Oh and where did LanGadin get off to? I haven't seen him in forever...

Epic username, how'd you pull that off?

Count me in!

Before we start, I would like to know who the other 5 players are, though.

@faceman - see pms

Fasces, it's just a character, like any other. I have an extension for chrome that allows me to input special characters like that. Many sites, and almost all programs don't accept them as valid characters, but some (like this site) do. I was surprised that it would let me do a single character as a name though. I wish I'd used ♥ or ♫, though, the face barely shows up.

Yeah, I was planning on working that out prior abgemacht. I'd prefer to play with old friends if we can find enough. You in Fig?

Fig PM to me: "For your return game, I'd like to off[er] to sort the players.
As we all know webDip sorts you randomly (ish), but (partially out of interest) I'll put you all to prefered nations.
What I mean:
1) All 7 of you email me your preferences, in order.
2) I match you up using Gale-Shapley algorithm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem)
3) You play game
---
My side of this, I'd quite like to see how a game goes if everyone gets what they feel is their favourite nation, and also see how preferences go.

Obviously its your game, so feel free not to :)"

I didn't look too closely at that algorithm, but it doesn't make much sense to me. What if all seven players put down the same ranking? It seems like the algorithm would break down, but I only took a cursory glance.

Anyway, it's up to everyone else. I'm fine with it, if everyone else is.

I would play this game with you guys if that is the way powers will be determined.

if there is space, of course.

If you need an extra player and you use that ranking system i'm in

It would allocate the first person to their first choice, and on down so the person unlucky enough to be posted last would get their last choice.
I'll randomise the players before running it, but I really hope you're interesting enough people with views that differ enough that everyone is relatively happy. Besides, at worst you're still in the same situation as normal.

Hmm. Well you game for playing too?

I'd love to, but there's no way I could find the time for a decent game so sorry but no.
Also, that would completely wreck the anon bit wouldn't it :P

Oh yeah. I suppose it would. Oh well.

If it's any consolation, I probably don't have the time either, I'm just making a bad decision. XD

I think it would be fun to chose our country.

Also, any chance we can do non-anon? : )

I think that players picking their own countries would be a great option to have eventually on the site as a whole. Similar to how you can currently make games either PPSC or WTA, could there eventually be an option to pick "random countries" or "countries by preference"?

Occasionally I feel like "I really haven't played France in a while, that would be fun" or "Man, I screwed up playing England that last time - maybe I can try again", and it would be great if I could actually do that.

I'm not involved at all in the programming, obviously, so I don't know how hard that would be -- just a suggestion.

Not hard to do, although I've noticed I gave the wrong algorithm :/
I looked back at it a second ago and realised my mistake (not a good sign)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_algorithm ok with people?

Should the cost for a person being assigned their nth choice be n? n^2? Maybe instead of each person ranking the countries, each person assigns their own arbitrary costs (from 1-10 or something), allowing multiple countries at the same cost and so on?

Hungarian is fine with me.

What Dragonfly said. I hate voting systems. :-P

@Dragon - Would still need an algorithm to sort them. I was merely assuming people would prioritize them 1 to 7.
You could allow them a larger gap if you want.

I'm so in if we get to pick out countries I've never done that.

So uh.... what do we do though? I don't really get how we pick.

I have a hard time with algorithms. Lmao.

@Thucy

Just list your countries in order of preference.

Sorry, but I have to sneak in for a moment. Gale-Shapley algorithm is suited only when you have 2 sets to form pairs , with elements on *both* sets having preferences. If the countries does not have a ranked player list as preferences, there is no way to resolve who is getting a disputed country (for example, a country that is first on the list of more than one player). And as far as I know, countries does not a public ranking of players they desire to run them.
There are other ways, some very very funny and insightful, that i can think of for making a fairer assignment.

I know, it was one of the more stupid mistakes I've typed in - I corrected that earlier. Have a look through the rest of the thread :)

I see :)
Well, you can make a list of preferences to get the one you hate the least, that's easier...
or you can make, each of you, a map on who's going where, so each one of you will go where the majority send you (that is, you assign the countries preferences, and then the countries choose)...

The perfect system does not exist, but you CAN use Gale-Shapley algorithm -which is the fairest one- if you make the following:
Each one of you makes a list of your preferred countries, and a list pairing countries with players. With the second list, you can see for each country how many votes each player has, and there you have you countries preferences to be matched with the players preferences through the Gale-Shapley algorithm.
....aaaaaand, that countries-players that each one of you has to make can be made in silence or with players actually begging to be sent to some particular place to the other players. A nice metagame before the actual game.
Of course, after the assigning all the lists get public, friendships get broken, and the usual Diplomacy turmoil unfolds as usual, only that this time before the game

........or you can just go random :)

Clearly in a system where it is possible more than one equally suitable/unsuitable result exists some degree of randomisation may be needed. To be honest, that bit grew out of my anger at computer science exams, and the prospect of spending a week revising for another one.

The system as I envision it would be:
1) Each person ranks his happiness with each country on some scale.
2) You use some algorithm to find the assignment which maximizes total happiness, for instance the Hungarian algorithm.
3) If there are multiple solutions with equal total happiness, randomize between them.

The only problem with that is that there will clearly be issues where it is optimal to lie about your preferences to increase your chance of getting something you like (for instance if you are supposed to rank them from 1-7, it's better to put a very popular one second and third, to increase your chances of getting your first pick). But I think that for a first pass that's not a terrible drawback.

@ :) - yeah, voting systems are too complicated.

OK, so is anyone else interested?

Also interested... :)