What are you thinking? Pick countries beforehand, have a draft of countries....?
Let people join teams, or be assigned teams, or random, or anon but grouped by predetermined country...?
Have 7 team 'captains' that each select/invite/recruit their players?

il join Dr. Recommended

I'm down for another team game. I like the teams of two...
Perhaps 17 x 2 players plus one brave player being by himself.
It's not the perfect solution but it is more fair than the 3-player goliath

Seven teams of five is also interesting, however.
They would have to be predetermined teams, I would think.

The three player team isn't ideal, but it really made very little difference in the way the (present game) played out. If you as an individual (and a team) do not make alliances outside of your team, you are cooked. Before starting another of these games, I'd strongly recommend collecting a lot of feedback from lessons learned form passed team games.

There are many more distructive problems to this concept than the perceived advantage of a three nations team. I am playing as a member of the three nation team Frankly I have found my teammates to be more annoying than my enemies and I'm not allowed to attack them to correct their behavior. If anything being saddled with a second mandatory ally is a curse not a blessing.

Boosting the teams to 5 players might work, but as we have discovered int hese games the game dynmaic breaks down if the teams are clustered. Cypeg said it best, when he said that you simple recreate the Colonial (map) CF. Now I like Colonia, and the team game has some fun elements to it, but it's also very cumbersome and needs some tweaking.

The player that initiated this idea has since NMR'd, CD'd, and and abandoned all of his games at VDiplomacy. So it may be difficultt o recapture all of the ground rules for the concept. However, that's not necessarily a bad thing, since his rules were confusing, contradictory, redundant, and unnecessary.

In general when playing team games it makes sense to allow players to assemble their own teams. Equal sized teams makes sense too, but having a few singles or triples in the two man tteam doesn't necessarily ruin it. But for the sake of discussion, why not look at seven five man teams? Players could assemble their own teams or be placed into a pool of mercenaries that would be formed into teams of leftovers. However, to offer the game a truly interesting wrinkle, make the nation assignments random. That way there are five nations scattered around the map that must figure out how to work to their team's best interest.

Another angle would be to allow teams to form but NOT announce their membership until the end of the game. That way you would not be able to tell a mandatory team alliance from a forged alliance.

Everyone moaning about the three player team now had a chance to take it and no one wanted anything to do with it because it had to include Egypt. The thinking was that Egypt was an unplayable position based upon past results/statistics. But that logic is flawed, and the past Egypt players simply played bad games. Many players have played Egypt very successfully as many of you are aware. Suggesting that the three man team received som overwhelming advantage is rather insulting because it discounts the amount of effort put into the game. Furthermore I played most of this game Contradicting what my other two partners were doing. I had an alliance with another team that my teammates attacked and destroyed against my wishes, leaving me to fend for myself. I only survived long enough to reconcile with my partners because I functioned effectively as a solo nation.

Furthermore this notion discounts the automatic targeting that occurs against the three nation team, behavior thathas continued throughout the game. And there's nothing preventing two pairs of teams from uniteing and forming a four man team for all purposes, as some of the people moaning now have done!

The two team games I've been a part of for WWIV (both of which were rather unsatisfactory for various reasons) were a five player team game and a buddy up team game.

The five player team game is the one I would be willing to try again as it's rules were much more clear, however CD's eventually caused this game to be drawn before the mid game. Thread about that last seven teams of five game:
http://www.vdiplomacy.com/forum.php?viewthread=32228#32228

The hardest part would be getting the 35 required players all to not CD, thus I'd recommend high RR (say 90+) on the join parameters and lots of active recruiting by those involved to get enough people to get this off the ground.

The other twist that I would think might improve game play is to do random or semi-random nation assignments as RUFFHAUS suggested (avoid standoff behavior in year 1 by giant alliance blocks). Alliance membership being anon would be much harder (and probably require a GM to moderate) but also might be interesting.

Sign me up, but I'd also want all the rules ironed out and an agreed pause/replace policy for NMR's/CD's for this SRG so that it doesn't fizzle out like the last one.

The 3-player team may not have been that significant at the earlier parts of the game (in the current ongoing game) but it is quite important at the stage where we are at now. While, yes, your neighbors should have been more aggressive in the early game, now the entire theme of the game is making sure that the 3-man team does not run away with the win.

perhaps we should try a smaller map first to see how things run? say World Diplomacy IX?

im in just send me a pm when u guys are going to start forming the teams and all that

What about a gunboat team game? (:p)

I will play if you need another player.

dido. im in. it would be badass if it was choose ur own countries and non anon

No I posted this specifically for a WW4 two person team game without a three person team. With that being said I see three options.

A. 17 teams of two with one player to take it on by himself

B. 17 teams of two with one player who submits standard builds and then only inputs holds until the odd country is destroyed

C. 17 teams of two with one player who gets special permission from a moderator to create a dummy account and does not summit builds and does not get replaced when CD


The option for a three person team who has to get to 150 sc as oppose to 100 still doesn't solve the fact that there are three people on a team that can't back stab each other.

Personally i would love for everyone to agree on choice A. Would anyone like to volunteer to be the lone player? I believe it woul be fair for he or she to get first pick of their country.

I'm in! I like choice A.

B and C ->> NO

I am in, and I will take the 35th nation.

Two options then:
A) Countries get assigned an ally.
B) 2 players join the game as a team, and are randomly given 2 different countries (by the site)

I'd chose B. There will be teams with an advantage, but it'll be random.

I certainly prefer selecting my countries with my partner.

I still disagree that the three man team has any advantage. The three man team gets automatically targeted by all their neighbors, and has more work to do to succeed. If they overcome this, they deserve any advantage they have earned.

I was of a mind to take the 35th nation just to be helpful, but I've decided that I dont want to play team games. Frankly the team games proposed so far are really just a bad idea. The name of the game is Diplomacy. Froming manadatory teams to force communication and cooperation is contrary to the concept of the game. The only way it would actually be fun in my view is if the teams are secretly formed/assigned and given to a non-playing moderator/observor who tracks the team's progress, and enforces rules, posts standings, etc. That would add an extra element of interest to the game, basically forcing you to wonder if a nation is bound-allied by rule or by honor/obligation/favor/opportunity/guile. As the game progresses the pre-made alliances will become obvious, but no one would no them to start off. Doing this with seven five man team seems best since there are some people who are never goin to stop griping about the so-called advantage of a three man team.

That would be interesting...

RUFFHAUS +1

I like.. count me in if that ever gets off the ground.

(I'm becoming of the opinion more and more that most SRG's need a GM to run smoothly).

My two cents on the 3-man team is not that it unbalances the game dramatically. It is true that that smart neighboring players should keep that team in check during the early game. My beef is that the 3-player team sets the tone for the entire game. Either the 3-man team is beat down early on or else the entirety of the game is framed around the rest of the world having to team up to keep them in check.
In the team game that is currently in play, the 3-man team was not dealt with early on and is clearly the dominant force in the game. With their current team total of 60 SCs out of a needed 100, it seems that the 3-man team was dominant at about the half way point of the game. Like I said, this may have been fair and balanced but it has had a HUGE impact on the flow of the game and that is not quite as fun. It is hard to imagine that 17 2-player teams and 1 solo player would have such a dramatic global effect.
MOAN....
GRIPE...

so far:

single person team- butterhead: eygpt
team 1- mfarb congo & bluecthulhu kenya

When do you think this will start?

Hopefully when we get 16 more teams the moderator will start a game

Mapu and player to be named soon: India and Thailand.

Mapu and Dr. Recommended: India and Thailand

count me in if u still need more players