AAR: Manuel Pg. 6, "Once you've decided who will play which power...."

[nlentz88]

I'm curious about house rules for deciding which country each player controls at the beginning of the game.

I only play five-player, face-to-face games, though I imagine there could be these kinds of rules for tournament play, ranked play, etc. My group usually just puts one national marker for each power into a hat and picks, but I can see other options. Does anyone out there let one week's winners have first chance to pick a nation at the beginning of the next week's game? Or does anyone else use a random system like rolling a die? If anyone has played with unique, effective, or interesting house rules for matching up players and nations, I'm all ears. :)

[pagan]

Everyone must play a different country from the last time we played.

Still random selection, and sorted out to the above basic rule.

[RuHurt]

Well, on the rare occasion I play FtF with someone other than myself, we just agree... of course, I've never played with more than two other people ;).

[TomJag3]

For FTF, we just put one national marker from each country in a box and draw.

For tournaments, one team plays Axis and the other plays Allies, based on a bidding system. Different tourneys have different bidding systems.

[Me 262 Schwalbe]

We roll the dice.

If there are five players f.i. we all roll (two dice) for Russia first, than Germany etc. The player with the highest roll plays that power (if it's a tie there is a re-roll between the players with equal highest rolls).
But no one gets to play the same power as last time. If you played Russia last time, you don't roll for Russia this time.