[Micah]

I do like the pretender point system better than the population one, actually. Granted LE Ermor's points aren't worth as much as other nations, but that's ok, since Ermor's bids only interact with other bids for Ermor. The customization that pretender design allows for is also more versatile than a simple population adjustment (although resource-needy nations can't take production 4 no matter how many points they have). The one thing I don't like about the pretender-bid system other than the extra administration hassle of god-checking isn't a balance issue. You can only bid lower for the pretender points, so you're basically bidding on how much of a handicap you can live with, and everyone knows that getting new toys is a lot more fun than losing the ones you have.

Ironhawk's point about large games with lots of bonus prizes is also very valid, a 450% larger starting force for being the last nation is a pretty hefty bonus compared to the guy that got nation number 10 with no bonus picks. I don't like the introduction of so much randomness into the bids, either, because being able to bid on Ulm with a mine is vastly different than Ulm without a mine, and there's no sure way to tell which one you'll get when you bid. In essence the bonus becomes more important than the "real" bid on population.

Offering the prizes in trade for population (say 2500 pop for an iron mine, maybe) seems like a good compromise, so you could control what setup you'd get. To control for other people's perceptions of the power of a nation how about this: A nation's starting population is equal to

40,000 - (.5 of the winner's bid + .5 of the average of other bids on that nation)

This keeps the bidding for a nation relative only to its own strengths, so everyone can go ahead and bid max for LE Ermor and it won't really impact the other nations. It also gives a much more gradual balance curve, since with the bonus picks a nation can get a significant bonus because of a very small difference in bids, while with this system two nations that are bid on nearly the same will have nearly the same starting bonus. By halving the winner's bid it ensures that when you pick a nation you'll have at least as many resources as you bid (which is essential to formulating a workable strategy), but you could have up to 150% as much as you bid once the results are in if everyone else thinks your nation sucks.

Just some more thoughts.

Oh, and Ironhawk, bidding 40,000 on Abysia would be about the same as suiciding your starting army and sitting there waiting to get taken over, which people can do without any help from a bid system or anything else...if someone wants to ruin the game by not playing it's not really very hard to do.