I need to type quicker

Aye, and am happy to be a commissioner, but i don't think it has been said whether the commissioner's can participate in the league or not. I'd assume so and base my acceptance on that assumption.

If everyone like my above details we can get moving on this quickly, if not let's get the finer points sorted out asap....

I think that people are over-thinking this. Keep it simple, you can easily get lost in the details, especially when something is starting up.

Here's how I see it:

First decide if the legaue will be point-based or win-based...or a combination of both. Going strictly on points isnt nessecarily good as it would favor someone who could devote 10 hours to drag out the game-play as long as possible.

For my description I will use win-based:

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1. Even the playing ground:

Every 2 weeks a match is given to the league. It defines ALL aspects of the game that should be played. Down to # of anomolies, race to be used, etc. The problem in this is that there's no way to verify the specific settings of a game submitted to the meta verse....however it's kind of assumed that you're taking part in this for "the fun of it", not to cheat and win artificially.

2. Scoring

Win = 10 points
Valid Loss = 5 Points (A valid loss is a loss where the score is up to a certain level. Maybe half of the lowest winning score. This is just to prevent people from starting a game and resigning on week 2, just to score points

Legaue score = points / # of submitted games

This will allow for teams to score well, but not penalize them if some members cannot play that often. It also gives points for partcipation even if you dont win.

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That is a simple, easy to follow system. from there you can do things like "the top two teams select one person to battle it out in an additional scenario, one vs one. Or other such things.

Thoughts?

I will say something else on this matter:

Democracies dont work well online.

Ghostwes, if you decide to do this, it should be you and one or two other people who make the rules. Taking feedback is fine as long as it's not 10 people trying to always say "i dont like xyz rule, change it".

I offer full admin access to a forum I made for my AAR contest (that didnt take off) for this legaue if you need it. https://www.galciv.geekstorm.com/forum

I'm putting my name in as an interested party.


Neilo, I like the system you've come up with. A little complex, but as long as someone understands it . . .

I'd really only object to any system if it seemed to include some inherent unfairness. That said, the point system based on results and not on game score appeals to me a lot.

We don't have enough folks to exclude commissioners from participating so I'd say of course they can.

I'd also say that we can't count on getting this into the AltMeta in any immediate timeframe so let's just proceed assuming no AltMeta. As far as using a spare character in a separately defined “empire” I’m fine with that although I’m not sure everyone else would. Regardless I would probably use a spare character for this anyway but not everyone may have a spare or be willing to delete an old character to get one. We could take a consensus on this point notwithstanding my otherwise agreement with JeremyG's point. This is to be a *Metaverse* league so we do want these to be normally submitted metaverse games. But I’m not sure it’s necessary for this to be a separate character at all. We could simply say that game such and such of any currently existing character is this rounds league submission.

JeremyG's point about democracies is valid. I think the point of having commissioners is to allow them to make their best guess at what people would like without having to wait for everyone to reach an overall consensus.

I’m going by Neilo’s proposal in reply #25 as the basis for discussion. The first point is about these “12 different challenges”. What are these 12 different challenges and why should each team have different objectives? It seems you’re proposing that each team be assigned a different theme but the theme is constant for each team. I assumed that all teams would get the same assignment but that the assignment would have variation in the games and would also vary from week to week. For example the challenge one week is a medium military, a small tech, a tiny influence and a tiny military or any other random combination of games. Then all teams would try to accomplish this set of games. Within the team they can decide who does which game. The next month there’s a different set of games that all teams play.

As far as the scoring system I like it (I should it’s pretty much the one I proposed), but perhaps it rewards score too strongly. Going back to my previous example with all teams trying to accomplish the same four different types of game then the additional 1, 2 or 3 points for high score would be awarded for each game type. So there would be four different 1st, 2nd and 3rd’s, one for each game type. Maybe if there are only 4 teams we should only do 2 extra points for 1st and 1 for 2nd in each different game type. All in all I really wonder if there will ever be anything submitted that doesn’t fit the category. I think the most realistic scenario will be everyone completes the assignment except for an occasional failure to submit a game in a particular category. That would make the winners the ones that more consistently got the high scores within category. This isn’t necessarily bad, it just needs to be considered. I don’t think the point of this is to assign games that people will lose. I think the main point is some friendly competition along with getting people to play games that may be different than their normal settings.

