Schizophrenia
Okay, imagine this. A game of Payola Diplomacy. Fourteen players, though,
rather than seven. So there are two Turks, two Austrians, etc. However,
the players from one set of seven cannot talk to any players from the other
set. All offer sheets still come to the single GameMaster who adjudicates
them for the single set of board pieces. So one Turk could be working at
cross-purposes with the other and not know it. Perhaps it's even more
confusing, with the set of six players which each country can talk to being
a jumble from both sets. (This idea is extensible to more sets of seven,
of course.)
When I sent this idea to John Woolley, his initial response was to ask if
I had left my medication at home. But he one-upped me with the following.
Payola with 21 players -- one for each pair of
powers. Each player gets money for both his powers. Russia may
be at war with Turkey, but there's at least one player friendly to
both.
Or how about we assign one player for each trio of powers, topping
(just barely) even Chaos's player count
And how about if the AEF player could talk to only those dozen players
who shared two of his powers (i.e., AEG, AEI, AER, AET, AFG, AFI, AFR,
AFT, EFG, EFI, EFR, and EFT). Or only to each of the four players who
didn't
control any of his powers (in this case, GIR, GIT, GRT, and IRT). In this
case, if GIT ever wanted to get a message to GIR, he'd have to have AEF pass
it for him. This might dissuade the five ?RT powers from saying to each other
"let's juggernaut, baby!"
Spiro Agnew Diplomacy
I was once told that in their original form, the rules to Payola Diplomacy
were slightly similar to a Lew Pulsipher creation called "Ghods Diplomacy."
Ghods Diplomacy, I've heard, also permits bribing the
GameMaster, something which has been, in fact, considered
for Payola. Here are some of the ruminations on that idea, which
I note are similar to the recent discussion on "Oracular Diplomacy."
Once, right before a critical Fall move was to go through, there was a
player replacement in a Payola game. The replacement player picked up
Austria, a country which at this point owned only Trieste and Serbia but
had only one unit since he had had nowhere to build the previous year,
having just retaken Trieste.
In the ensuing Spring, his army had been bribed to move to
Albania while Italy entered Trieste. From the Fall offers which I had
received before the new Austria submitted
his, I, as the Master, could tell that his 18 silver piece balance was
sufficient,
if properly spent, to give him a build. In fact, it would have only taken
10 silver pieces. But he didn't
know that, of course, so his offers were insufficient. He would keep Serbia
(bouncing Turkey) but Italy would retain Trieste. Seemed kind of sad, I
suppose, so I got to
thinking. What if I, the Master or Banker, were as corruptible as the units
on the
board? What if, mixed in with offers like "4 : a tus - ven", I
got offers like
"5 : banker"?
And what if the high banker-briber were then (upon deduction from his account)
given the offer sheets of all the other players before the deadline and
allowed to change his own offers? The other players, of course, wouldn't know
which (if any) player got this privilege. Maybe add a bit more grain to it:
5 : banker tells me Italian offers
2 : banker tells me French offers
3 : banker tells me what my units would do and lets me change my offers
8 : banker tells me Russian bank balance
6 : banker tells me how much it would take to bribe A Ven
International Monetary Fund (IMF) Payola
In IMF Payola, the players decide, in a public vote, whether
tax income for the current year is to be distributed as usual or
kept by the Master in escrow until the vote passes on a subsequent
year. Players from whom votes are not received are considered to
have voted for distribution of income, and any tie vote results
in distribution. Eliminated players retain all voting rights.
This subvariant was conceived by
Michael Yatcilla.
Armand Hammer Diplomacy
In "Armand Hammer Diplomacy," the GameMaster maintains a bank account
for each observer of the game. These observers are free to bribe the
units just as if they were players. The initial balance and annual
income into observer accounts shall be determined by the GameMaster
and announced before the game.
UN Sanctions Payola
Under this variation, the GameMaster penalizes players by subtracting
from their account balances, for tardiness in submitting offers (for
example, one silver piece for each late notice). The policy must be
announced before the game, and if a position is taken over after an
abandonment, all penalties imposed on the position on the current
turn must be restored to the account.
The Spoils of War
Under this variant, any power with a unit which, after a Spring
turn, occupies a supply center which
is not owned by that power, may inform the
GameMaster that the center is "looted." This will result in an
immediate (that is, before Fall Movement offers are
processed) award of silver pieces to the occupying player. The amount of
the award to the occupying player is equal to one silver piece for every
supply center controlled by the owner of the occupied center.
The GameMaster will inform a center's owner whenever that center is
looted, and any pending offer sheet for the Fall turn which had been submitted
by said owner is forgotten (thus giving the owner of the looted center
a chance to reorganize his offers). At year's end, the tax income of
the owner of any center(s) looted during the year will have his tax
income reduced. Tax income for this variant is calculated as follows:
Tax income (from the table given in Rule 2.1) for
"the number of centers owned by the power"
-- minus --
Tax income (from the table given in Rule 2.1) for
"the number of these centers which were looted
(even if by the owning power)
after the most recent Spring turn."
I initially considered letting a power even loot his own centers after a
Spring move, but this seemed to give too large an advantage to a player
who controls a lot of centers. For instance, a player controlling 17
centers could loot every center which he occupies at the end of a
certain Spring turn, gaining 17 silver pieces from each, and then should
be able to easily win the game. By restricting looting only to centers
owned and occupied by different powers, this advantage is removed.
Generalissimo
Generalissimo is an ambitious Payola variant in which each of the
armies or fleets on the board is commanded by a player -- a "general"
or "admiral." Thus, there are political leaders (the usual powers)
and there are military leaders (each of whom "commands" some
number of units on the board). The political leaders pursue the same
objective as in standard Diplomacy, and they do so by bribing the
military leaders to cooperate. Each military leader has the
objective of finishing the game with more money than each of the
other military leaders. The following rules are contemplated.
