Hellenic Diplomacy

[@Salt-wf1tx]

The first thing to understand about this variant is that good options don’t really exist, especially in the early game. Trying to decide moves is like looking at all your options and picking which is the least bad, because they’re all bad.
You can see that with Scythia having to decide between growing or keeping their home dots, and the rest of the map has situations where every move threatens some other country in some way. Every neutral requires hours of arguing to obtain, especially since not a single person has guaranteed growth. This is the nature of Hellenic diplomacy.
Now take all of that, and play a colonial with very scattered centers across the map. That was my experience as Dorics.
The colonial alliances were constantly changing throughout the game, with someone flipping every turn. I went from being stabbed by both other Greek powers turn one to them both asking me to stab the other the very next turn. This went on for years.
This actually did come to a conclusion surprisingly enough, and it was where I traded my holdings in Sicily for the Ionions holdings in Greece. That gave us an alliance that was stable for once, and we of course used that to eventually kill off acheans. If this were to be run several times, I doubt something like that would occur again. It really set the tone of the mid game for the rest of the map.
Regarding my experience in the Black Sea and playing next to Ezio however, it was the one area I wasn’t constantly at risk of being stabbed for everything I had, until it was. Such is HellaDip. I can’t even be mad at such a solid stab in a game characterized by “Oh look, salt and this other person are at war again”.
All in all, now I can say I’ve been stabbed by both Ezio and Meme. Truly, I’m the victim here.

[@heinrichvonbaden8824]

Salt the trustworthy right here

[@yoshthen00b]

Ezio is such a madlad, straight up hugging a stab heavy psycho and ending up in the proverbial eye of the hurricane it seems like

[@DiploStrats]

What a perfect way to describe my alliance with Salt! I love that.

[@fratguide9835]

“I feel like Lydia is an inexperienced player with the moves and the trusting you” love it.

[@SekaiOnRails]

paradox games and diplomacy variants get closer by the day it seems.

[@DensetsuVII]

I love these wild variant playtests just from a game-design perspective - seeing a ruleset that's a little raw gives a great sense of appreciation for the elegance of classic Diplomacy, and great information on how far the rules can be bent to still allow for interesting strategy (the problems with the byzantion province come to mind in terms of balance vs clarity etc). Thanks for highlighting these!

[@AM-we1es]

Yeah, that was basically the design philosophy for this map! Throw together things I found interesting, and see what worked (the 3 centers in western Greece) and what didn't (KNO in Crete)

[@DensetsuVII]

@@AM-we1es Ah you're the responsible party? I mean as a map-gamer in general, it looks splendid. It really makes me want to create a Warring-States China variant, though as someone who doesn't even play Diplomacy I feel like it's not really my place haha!
Do you feel like the more arbitrary elements common to things like Imperial are worth simplifying or solving (ie that different countries have different solo-goals) or that diplomacy players will just learn all those rules? I feel like the elegance of the original lies in its consistent ruleset, but I'm interested in how much people constructing variants feel invested in those priorities~ Honestly it'd be really cool to see a video going through your design process if you ever feel like making one!

[@AM-we1es]

@@DensetsuVII Thanks! Yeah that question of rules is a recurring topic, most players seem to prefer less rules where possible, since that's part of what makes Diplomacy Diplomacy. The warring states variant idea is also a good one, I'm sure you could cook up something interesting with that time period.
If you want, there's a link to the discord server in the video's description you could join!

[@JeevesAnthrozaurUS]

This is a pretty good setting for a Diplomacy variant, but I can't help but imagine that a Diadochi variant would also be neat

[@arthurdaffos1490]

Very unbalanced considering the variation in size of each kingdom

[@sharpieman2035]

I’m guessing that Ezio’s power is going to get buffed for the next playtest 😂 Starting with three armies with those sea provinces is brutal!

