1. drano019
2. Bonatogether (2+ day phases only)
3. ezpickins (?)
4. Siegmar Bruggen
5. Macca573 (2+ day phases only)
6. Mr. Finkelmuiyer
7. ubercacher16 (2+ day phases only)
8. berberstrijder
9. erikip107
10. Temasek22 (?)
11. CoffeeAndKeyboards (2 day phases)
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Would the person making the teams do it completely random or would they have the power to do anything about balancing (both between players and countries)

We'd set the parameters beforehand. Two options I see

1) Completely random. If neighbors end up on the same team, so be it.
2) Setup "groups". 4 groups of 9 in general regions of the map (for example - Portugal, Castille, Aragon, Morocco, Tlemcen, France, Tunis, Genoa, Papacy, or something like that) and the person selects one from each group per team.

Personally, I like full random.

1. drano019
2. Bonatogether (2+ day phases only)
3. ezpickins (?)
4. Siegmar Bruggen
5. Macca573 (2+ day phases only)
6. Mr. Finkelmuiyer
7. ubercacher16 (2+ day phases only)
8. berberstrijder
9. erikip107
10. Temasek22 (?)
11. CoffeeAndKeyboards (2 day phases)
12. mouse
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I am so in for this.
In terms of teams I'd honestly say it'd be better to have known, grouped teams (eg. 'Iberia', 'Scandinavia', 'North Africa') and a random country assignment, but completely random teams also works.

(if 'grouped' it'd probably need to be 12 teams of 3 rather than 9 teams of 4, though)

I'm not signing up for the game right now, but it is a very interesting idea. I'm seriously considering volunteering to be the person who assigns the teams. The idea I've been thinking of is to distribute them randomly, then if any one team included two countries right next to each other, to redistribute particular countries so no team had that much of an advantage.

Pure randomness would also be fun, but some teams would doubtless be in much stronger positions than others.

I'm not a big fan of the "pool" system, because most countries would still have very close neighbors that had been assigned to other pools. As for assigning countries in geographic teams of neighbors so that everyone has a similar situation, that would probably work better with public teams instead of secret ones.

During the game play, when players start getting eliminated, I would announce globally how many teams still had 4 players, how many now had 3, and so on. The identities of the teams would remain secret, I would only announce simple statistics.

Well, just a suggestion.

I like the balanced randomness idea, where the initial draw is random, but if there seems to be a strong geographical advantage present for anyone, some swapping might be necessary. Something that I think could be added to the "no adjacent powers on the same team" idea, though not necessary, is to make sure no team has two powers on the African continent, even if they're not adjacent. Tactically, if one team gains early control of Africa, they have a very good chance of winning the game, from the games I've seen.

I agree with everything erikip107 said. Having someone like KingOfSwords to distribute the teams would be necessary.

If this game works we should try a Divided States game with 10 teams of 5.

This sounds awesome. I'm absolute down. I think KoS's setup sounds like the best way to go about it too. Thanks Drano for the great idea.

1. drano019
2. Bonatogether (2+ day phases only)
3. ezpickins (?)
4. Siegmar Bruggen
5. Macca573 (2+ day phases only)
6. Mr. Finkelmuiyer
7. ubercacher16 (2+ day phases only)
8. berberstrijder
9. erikip107
10. Temasek22 (?)
11. CoffeeAndKeyboards (2 day phases)
12. mouse
13. CBro27
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Unless we are going in with pre-set teams I strongly disgaree with having anyone 'fudge' the results. If we want this to be random, do it random.

I much prefer hidden teams over known teams. If we wanted to set very basic parameters, we could, but that also would give people a lot of "knowns" about things.

For example using the suggested parameters:

- No African power is on the same team.
- Bohemia had at least 6 people they cannot be on the same team with.
- Genoa had up to 7, and Venice has up to 9 depending on how you define neighboring power.

There's more, but I feel like one could whittle down team possibilities fairly quickly with certain rules.

I realize it could cause an imbalance, but I'm all for complete random. That's why it's unranked right? Let the chips fall where they will, and work that Diomacy! Could make things really exciting and fun!

Will there be role-playing? :oP

Is there ever not?

gopher - Just for you, why not? Jump on the bandwagon!