I see no real need for “league” points other than the cumulative total of each members game points. Going back to the example above. Assuming all teams successfully complete a medium military, a small tech, a tiny influence and a tiny military (not an unreasonable assumption) then each team has 8 points. The deciding factor will be the top scores (let’s go with top two scores for now) so if one team gets the 1st medium military and 1st small tech scores then they have 12 points, another team gets 2nd medium military, 2nd small tech and 2nd tiny military and gets 11 points, the third team gets 1st tiny military and 2nd tiny influence and also gets 11 points, the fourth team gets 1st tiny influence and gets 10 points. I think I’ve accounted for everything here and the current league standings are 12, 11, 11 and 10. The next rounds values are merely added to these. This give some credit for higher scores, but the difference between first and last is not so great that it couldn’t be easily overcome in the next round.

Another idea would be to award 1 point for the fastest (in metaverse reported years) game in each category. There probably could be a lot of ties on this.

I agree with neilo’s non changeable settings but we should also add tech trading on or off as well. Also blind exploration. Also the level should be the players normal level regardless of whether or not it’s a new character. Everyone knows just by looking at someone's current character set what level they're playing at.

Also I would think that the size certainly be limited to large and below i.e. no huge or gigantic galaxies. In fact I wonder if we might want to restrict this to medium and below.

Yep i'm fine with this, i guess i was thinking along the lines of team vs team still a bit here.Yes the same challenge should be for everyone, if not then the scores will not be from a level playing field.



This seems fine, my idea was and it makes the scoring easier to understand, example, is that in week 1 all teams play for a conquest victory, that is all players in all teams, maximum points is awarded for winning via this condition. 1 point awarded for a win of any type. I would be fine though changing it so that each player goes for a different victory condition, but i would say then that any win not in the proper manner should be penalised a point. or at least not rewarded in any way. Of course teams would be limited to 4 members and one reserve if there are enough people.Further more, as to this point,



I agree, which was why i mentioned a time limit to make it harder. To actually see some differing competition we need to make each round as hard as possible, within reason, to achieve the objective.

Perhaps we can take away points for too long a game, like the bonus points for quick games, maybe losing points if you take too long.

I'm really up for anything that will provide results ending in at least some players not meeting the set objective. Random Disqualifications perhaps, just to spice it up????



Again, this is fine.



Thankyou, I knew i'd forget some, yes of course these would be set and not to be altered.



Yes, couldn't agree more. Like i said earlier anything above medium would drag out too long and interest would soon wane.



Getting like that is'nt it, but i'm fine with it. Anything that levels the playing field so that new players will feel like they have a fighting chance.

If everyone likes the current scoring system (See reply #25 and #30 and #31 for amendment's) i'd like to get a move on and try and get something started as close to the start of july as possible.

Though i do think etiquette and respect demands that we perhaps should not start without Ghostwes passing some form of comment. It was his idea and unless someone has heard from him i don't think going ahead without more input from him would be prudent.

This is a good idea. I had also mentioned Ghostwes name as a commissioner as well. While my arbitrary assignment of commissioners was based simply on those that had seemed the most interested and was therefore somewhat, well ... arbitrary, it seemed only fitting as it was his idea.

Oh OK. Sure. As long as all teams play the same thing. Certainly then we could go with the 1, 2, 3 points for 3rd, 2nd and 1st then. Perhaps we could alternate or change this up from round to round sometimes having everyone play the same game sometimes two different game types per team etc., etc. Anything that results in all teams playing the same is fine. I had thought that perhaps you had meant one team may play large military and another tiny tech but I see that was perhaps an artifact of the head to head type competition that you originally proposed.


Maybe minus one point for the longest game in each class would be appropriate.

I don't care too much for intentionally setting it up so that games are likely to not be finished. I think "real life" will take care of some of that on it's own. Also being a person that plays slowly to begin with I could become disinterested if I felt it likely that I might not be able to finish a game just because my wife perhaps felt the need for a little extra attention that week.

We should perhaps proceed with the best guess of the commissioners at defining the inevitable set of details that will undoubtedly be missed at the outset and just see how it goes. If there is not enough variation in team scores or too much then we can always adjust it. The only thing that's certain is that it won't be perfect from the outset.

