Greetings Everyone,
I am pleased to announce that all bids are in and here are our seven
great powers!
Britain - sunchung/Sun Chung/sun.chung(at)gmail.com - 61 points (other
bids: G29, P3, I2, T2, U2, F1)
France - DrSwordopolis/Nick Powell/nick.s.powell(at)gmail.com - 40 points
(other bids: I22, U13, B12, P9, T3, G1)
Germany - charlesf/Charles Feaux de la Croix/charlesf(at)web.de - 80
points (other bids: F8, I4, P3, U2, B2, T1)
Italy - raistlin/David Gould/davidchegould(at)bigpond.com - 70 points
(other bids: P20, U5, G2, B1, F1, T1)
Poland - smileyrob/Robert Stein/smileyrob68(at)gmail.com - 14 points
(other bids: B14, F14, G14, I14, T14, U14)
Turkey - Wladimir7/Wladimir Mysonski/wmysonski(at)gmail.com - 22 points
(other bids: U23, I20, B17, G15, F1, P1)
USSR - Nitsch/Karsten Nitsch/karsten.nitsch(at)gmx.de - 40 points (other
bids: B40, P10, T5, G3, I1, F1)
Everyone received their first pick, except for Wladimir who received
his second - and he originally had Turkey as his first pick but made a
late change! Also, Robert gave "no preference" so he did not
technically *have* a preferred first pick.
Only one player, Charles, bid the maximum 80 points on a single power.
There were no tie bids and thus no tiebreakers. At least for this
game, 40 was the magic number as everyone who bid 40 or more on a
great power got their first choice!
Now, here is a bit of nerdery around the bidding:
Most Points Spent in Bidding
(this is simply adding up the total points spent on each great power)
Britain - 148
Germany - 144
Italy - 133
USSR - 99
France - 66
Poland - 60
Turkey - 48
Average Rated in Bidding
(giving one point for the great power a person bid the most on, down
to seven points for the great power bid the least on, seeing which
were generally more desired)
USSR - 23/7
Italy - 24.5/7
Britain - 26/7
Poland - 27.5/7
Germany - 28/7
France - 33/7
Turkey - 34/7
I tend to think the second list, the average rated, is the more
accurate indicator of popularity as it represents each player's 1-n
list of most to least desirable and essentially ignores specific
bidding strategies. Synthesizing the two lists together I might
suggest Britain was the most popular overall choice, followed by some
combination of Italy, Germany and the USSR. Poland was perhaps next on
its own followed by France and Turkey as the laggards. Turkey in
particular surprised me, as that power was part of a draw in the
similar 1926 variant and ran out to a big lead in the other playtest
running of this 1936 variant.
Now that the power selection is settled you may diplome immediately!
Here are our next, upcoming deadlines:
FRIDAY JUNE 11, 5 PM ET (GMT +5) - Preliminary Spring 1936 orders
TUESDAY JUNE 15, 5 PM ET (GMT +5) - Final Spring 1936 orders
THURSDAY JUNE 17, 5 PM ET (GMT +5) - Summer 1936 Retreats (if necessary)
This same Friday/Tuesday/Thursday schedule will govern our game each
week until it is over or there are unusual circumstances that result
in a change or delay.
Let me STRONGLY, STRONGLY encourage everyone to submit Preliminary
Orders by the Friday before the final orders are due. So long as they
are submitted by the preliminary deadline I will go over them
carefully and ask the player to clarify any seeming errors, mis-
orders, missing units, and the like. This is doubly important because
I am going to be brutal about processing orders each season EXACTLY as
they are submitted, without exception. Thus the only chance you have
for me to be your "safety net" is to get some prelims in the week
before. Just over the last two weeks I've had two devastating mis-
orders in two games I am playing in, one of which crippled my position
to the point where I will soon be eliminated. Take advantage of the
second pair of eyes and get in some prelims! You can change them as
much as you want before the final deadline, but this gives you some
security in case you forget or are busy later.
I'm really looking forward to this game. As you may be aware I am
playing in another 1936 playtest, dc319. That game is using an
experimental solo threshold of 15 SC. Only in our third year, that
threshold is having a huge impact on the game. For this playtest we
are running the game with 18 SC as the solo threshold. Only time will
tell how this instantiation of the game plays out with the harder-to-
achieve victory condition.
This should be a lot of fun. Good hunting to you all!
Dirk