[@sharpieman2035]

Also, you delivered on my request for the roleswap of player and analyst from the Imperial diplomacy video! Super awesome! Love that even the same other player was involved so Meme got to get his own shots in this time 😂
Now my only request is more videos! Been binging your back catalogue whenever I’ve gotten a chance and I’m almost out of vids. Feed me more more more, hahaha.

[@robertscott7812]

Starting out with only coastal armies in a famously (both in game and irl) NAVAL region of the world is WILD

[@dutch1641]

these alternative games are great, they make you rethink entire strats short and long term to what you are used too, very interesting.

[@PattPlays]

YES YES YES YES! God.. please do a CHAOS game with this! Ask your fans. I'm a dumbass but I would push and shove to get into one of these fun expeditions outside of the main board.
edit: not EVERY center has a player. Simply play every center owned by a civilization from game-start. Roughly triples the player count rather than anything insane.

[@DiploStrats]

I don't think there are any plans for Chaos Hellenic, but we are currently both playing in an 81-player Chaos Imperial Europe which should be quite the video :D Hopefully that popularises the idea of running more Chaos variants in future!

[@BS-bd4xo]

What an amazing map. I really wanna see a similar good map for the Middle East. It's a region with a good mix of land and water (well more land than water, but it's not one land mass and one ocean like most parts of the earth). Another one that would be pretty niche but good for diplomacy is the Netherlands.

[@DiploStrats]

I think there is a Netherlands variant on vDiplomacy, although I'm not sure how well balanced it is. I haven't actually seen a middle east themed variant, which is a bit odd - especially since it's actually quite similar to Classic in how the seas surround a major landmass.

[@janitorjams2091]

really interesting to see the contrast in tactics between Meme and Ezio, as discussed in the imperial diplomacy vid. where Meme keeps Salt at bay by stabbing him a thousand times, while Ezio lies in wait and waits for his moment. it's a bit wild that both games ended with similar outcomes, despite all the differences in tactics and the rules of the variants. I'm not a diplo player, so I have to ask - are there times in high level games where two players in near proximity (meaning, not England-Turkey) are absolute ride-or-die homies throughout the entire game, or does someone always go for the stab?
great vid, I'm always a fan of Ezio's inflammatory comments and aggressive tactics, would like to see more of these

[@DiploStrats]

There are absolutely high level games where 2 players will never stab one another - that usually happens when an alliance ends up fighting another strong alliance from across the board (i.e. Russia-Turkey vs England-France) and either side stabbing would mean the other side sweeps. I have also seen high level players run an alliance to a 17-17 endgame when they could have soloed, usually to try to limit their threat level in tournament standings or to make sure both players qualify for a final - I don't like those games very much because they're not all that interesting to commentate, but they do happen!
But usually someone does eventually stab for the win, if it's possible to do so.

[@pikapuffin368]

It's wild seeing the mechanics of Diplomacy stretched into maps this massive, not gonna lie. I'm personally curious about some map variants that try to keep a similar count to the original Diplomacy map.

[@DiploStrats]

I have played a lot of classic-sized variants, but they're usually played on vDiplomacy, which draws orders in quite a confusing way if you're not used to it, so we don't use it for RUclips. We might end up commentating a smaller one someday but probably won't be all that soon!

[@thedarklizard9725]

Glad to be apart of this game :)
(Even though I was just the Achaean sub for like the last year) also glad I didn’t die.

[@Sock-qv9wr]

Honey! New Diplostrats video just dropped. Time to get the popcorn.

[@audiosurfarchive]

🚨DIPLO🚨STRATS🚨
I'd love to see a cast expansion for stuff akin to Valefisk, thank you for introducing me to them. I'm sure you've got a full Diplomacy team at the least, and it'd be fun editing practice!

