The Shift Variants

Last revised: March 28, 1993

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Introduction

The Shift-Right and Shift-Left variants of diplomacy follow the same rules
as normal Diplomacy; the only difference is in the starting positions of the
powers. The concept is simple: everyone begins the game with their units
occuyping the home centers of another power, with the units that power would
normally have at the start of the game. For example, in Shift-Right, Austria
starts with F Edi, F Lon, A Lvp; England starts with A Ven, A Rom, F Nap;
Italy starts with F Stp/sc, A War, A Mos, A Sev; and so on. Austria's home
centers are still Austria's home centers--but he doesn't own any of them
when the game starts, and can't build until he gets back to them. This is,
of course, true for all the players....

Victory Conditions

Just as in regular Diplomacy: you must control a majority of the supply
centers on the board, i.e. 18, regardless of how many units you actually
have on the board. It is, therefore, theoretically possible to win without
capturing a single onf of your home centers--unlikely, but you never know.

Initial Setup

The starting positions for Shift-Right Diplomacy are as follows, where
A -> B means "A's units start in country B":

   Germany -> Turkey       Turkey -> Germany       England -> Italy
   Italy   -> Russia       Russia -> France        France  -> Austria
   Austria -> England

Shift-Left Diplomacy shifts everyone in the opposite direction (Germany and
Turkey still just trade); just reverse the arrows to see who starts where
(or interpret A -> B as "B's units start in country A").


* Diplomacy is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc., all rights reserved. Used with permission.