Yeah, none of the suggestions have been *bad* in my opinion, someone just pick and lets get it going!

I nominate AJManso's set!

Unpoplar opinion time:

What's the point of playing on 36 or 50 player map, and then forming regional teams of nations contigupus to each other? Why not just play a 12-18 player variant? The team idea actually has a great deal of merit and attraction if the the teams are randomly assigned, and even more if they are unknown to the players at the start.

Everyone seems to be more worried about the alleged fairness of the team/nation assignments, than in actually playing this game. The board assignments have far less to do with fairness that the skill/experience of the players and the amount of effort that players put into actual diplomacy and strategic and tactical analysis.

What this game needs is a GM to dole out the nation assignments, and set the teams of players, enforce any necessary team based rules, and prevent the game from going on on some cowboy tangent solo run. From there players can announce their team allfiliation wi ther player or not. The teams will become apparent to most as the game evolves, but keeping them officially secret adds an element of suspense and intrigue, and quite probably - more diplomacy. Using randomly assigned teams allows for the secret team alliances within a game that will open up with regional alliance irrespective of the teams. The alliance changing dynamics of regional alliances clashing with team alliances would be extremely exciting. The added diplomatic intrigue of disclosing team idenities or not, or lying/inferring about them would add a wave of diplomatic drama.

You're on the brink of an epic game, but sliding back into mediocrity because you're all worried about the fairness of the opening two years of the game. If no one else know s the teams, this is a non issue. If the teams are not contiguous to start, it's a non-issue. The issue will be what is a formal team and what is a board alliance. That's the value of a team game.

I agree with this guy. Have someone GM

That was kinda similar to our last game - Unfortunately, people got bored before a single team was eliminated and we drew.

Yeah, the issue with completely random teams is that in most cases the actual teams have no real way to interact with each other early on, and thus by the time the mid-game is reached and the 'team' element could really come into its own, every team is down at least one member, likely more, and it loses the entire distinction from just a regular game - in fact, makes it worse than a regular game from a 'working together' perspective, since there isn't even the 'will my neighbour stab me?' question - any not on your team *will* stab at *some* point, even if it makes no positional sense to, because the game rules dictate such.

Thus the necessity of having at least one neighboring teammate, to allow the concept of 'team game' to be actually relevant from the start.

I just think we should get started. Each group set is pretty much as good as the other

yeah and we cant just start a game without any thought to it lol it would be horrible

-Norway/Denmark
-Scotland/France
-Sweden/Livonian Order
-England/Burgundy
-Brandenburg/Teutonic Order
-Milan/Savoy
-Switzerland/Bavaria
-Austria/Hungary
-Bohemia/Saxony
-Poland/Lithuania
-Castile/Portugal
-Pope/Tlemcen
-Tunis/Naples
-Morocco/Aragon
-Ottomans/Genoa
-GH/QQ
-Mamluks/Venice
-Novgorod/Muscovy

^^Updated list and we are set to go! Just need a mod to organize the draw and we are set

...if the issue was "Eng/Sco only has 2 possible ways to go" then I would very strongly argue that Sco/Fra is even worse as it literally only has *one* way to go if it wants to remain a viable team.

But whatever. We're clearly not going to get a universal agreement here, and a game is better than not (unless I end up saddled with one of these bullshit positions. But I suppose if you've got numbers to make a game without me, or are willing to chance the 1/9 of needing to find a replacement or re-roll, than I've nothing to complain about)

Alright so when are we starting?

I can make the game I suppose. Before I do...

Random country assignment or choose?
What should I set the win condition to? (how many centers)
2-day phases, yeah?
full press?

I think the assignment should be random. 2 day phase and full press both sound good. Also, shouldn't we get a mod to GM this?

GM in what way? Team assignment? Just to make sure we adhere to the rules?

@Erik think we were saying 60% centers as the win condition, which would be 185 but probably would need to end manually given that it's unlikely any individual player will reach that number even when their team wins.

2 day phases and full press makes sense.

Country assignment I guess some people have already expressed a desire not to play in certain regions, so maybe we should let people choose?

Gotta be random teams. Mods can always swap people if they have major issues with where they are situated.

I made the game!

https://vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=48878

If rules need to be changed I imagine that a mod can do it. Note that I made it "extend always" because I feel that missing a turn is extremely detrimental to a team even more than in normal play, but we can also change that if we want to. It'll just mean that if your teammate misses a turn, something not in your control whatsoever, you're going to be punished hard for it. But also if people are unreliable, the game will drag....on...


I also messed up the join phase, could a mod extend it to more that whatever the default is?

Oh yeah, password is

Genoa

I've joined and extended the join time. We can change most everything about the game settings if it's decided that we want to.

Thanks, I'll pass. As flagged earlier I prefer the dynamic of not knowing who is allied with who.

To confirm the alliance setup - teams of 4, we know individual pairs but not how those pairs are connected, right?

I also prefer fully secret teams, but unknown pairs is acceptable. Password isn't working for me though.

did you do it with the capital "G"?

yes

ok I'm in

Still looking for people! ^.^

We seem to have peeked out at 21... anybody else...?

...?

smaller map?