I think this also unbalances the game stats and rankings as the ability to choose your power would skew wins to those who are good at a certain powers or a group of friends who always play the same alliances.

perhaps games with choice should award those who chose a power with less points than those who did not choose?

- How may this affect meta-accounters? Will it make pre-decided alliances easier by letting allies come into the game as neigbours?

To some extent, perhaps, but if we're only talking about a couple of accounts, the effect shouldn't be too pronounced, and might be balanced out by other factors.... there are natural disadvantages to choosing Austria, Italy or Turkey, for example, which will make them unattractive to cheats, whereas your chances of actually getting France, Germany or England are reduced by the fact that these are likely to be another players first choice too.... besides, someone who feels the need to cheat probably isn't competent to make choices which will work in their favour.

- Should new players be prompted for their power preferences when they join, or should it be an "advanced" feature, which you need to go to the Settings menu to set?

Prompt them when they join, by all means, but make sure that they can be changed at any time.

- Should players who have no preferences be allowed to join "Power choice" games, and just get last-choice, or should people who haven't set their preferences not see/not be allowed to join the "power choice" games?

Sure they should be allowed to join. They should also be made aware of the nature of the game they are joining, so that noobs don't keep getting stuck with Austria and immediately crushed.

- Is it fairly clear what the feature is about?

Yes.

I think players without preferences should at least be discouraged from joining power choice games (some kind of warning confirmation box or the like). As long as all the people involved in the game have power choices set, a group of friends won't be guaranteed to get the powers they prefer if others in the game also like them. Perhaps if a player without preferences joins they should be given a random preference list for the purposes of selecting powers for a game, this would help level the playing field as far as pre-set alliances would go.

Oh, and I figure it should require a trip to your settings to set your power preferences. I haven't looked at the test site yet, but I'd hope there was a button to completely clear out your preferences too.

Some players, no doubt, will like this feature, but I do not. Country selection should be random. Everyone should have to play every country from time to time, and always getting your favorite takes some of the excitement out of it. Now don't get me wrong, I would hate to draw Austria after finally deciding to play big and put a good deal of points on the table as much as the next guy, but shouldn't that element of risk still be present?

I'm checking it out on the test site kestas. I'm not sure it was intended, but when i forgot to put my email in the registration it wiped out my preferences...

And I agree that these would be better set in the settings page (and I know they are there) rather than the initial sign-up (which is convenient for all the vet s testing it).

@ xgongiveit2ya55 - would this really make much difference to those who dislike the feature, so long as there remains the option of joining games which ignore power preferences?
(And did I mention that I'm going to make you eat your own mother?)

I agree with xgongiveit. Diplomacy is best played with random countries.

Yeah, I kind of agree too, but I'm all in favour of extra options so long as I get to ignore them....

Question: one player's top preference is Italy, another's is Germany, only five players join in total.... it's still Italy and Germany in CD, right?

Feckless>>
It probably wouldn't really affect my games, but it will throw off the ranking system (in terms of point and win%). If some players, like myself, continue to play the luck of the draw while others are always playing their favorites and specialties.

Yes, but wouldn't it be fun to seek those people out, perhaps list their preferences as your own, join all their games, and destroy them? :D

This will be wonderful for the league system, since choices allow the nations to be manufactured. This is certainly something that could be added to a future season or indeed this one should it be out by October.

Great News!

I wouldn't be a fan of this feature. This is coming from someone who has drawn Austria in his last 5 games. Austria... 5 games in a row people.... feel my pain.

this would ruin the whole point, but wouldn't people who say this skews the points ask for a way to allow these games, but have them count for nothing? in fact, now that i think of it, these would make incredibly useful practice games.

another suggestion: you, in your first game, can pick any country. then in your second game, you could pick any country except the one you picked in the first. in your third game, any country except your first two. and so on:
this would actually ensure you don't get the same country too many times (really, Centurian?) or never got a particular country. you would use every country the same number of times. and there could be code written to show whether you can enter a game with the other players who have already joined, so there aren't two people who can only play the same country.

I would personally not play in such games but see no problem to have it as an option.
Two cases that come to mind where this makes sense:
1. It's used some tournament/league
2. It's perfect if you decide you want to try out different strategies with a certain country

-How will this affect metagamers/multiaccounters:
well, if they're stupid enough to need to do either, they'll pick the same countries every time and get caught rather easily. or they could be McAfee agents testing our site's security to decide whether or not to recommend their users not come here, but that's rather unlikely.

- Should new players be prompted for their power preferences when they join, or should it be an "advanced" feature, which you need to go to the Settings menu to set?

preferably where you enter each game with the bracket preference system (the one where everyone lists their preferences, and conflicting choices are resolved randomly). then people could at each game either pick their favorite country or another one, if they were sick of playing the same one over and over.

- Should players who have no preferences be allowed to join "Power choice" games, and just get last-choice, or should people who haven't set their preferences not see/not be allowed to join the "power choice" games?

i don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to, but of course they should be warned they will be playing Austria.

- Is it fairly clear what the feature is about?

Yes. Sheesh. You make it sound like you've knowingly overcomplicated this.

IIRC, it works on preference lists. You're by no means guaranteed your first, second, third, fourth, fifth, or even sixth pick. All it does is that in games where people are giving preference lists, let you have a higher chance of getting a country you like rather than a country you loathe. Outside of leagues, I probably won't use this feature personally, though.

hey, ivo, you got between my posts :(

Oh, and this would be an excellent feature for GFDT2008 too.

thewonderllama too?

We're such a hateful bunch...

oh, wow. i just posted something, then ivo posted, then i continued writing, then i complained that ivo had posted, and then thewonderllama posted between my second post and that, and now this one. i wouldn't be surprised if someone wrote something between my last post and this.

sorry :)

*GASP* i was right! i started writing my last post before Churchill posted that! i'm psychic!

I am the fulfiller of the prophecies...

Oh, and the site's down.

I have another question:
Can we get some insight into the algorithm for conflicting preferences?

if someone says their preferences are "[FG] [EI] R T A", then that would mean that their first choices are France and Germany, but prefers neither over the other, and Russia, Turkey, and Austria are ranked in that order.

if two players both say their first choice is, for example, Italy, then one of them would get Italy and the other would get their second choice (sometimes with preference over the other people who picked that player's second choice as their first). if one player says their first choices are Italy or Turkey, however, and another says their first choice is Italy, then the first player would get Turkey and the second player would get Italy.