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- Official Variant Maps & Rules
- Common Ruleset for DP-based Variants
- Transcribed Rules: Ambition & Empire
- See also: Powers, Maps, & Abbreviations
- Transcribed Rules: 1812 Overture
- Transcribed Rules: 1900
- Transcribed Rules: 1936
- Transcribed Rules: РАСПАД (Dissolution)
- Common Ruleset for DP-based Variants
Transcribed Rules: Ambition & Empire
Original Design by Jeffrey S. Kase & B.M. Powell
Version 6.0 Redesign by W. Alex Ronke, Jeffrey S. Kase, & B.M. Powell
Rules transcribed to the PlayDiplomacy forums by W. Alex Ronke (NoPunIn10Did)
Purpose
This thread contains a transcribed copy of the rules for Ambition & Empire version 6. Consult the PDF copy of the rules for a more complete version along with the Common Ruleset for DP-based Variants, which contains a minor change to the rules PDF regarding the adjudication of sorties.
INTRODUCTION
Ambition & Empire is a Diplomacy variant for ten players set in Europe in 1763. A player achieves victory when he or she controls at least fifteen supply centers (hereafter SCs) and that player has the most SCs of any player.
Except as otherwise indicated, the rules of standard Diplomacy apply.
VICTORY CONDITIONS
As soon as exactly one Great Power controls at least 15 SCs, the game ends immediately and the player representing that Great Power is the winner.
If two Great Powers each gain control of 15 or more SCs at the same time, the player representing the Great Power with the most SCs is considered the winner. If the two Great Powers each control the same number of SCs, the game continues until one player has 15 or more SCs and that player has more SCs than any other player.
SPECIAL RULES
Starting Date
The first turn of the game is Spring of 1763.
Minor Power Units
Unlike the minor powers in standard Diplomacy, which do not have units, the minor powers in Ambition & Empire each have either an army or a fleet. See MINOR POWERS to determine what type of unit each minor power has.
Minor power units prevent the Great Powers from simply moving into an unconquered minor power SC without support. To occupy a minor power, a Great Power needs to move in with support.
If a Great Power attacks a minor power and dislodges the minor power’s unit, the GM immediately disbands the minor power unit. If a Major Power moves a unit into an unconquered minor realm and then either moves, retreats, or disbands that unit before the Major Power establishes control of the minor power, the GM rebuilds the minor power’s unit as part of the adjustments that take place during the Fall turn.
The Great Powers may use Diplomacy Points to gain control of a minor power.
Diplomacy Points
See Also: the Common DP ruleset
DPs are an abstract representation of the financial, military, and political resources each Monarch has at his or her disposal.
At the start of each Spring and Fall turn, each player receives one DP for each SC he or she controls, up to a maximum of three DPs per turn.
Players use their DPs to influence the actions of minor powers. Players allocate their DPs when they submit their movement orders for the Spring and Fall turns. Each player may allocate none, some, or all his or her DPs each Spring or Fall turn. For each DP he or she allocates, the allocating player submits an order telling the GM how to use the DP (i.e., to have a minor power unit hold, move, or support). A player may consolidate all his or her DPs, if he or she allocates more than one, into a single order.
Players may not carry DPs they do not use over into the next turn. DPs players do not use are simply lost.
Players do not have to tell each other how they allocated their DPs or honor their agreements with each other. Only the GM will know how the players allocated their DPs. The GM does not publish DP allocations in the adjudication. Instead, the GM only publishes the results.
If, during a Spring or Fall turn, a player allocates more DPs than he or she is entitled to, that player loses all his or her DPs for that particular turn.
Gaining Control of Minor Power Units
The GM examines how the players allocated their DPs. If only one player allocated DPs to a particular minor power, that player gains control of that minor power. In the event that multiple players submit orders to the same minor power, the GM publishes the order with the most DP support. If no single order for a particular minor power unit has more DP support than any other order for that unit, the minor power unit holds.
The GM publishes the order for a minor power unit that has the most DP support just as the Monarch or Monarchs wrote the order. This is true even if the order is invalid or void, in which case the minor power unit holds.
Minor Power Unit Movement Orders (the "Sortie")
While players may order a minor power unit to move or attack an adjacent space (or a non-adjacent space via convoy), a minor power unit will never end the turn outside of its original location (aside from being dislodged). This means that a minor power unit can move (i.e., “sortie”) to cut support or bounce another unit, but it cannot end the turn in a different space than it started the turn in.
