2. Why in the world isn't alphabetically organised scroll-down list of regions used in all variants? I mean, how hard could it be? It's not that much of a problem in case of Classic or Ancient. Even in case of FotAE it's, well, bearable, but hell - World? With all oceans fill up with fleets I can convoy to every single coastal province in the world. And there are, like, really a lot of them. And I just end up writing on my keyboard to find them, which take forever, and then my girlfriend is angry at me because I often put in the orders late at night and she can't sleep, and if I'm intoxicated or something I sometimes press the wrong key and automatically hit backspace, which only results in returning to the previous site and then again putting all the orders in and I just hate it. I am sure something can be easily done about this, right? Does anyone feel the same way?

And, btw, World sucks in so many other ways as well. I have no idea why I keep playing it, it's like gambling or something...

So your bitching because the order entry isn't drunken idiot proof? Good to know.

And if your girlfriend isn't "gaming tolerant", dump the bitch. Do you really want to spend the rest of your life justifying your pleasure hobbies for her? Next thing you know she'll be tossing out the lube and silicon sleeve.

It's not that it's not drunken idiot proof, it's that it is inefficient as hell. As for my lovely bitch, she is pro-gaming, just not very "being-woken-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night tolerant"

Seriously, if it can be done in MDII, than it sure as hell can be done in all the other variants, and why not do it?

re: woken up in the middle fo the night - please refer to encroachment thread. Bitch probably crosses the middle line, right?? <penalty flag> That's grounds for penetration!! Two can play at this devilish game.

encroachment... more like en-crotch-ment. ok, nvm the girlfriend, it's annoying as f. and I would love for it to be fixed. please.

I believe the others aren't ordered like that because the order of the territories is determined on their territory ID, which is assigned by the order the creator coded them in. I'd assume most maps were made with the territories in one area being coded first, and then expanding from there, adding territories that connect to them.

The Modern II variant (iirc) was made in the vDip lab, which makes it much easier to do things like this because you've got a visual interface with the code, instead of having to directly type it.

That all said, we have the option to order by territory name on vDip, so it probably wouldn't be that hard to implement...

Thank you captain for the first real answer. Well, I do hope somebody will have some free time to do something about this : )

Because I guess the color thing is too much, right? It is just terrible in World : D

Yes, alphabetizing the orders would be very easy to program, but I'd like to turn this into a discussion on how everyone ranks the varients.

Mine are:

** Classic > Ancient Med > World > Modern Dip > American Empire **

My reasoning?

- Classic is undeniably wonderful the map is well balanced for each country (or at least decently balanced) with clever stalemate lines built in.
- I like Ancient Med because of the fewer numbers of players. It's easier to secure your endgame position when you have only four other people to predict.
- I don't like World / Modern Dip / American Empire as much as the first two because there's just too many people. You are always utterly surrounded. It's so easy to have a bad start. But I like World more than Modern or American because you can cross the international date line. With Modern or American, a country can easily defend a corner. With World, there are no corners to defend. Keep in mind that all of this is in the perspective of gunboat games - which I prefer over press.
- Of course, my dislike of the last two variants may be do to my unfamiliarity with them - I have only played two games or so on each.

The original code sorts the "orders" by unit-creation, so the territories with the first units are placed first. On vDip you can sort the list alphabetically, from North->South, East->West.
Usually the dropdown-lists for territories are sort by territoryID, on vDip it's sorted alphabetically.

The sorting of the units is not such a big problem I think, but of course it could also speed up putting the orders for some people.
The variants for me would be Modern>Classic, Ancient, American>World
- Modern is unbalanced but that is the beauty of it - it gives more field for diplomacy to even things out. The only thing I don't like about Modern is Saxony, but I guess it was given such a weird shape for tactical reasons.
- The rest are all neat. I don't really mind the number of players, and they all have their pros and cons. I love Ancient especially for live games, as it is much easier to play that way.
- I have a strong love-hate relationship with World. It is so big, with so many players. And it is made so that it is as much balanced as possible, which basically means that it is 90% luck at the beginning. Not to mention the awful colors, to few sea regions and extremely unrealistic distribution of SCs (also due to tactical reasons I guess). And what the hell is AHu doing there? Seriously?

Fall of the American Empire sucks. I love all the other ones, but I think the American one needs to go.

Screw this...can we get back to talking about en-crotchment with your girlfriend?

Pictures or it didn't happen.

Ankara Crescent > All. Also, WWIV > WIX.

Of course, you need to go to vDip to play these variants :D

As I reached the conclusion that I dont like the world map (too big, too many players, too many nmr & cd ... and I suck on that map), I dont really need the alphabetical order (on all other available maps there are not that many options). But I assume it would be very useful to have on the world map.

My ranking on available maps:
1. Classic
...then long nothing ...
6. Modern & American
...then again looong nothing ...
68. Ancient
69. World

Classic 1897 would be a fun variant to have

"Ankara's Crescent"? Is that what you call that girl's...eh-hem...?

So here name is Ankara? How exotic...!

Hitting the backspace is not fixable and happens on Modern Dip as well. *That* is what I was picking on you for bitching about. I agree that alphabetizing the list on World IX would be nice.

From playing on vdip I much prefer Gobble Earth (http://www.vdiplomacy.com/variants.php?variantID=96) to world. The map is really nicely made and laid out. At first it looks like England and some of the other European powers have way too many starting supply centres, but they're really spread out and don't have many neutrals nearby, as well as being likely to have many enemies. Then smaller countries, like Columbia, which starts with only 2 SCs, have many neutrals around them and really are quite far away from the colonial powers.

One of my favourite features with Gobble Earth is the colonial builds, a combination of build anywhere and home supply centres only. Each builds phase when you have a possible build you have the option of building in a home centre (which for the major colonial powers are just the ones in Europe, and all countries only have a few home SCs) or saving as a colonial build for the next year. If you choose to save it, the next year you can build those colonials in any open SC you have, no matter where in the world. This means that the colonial powers have to wait until 1902 builds to get extra units to where they likely need it most, and really just adds an interesting feature to the game.

Finally, the Europe part of the map is exactly the same as in Classic. So essentially, Gobble Earth is just adding the rest of the world to make it really be a world war.