"Geography is Destiny" as applied to "War In North America"

            Paul D. Windsor's article, "Geography is Destiny: How the Standard Map Dictates Fortunes and Strategy" is one of my favorite Diplomacy articles. If any of you haven't read it, it is a masterpiece of analysis. I have taken the liberty of applying Mr. Windsor's analysis to the "War In North America" board (version 5.0).

            At the heart of his article is the premise of tempo, or the shortest number of moves that a power has to take to get to eighteen supply centers. One tempo would be the distance between adjacent supply centers (such as Venice and Trieste), two tempo would be two moves, and so on. In standard Diplomacy, Russia was seen to have the quickest route to victory (29 tempo), with Turkey and England the slowest (44 tempo). This bears out in game play, where Turkey is frustratingly difficult to get going, whereas Russia sometimes gallops across the board.

            The other factor that Mr. Windsor takes into account is what he calls "the Fear Factor". If one of your neighbor's quickest roads to victory plows right through the heart of your homeland, you would fear him the most. Mr. Windsor calculated this by assigning value to adjacent supply centers which declined with distance. The highest was the Venice/Tripoli situation, which causes no end of paranoia in standard Diplomacy.  Home centers one space apart were arbitrarily assigned a factor of 5, two spaces apart were 4, and so on. Germany (total fear 51) had the most to fear from its neighbors, followed closely by Austra (fear 46), whereas England (fear 16) and Turkey (fear 20) sat in the corners in relative peace.

            Mr. Windsor surmised that a power that had the least to fear from its neighbors and had the quickest route to victory, should win most Diplomacy games. And this is true. In standard Diplomacy, his ranks were (1) Russia, (2) France, (3) England, (4) Turkey, (5) Austria, (6) Germany, and (7) Italy. This well correlates with game results.

            At first glance, the WINA map may seem quite unbalanced. When compared to the standard Diplomacy map, Canada with its white pieces seems like mighty Russia. Inflexible Turkey compares to Mexico's yellow blocks. And poor Texas with the bloody red pawns seems doomed to die as many early deaths as Austra. But a closer examination of this map belies expectations.

            A list of 18 centers likely would include your home centers plus the closest neutrals and centers of your neighbors. In WINA, it looks like this: (home supply centers capitalized)

        These lists can be a bit different, especially for supply centers 3 spaces away. Centers four spaces away were not included since all powers can get to 18 centers within three spaces of any home center.

            In standard Diplomacy, the ranges of tempi were greater (29 to 44) than in WINA (30 to 39). So the "War in North America" powers are more balanced in terms of speed to victory.

FEAR FACTOR

            The nations that a particular country intimidates most is found in the vertical column. The horizontal row shows a country whom it should be most afraid of. Supply centers more than three spaces apart were not included. Any nation can get to 18 centers within three moves of any of its supply centers.

            For example, Canada's WIN and TOR are three spaces apart from the Indian Nation's SOU (the closest). MON is four spaces away, so it isn't counted. So this translates into a total score of six (three for each). So Canada has a moderate amount to fear from the Indian Nations.

            Richmond and Washington being one space apart are five points all by themselves! This contributes mightily to the intense fear and intimidation between their two nations.

            Note that the relationships are not reciprocal. The Union has a lot more to fear from Canada (16) than Canada has to fear from the Union (10).

            Canada has the least to fear from any nation, whereas the Union has a lot to fear especially from Canada and the Confederacy. That is why the Union absolutely must eliminate the threat from at least one of these neighbors as soon as possible.

            The Fear range in standard Diplomacy is 16 (for England) to 51 (for German). So, here too, the War in North America map (19 to 44) is more balanced than is standard Diplomacy.

            The Intimidation factor is also well balanced. WINA's spread is 25-37. Standard Diplomacy's is 21 (for England) to 45 (for Germany). No one nation scares the daylights out of all of the others. The power to intimidate one's neighbors can be a powerful influence in diplomatically deflecting attacks. If you don't scare anyone, you could be a sitting duck in Diplomacy. But this cuts both ways. If you intimidate your neighbors a lot, they are very likely to eliminate you early. And if you don't scare anyone, they all might ignore you.

TOTAL RANKING OF THE NATIONS:

          Combining the speed of victory with the least to fear can allow one to see which nation usually comes out on top.

          The tie for second between Mexico and the Indian Nations could be broken by looking at other factors. The Indian Nations have access to five neutrals in 1860 (but all but one contested). Mexico has a maximum access to two neutrals (one contested). But Mexico has great access to the oceans, whereas the Indian Nations are landlocked at start. So Mexico should take the second spot.

            Texas has access to five neutrals, but all are contested. Texas also is nearly landlocked. The Union has access to three centers (New York is uncontested) and great sea coasts. So the Union should take the fifth spot.

          Canada is the slowest nation (but not by much). And Canada has the least to fear from its neighbors (this by a lot). This may explain why Canada has won many of the games of WINA.