Notes on adjudication of unopposed sorties
For the Tournament Through Time, an unopposed minor power unit's move order which might otherwise succeed will still bounce. What this means from a practical standpoint is that a unit with an unopposed sortie is not eligible to receive support-to-hold. Also, the location where that unit bounced is not to be considered an eligible retreat location for any units dislodged during that orders phase.
Limitation on DPs
If a Great Power is attacking (or supporting an attack on) a minor power, that Great Power may not allocate DPs to that minor power during the turn the attack or support is taking place. This rule prevents a Great Power from allocating DPs to a minor power for the purpose of having the minor power unit move, thereby making it ineligible to receive support during the Great Power’s attack on that minor power.
The Religious Rule
In recognition of the religious divisions in Europe and the Mediterranean world in 1763, the Religious Rule restricts what Great Powers may order minor powers to do. Players may allocate DPs to any minor power in the game. However, the restrictions below apply.
- The Papal States army may only hold, attack/move ("sortie") to an adjacent space that is either empty or contains a non-Catholic unit at the start of the turn, or support another Catholic unit.
- An Islamic minor power may not support an attack by a Christian unit into a space occupied by an Islamic unit at the start of a turn.
- A Christian minor power may not support an attack by an Islamic unit into a space that is occupied by a Christian unit at the start of a turn.
- For gameplay purposes, Orthodox and Protestant units are equivalent; they are both considered Christian and non-Catholic. Additionally, the distinction between Catholic Christian units and all other Christian units matters only when players consider orders for the Papal States army (see the first bullet above).
Build Limit
Regardless of the number of vacant home SCs a great power possesses, no great power may build more than three units per Winter adjustment phase.
Austria & Southern Netherlands
Even though it is a starting SC for the Habsburg Empire, the Southern Netherlands (SNe) is not a home SC for Austria. Austria may not build units in the Southern Netherlands. This is the only SC on the map in which the initial controlling Great Power may not build.
Additional Home Supply Centers (SCs)
Every Great Power, with the exception of Great Britain & Hanover, has the ability to convert one or two of the SCs they conquer into additional home SCs. These new home SCs are locations from which the Great Powers may potentially build units in future turns. At no point will any great power have more than four home SCs.
Additional home SCs are either predetermined or elective.
Predetermined additional home SCs recognize of the fact that some minor powers have significant dynastic or cultural ties to certain Great Powers. When the identified Great Power actually controls the minor power with ties to it, that minor power’s SC can become an additional home SC for the Great Power for the remainder of the game. The list of predetermined additional homes SCs is as follows:
- Algiers may become a home SC for Turkey.
- Courland may become a home SC for Poland-Lithuania & Saxony.
- Crimea may become a home SC for both Russia and Turkey depending on which rival Great Power controls it during the game.
- Tunis may become a home SC for Turkey.
- Tuscany may become a home SC for Austria.
- Two Sicilies may become a home SC for Spain.
Elective additional home SCs do not have significant dynastic or cultural ties to the Great Power that controls them. Instead, they represent minor powers that the controlling Great Power has incorporated into its own military forces. Much like Turkey determines which of its potential predetermined additional home SCs become actual home SCs by building in them, some Great Powers can turn SCs they conquer into additional home SCs by building in them.
- The first conquered SC that France, Prussia, Poland-Lithuania/Saxony (other than Courland), or Spain (other than Two Sicilies) builds in becomes a home SC for that Great Power.
- The first two conquered SCs that Denmark-Norway and Sweden build in become home SCs for those Great Powers
A Great Power’s elective home SC (or SCs) may be either a minor power or the home SC of another Great Power. If the new home SC was originally another Great Power’s home SC, it functions as the home SC for whichever of the rival Great Powers controls it during the game.
A home SC that belonged to a Great Power at the beginning of the game will not count as an elective SC for that original owner; i.e. building a unit in a recaptured home SC does not preclude that Great Power from later acquiring another additional home SC during the game.
CIVIL DISORDER
Note: For the Tournament Through Time, the GM will not allow any power to fall under permanent civil disorder. It is the responsibility of that power's Dynasty to provide a substitute. If they cannot, the GM will assign a substitute to them. As such, the section of rules below should not come into play during this session of Ambition & Empire. It isn't exactly a change in the variant rules so much as it covers a case that will not occur by definition. See the House Rules for further details.
