How would it be implemented so that it was fair? Wouldn't the last person to join a game always end up with Italy or Austria? Wouldn't that dissuade people from joining games?

There was a fair power choice mode developed. Not sure why it wasn't implemented.

Thinking about it, perhaps the players can be randomly assigned a number so that #1 gets first pick, #2 gets second choice, and so on, and #6 unfortuantely has to take whichever power is left. Or something to that effect.

I meant #7, sorry.

I was thinking along the lines when you *sign up* for a game you set a preference list as a string, (eg IRAFGTE would be mine) and then when the game starts, instead of a random asignment of powers it would be done due to preference.
All first choices would be determined. If a person was the only person to have Italy as their fisrt choice, they would get that power. If several people had that power as their first choice it would be assigned randomly between those players.
Then for all remaining players, the taken powers would be removed from all players preference lists. Then once again those remaining players look at the first choice on their edited list, etc.

I'd love to see an option where someone could swap places with another player at the start, since I love playing as Austria, and could probably get rid of some of my horrid Russia games that way. But it seems quite tricky to implement fairly.

That said, a preference list might be an interesting option, if only to see what the trends shook out like.

My preference is IRGFATE

The best way to do it is how jaa17 described. Its kind of similar to the way some schools have their students register for courses.

tarspaceheel, if you put Austria near the top of your list and Russia near the bottom, I imagine you'd get plenty more Austria and far less Russia. To do swapping you'd have to allow communication before the first phase but just for swapping purposes and frankly it would be a real pain IMHO.

When I used to play games with my co-workers years ago, it was random drawing but one at a time and each player had one right of refusal which let them redraw. The order of drawing was random of course and the last person gets what is left.

EGFATIR

You should have right of first refusal have to move to the back of the draw. so they could end up with the same country if no one else draws it after them and no one refuses their first draw behind them.

And yeah, Ald, that was the point of my post. It'd be interesting, but nowhere near worth the effort.

Bounced (a competing Diplomacy website) does something similar:
Look at the section "How Power Preferences Work"
http://dipbounced.com/help/startgame.html
It is similar, but more random, and allows players to indicate powers that they equivalently prefer.

http://forum.webdiplomacy.net/viewtopic.php?t=29

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/forum.php?threadID=303912&page-thread=1#threadPager

The suggestion to implement this feature comes up all of the time. There are several threads in the developer forum and it's mentioned endlessly on this forum.

We recently had a discussion about this and part of it was talking about how using preference lists would not give a clear solution
threadID=626493

Also, from the FAQ:
"Q: Can I suggest a feature?
A: Feature suggestions are best made in the developer forums, elsewhere they're likely to be missed. Remember that unless you can back-up your suggestion with code even good ideas may not get far."

I thought you liked France acmac...

Mine is RGFTEIA.

I don't have a preference and I like it that it is random, this way players can learn how to play all the countries. There are no better and worse countries, only ungifted players. Don't shove the statistics here, I guess that the people who win with Italy/Austria do it repeatedly...

I am trying to do my best with whatever country I get, and by far enjoy more the center countries than others. The intrigues...

My least favorite is Russia and Turkey, though, in that order. With Russia I keep losing, and Turkey has always seemed too dull for me, not too many choices to play...

I liked France at first when I was nooby, because I liked how well protected and defende it was. But then I realized that noone's BEST ally is France, and Franceis subject to a bandof forces coming from Germany and England.

What do you mean by 'no one's BEST ally is France?'

EFGRTIA

Guess I'm a western European kinda guy. Though I think I have more success on the rim. And I like France as an ally.

I think Bask has a point. Only Random forces players to develop complete games. If you could concentrate on only one color and one opening in chess, you can get pretty darn good. But it's not a measure of your chess ability.

ETFGIR............A (especially in a fast game)

What do you mean. France is not the best ally one can wish for.

England's best ally is probably Germany
Turkey's best ally is probably Russia
Germany's best ally is Italy/England
Austria-Turkey/England
Germany-England/Italy
Russia-Turkey/Italy
France-Austria?

These are thought about what can be most accomplished. The best thing for Austria is a Central Triple though....

GFRIATE here.

And screw alliance theory, personalities drive this game anyway.

EFGART Here. I think Turkey leaves you with very little options for play (France does a bit, as you're always going to go for spain and Portugal)

I prefer England because you can control the Northern seas, and while it takes a bit of diplomacy, you hold a lot of bargaining power because your fleets decide the fate of France and Germany. Also, you get to screw with Russia :P

Also, agreed with Eden, anybody can be a good allies, jsut depends on who is which country.

Agreed on Turkey, but FRANCE? France is arguably the most flexible country in the game in terms of opening. You'll usually go for Spain and Portugal, sure, but there's plenty of ways even to do that (as opposed to Turkey, who ought be slapped if A Con -> Bul is not in the S1901 orders and has effectively 2 options for F Ank).

Well, if you notice, I put France as second :P

I wasn't saying that was *all* you could do, I was just saying why I thought it was slightly inferior to England in my opinion.

I did not make the separation, and I was not trying to compare Turkey and France, and say they are similar, and I apologize for not making it clear.

Actually, I have no idea what I was thinking. I suppose I was trying to kill any anti-France argument in the bud. Unnecessary, I suppose.

I don't think it would be hard in and of itself to code a system where you get to choose a county preference. However, since there's already a method coded for that, it would be significantly harder. Anyone with programming experience knows that the hardest thing to do is to is add a more advanced method to a program already functioning. playdiplomacy.com has a country choice option but I don't think it really adds that much to gameplay so that's probably why kestas hasn't done it.

Not sure how I feel about this idea. I definitely would not have it as default. And I would NOT allow people to put in their entire preference list. I feel it would detract too much from the randomness of the game and people would only play countries they are good at.

Probably a better idea would be to allow people to choose 2 or 3 countries they would LEAST like to play. That was there is still an element of randomness but i guess you would get your preferred countries more often.

oh and TRFGAIE

ITREAFG, I'm not a fan of the western powers because it always ends up a 2V1, at least in the east you can do the Italian Don an early favor and get some support in most cases.

^You can do the same in the West... most Italies are more inclined to influence the East, but they usually can have a say with affairs out west.

Out of the ~20 games I've played here, only twice Italy didn't do the Lepanto. I wonder whether this fact makes the formation of Juggernaut quite common here.