How to decide what player plays which country? And "bid"?

[Glendel]

We are trying to figure if there is a good, creative and interesting way to decide country to player start up? Roll dice and determine who gets to pick their country first? Or some sort of IPC bid thing or what? Is there a standard “way”?

Next, I keep seeing talk of bids. I tried finding what that was about but there are so many “bid” results it was just too much to filter through and find out what it is about. Anyone able to link me a good thread or describe this to us so my group can try it out if they choose?

Thanks much

[barney]

8 dollar bid for allies seems to be the norm but it sounds like it might be going up

to start bidding you say allies plus 8

if you take the allies plus 8  then you get the allies plus 8 bucks to buy and place units before the game starts or save to any allied country

If your opponent wants to be the allies he would then bid allies plus 7 and so on

[Glendel]

How does this apply with 6 people though? Unless you have 3 and 3 that want to be on the same team together you still have 6 people and 6 key nations.

[barney]

Wow!

The bidding war would be a blast!  I’ll take germany minus 5…. ok russia and 10  no way!  I’ll take…

Never heard of a six player bid, but I’m sure you can figure something out

[Cow]

In live games I randomize everything. 1d6+4 bid. Let the dice decide teams.

I am a true dice game player, I let the dice do all the decision making.

[Glendel]

i guess what has me in a bind is, we have no idea what bid is and how it works. like you say 1d6+4 bid and let the dice determine the rest. NO idea how that works or what that means. Mind give a “for example” by chance? 6 player game?

Right now we roll 10 d6, the person with the most “1” showing gets to pick county first. then in order of next highest till the 6th player gets whatever he/she gets. thought maybe adding in an option to spend like 2ipc to reroll x# of dice to improve your “1” count? If someone really wants a certain country they could spend say 10 IPC and reroll 5D6 to try and get more ones…. then their initial cash IPC would be reduced by that much. dunno…

[Degrasse]

Here’s a way you might find interesting.

Divide the countries as follows:
Germany
Japan
Italy
Russia and France
US and China
UK and ANZAC

Each player lists the six countries in order of preference and a small bid number to give the other side in case of ties.  Then reveal everyone’s choices and assign countries based on preferences.  Use the bid number to break any first round ties and then allocate unassigned countries based on subsequent choices.

[Guest]

Agree on a fair bid (9 is quite standard)
Roll dice for desiding countries.
Change countries with one another as you please.