If a player is lost during the game, the GM should attempt to find a replacement player for the affected Great Power rather than have that Great Power lapse into civil disorder. In the event the GM cannot find a replacement player and declares the Great Power to be in permanent civil disorder, the following rules apply:
- The GM immediately disbands all units of the Great Power in civil disorder.
- All unoccupied SCs the former Great Power controlled become newly independent minor powers.
- The GM builds minor power units in the newly independent minor powers. The minor power units will be armies or fleets depending on the type of unit that was in that SC at game-start.
- New minor powers share the religious affiliation of the former Great Power.
- If a unit belonging to another Great Power occupies a SC the former Great Power controlled at the time it went into CD, that SC does not immediately become a new minor power. If the occupying Great Power moves its unit out of the former Great Power’s SC so that the SC is unoccupied at the conclusion of a Fall turn, the SC does become a new minor power and the GM builds the appropriate unit there during Winter adjustments.
- For the remainder of the game, all newly independent minor powers are subject to the provisions of MINOR POWERS. In particular, this means Great Powers can influence the new minor powers by using DPs.
- After the GM declares a Great Power to be in permanent civil disorder, another player may not take it over.
NOTES ON MAP
Holstein
There is no canal where Kiel is located in standard Diplomacy. Instead, Holstein (Hst) has a split coastline.
Lake Ladoga
Lake Ladoga, the Russian body of water adjoining the spaces of St. Petersburg, Novgorod Territory, Karelia, and Moscow, is impassable. A unit may not move from St. Petersburg to Novgorod Territory or vice versa. Similarly, a unit may not move from Karelia to Moscow or vice versa.
Islands
The Island of Sicily is an integral part of the “Two Sicilies” space and is not a separate space of its own. The Islands of Crete, Iceland, Ireland, and Sardinia are passable spaces and units may move to them. The numerous unnamed islands on the map (e.g., Corsica, Cyprus, Majorca, Rhodes, etc.) are not playable. Two spaces on the map, the SC Savoy and the Island of Sardinia, together represent the Kingdom of Sardinia, a minor power.
Courland & Koenigsberg
Courland and Koenigsberg border each other. This means that Lithuania is cut off from the Baltic Sea and is impassable for fleet movement purposes.
Straits of Gibraltar & Moyle
Gibraltar is a sea space. Gibraltar does not break the coast of either Andalusia or Morocco in two. Armies and fleets may move back and forth between Edinburgh-Ireland and Andalusia-Morocco using the crossing points the arrows on the map indicate. Armies do not require a convoy to make this move.
Units may not move or retreat between Edinburgh and Ireland if a fleet belonging to a different Great Power is in the Irish Sea at the start of movement or prior to retreats.
Likewise, a fleet belonging to another Great Power that is in Gibraltar at the start of movement or prior to retreats blocks a unit’s movement or retreat between Andalusia and Morocco.
Smyrna & Constantinople
Smyrna has two coasts: a north coast that borders the Black Sea and a south coast that borders the Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean Sea. During Movement, Retreat, and Build phases, all Great Powers must specify the Smyrna coast that their fleets are moving to, retreating to, or being built on, just as they would any other space with two coasts.
Fleets belonging to the Great Power that controls Constantinople (Turkey at the beginning of the game) may treat the two Smyrna coasts as if they are a unified coastline. The unified coastline does not eliminate the requirement for the Great Power that controls Constantinople to identify that part of the unified coastline, north or south, its fleet moves to, retreats to, or is built on.
Example A
Turkey controls Constantinople at the beginning of 1768. During the Spring 1768 turn, Turkey orders F Black Sea to Smyrna (sc). This order would be invalid for any other Great Power because only Turkey currently controls Constantinople.
During the Fall 1768 turn, Turkey can order F Smyrna (sc) to Armenia, Black Sea, Constantinople, Aegean Sea, Eastern Mediterranean Sea, or Syria.
It may alternatively provide support to units in any of those locations or support other units’ movement to those locations.
Example B
Continuing Example A, Austria gains control of Constantinople at the end of the Fall 1768 turn. The loss of Constantinople means that Turkey must treat Smyrna like it has two coasts.
The Turkish fleet on Smyrna’s south coast can now only move to or support action in Constantinople, Aegean Sea, Eastern Mediterranean Sea, or Syria. The Black Sea and Armenia are now off limits to Turkey’s F Smyrna (sc).
