This is the home page for the WWIV World variant, developed on Redscape by Tom Reinecker (GMTom/tommahaha), its history, on-going development, and games played.

Apart from the 'standard' flavor of WWIV, I have developed a rules variant, WWIV-Formal, which is hosted here as well.

Tom Reinecker was awarded the 2002 Fred Hyatt Award for GM Performance for his work on WWIV.

This page is meant to keep track of the full history of the variant. If you are GMing a run of this variant and have a web-site, or forum(s) where the game is being hosted, and are interested in having is stored or linked here, just drop me a line

This variant is based on a full world map, and has varied in player numbers from 29 to 35. The nations in the game are (hopefully) balanced so that everyone has an even chance. The modifications made over time have been mainly designed to ensure that balance.

As mentioned, there is as well the WWIV-Formal variant, that uses the same map as the 'standard' version, but introduces a whole series of rules regarding alliances, economics, the UN, and special units, in an attempt to more closely mirror 'real' life.

Below you will find links to the most surrent version of the variant maps, rules, RP Files, and a Forum set up for players and GMs of this variant to discuss the game. Those players in Games I GM are automaticaly invited to join the forum, if you are interested in participating in the Forum please send a mail, with some background to:

To use the RP files for this game a special build of RealPolitik is required, as the standard version does not work with large variants such as this. This build, along with the current RP variant files for the game are available here,

The WWIV Variant first saw the light in 2001 on Redscape. This first run had 29 players and a much simpler map than what we have today. Since then the map has gone through a number of version changes (at least 5) and the rules for how the game can be won have been modified as well. A detailed history, with (in most cases) maps, and the rules is available at the following link:
WWIV History

The development of the Formal version of the game started up after the second run of the standard version. As described in the history, this came from me taking a small idea of Tom's and blowing it all out of proportion. Even with the complexity of the rules, it seems to have found its niche and there has never been a problem filling the game. To date there have been three different versions of the rules run, with the fourth due out in Jan of 2005. The full history of the Formal Version, with links to maps and rules is available at the following link:
WWIV-Formal History

This section will maitain links to WWIV Games that have concluded.