Team:"a number of persons forming one of the sides in a game or contest, a number of persons associated in some joint action"
That is what we are doing. Random or choose your own team, it's still a team. I have had plenty of experience with these team games, and for the most part, they turned out perfectly fine, and all of them were random country assignments. sure some people will get stuck with dead weight. but that was a risk of joining such a game with 34 other people.
why are you complaining so much, you aren't even in the game???

If you're a better player, you can coach other players. If you're one of the "random donkeys" then you get to learn. There's no point in playing teams where you can pick your team because then the game would be over before it started. The most interesting part would be making your team as awesome as possible.

Ok down to 4 more players needed to kick this off. Lets see if we can find 4 more team players.

http://www.vdiplomacy.com/board.php?gameID=8536

Password is " team "

Roll up! Only a few spots left for an epic "teams" !!!

Only 2 spots remain

not for long I hope...

I know, I am getting excited to see who I am teamed with and start discussing tactics.

So if I don;t rubberstamp ever bad idea you guys come up with I'm complaining too much? I'm complaining because I was interested in the game until you ignored every sensible suggestion that would have made it interesting. And the game would have been underway a week ago if you'd gone with a blend of hand picked and pre-formed teams and two day deadlines.

As it is you're going to get stuck with random players that pout, turn silent, NMR, and eventually quit when things go poorly. I dont like the idea of being attached to random donkeys. When I play a team event of any kind, soccer, basketball, or Diplomacy, I want to have a say in who my teammates are. And you all are going to go crazy waiting three day for retreats and adjustments to be turned in from disaffected players. But maybe you can shorten it up by going with with Gman's suggestions and make the victory conditions 10 supply centers?

The idea of that 10 SC game was just for LOLs. No one wanted to play anyways.

Well Ruff, I didn't ignored you. I asked you clarifications on what you were saying (page 2) and you replied just: "I withdraw my interest from this experiement." (that it isn't true, apparently, since you've never stopped posting here).
I agree with all the things gman, butterhead, TheMoran and Wolfman said recently. This "random-teammates" version really looks the most funny & interesting.

- - - - - - -
However, if one day we'll like to experiment "choose-your-teammates" version, this should be done a bit "seriousely", pre-thinking a couple of things.
So each one of the preset teams should should sign up as a whole team, like this (post into the sign-up-thread):

"Hi I'm signing up team 'Lions'. We are:
- Guaroz
- gman
- butterhead
- theMoran
- Shep
Guys, please confirm you're in Lions' team."

This imply that everyone had time enough to PM several or many players and set up a team.
Then, after all the 7 teams are signed up, and everyone is ok with them, we'd ask to a mod not involved in the game to draw (choose at random) teams for the board, like:
Lions -> Europe
Tigers -> Central Am
Eagles -> Africa....
Only then, after this job is made, we could create a PickYour Country game and each player can choose or agree with his teammates which Country in the 5 avaliable for his team he should pick up.
This way we'd be sure that each team had the same chances to be made up the way its players wanted or liked. Because each one had the possibility (and the time) to recruit his RL neighbours or the players he thinks are the best living in his timezone or... the players he thinks are the best. The set up was fair and equal.

I could want to play a "choose-your-teammates" like this, but:
- I believe it would be harder finding 7 teams
- I'm rather sure it would be both less funny and less interesting than a "random-teammates".

Yes, but random teams can work out very badly - I mean what happens, if 5 newbies got into a team? That would mean almost instant death, if they got anything else than Africa.

@adalephat- yea, but at the same time, if 5 pro's get on the same team, everyone knows it and guns for them first. it would mean instant death. ANY team layout of any number of players can be instant death, depending on who gets targeted first by the other 4,5,6 alliances.

Is everyone ignoring what i said earlier? Instant death is nearly IMPOSSIBLE when theres 5too teammates together unless theyre all incompetent or NMR. Give me 4to oyher good players and i challenge 3 alliances to stop us before we hit stalemate lines. THAT is the fault with this setup.

@butterhead

yes, but in my situation (Columbia, Caribbean Defense Comittee), we have a Mexico, who is yet to be online since 2 days. If he hasn't shown up, and we won't get a replacement, that would mean almost Iinstant death for our alliance.

Roll up! Two open spots! The Team Game hasn't started yet!
Please read the rules and PM Wolfman for the PW!
(Rules are also in one of the first posts of Global chat)

Roll up!!!!!

One more needed! - we are good people - promise! :)

And the game begins