[Septimius Severus]

Originally Posted by rdonj

Btw - I don't really like the idea of path-based teams, but since I'm not playing in the other games it doesn't really affect me that much one way or the other. Having your alternates doing the diplomacy could be an interesting twist, but giving them incentives to betray their team and work against it, again, I don't really like. Team games with moles aren't necessarily a bad thing. In fact I think they could be great fun. But in the context of the Noobs lineage and the information leaks being non-players, I think it's a bad idea.

As always thanks for your input. Obviously I disagree about the theme based teams. I think this sort of team role playing can be a great deal of fun. Alot of games feature a common theme, take the many blood only games. You'd have instead of one such choice 4 choices. You can still have some diversity on your team at the same time, as to meet the theme you can do so via nation or pretender choice. I'd obviously prefer players choose both an apporiate nation and an appropriate pretender, though I probably won't make both mandatory. Having different strengths and weakness between teams, reproduces and enlarges what is already built into the game as regards the different nations. In the same way you wouldn't want every nation to be the same and have every path represented, so to with each team. It will hopefully cut down on the duplication in the ranked lists as well, as you can tell from the ordering in the previews.

Not going to give any incentives to betray one's team. I might as you say allow either the advisors or the alternates to handle diplomacy. Advisors should probably do so, but then a need a role for alternates. I suppose both could handle inter-team communications though, working as a diplomatic team with the advisor in overall charge. Again, the question will be, will either group have the time or inclination, since these positions are meant for those who can't/don't necessarily have the time to commit to a full active game.