a long forgotten variant which was first published in The Norns No.1 (March 1974).]