Certainly waiting for Ghostwes to respond is a reasonable thing to do but in the meantime let's see what we can do to drum up more interest. I assume that the commissioner has been keeping track of those that have already expressed interest. I doubt that we're at a reasonable minimum of 16 (or even 12) quite yet.

Yes i have a list that has 12 names currently, i will leave a reply in the current tournament thread to try and get some interest, as it seems the people playing there may enjoy this as well.

Perhaps a quick post in everyone's individual empire threads too. Anything to let the community know about the League.

That's more than I thought we had. Good, we're pretty close already. I think we should be able to scrounge a few more MVC councilors and I know a Diplomat or two that should be interested that hasn't yet responded. I think we should be able to get to 16 pretty easily.

Once started I would expect people to start trickling in. This thread has only been active for a week now, there still could be many that may have not even seen it yet. We should make a point to bump this thread up occasionaly just to make sure it's seen by those that may be interested.

People need to keep in mind that not everyone reads these forums every day or even every week. I'm still getting an occasional vote from the MVC election.

I have a question. How are you going to tell that people are using all the settings that are stipulated, As far as I know there is no way to tell once a game is submitted how anything like Tech trading and CPU intense algorithms among others was set.

It's a matter of honor deathadder

Correct. In the future I think all these settings are part of the endgame.xml and so if we do use this to incorporate these games into the AltMeta then that's one way to go about it.

The honor system is perfectly fine for now. This is all just friendly fun. At least the way I'm looking at this it's primarily motivation for me to play some games that I otherwise would never play. If left to myself I would only play the gigantic abundant all military game. I have two characters that I have nothing else to do with so I have no issue dedicating one to this. That way I don't dilute my main characters "official" MV score (of course this doesn't hurt my main characters AltMeta score because the AltMeta doesn't penalize you for the number of games submitted like the "official" MV does).

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Actually folks should reply here whether or not they have a character that they could spare to join a dedicated league empire. If it seems everyone is OK with this I think it would be a nice way to go. If not then I'm sure there are ways for us to work around it.

Has MarshallONeil responded to this thread yet? I'd think this would be of interest to him and I know he has all of his characters in play already but otherwise I think most folks could spare a character.

If someone feels the need to play outside the set rules, and to quote the old cliche, they are only cheating themselves. I think everyone here is here for the fun and is not going to care enough to bother tring for an advantage.

That being said, as Mumble mentioned, the endgame.xml will help us regulate such things in the future, but even then i doubt we would come across anything.

As for MarshallONeill, i haven't seen him fora couple of days myself, i will be leaving shameless plugs for the MV League in the HCH thread and the Tyranny of Evil thread, of which he is a member of both.

As for the spare character, i have one spare for it, so i could go either way. Perhaps one solution for those with no spare slots would be to band together in the league with only people from the same empire, that way they can play just as there empire, example

I know Marshall does not have any spare, nor does Playjeff i think. So perhaps one team could be the Tyranny team of Marshall, Playjeff, Neilo and MottiKhan.

Something like that might help the players that can't spare the character slot...

Just thinking out loud here guys........

I have one character with no games I just created the other day. He is Joined to The Tyranny. And I still have no third character, so I could go whichever way you decide.

My Official "Aye" - (I'm more used to 'Sir, Yes Sir!'   ) Just tell me where to go and who to kill, give me transportation (going and coming ^-^) and I'll go watch T.V. (ahhh, the good old days) Us old geezers have to live on memries [snif] ...

Whatever rules neilo and ghostwes decide is good to start with, it's not like they are going to actually take over the world, and besides I'm sure they will respond to whatever correctly phrased and well-thought-out modifications that become necessary.

I'm looking forward to getting started. Disclaimer: I never bragged I was that good, just a little psych-up talk to get me going once in a while. If I lose, don't bash me around, I might start crying!   

BTW (chances to brag should not be dismissed lightly) I posted my best score at challenging today.    Only a little over 34k, but I'm getting better.

Are we gonna have any other places for info? I need to re-read stuff, but if there is a place to get more info or schedules, a forum or anything, lemme know, ok?

Once we get "official" with this i will start a new thread (or Ghost) which will outline in the first post rules, scoring etc..etc..

If we wanted more, we could possible do some kind of thread at the core? Be it for everyone or just league players. Mumble would be the man to answer that question.

