Possible option of Diplomacy games with not "enough" players still starting & being played

[MajorMitchell]

Games are cancelled when not enough players join. What if there were an optional alternative ? With Classic Diplomacy there are ways to play with less than seven players, eg with six players Italy was nuetral (no player). There were other ways to play with (I think) three, four and five players.
I was thinking about World games in particular & for example if only eight players joined a World game that when created had the option of a "less players & still start" chosen ( which shows up like hidden draw votes etc, so players see & can choose or not to enter ) & there were some start options for eight players, or four with World .. because world has seventeen countries..one nuetral leaves 16... so in an eight player start each player would get two countries to start, or in a four player start three countries. The random allocation could be just that, or it could have been "tweaked" to give separation eg second country is on a different continent to first.
Or differently... world..each player gets one country...the home scs of the unallocated countries are then randomly distributed equally ( a remaining fraction become nuetrals at the start )
17 scs minimum to distribute.. 9 countries not allocated..so this works for say 3 to 7 players starting so as example five start & 12 unallocated countries with 36 home scs... the five players get seven extra scs & units & one is a nuetral.
7 players..10 unallocated countries..30 home scs ..each player gets four extra scs & units at the start & 2 are nuetrals.

[MajorMitchell]

It's a bit VDiplomacy~ish. Also another way to mess up World ?