(1) Pete Birks, Greatest Hits 126 (January 1986)
It is amazing that Youngstown attained any popularity with a glaring design fault of a chronically easy stalemae line in about four different places. One of Diplomacy’s strengths is that although it is possible to set up lines, it is never easy and usually requires close co-operation (in other words, if you set one up, you probably deserve the draw). In Youngstown, Russia and/or China could set up one on their own. Apart from drop-outs, I cannot think of a Youngstown game which ended in an outright win.
(1) JOSH SMITH (1992)
The popular Youngstown variant altered the basic Diplomacy game in a number of significant ways. It introduced Off Board boxes, allowing a form of wrap- around movement from one edge of the board to the other. It redrew the European map to allow Germany, Austria, and Turkey to start with four units each, and created several additional neutral centers in Europe. It gave England and France home supply centers in Asia, and Italy a home center in Africa. It added several islands, which bordered only sea spaces. It made the map non-planar in the African Off Board and the Suez region. It added three players to the original seven, but more than doubled the number of supply centers on the board to 72; the victory criterion is 37 centers. The rules and a postscript map can be downloaded from any of the on-line Judges.