Still need everyone to reply which way they want to go. New character or current one.

I have been summoned. I've taken a lurk or two at this thread so far, and I think it's a great idea. I really like the concept, and I think the choice of commisssioners is brilliant. I only wish we could record our games in a Flash movie or something so we could sell tickets and beer for people to watch the games! And maybe those sausage dogs that they have at that one cart at Camden Yards. Mmmmmm...

I would like very much to be able to participate; not saying I can't or won't, but I've taken on a pretty heavy freelance project which doesn't leave me much game time. My time frame for my current game is practically Mumblefratzian

That said, I might be able to wedge in a tiny galaxy game if given a week. Those used to take me just a few hours at lower difficulties, and a couple of days at suicidal when I had more time. Count me in.

I made a few notes and kind of free-thought the idea, trying to incorporate all the points made so far. Dis is what I came up with.

Instead of what appears to be a tendency to re-define previous experiences/structure of Metaverse/Empires, why don't we think about a more League/league structure that fits in "under" the present structure?

For instance, in stead of race or empire structure, try something like one league with several East v. West orientation.

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"The League of Extra-Ordinary Players"

"Beginner Boffins" -> East v. West ... 2 teams, randomly filled rosters, start playing as soon as rosters filled. Tiny maps. Beginner level.

"Knormal Knights" -> East v. West ... 2 teams, randomly filled rosters, start playing as soon as rosters filled. Small maps. Normal level.

"Challenging Chargers" -> East v. West ... 2 teams, randomly filled rosters, start playing as soon as rosters filled. Medium maps. Challenging level.
-----------------------

ANY race. ANY victory. FIXED number of opponents. FIXED map size. FIXED level. Start another iteration of roster filling as soon as one iteration starts. If enough people sign up, then another iteration of (for example) Beginner Boffins could start so there could be several running at once.

Note: Scoring data from Metaverse/AltMeta provides the map size and level of score.

Note: Various weights for various methods used to acheive victory can be used to balance that aspect (or any other aspect as well).

Note: Commissioners should publish Projected start and end dates on sign-up sheet.

Once the basic iterations structures are up and running, the Commissioner's job becomes more one of administration, and can be simplified by setting up a spreadsheet and just pluggin in names from a Sign-Up Sheet. Players should be able to go look at the sign-up Sheet and see which iterations have openings, and which ones are playing currently, and add their name to the pool for whatever they wanna play, so the Commissioner(s) can just plug the character name into the spreadsheet and publish an Official Start Date and Official End Date.

Note: No-shows might just count as a null score.

A structure like this would not require anyone to even create a new character, and when games are submitted, the score goes to the Empire/character as usual, with the Commissioner(s) going down the list of each iteration and taking the info from the publicly available Metaverse/AltMeta scores and plugging it into the "League results" section of the League spreadsheet, then posting it somewhere.

Note: There should be some means to provide alternate/vice commissioners to take up the slack when someone has a rl(real-life) break or gets overloaded ... keep it fun for everyone.

Note: My thoughts kinda wanted to stop at anything above challenging level, because above that level it seemed more of a "professional teams" baliwick, which is pretty well taken care of by the current Empires structure.

Note: This structure should also be compatible with the new endgame.xml in future.

Note: I'm not familiar with current tournament play, however if this does overlap, there is always room for improvement going either way.

P.S. Note: Some people don't post to the metaverse for a variety of reasons. Question, can an alternate system of posting be utilized to incorporate their scores? Is it worth the trouble? Would scores posted by screenshot be valid?

Three remarks:
1. Fortune has blessed me with characters aplenty, so I shall be able to participate in the league.

2. Well I have no idea to use those pretty quotes the rest of you do, so I'll just do it the old fashioned way ElWhopO speaks about "East vs. West" - I'm not sure what he/she means.
Is East = East coast? Or is this some kind of Huntington-style clash of civilizations with the Western world against the Orient?
Being German myself, I fit into neither of the two categories (Well I could pretend to be Iranian if that helps...)

3. I think posting screenshots is a sneaky way in for all those a...rmpits who use burnt copies. Since I believe that Frogboy deserves the money he asks for the game, we shouldn't encourage such elements to become part of the metaverse.

The screenshots will be from the metaverse posting, of which you need a valid serial to submit to.

