[Fate]

I don't know. I thought the random pick meant that you were willing to take literally any nation in exchange for the population bonus of being last seed. Otherwise someone who chose all random might get the pick of someone who just chose 1 (which defies the meaning of a pick).

If you really don't want to get stuck with a bad nation, make a list of every nation and put the worst ones at the bottom. Your chances of getting one will be next to nill (especially if everyone else chose ~4 favorites).