Stellar Diplomacy

Yet Another Half-Baked Idea From the Creator of the Alarishi
Empire...

(you know, I don't know about you, but _I_ find that phrase a
little worrying)...

  I'm thinking that what we really ought to have is a version of
Diplomacy with, say, 2 years per turn.	Start when FTL is
discovered.
  Player positions are (the majors) EU, NAC, ESU and (the minors)
LLAR, IF, IC, OU, PAU.
  Each player has a certain amount of population and a certain
number of regions. Regions with population produce resources, up
to a point; excess population in a region _consumes_ resources
(think "bread and circuses").
  Population points can be destroyed through war, or relocated by
shipping them to a colony, and lost if the colony dies out.
Obviously the population will grow over time, so you can't just
sit there and do nothing.
  When you participate in a war, you will lose population and you
may lose territory--this is bad.  Or you may lose population and
gain territory, which will improve your "population/sqare
kilometer" ratio.
  Your first colony will be _very_ expensive; the price goes down
after that with every colony you launch (and/or the chance of it
surviving goes up).  You can spread the expense of launching a
colony among several players, in which case they all get credit
toward their colony expertise count--this is to simulate things
like the US/Russian space ventures and, more importantly, the
"historical" cooperation of EU with IF and PAU.
   Colonies which succeed may secede.  But at least the
population is no longer your worry.