He, She, or It if that helps ... or otherwise you may refer to me as Universal Saviour and All-Dimensional Overlord With Unlimited I.Q., Striking Good Looks, and A Very High Testerone Level.   (plus, I have Gold Mastercard)

Just tossing in some ideas. Figured it would help solve any Evil v. Good, or Experts v. New Players Dilemnas, maybe. I thought about it afterwords and wondered if anyone would think I was ... uh ... getting too frisky with my thinking. Just food for thought, if it helps neilo andor ghostwes get a handle on things.

I'll offer to help out creating a spreadsheet or stuff like that if it's helpful. Though it's been awhile since I , uh, normalized a database or did spreadsheets. If I concentrate really hard I might be able to.   

Hello, I'm back... thanks for waiting. I still need to catch up on some stuff, and read through all of this. I'll try to post a more substantial response later tonight.

In any case, it's great to see that we have some interest in the idea.

I think there's more than just some interest I think it's pretty set for a go. At this point we seem to be waiting a bit for more folks to check in and give their opinions on how this may work. Also you are definitely a commisioner and so you and Neilo should get together and start making some of the decisions needed to get this off the ground. Don't worry about making mistakes I'm sure there will be issues and we can always change rules as required.

I'll add a couple of more points. One is is see no real reason to divide folks up based on AI level. While I think there is some minor increase in score based on AI level it's very small. This essentially allows for folks to automatically be "handicapped" simply by playing at their normal level. I see no reason that all levels can't both compete against all other levels and be teammates with all other levels. I don't see any particular disadvantage that the lower level player would have against a higher level player. The only real disadvantage would be if someone played beneath their normal level which we will preclude. I think it's better for all if everyone is "included" in the same league in this manner.

As far as having a free character dedicated to a defined league empire, that would make things easy but I don't think that it's really required. While it might be nice if everyone had such a character and only played league games with this character as well as never played non-league games with this character, I think this might be too great a requirement. Lacking this it would be sufficient to simply list the character and the metaverse submission date of a game that's to be submitted for league play. That way any character would be fine. If someone has a character to dedicate to this purpose then fine if not then no big deal.

Also it's been suggested to allow screenshots of the endgame score page to be submitted and that has been countered with that would allow bootleg versions of the game to compete. I would say that I would be less concerned about the bootleg issue and more inclined to want to attract those that had some religious prohibition against the metaverse but the bottom line is that this is to be a metaverse league hence I would suggest that metaverse submission should be required.

Finally, I think I do prefer the single game type for all players that changes from round to round. I think that everyone playing the same game just makes life simple all the way around. I think this means we should go with an "extra" 3, 2, 1 points for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place scores (we could also consider going 4 to 1 points for 1st through 4th if desired). Also we should give a 1 point bonus to all players completing the game in the least metaverse reported games years and minus 1 point for all players completeing the game in the most metaverse reported game years. Also I still like the 2 points for a win of the correct type and 1 point for a win of the wrong type. I think this will result in sufficient scoring differentiation, if not we can adjust this later.

Finally we definitely need a couple of threads. Someone suggested something at the Core and we could certainly set something up there if desired but I think that these forums would be the best place and we could have a thread that's dedicated to posting "official" results and another thread kind of a dedicated thread as a help desk/suggestion box for the league. I'm sure we can get these made sticky. Besides this we can have however many threads we need for issues that crop up or for news or recruitment, etc.

What might be nice to have at the Core would be dedicated threads for different teams, although we could have these here as well. We could have the possibility of having private forums for each team over at the Core which may be of some advantage. We could treat these private forums just like the current private forums that we have for various empires although it's not always clear that these are well utilized. However, if desired I'm sure we could set this up. I think we should see how this goes for a bit first.

I was (as usual) thinking it would be a disadvantage and a deterrent for lower level players to have to reach/play at a higher level than they are comfortable with. Playing down would be like me playing miniature golf against Arnold Palmer ... boring for him yes, a disadvantage for lowly me sure, but not a crippling disadvantage for Arnold. As long as no one is precluded from playing (+ to get max participation) I'm happy.

