[Omnirizon]

I had missed the part in the OP where teams would be seperated..

with that done, the point system is much more suffurable, because each player is force to play for their own nation, and building a highly specialized combo becomes much more difficult to pull off.

we still do face the issue of subjective assignment of points and nations though. bidding i must admit isn't perfect here either because one nation may go unbid on and a team may take a chance and bid low on it, and get it real cheap. but blind bidding will make it so the most powerful nations go at appropriate prices, and underpowered nations go cheap. for example, in your current system you have machaka at 5 points? that is WAY overvalued. no one in their right mind will opt for that nation at that price. There is a host of other nations on that list that are cheaper than machaka that are in so many situation equal to if not more powerful than them.

with bidding, a nation's _subjective_ value becomes very important. a nation which you or quantum objectively believe are cheap may become very valuable to a certain team for a specific quality of that nation. In order to secure it, they will bid high on it. not to wax theoretical, but a bidding system is a fusion of objective and subjective; such that one cannot undermine the other. with you and quantum setting objective prices, the subjective value of that nation may be much higher than your objective price, and that nation becomes a steal for some team. the bidding system helps prevent that.

but i guess I'm happy either way, because I think any system is exploitable. I just think the bidding system is a little less so if only because there is no one person deciding on what is worth what and it overall is a little more transparent.