1897

1. The normal rules of diplomacy apply except where amended herein.

2. The game starts in Autumn 1897 when each player reveals which of their regular home supply centres will be their initial home supply centre. However Russia may not chose StP.

3. In Winter 1897 each player builds a unit in their initial home supply centre. The game then proceeds as normal with the exception that all centres owened after the Winter 1899 adjudication become home supply centres for the duration of the game. 1. Regular home supply centres that are not captured before Winter 1899 are *not* home centres in this variant. 2. If you hold another player's initial home supply centre at the end of Winter 1899 it becomes a home supply centre for you and is not a home supply centre for the original owner.

4. Players are referred to by their country of origin, even if they do not own any centres within their original homeland!

Design Notes: (from variantbank)

This variant is a revision of 1898. In 1898 players have to recapture their regular home supply centres. This revision gives players the option of deciding which centres they want for their home supply centres. In 1898 players start from a pre-fixed initial home supply centre. In 1897 they decide for themselves, as a result of diplomacy, where to start from. In 1898 players spend the pre-1900 seasons recapturing their original Diplomacy boundaries. In this variant players have the option of going for different boundaries. In August 1992 Rick Westerman (westerm@aclcb.purdue.edu) suggested a revision of 1898 along these lines. His ideas were discussed in the dipl-l listerv group. The main contributor to this discussion was Mark Nelson (amt5man@sun.leeds.ac.uk). The first person to codify the discussion into a set of rules was Josh Smith (irilyth@infersys.com). This set of rules is a revision by Mark Nelson and Josh Smith of Josh's set of rules.