so we have 200 countries now.

how many would a good level be?

If we are looking to bring a new game play to this, since express is fluttering between 100-200, maybe we should make this server be levels of 50 countries?

nice round number, 50 countries would certainly make it very interesting when it comes to land and market situations.

50 still seems small to me...

A few more countries would surely help.
How many countries would it take to make a reasonable market?
Could/should all of the lvls share one market?
How many lvls would we need to make a decent tourney?
I say we need at least an A lvl and a B,C lvl ... @ 200 countries that's still only 66 per game.

well, the lowest level could always have lower numbers,

80-80-30? 75-75-50?

Market sharing through different levels could be abused, very easily.

What if we had limits on strategies? People have to sign up as the reset begins on the server, if your a farmer, ENT/BUS/LABS are not available. Wouldn't that be interesting? And that way, the market would be set by the ratio of these different strategies.

Off the top of my head, how about:
- each user has 3 countries; 150 countries per tier (or weight it as forgotten suggests 150, 225, 225);
- you are relegated or promoted on the nw of your lowest country each set (or poss ANW?);
- you can only ally with your own countries, making a true solo-game;
- each of your countries must have a different govt type at all times;
- if any of your countries is killed, you restart next set in the lowest tier.

This would add numbers to make the tiers more plausible and also provide a more true "solo" or tournament game.

uh... the idea was that you only have one country and it wokrs like a ladder.....

i see afaik's point about a bigger, more full, market, but i don't think i'd want to play a solo FFA style game. tho it is something we don't have currently.

and.. games ABC always shared a market and all the games under it shared a different market in tourney's existence.. why change that?

I was mainly thinking of ways to make a few tiers of a few hundred players each... seems a difficult one to split out with such a low playerbase.

iZ.. not at this point IMO. when we have more tiers we can bring it back.

by having new players sharing market with those competing in the top level.... trust me, llaar will win it. every set...

get killed and start all over - interesting