Sorry but i think this too hard to realize...
:((

don't always check here...

i've actually had some similar 'team' style variant ideas.

basically you have a team of 3-5 players.
each team has several roles: General, Ambassador, President, and Diplomat. (i think there was a spy role aswell...)

General, is basically playing gunboat, enters all the orders, is allowed talk to his team-mates but nobody else.

President is the team leader, but can't enter orders, or talk to anyone on any other team.

Ambassadors are playing global only chat, can talk to their team and post as their nation in global chat (which everyone can see).

Diplomat can post White press to other nation's diplomats (private, only diplomats can read), and talk to his team.

Spy can post Black press to other team's players (to any player they want, basically like a pm which the player can't reply to and doesn't know which country's spy it came from...)

What i hadn't thought of before was the option for national elections, where the president is selected (maybe once every 4 years) then the president can appoint his General, Spy, Diplomat and Ambassador.

Also the possibility of having a Army General and Navy Admiral as separate roles...

The number of roles, wouldn't need to be strictly set. For example a team might be fine without a spy/ambassador... (some teams could have 3 people while others could play with 5/6)

The problem would be getting the needed number of players, and possibly coding to allow the president enter orders if the general has gone in CD...
(oh and military coup d'état would be possible, with the General ignoring his team and playing gunboat...)

downsides include, getting 21-42 players together, and getting them to remain active throughout a game (though with an active team talking to each other a lot and making plans together, discussing all possible moves, planning tactics, i think it could work reasonable well)

And the coding required...

THAT seems too hard to realize, but having 2players ordering and only succeeding when orders are the same doing something...
And then gunboat would be loads of fun :)

i totally acknowledge your point, your version is much more practical.. but nowhere near as cool :'(

dunno, mate. its an original idea, but it's gonna be dificult to co-ordinate players.

with only two/three players per team, you could get some interesting dynamics, the simplest version would be one general and one diplomat, (no president or elections)

still needs 14 players.

no, i still think no roles (which i have to explain again because of ora, thanks :() but just both entering orders and only the orders that are entered the same would be moved, maybe being able to see what the other guy orders...