[@ricardoruiz949]

Its called Hellenic but it doesnt take place in the hellenistic period, even thoug the diadochi give a pretty cool starting countries

[@addisonbaker8211]

It's called Hellenic because its board is dominated by Hellenic or Hellenic-influenced cultures, in a time period where Greek trade and colonies were ascendant. Look at the board - with the sole exception of Phoenicia, all the colonial powers are Hellenic; the same goes for the regional powers Colchis, Lydia, and Illyria, while Egypt, Phoenicia, Carthage, Iberia, and the Etruscans all had well-established links with Greek trade routes and extremely well-documented Greek cultural influence (ranging from relatively small amounts of influence in Iberia and Carthage outside the actual Greek cities to more significant contacts like modern Tuscany, where Etruscan religion and art would be influenced significantly by Greek trade, and Lydia, where the kingdom, though still Anatolian in culture, were far closer culturally with the Greeks than the Hittites, their predecessors, were).
Hellenistic and Hellenic are two different things, and the Hellenistic Period wouldn't actually make for a very interesting board, since power would be very concentrated in the hands of a few diadochi from the start and the opportunity for large numbers of small regionals would be minimal.

[@TheSouperShow]

babe wake up
new Diplostrats video dropped

[@andrewkelley9405]

New DiploStrats during work? Heck yea.

[@TheH3LLP3R]

I can't watch right now but this map looks exciting. Can't wait to watch later!

[@kinglyknight]

Gotta get into the new hellenic meta!

[@imamasome]

Yo I love y’all’s content. I think I’ve grinding through the entire of like 6 videos in the past 4 days. Theyre awesome to help get through work. Keep up the content! Lmk if yall have a donation link I’d gladly donate to you both!

[@DiploStrats]

Hey, that's awesome! And thank you so much for wanting to donate - it still absolutely blows me away that that's a thing anyone would want to do!
We don't have anything donations related for now - these videos don't cost us anything to make and are a blast to record, and we're both doing fine irl so don't really need extra money. If it ever becomes big enough to become an actual job, we'll probably set up a Patreon or similar, but until then what we get from ads/YTpremium is more than enough.
But thank you again!

[@gray5105]

oh i thought this was a history video…

[@DiploStrats]

Aha, sorry! I'm sure there are plenty of others out there :D

[@gray5105]

@@DiploStrats lollll no worries i was like “omg longass video about a topic i’ve never learned about??” then realized it was a board game and still stuck around a bit

[@kevinreilly51]

Where is the Corinthian player? Given some of the other countries you would think that they would be a *pillar* of this variant.

[@ebercondrell6603]

Where is the rarest move video!!!!

[@DiploStrats]

It's coming!

[@DaRealKakarroto]

I knew Ezio could never be trusted 😄

[@sovietblobfish]

very cool alt-map and commentary!!
just a shame its almost impossible to see the province acronyms or the units clearly on my 30cm monitor even with 1080p!!

[@DiploStrats]

I was a bit worried about this when we were recording! But we didn't really have a good way to fix that, since the maps had already been made - I'm hoping it was possible to follow along with what was happening reasonably well regardless.

[@wmcduff]

Is a region on this map a Hellenic Cell?
Don't let this distract you from the fact that in 1998, The Undertaker threw Mankind off Hell In A Cell, and plummeted 16 ft through an announcer's table.

[@luciusgalloway9674]

Have you considered a game of thrones map? I think it might be interesting with low victory conditions for iron islands and high for Dothraki/ Lannister.
No real experience with diplomacy though lol, just thought it sounds fun.

[@isaacshultz8128]

Here's a summary of your moves for Spring 1902:
Fleet Naples to Ionian Sea
Fleet Ionian Sea to Eastern Mediterranean
Army Tunis convoy Army Sev to Smyrna
Army Constantinople to Smyrna
Army Moscow supports hold in Marseille
I’ll process these moves and provide the results.
Here are the results for Spring 1902:
Italy:
Fleet Naples moves to Ionian Sea
Fleet Ionian Sea moves to Eastern Mediterranean
Army Tunis successfully convoys Army Sev to Smyrna
Army Constantinople moves to Smyrna (occupies Smyrna)
Army Moscow supports Army Marseille's hold (Marseille holds)

[@DiploStrats]

Is this ChatGPT order resolution?

[@isaacshultz8128]

@@DiploStrats Yes haha