by Mark Nelson, John Norris and Paul Willey

The addition of these rules effectively brings DIPLOMACY into the latter half of the twentieth century with all the destuctive capability and unsavourary tensions afforded by nuclear weapons.

These rules are based on a set by Bill Wright (‘MAD’) which appeared in Sodder in 1984. Nuclear Dip III was a combination of revisions by Dave Cowie and Mark Nelson on these rules and appeared in Variants and Uncles 7. Mark then revised them to produce Nuclear Dip IV, incorporating some ideas from Mad 2.

1. In addition to normal ARMY and FLEET units there are MISSILE UNITS, SECRET MISSILE UNITS and SUBMARINE units. In all the following rules MISSILE refers to ANY MISSILE UNITS unless otherwise stated. 
2. Missile unit have a different military role to normal units insofar as they:
   • Do not exclude other units from their designated provice (A Fleet/Army can occupy the same province and a Missile).
   • Cannot give or receive support; and,
   • May not be moved from the province they are built in except when fired.
3. When builds are ordered after Autumn moves have been resolved, players have the option of building one or more Missile units instead of normal units. A player can build any number of fleets, armies or missiles in any build season. However, no missile may be built by a country which would then have half as many missiles as supply centres. Thus a country holding five supply centres may not have more than 2 missiles at any one time (in this respect SM count as one missile unit). This rule does not require the loss of any missiles consequent to any loss of supply centres. 
4. Missiles can be constructed in any home province at the cost of ONE SC. In addition Austria may build in Serbia and Russia may not build in the Ukraine. A missile may not be built in a province occupied by a unit of a foreign power. 
5. Once constructed missiles require no further maintenance throughout their lifetime and the supply centre used for their construction can be released for other purposes in the following years. 
6. If a province containing a missile is successfully entered by a foreign power, that foreign power gains control of the missile and may fire it as he sees fit. 
7. MISSILES CAN BE FIRED AT ANY TIME AT ANY NAMED PROVINCE APART FROM HOME PROVINCES. Home provinces include Ser for Austria and exclude the Ukr for Russia.
   The effect of Nuclear Missiles in calculated before movement. 
8. There are the following types of missile units:a) Standard Nuclear Missile (ABBR-SNM)
   b) Biological Nuclear Missile (ABBR-BNM) 
9. The target will be hit every time; there is no defence. 
10. The effects of the different missile units are as follows:STANDARD: Any province fired on is reduced to nuclear wasteland. ANY UNIT occupying that province is destroyed as is any unit successfully moving into that province. The province is thereafter impassable for the duration of the game and if a supply centre, it can no longer supply a unit. All adjacent provinces are neutralised; conventional units stand unordered for this move season, any attempt to move in this season fails including retreats) and if this is an Autumn season, nothing may be built there in Winter. They have no effect on Sea Areas.BIOLOGICAL: Any province fired on is effected by a plague. In the first turn they land, the area hit is infected, and all units present (excluding MISSILE UNITS) die. Any units moving out of the province or into it die and carry the plague into the next province. The plague continues in the second turn – killing all units which attempt to enter the infected province/s. At the end of the second turn the plague dies out and the area becomes passable. Sea areas can never be affected by plague. If a SNM and BNM hit the same province at the same time or if an SNM hits a plague province the plague dies as it is irradiated. Plague infected supply centres may not be used to raise or maintain units and have to be reoccupied. 
11. Orders for missiles should be of the form: BUILD SNM Bas or BNM Syr-Par. 
12. At a cost of two supply centres instead of the normal one a SECRET MISSILE (SM) can be built. This may be of either kind of missile and operates as the normal missile in all due respects apart from that the location of it is not reported in the build reports, nor is the fact that one is being built. Instead the country will meary be “NFBD-2 unit short”. The player must state what type of MISSILE he is building. Once a SM is built further SM units may be built in that province at a cost of one, regardless of the fact that the original SM may have been fired. 
13. SUBMARINE units are of the following form:POLARIS (ABBR-PS): A PS may only be built in a coastal home province and requires a SC for both contruction and maintainance. Once a PS is put to sea is naturally submerges and its moves are never reported. A PS and F may share the same space, as may different subs, however a PS can not occupy coastal provinces. If it fires a missile its location is revealed and if it has another missile loaded into it its location its location is also revealed. Each sub carries one missile and has to return to any home province to collect a built missile unit. The order to load a missile unit into a PS is L. In order to load a missile the sub must remain in the province for the whole turn. Also a PS may be disbanded once it returns to its origical build centre. They do not need to be supported by a SC.EXAMPLE A PS is built in London in S’02. It moves into the NTH and fires a missile (Order form PS NTH NM NTH-War) in A’02. A BNM missile is built in Yor during W’02. In S’03 the PS moves to YOR and in A’03 the missile is loaded onto it (Order form BNM Yor L PS Yor). 
14. A fleet unit which does not move can be ordered to Search and Destroy (ADDR-SAD). Any PS entering or remaining in that province in destroyed. The destruction of a PS is reported. 
15. The winning criteria is control of the majority or surviving supply centres at the end of any turn. A majority means half plus one is the number is even. Players may vote on game results as in Standard Dip. 
16. Any player that does not have a standard unit can not share in a draw or win the game. 
17. Any country which loses all of its supply centres but still has missiles must launch them at the start of the season immediately following the loss of the last centre or conventional unit, whichever is later. Note that a country may have its last centre destroyed in a Winter season, but will only have to disband any remaining conventional units in the following Winter. 
18. The GM’s decision is final and can only be altered by the GM. You cannot nuke Switzerland. 
19. The game starts in SPRING ’88.