            Mr. Nesbitt has stated that the Indian Nations haven't ever won an email game (even though they've won in FTF) and have the highest chance of getting eliminated. A Texas win is tough, but Texas rarely gets wiped out. This perhaps explains why. With many open spaces around them, the Indian Nations would seem to be safe (fear tied for 2nd). But they are quite slow to victory (only marginally better than Canada). And they don't intimidate anyone very badly, which is strange for a centrally placed power. But I think that the most important factor in the Indian Nations' poor performance is the lack of a port at the start of the game. The game rules allow for Boston or California to become fleet build centers, but they are far away (3 and 5 spaces respectively). Texas also is a nearly landlocked country, with only one port surrounded by seas dominated by other naval powers (just as Austria is in standard Diplomacy).

            Texas is faster than the Indian Nations, but its fear factor is much higher. Its intimidation factor is also high. High Fear and Intimidation factors in a centrally placed power calls for an expert Diplomat (exactly Austria's position in standard Diplomacy!)

            The nation likely to have a lot of problems could be the Union. It scares the dickens out of its neighbors and it has the most to fear from them as well. But this is balanced somewhat by its speed to victory, which is almost as great as the Confederacy.

            Canada's huge expanse and white pieces only seems to be like Russia. Canada is a slowly developing power, but it has much less to fear than any nation. So Canada is a safe bet for a newbie or conservative player. Canada should survive most games of WINA.

            Mexico and its yellow pieces does compare somewhat with Turkey in its relatively slow tempo and low fear factor. But Mexico has a great advantage that Turkey does not in its ability to sweep into both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  Mexico's only problem would be in the lack of ability to shift fleets from one ocean to the next (which is why the USA built the panama canal in the first place!)

            So in this analysis of WINA version 5.0, the Confederacy should be the nation of choice, due to its fast path to victory. Its high Intimidation value can be used to scare one's opponents. It has great naval access to the riches of the caribbean. Since it is not a central power (Indian Nations, Texas, Union), its corner position is a great strength. It has somewhat to fear from its neighbors, but not as much as Texas or the Union (which interestingly are both its neighbors!)

            So the final overall rankings for WINA version 5.0 from this analysis are:

1) Confederacy, 2) Mexico, 3) Indian Nations, 4) Canada, 5) Union, 6) Texas.

MAP CHANGING:

            To see how the addition or deletion of one space can radically change a map, see what happened when Mr. Nesbitt eliminated Mobile Bay from version 4.0 to 5.0.

            The creation of a supply center in Wisconsin sped up Canada somewhat (from tempo 41 to 39). But the elimination of Mobile Bay also sped up the Confederacy considerably (from last at 42 to first at 30!) The speed of the other nations wasn't changed much at all. The reason this happened was that Mobile Bay was an extra sea space from the Confederacy's only home port (Jackson) on the Gulf of Mexico. This elimination brought all supply centers in the southern side of the map closer to the Confederacy and thus quicked its path to victory.

            The Fear Factor was also changed by the elimination of Mobile Bay. It didn't change the Confederacy's fear of Mexico much (from 9 to 10), but it did cause quite a jump in Mexico's fear of the Confederacy (from 6 to 11!) This was likely due to the fact that Jackson was insulated a bit before by Mobile Bay, whereas Richmond and Savannah were always quite distant from Mexico. But the elimination of Mobile Bay caused the now open port of Jackson to be one space closer to all three of Mexico's centers!

            In version 4.0, the numbers were as follows:

Canada: Tempo 41 (rank 5th), Fear 19 (rank 1st), Overall: Second

Confederacy: Tempo 42 (rank 6th), Fear 34 (rank 4th), Overall: Sixth

Indian Nations: Tempo 39 (rank 4th), Fear 28 (rank 3rd), Overall: tie Third

Mexico: Tempo 37 (rank 3rd), Fear 22 (rank 2nd), Overall: First

Texas: Tempo 34 (rank 2nd), Fear 35 (rank 5th), Overall: tie Third

Union: Tempo 32 (rank 1st), Fear 42 (rank 6th), Overall: tie Third

            The tie for third was broken by demoting Texas to fifth as all of its natural neutrals could be contested. The Indian Nations were demoted to fourth for having a much slower tempo than the Union. I had considered that Canada had a better ranking than Mexico due to the fact that Canada was the only nation with two uncontested neutrals in 1860 (a considerable advantage).

            So the final ranking for version 4.0 was: 1) Canada, 2) Mexico, 3) Union, 4) Indian Nations, 5) Texas, and 6) Confederacy.

            In going from version 4.0 to 5.0, the Confederacy and Indian Nations were strengthened, whereas Canada was weakened.

            But the fact remains that WINA's Fear, Intimidation, and Tempo ranges are all quite a bit less than the ranges of standard Diplomacy. This is the basis for the argument that WINA is basically a more balanced game than standard Diplomacy.

            War in North America is a great variant. The map and nations are well balanced and the historical period is wonderful for those of us living on this continent. I highly recommend it to all Diplomacy players.

George Glass

(if there are any mistakes in calculations, I offer my humble apologies).