Basic Information:
1. Variant Name: Canton
2. Player Count: 7
3. Short description of the variant's geographic setting & time period: Canton is set in Asia (and small parts of Europe and Africa) at the turn of the century (1901). Seven powers - Britain, China, France, Holland, Japan, Russia and Turkey - battle out for supremacy. The map evokes the conflicts for influence in Manchuria and Korea, the Great game in Central Asia, the struggle for the wealth of Southeast Asia, the hegemony over the Indian and Pacific oceans, among other historical conflicts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was specifically built as an improvement over Avalon Hill's Colonial, seeking to abolish error-prone rules, to ease the interaction between all powers, and to provide a more even playing field - the variant's balance is remarkable, and may be considered more balanced than Classic Diplomacy itself.*
4. Short description of the variant's rules changes: The official Diplomacy rules fully apply to Canton where mechanics (rather than map and unit placement for obvious reasons) are concerned; no special rules are applied.
5. Link or image of an updated version of the map: http://www.dipwiki.com/index.php?title= ... tonmap.gif
6. Link to an updated version of the variant's complete rules: http://www.dipwiki.com/index.php?title=Canton
* More information on Canton's balance is available on Diplomacy World #143, page 29.
Additional Information:
1. This variant has recently got its first game on Discord for the PlayDiplomacy community.*
2. This variant is supported on vDiplomacy.com, the Diplomatic Pouch Judge, and the Android app Conspiracy for a total of 1400+ games played.
3. I have played this variant on vDiplomacy.com, Face-to-Face and Conspiracy.
4. It's set in Asia - no other PlayDiplomacy variant is - and provides a very unique balance between powers, with all seven powers having different unit setups yet a very similar chance at victory. The geopolitical disposition of the various powers is also notably distinguished from current variants on the site.**
5. The ruleset used is Paul Webb's latest & final ruleset for the variant, released in 2004.
* More information on the Canton game being played on Discord: viewtopic.php?f=34&t=59359.
** More information on the strategical possibilities of Canton is available on the Diplomatic Pouch Zine Fall Movement 2018 issue, article "Variant Overview: Canton".