Expressing my thought using a baseball metaphor - It's all for fun, so why not let the street kids onto the field to rub elbows with "Babe Ruth" or "Shoeless Jackson" or "Joe Dimaggio" ? (I'd be glad to sign autographs for adoring fans on the local dirt field, long as the rules are according to the rules and not unfair to anyone ... like that's gonna happen but sure you see my point?   )

There, I took time to think before I typed! Hope I was understandable enuff?

Wow, where to begin...

The reason I thought of a league in the first place -- aside from thinking on the nature of empires -- was that I already happen to administer a league for another game. I started a league for online play of a collectible card game called Vampire: the Eternal Struggle, which is an intense and complex multiplayer strategy game, and not nearly as cheesy as it sounds (nor is it as cheesy or poorly designed as most CCGs, but I digress). Anyway, a lot of us play mostly online now, using a server "JOL" that one of the players designed. The first few years I started running large tournaments, and then eventually started a league in which to keep track of scores, assign games, etc. We're currently at about 75 players or so, I think. Anyway, for anyone who might be interested, info about the game can be found here, the server can be found here, and info about my league can be found here. The last might be most useful for this idea, though things like sportsmanship are mostly irrelevant when we won't be playing face-to-face.

I tell you all this for several reasons: first of all, I do have some idea of how to run a league, second, I think I'm too busy to run another one. I therefore respectfully decline your nomination/appointment of myself as commissioner, though I appreciate that you have all been very gracious in treating this as my idea when, really, I don't claim ownership of it at all. If you like the idea, hey, take it, it's yours!

That said, while I don't want to run this baby, I can point out a few areas where it might be, hmm, streamlined. I think what some of you have proposed has gotten a little too complex, frankly, which may not be a bad thing from a player's perspective, but it can get downright horrid from an administrative point of view.

The metaverse as it currently exists is not far off, really, from a league; it just needs to be adapted a little to fit the league's needs. Empires for teams, characters for team-members, a scoring system, validation of game scores... these things are already tailor fit to our needs. Let's not complicate things by adding additional scoring methods or unverifiable components. Now, I say that as someone who will not be responsible for administering any of it, so take that as you will -- if the commissioner(s) think they can handle it, by all means do so. But, needless to say, I think they will be thankful later on for keeping it as simple as possible now. On that, I speak with a certain familiarity, heh. Also, the more complicated it is, the less people will sign up, as they won't want to read through an enormous thread like this one in order to figure out what the league is about; I'm not terribly surprised we haven't had too many people sign up yet -- a second thread will probably be required to get names.

I originally proposed having twelve teams, but I think we can make do with less, for now. Not being a sports fan, I don't know how the NHL or NBA does it, but there must be some fair way of making new teams out of old ones. Perhaps, when a certain number of players are reached, each existing team "donates" a player to the new team being formed. As long as the number of players on each team are kept level, I think we'll manage.

I suggest that characters and empires be designated with a few special characters to distinguish them from non-league. For example, I could call my league character LG-Ghostwes and our team would be LG-Torian Tornados. That way, it will stand out in the rankings both here and the Alt-Meta. Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing stopping people from simply changing the name of one of their characters, so they could easily "retire" a character and replace it with a better one. But since it's all the same player, that shouldn't matter too much, I guess.

If Neilo is willing to do the commissioner job by himself, it might actually be better that way. Although I run my own league with as much democracy as possible, with an eye for reaching consensus on all issues, I also find that I often have to rule by decree when push comes to shove. Most of the league players know that I try to be fair about things, and if not, I take them out back and have them shot for their insubordination. Ahem. Joking aside, it really is a case where too many cooks spoil the democracy, so to speak. Having only one commissioner, but having him/her selected by the players, would work best, I think.

Similarly, each team should probably have a "captain". Since emperors are already the ones who can invite players, it should probably be them. This is more of a bureacratic matter than it is establishing a hierarchy -- if a team wants to run by committee, that's fine, but they will still need someone to actually invite people, organize meetings online, etc. This also necessarily means that existing emperors such as myself are exempt from being captains, as one can only be emperor of one empire at a time (Napoleon learned that the hard way). Besides, I'd like to keep the Gerontocracy going, league aside. Once we randomly determine who is on each team, the initial members can decide among them who is best suited for the role.

I've probably forgotten a few things as I am completely knackered right now -- recovering from my vacation, and now having to deal with the pile up that accumulated while I was on vacation, ack. Speaking of which, I better sign off now.