Background:

Everyday politics swirls its way around the United States. Its founding fathers wanted a system of checks and balances, but what America has is a never ending political struggle. Democrats, Republicans, corporate America, liberal and conservative interests, the military, secret societies and even the criminal underworld vie for control. Sometimes its played out for us in the daily papers, but on most occasions it happens in Washington's backrooms, as deals are made and broken. All to determine... who controls America!

This variant has player's responsible for each of these interests. We're all familiar with the role of the Democratic and Republican Parties, but at regular times each competing interest subtlety or sometimes overtly takes control of the other. The religious right is well known in its efforts to control the Republican party, and the Democrats have often in their past been at the beckon call of the union movement. JFK's rise is rumored to be thanks to the Mafia, and depending on which conspiracy you believe the military-industrial complex just as quickly brought him down. Secret societies weave their way through the fabric of political power and always present in the background are the lobbyists, doing their best for big business to win the end-game.

Rules:

Who controls America? You decide in this political variant. It is played like any normal game of Diplomacy with only a few minor differences:

• 14 supply centers are required to win, but you must also control at the end of an autumn the two neutral SCs of the White House and the Congress
• There is only one unit type in this variant: the patriot. They act and behave like an army (as there are no navigable sea territories)
• Patriot units can move up and down, clockwise or anti-clockwise and in four diagonal directions (up clockwise, up anti-clockwise, down clockwise, down anti-clockwise)
• Small arrows at the edge of the playing board indicate the connections between territories. This means that some territories while visually separated by large space, are actually considered to be next to each other. These territories and connections are: Environmentalists and Air Force, and Illumanati and the National Rifle Association (NRA)
• Patriots can be built anywhere you have a vacant SC