My suggestion is pick your three team captains and make them bid on the three biggies out of the same pool they will have to use for the rest. The entire point of the bidding was because Stato is not as powerful as Naples, which is not as powerful as Venice. Also, Turkey is reasonably powerful, especially, if they end up together with Naples, which bidding should make VERY likely.

Ill play.

Ill be naples.

1. butterhead
2. EvW
3. Diplomat33
4. Alcuin
5. Neil
6. SacredDigits
7. ezpickins
8. drano019
9. Guaroz
10. Diplomat33

Me too.
I want 2 slots as Diplomat33. :D

Count me in. Although I feel my Rinascimento experience would make me a poor captain. How about making the three most qualified players ( most games played on this variant ) the captains and make it a choose your country game. This way the three largest countries would still be captains. Just a thought.

Damn it Diplomat, you got me all confused... ok:
1. butterhead
2. EvW
3. Diplomat33
4. Alcuin
5. Neil
6. SacredDigits
7. ezpickins
8. drano019
9. Guaroz
10. ashleygirl

@ashley. I don't think you would be a poor captain. And if you'll actually be a captain, surely you'll have maaaaaany advisors since the start of the bidding, so don't worry.
Random countries it's ok.

This looks like a really cool idea butter, if there's any more slots or you guys need a sub count me in. Maybe we could do the bidding in game in global after pausing the game right at the start, with non anon players? that way there could be some diplomacy-ing that goes on re the bidding with potential sidebars, and you'd be able to bid on player/position combinations rather than just the nation. (So you can avoid or go for players you admire)

oh yes Ancient, it is non anon, and we are pausing as soon as the game starts to do the bidding...

ill play

I will play

Ok,
1. butterhead
2. EvW
3. Diplomat33
4. Alcuin
5. Neil
6. SacredDigits
7. ezpickins
8. drano019
9. Guaroz
10. ashleygirl
11. AncientMemories
12. kaug
we are ready, will start it later today.

Ok.

If you guys need an alternate, let me know

Seeing as you stole your points, no :-)

Make sure you leave enough time for signups. I'm going to be well busy at work until the seventh so will only get to play diplomacy for an hour or so in the evening

Ok, for the bidding- I understand that people are unavailable for much of the day, so when the bidding starts, I will get the three betting powers availability, if they are limited access, I will set the time for each bid to be about 12 hours after the first person bids for the second person to bid, 12 hours for the third after that, etc etc.

Oh god butter, what if its a long bid for one power? We could be taking weeks for bids! Alternatively, what if we did a silent bid? For every power, each captain sends a pm with the Max amount they would bid on that power. Highest one wins.

Example: bid on milano. Naples says Max 20, station says Max 25, and Venice says Max 40. Venice gets milano for 26.

That could eliminate the possibility of the three captains going back and forth over one powert for says.

it also eliminates bidding wars

Woops, hit post too early :P
We can bid that way if we all want, i don't really caare that much either way, but it is a totally different kind of bidding when you do it like that. while we're considering, we could also do a silent bid too. which do you guys think we should do?

I think the auction is the most interesting part of the game. I don't mean I don't care about the team game, but the auction is the real news, so let's make it a good auction.
Diplomacy is hot during the auction. All players give their hypothesis to the captains. about who's to be choosen "Why don't you bid to get me and Firenze? I know him, he/she's a strong player, we need him". After a captain has "bought" a player, he's PART of the TEAM now. So his suggestions are not just hypothesis but REAL advices. The forming team begins to work on where would be better bet the rest of $ on.

You start winning, whether you are a captain or a player, from what you say before and during the auction. Or from how you listen.
I reccomend a reasonable LONG auction.

About 2 weeks say. Can we start this after the holidays?

No offense guaroz, but i think you're being too optimistic. In theory, you r idea is 100%to right and I suoport it wholeheartedly. In practice, not so much. After 3 to 4 days where possibly only 1 power has been chosen, people WILL get bored. They WILL stop talking if only because there's only so much one can do to convince someone of their worth before getting annoying. Think about it. Just his much can France really say to the captains to convince them of his worth? Perhaps a good 5 to 6 paragraphs about his worth against Milan and savoia? Considering that players can't make alliances so even if savoia and France decided to team up against Milan, they might end up on other teams and be forced to fight against each other, there's only so much diplomacy that can be done. With 12a hours allowed between each bid and the potential for a single players bid to last days, people WILL lose interest. If the bidding is goin to potentially last weeks, I'm out.

What if we did this:

At start, 3 or 4 days are given for initial diplomacy. Players make their cases to captains and captains negotiate. During that time period, the 3 captains find a time where they can all be online for roughly 30 minutes to do the first bid. Then, 24 hours are given for new diplomacy, and we repeat.

I personally feel we have to make the captains be on either all at thebsame time, or more frequently than once or twice a day for the bidding. I know I won't be interested a monthnfrom now if I just sat in pause for awhile, and I bet there would be othernpeople who's enthusiasm have waned as well.

I even volunteer to be a captain since I can be on a good number of times a day (except Sundays and sometimes Saturdays).

I hosted it live when we did it last time and it was rough getting all three there. One guy's internet connection had a major lag and it was a borderline disaster, but the captains became random because they were set powers. I'd propose that you pick three captains and set the game to pick your power. Pick reliable all US or all EU or all Oz based captains for internet issues and start by having them bid to be Venice, The Pope and Naples and then go from there, so Stato would probably be free. Then as powers are chosen, the winning captain could assign players to their bought powers in order. So the fourth and fifth powers chosen might be more valuable than their given power as you could assign drano (or someone else who is awesome) to Turkey, when you are Naples or Florence when you are Stato.

Gopher, are you suggesting bidding on.both players and powers? If so, I like it since as you said, some powers are better with stronger players. If not, how do players get allocated? Every time a power is bought the captain gets to pick a player?

I win the fourth power, the first unassigned relative to player, and I as one of the three captains get to assign the player to that newly purchased power, so pick your buddies or pick the best player or just never get stuck with someone you don't like. ;o)