Sounds good, do people want to make one?

I vote aye.

There are a few things on playdiplomacy I would like to see implimented on this site:
1). setting the game to not process orders on certain days/times.
2). being able to change the appearance of map icons.
3). the ability to set the game to let you choose your country.

I never knew about this one feature, but I like that, too. Keep up the good work, guys, but those are some ideas I've been thinking of.

I've actually been looking for people in the Chicagoland area to play live games with and this would be a great way to do that.

2) Should come in with the SVG map, I just need to get my act together and get ahead enough on my degree to take a day or two working on it. Should be able to have a trial of this up on OliDip in the near(ish) future

Honestly, I thought that 1). was most important... I also thought about bringing up the idea of setting a pause length whenever someone requested one, so people can't hold a game hostage.

I agree with all the suggestions, except the possibility of being able to choose the country to play (or priority).

I would also think usefull to be abe to set different phase length for retreats/builds.

As a variant, I like the idea of picking your country. Maybe list the ones you want in order and let the program figure out which one you play. I bet that would appeal to a lot of people. Especially the Italy haters.

It might be easiest to implement a preference list of countries in the user's options, and then either enable or disable a preference selection option for each created game.

I like 3, but what would make it REALLY interesting is bidding points for your country choice. I'd love to see Russia pay more to buy in and allow someone to get Austria for 1 . ;-)

yeah thats all well and good but dont you think they should touch up the board itself?

Picking countries?

Ooh, Noob's idea sounds entertaining.

I learned to pick countries by listing priorities...each person puts down their first, second, third, and so on. If two people put down the same first choice, one gets it and the others move to their second choice. This eliminates the only remaining element of chance, and opens strategic ideas. Maybe you put Germany as your first choice, figuring no one else will, and then you don't get stuck with Italy. Or maybe you put down Russia. If you allow players to negotiate their choices before the game starts, some enterprising player can agree to take Italy (or another weak country) in exchange for considerations from the other players, which helps to eliminate the disadvantage of the weaker countries. It's a good system all around.

I do not like the idea of someone taking a country and everyone promising him something for his sacrifice. That smells of metagaming. Or at least it smells. I learned by putting one fleet from each country in a hat and all 7 of us picking randomly. Tough love.

Metagaming means making deals that cross the boundaries of an individual game--this all takes place in one game. And since it's 2 or 3 times harder to win with Italy than with England or Russia, this is a game-balancing tool, not a cheat.

Actually, the real reason I like this rule is that I like playing Austria, and when it's in effect I can get Austria every time. :)

@pastoralan Being able to play as Austria is a great part of priority nation picking

I knew that metagaming wasn't the right term. I just couldn't think of a better one. And it is not 2 or 3 times harder to win with Italy. Look at the stats. It may be harder, but not that much. And as for Aus...bah. Give me England every time please.

OK, so Italy's only 1.6 times as hard to play. Still those aren't good odds--I would love to see a statistician figure out how much of the game depends on the power you get. But I don't need to convince you...the suggestion was to make choosing powers an *option*, so there's room for both styles.