After we have seen and learned of the original Classic Calhamer map, it might be fun to take a look at variants. Here are my preferred variants depending on player numbers:
- 5 players: Ancient Mediterranean
- 6 players: Zeus V-F (France as a sitting duck)
- 7 players: Zeus V or 7 Islands
- 8 players: 7 Islands + U.S.A.
Ancient Mediterranean is a 5 player map that has no corner powers and two land neighbours for every power, on a map that is roughly balanced but has enough rough points to keep it interesting and approaches slightly different. (War between Greece and Persia, for example, would revolve around the separated nortern and southern coast of the Black Sea, giving the first to get a fleet into there a huge edge, while war between Rome and Carthage would be mostly decided by fleets as Iberia is a bottle neck for armies.)
Fleets are the bread and butter of this map, and with the ease with which they can cut through the watery center of the map from the mid-game on (and the many islands that can be used as staging posts for convoys), the original land borders can become fuzzy.
Also noteworthy for not having any meaningful stalemate lines.
Overall a very balanced and dynamic map.
Zeus V is a 7 player WW2 diplomacy map that has no corner powers. While Eurasia is dominated by army warfare in the early game, fleets will play a pivotal role towards the mid-game the latest (and for UK and USA, much earlier).
Speaking of UK, they are in a very interesting position as they start with 5 home centers as opposed to the usual 3, but are very thinly spread across the globe and will need some serious diplomacy to not suffer early losses from full powers.
There is the Zeus V-F variant, which replaces Italy with France as a power. France is generally considered to be in a very poor position (similar to but not as extreme as Italy in Classic), so it would be my choice to be turned into a sitting duck for a 6 player game.
Overall a very balanced map.
This uses the Classic Diplomacy maps, but turns the unnamed major islands (Iceland, Ireland, Sardinia, Corsica, Sicilia, Crete and Cyprus) into support centers.
This solves some weakpoints of the original Calhamer map:
- Italy gains tremendously from this in both options and potential early builds.
- UK gains from this potential guaranteed builds in Ireland and/or Iceland, depending on how far it is willing to remove itself from the Low Countries and/or Scandinavia in 1901 to give Germany/France and/or Russia an easy ride early.
- Turkey is gaining some options from 1902 on when it gains its second build, besides of going fully anti-Austria or anti-Russia, a very vital change to a normally option-starved power.
- France gains potentially in 1902 as soon as it can build a fleet in Marseilles... But doing so will plunge it into conflict with Italy, de-emphasizing the usually pre-programmed Italian-Austrian conflict by emphasizing the usually futile Italian-French war.
It works basically as bad or as good as basic Calhamer, but with a strengthened Italy (universally seen as the weakest power in Classic) and a few fun extra options for UK and Turkey.
This is the Classic Diplomacy map expanded to 8 players and the map turned into a looping map without real corner powers by adding the USA.
The USA are in an unique position, as they will need until at least 1902 to reach the main map, and will initially be weak with 1-2 armies at most (plus their 2-3 fleets, which will need to hold back in the early game to be able to convoy armies from their isolated home centers to the main action). They will be useless without a native power supporting them, but they are initially flexible in whether they will land first in Siberia (threatening exclusively Russia), Asia (threatening Turkey and parts of Russia) or the western Triangle of England/France/Germany (only possible with the aid of one or two of the other powers).
In combination with the 7 Islands variant, they could use Iceland as an intermediate staging point between America and Europe, giving them extra flexibility in where to enter the main action, unless England (or less likely France) put in a lot of effort to keep them out.
I've looked over Ancient Med before, and it definitely looks like a better solution to a 5-player game than removing Italy and the other player the book recommends leaving out.
Zeus's map's pole perspective is a turn off for me, but otherwise looks fine. I could play a game of it, for sure.
7 Islands is super interesting; my fear would be that it gives too much to England and Italy, particularly Italy. But you're right that it'll probably cause France and Italy to fight more often.
USA also looks good; the ability to influence the game in lots of ways is interesting.