Would you pay more to secure a desired position in a new game

One of the challenges of new games, is that the first year or so seems to involve a lot of players dropping out. Sometimes from key positions.

So just a as a general idea, would you pay a larger deposit on a position to secure a position you wanted?

My general thought being that the deposit money could only be used for turn processing for that position.

Is there another, better, way to minimize early turnover?

Also, is there a better option than first come, first served, for the bigger/better positions?

Do you wish that the available positions in a game were more regularly posted so that you could consider joining a different game if one of the positions you wanted became available?

I think an entertaining game NEEDS some key positions to be filled. I don't know if a higher cost would help, but i do think a money depot, if you wish to take a first class position, would ve acceptable.

If you wish to play France for example, a caution you loose if you early drop the position would guarante the position to be taken from a player who really want to stay in game. For a german minor for example, this would not be needed.

I wonder if the problem is, early in the games there is a lot of nation building that needs doing to make a position credible? Now I enjoy the nation building elements of the game (way more than the fighting) but at the start positions are possibly too basic, esp if someone is more of a wargamer, and it might be a lot of players find it takes too long to establish the necessary military bases and institutions. This could be more of a problem with the slow game times at the moment (slower than real life).

To use Scotland in G10 as an example, at the start I had a royal palace, a parliament building, a cathedral, and old city walls and an old citadel at Edinburgh. That was it, no other fortifications, palaces or religious buildings; no institutions or military bases.
Could this lack of infrastructure put people off? It takes a lot of your annual budget to get a range of institutions opened and unless you plan to spread the openings over a very prolonged period (assuming your economy can support their opening costs).
Perhaps if as part of your setup either there were a number of camps, institutions included or, as part of the set up, Richard 'gave' you (say) 12 institutions/bases you could identify and say where they were-all could be military bases, churches, institutions/academies, or a mix.

That's an interesting point. In game 8, we're in year 7, and I think I'm finally pretty solid, but even though I have a fair bit more to do.

I wonder if an "accelerated" setup game would have more interest. Start with extra money and extra recruits?

Rather than starting with loads of spare cash so you can just build them yourself if you want, I like the idea of a position starting with X number of bases/facilities in place which a player selects at start.

Since most Governments of the period would have a fair number of "inherited" assets in the way of Palaces, Castles, Ports etc and sometimes a struggle to pay for the upkeep. This would seem more realistic than a blank sheet and could lead to interesting problems in Future....Do you shut down the summer palace to give extra money to the Military?

On subject of Military Units I think the problem with say 10,000 recruits per year for one position V 60,000 for another is that over time Armies grow to unrealistic sizes and the larger powers gain a huge advantage over small rivals just by standing still.
Think the scabble system of a max number of units related to land/population area's seems better.

So if you want to expand the number of units you have to go out and take those new provinces/new colonies.

Perhaps positions could start with a number of active units and also a number of malita units already in being. So if you want to go to war early you can but you will probably need to borrow money and its probably going to hurt the economy calling up all those men and horses.

The other thing I think positions should start with is some grain stocks. I have noticed that nothing knocks players out a new game faster than a couple of famines in a row and not being able to do much about it. May be realistic but its no fun at all.

Maybe an idea is to give players a bit of lee way in the set up, with maybe a couple of options they can choose for themselves, examples could be
1) first level of canals or roads in place
2) A certain number of institutions extra.
3) Extra military units
4) Trade missions already active / or have say some you can deploy at game start.
5) a good harvest from 1699
6) set tax rates prior to game commencement.

The list could be basically endless it would give players an input into the position

On the unhistorical size of armies maybe they should be tied in some way to population, after all that population also has to feed them, by there very nature armies consume rather than produce, maybe nations should have a point whereby the agricultural base can no longer support the military, increasing chances of famine.

Also we don't take into account soldiers ageing or being invalided out, ok many armies at the time it was service for life but that meant older men being put into garrison or pensioned off, this could also be remedied by having fewer recruits available as armies get larger, this can be justified because of general ageing of armed forces, so when the size of the armed forces reaches a certain % of overall population you could expect to receive fewer recruits

It would hit all nations true, but it would make recruits even more of a finite resource, plus may mean that some of the larger positions start looking to the smaller ones to hire units as was historically the case, meaning more player interaction.

Having played in games where large positions were dormant, I think any method that encourages longevity in a position is a bonus, if you can stay in a position for a long period of time( Both real world & game time) then you have time to formulate & mould your position, the hot seat form of play in some positions makes it hard for them to ever reach their true potential.

I'd definitely agree with Stuart on an initial batch of grain, it does take a lot of determination to carry on after a harvest failure in your first few months, esp in a new game. Not so bad in established game where there will be some spare grain floating around...but in 1700/1701 when no one wants to give up what little they have spare...

On population, I think it depends how you play the game. If your recruits just go to the military then yes I can see how for the larger positions you quickly get unrealistic militaries-but if you go in for doctors, lawyers, priests, vets, administrators then I think its not such an issue