1. drano019
2. Bonatogether (2+ day phases only)
3. ezpickins (?)
4. Siegmar Bruggen
5. Macca573 (2+ day phases only)
6. Mr. Finkelmuiyer
7. ubercacher16 (2+ day phases only)
8. berberstrijder
9. erikip107
10. Temasek22 (?)
11. CoffeeAndKeyboards (2 day phases)
12. mouse
13. CBro27
14. bsiper
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I'm in regardless now, I feel like we'll get a good balance or at least a good competitive stance.

I'm in as long as it's all random (powers and teams).

Hey, King of Sowrds, c'mon and play it with us. We just have to ask any mod to do the favor and make the random assignment, One of them would gladly accept it.

Note the game doesn't have to be anonymous, but I can understand any objection. Make it unrated, non-anonymous, 1 1/2 to 2 days, Minimum RR doesn't matter since the players will be the ones listed here. Any objection? :)

1. drano019
2. Bonatogether (2+ day phases only)
3. ezpickins
4. Siegmar Bruggen
5. Macca573 (2+ day phases only)
6. Mr. Finkelmuiyer
7. ubercacher16 (2+ day phases only)
8. berberstrijder
9. erikip107
10. Temasek22 (?)
11. CoffeeAndKeyboards (2 day phases)
12. mouse
13. CBro27
14. bsiper
15. CCR (random everything)
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I think I probably phrased my original message badly. I was planning to either join or being the person to assign teams (which KingOfSwords later volunteered to do) So count me in.

Do 2 day phases work for everyone?

Feel free to add me to this if/when it gets going.

1. drano019
2. Bonatogether (2+ day phases only)
3. ezpickins
4. Siegmar Bruggen
5. Macca573 (2+ day phases only)
6. Mr. Finkelmuiyer
7. ubercacher16 (2+ day phases only)
8. berberstrijder
9. erikip107
10. Temasek22 (2 day phases)
11. CoffeeAndKeyboards (2 day phases)
12. mouse
13. CBro27
14. bsiper
15. CCR (random everything)
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I think most everyone is good with 2 day phases, a strong consensus I think.

1. drano019
2. Bonatogether (2+ day phases only)
3. ezpickins
4. Siegmar Bruggen
5. Macca573 (2+ day phases only)
6. Mr. Finkelmuiyer
7. ubercacher16 (2+ day phases only)
8. berberstrijder
9. erikip107
10. Temasek22 (2 day phases)
11. CoffeeAndKeyboards (2 day phases)
12. mouse
13. CBro27
14. bsiper
15. CCR (random everything)
16. Mark12345
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1. drano019
2. Bonatogether (2+ day phases only)
3. ezpickins
4. Siegmar Bruggen
5. Macca573 (2+ day phases only)
6. Mr. Finkelmuiyer
7. ubercacher16 (2+ day phases only)
8. berberstrijder
9. erikip107
10. Temasek22 (2 day phases)
11. CoffeeAndKeyboards (2 day phases)
12. mouse
13. CBro27
14. bsiper
15. CCR (random everything)
16. Mark12345
17. gopher27 (tentatively, but only with role-playing)
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Role play? In what way?

Good day Brother,

We find ourselves surrounded by Slavs in varying stages of barbarism. Some are little more then thinly disguised pagan heathens. Others heretics in thrall to Byzantine error. Even the Poles, who claim to follow the one true faith, make common cause (and even demean the sacrament of marriage) with the godless Lithuanians.

It would be foolish and ungodly for us to not make common cause. For if we do not hang together, we will most certainly hang separately. I assure you that the armies under my command have fully recovered from the embarrassing setback suffered at Tannenburg half a century ago, and the Ritterbrueders are prepared to remake the current order if Poland and Lithuania can be diplomatically cleaved while we can be assured that our fellow Monastic State will stand united with us in the name of Christ and the Mother Church.

It has been 200 years since your humiliation at the Battle of Lake Peipus. The time has come for the Slavs to again learn to fear the Livonian Brotherhood of the Sword. Terra Mariana should be expanded to the East.

Yours in Christ,
Albrecht von Gopherhausen
Großmeister der Deutschen Ritter

That was pretty epic...

We've been stuck under half way to go... I suggest game creation asap, with a brief description (team game, role play encouraged). Non anonymous would save us a lot of roll call checking; or, it can be anonymous, but then we reset the current roll call - to show who's already signed in.

I probably won't play but I would be happy to do the team randomization.

I agree with CCR, although I'm unsure everyone can meet the roleplay standard that has been set.