- Each military leader, at the beginning of the game, receives
50 silver pieces. Any portion of this money can then be offered to
political leaders in exchange for a command of a specified army
or fleet. Each political leader must assign a commander to
each of his units. Political leaders are free to accept any offer
they wish to accept for command of a unit, or may gift the command
to any military leader free of charge. Payment for the
command is then transferred from the military leader's account
to that of the political leader. Whenever a political leader
gives command of a unit as a gift (i.e., no payment involved),
the command must be accepted.
- Military leaders are free to enter any order they wish to
enter for
their unit, and all bribes for that particular order (if any)
will be paid to that leader from the accounts of the bribing
player(s). Military leaders do not need to issue the offer
which will pay them the most money; they could, in fact, issue
an order for which they have received no bribe!
- Military leaders may offer bribes to other military leaders.
- Any number of persons may take the role of military players.
Unless otherwise agreed, there shall be no limit to the number
of units which a single person may command militarily.
- If a political leader is dissatisfied with any military leader
controlling one of his units, he may replace that military
leader, but only after obtaining consent from the military
leaders of at least half the units of his nation. Upon
obtaining this consent, the political leader must then
immediately give or sell the usurped command to another
military leader player.
- If a majority of the military leaders of a nation become
dissatisfied with the political leader of their nation, they
may stage a coup d'etat, replacing the political leader with
any willing military leader, and making the political leader a
military player. All units controlled by the military leader
turned political leader must be given or sold (either by the
new political leader or, in the case of foreign units, an
existing political leader) to another military leader at
that time.
- All bribe offers are delivered to the GameMaster and
to the military leader who is being offered the bribe.
Military leaders shall inform the GameMaster before each
deadline what order shall be issued for their unit.
- When a unit is disbanded or removed, the military leader of
that unit loses his command of that unit.
- Whenever a new unit is built, the political leader must
immediately give or sell command of the unit to any military
leader.
- All players may communicate freely with all other players.
- All military players who are without a command for an entire
year will receive an annual income of 50 silver pieces from "private
sector employment" at the beginning of the next game year.
It is thus worthwhile for military commanders to keep all
other military leaders employed (and to bribe political
leaders to make this the case).
Carnegie Payola
Carnegie Payola, named for the fellow who bankrolled the Latin American
wars, involves seven powers and seven bankers, one for each country.
Bankers own the silver piece accounts, and powers have no money
at the beginning. Bankers bribe units of any country, and
the power that owns that unit receives the accepted bribes for that
unit. But powers cannot spend what they collect on
bribes -- they just collect. Bankers receive the tax
proceeds for new builds for their respective countries.
The power or banker with most money at the end of game is the winner.
Everyone can talk to everyone. Powers are free to solicit
bribes from any bankers, lie about how much they have been offered
for other plans, etc., etc.
So the power does not necessarily have the incentive
to follow the wishes of its banker unless it gets paid
enough, and the banker does not want to overpay for military
success. Both share an interest in military success of
the particular country, but the banker would probably
want to accomplish this by bribing the armies and navies
of another power; the power, of course, would rather do it the
old-fashioned way.
This idea may need some work, as bankers may lack any incentive to
offer bribes at all, but the cross-purposes involved should make for
a great game.
Auction Payola
This is a Tom Koutsky idea, although John Woolley and I had tossed
around a similar concept. In the correspondence I held with Tom, and
which is paraphrased below, Tom indicated that his interest level in it would
extend to a willingness to Master games of this variant.
Auction Payola would be
kind of like fantasy baseball drafts, and would require a lot
of GameMaster involvement, though it can probably be automated.
Movements would be decided by what is called "simultaneous
multiround bidding" -- that is, each player simultaneously
bids on whatever movements it wants (thus the "simultaneous"
part), the GameMaster accumulates the bids and transmits high bids
for each piece to all players (though not the identity of the bidding player
or players),
and another round of bidding is set up (thus the "multiround"
part of the title).
In real auctions, this continues until the parties get tired,
essentially -- that is, bidding ceases when no higher bids
are received or the high bid is only slightly higher.
In this variant, it would always be "movement time" --
there will be deadlines for the various rounds, which could
be short (in PBEM-land, two to three days), diplomacy can occur
during the bidding, and players get to follow the bidding as it occurs
(although they
do not know who is doing the bidding). The GM has the sole
discretion to stop the bidding on a piece-by-piece basis, so
it is possible that the world may already know that the army in
Tyrolia is going to Munich, and this fact would impact the bids
on the Army in Silesia, the Army in Berlin, the Army in Burgundy,
etc. which may still be going on.
John Woolley and I had kicked around the idea of two rounds of bidding,
with the totals (again, not the origin) and the orders to be given
published after the first round. Then the second round would be held
and the results would come out. We also thought about cutting off the
bidding for any unit which in the first round received a bid something
like 5 AgP higher than any second place bid to that unit (and obviously,
not divulging what the winning order was until after the second round).
However, to actually publish the winning order for a unit when it is decided
(and perhaps before others are determined) would make for a very interesting
game, one in which it would make sense to raise or remove the two round
bidding limit -- instead, the bidding would continue until all units
fell under the 5 AgP rule. That could be done by allowing withdrawals and
re-entry without penalty.
With this, the decisions on the various orders would be made and published
in different phases, giving the game a great dynamic ("Good lord, here come
the Black Shirts over the Alps! What can I do to stop them?").
Executing a stab would be real tricky and would take a lot
of diplomacy ("My heavens, someone is really bidding up your
Black Sea fleet! I wonder who that could be!").
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