Recently, we tried to put together a FTF game with 7 players. As happens all too often in Diplomacy we were short several players. When we finally sat down at the table we had only 4. We contemplated playing several different variants, but then decided we really wanted to play of the Standard map. After much thought we came up with a scenario that worked pretty well. It's a modified 1898 setup as follows:
Four-Man Diplomacy on a Standard Map:
1. Setup
| England | F London, A Liverpool |
| France | A Paris |
| Germany | A Berlin |
| Russia | A Moscow |
| Turkey | F Ankara |
| Austria | A Vienna |
| Italy | A Rome |
2. Home SCs
Per usual for each of the seven standard powers
3. Players
Player 1 = Russia and Italy
Player 2 = Germany and Turkey
Player 3 = France and Austria
Player 4 = England
4. Victory conditions
18 SCs by ONE country ONLY (so if you're playing France and Austria ONLY one of these countries can win - with 18 SCs). This variant played out very nicely. Interestingly, we noticed that if two players left the room to "negotiate" it invariably left the other two players at the map to do their own talking! This had an effect on the shift of alliances (after all why WERE those other two guys in another room?!).