There have been several "Whole World" Diplomacy variants. Indeed, the very first variant, Youngstown, was almost a worldwide scenario, minus the Americas. However, most of these variants have included around 100 or more Supply Centers, with up to 14 or 15 Powers, and some have included airplanes, submarines and other unusual units. I have been thinking for some time, Why can't there be a simple worldwide variant, with just 7 to 9 Powers and no more than forty-some Supply Centers? In short, why not a variant with just slightly more Centers and units than in a Regular game, that can be played almost as quickly as a Regular game?
I started to design such a variant some time ago, but got hung up in complexities, as have most designers, by making the mistake of using the Regular map as the starting point. It finally occurred to me that if we were to have a small variant, it would be necessary to have a small world.
I came across a Mercator projection map (not to be confused with the "Mercator" variant) showing just the continents, and a few key areas on each continent. This map made me realize that the only way to have a simple worldwide variant would be to have no more than one Power and three Home Supply Centers per continent, except for Russia, which would have to act as the bridge between Western Europe and China.
Accordingly, the Small World variant has been based on the principle of trying to have one Great Power, with 3 Home Centers, and two neutral Centers, on each continent. The seven great power blocs of the Modern World are North America, Latin America, Western Europe, the Soviet Union, China, Islam or the Middle East, and Black Africa. It was possible to come up with an acceptable formula only by ignoring Great Britain, Japan and Australia. Based on prior experience and the shape of the map, it was necessary to give Russia a starting strength of four; with all of the others having a strength of three. While geography was altered slightly, as many smaller countries were merged into single spaces, the outlines of the continents remained unchanged from their true shapes* (effectuated by tracing a Mercator projection directly out of an atlas). It must be understood that the large areas devoted to provinces such as Siberia and MacKenzie are due to the enlargement of polar areas on that projection. These provinces are not really as large as they look on this map. * Except for the Antarctic space, which is pure fantasy.
England could be added to Western Europe only if that Power's strength were increased to four units. In addition, it was felt that Japan, by itself, was not big enough to be given 3 Supply Centers. Yet neither could be ignored. I finally came up with the concept of an Empire of seafaring states, essentially a merger of Japan and parts of the Commonwealth of Nations. This originally included the eastern half of Canada, but game considerations forced me to later amend this to include only Newfoundland, which in this scenario has decided to once again cast its lot with the Mother Country rather than with Canada. It is a very difficult position to play, having two Centers in the West and two in the Orient. It should be a real challenge to a good player who is getting bored with the usual setups.
Certain sea spaces also reflect a merger of real bodies of water. The Sea of Japan, for example, actually consists of the Sea of Japan plus the Sea of Okhotsk (but who can spell "Okhotsk"?) Yellow Sea is actually the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the Philippine Sea. Such consolidations were necessary if the map were not to be filled with too many water spaces. I think you'll see that fleets will be able to get around the globe very rapidly, especially in the Southern hemisphere.
We hope you find this variant interesting. In the words of Walt Disney, "It's a Small World, after all."