This idea has come up before and been summarily dismissed. OK, so maybe the elite players (for whom the game is all about clever calculations) aren't that interested. But some of us are! We WANT it to be unpredictable. We WANT to worry, as the real leaders did, that Spain or Turkey or Vichy or whatever might do something crazy - and try to be prepared for it. Surely if there's enough interest (poll?) 'less predictable politics' could be programmed as an option? After all, there are plenty of other 'optionals' in GS - most of which are such obviously good ideas that IMO they should be automatic features."I note a few comments about 'gamey' uses of the Armistice rules and "is it worthwhile to program an exception to deal with this or that circumstance?" plus "I do know that we want the conditions for activation to be a deterministic set of conditions and not based on any random draw". I very much disagree. I believe some of the political intrigues of our game and indeed in real life, are very much changeable and unpredictable just like the weather. Therefore, just like the weather (and in our game we have a fairly simple Weather Chart), we could easily put together a 'Political Chart' that could put some variability into Country activations and really make the game interesting ! Why not ?"
Yes, I realize this means the outcome of a game (with the options on) could be decided by a random factor - which won't appeal to those who see the game as a kind of chess. To me, looking at it first and foremost as history, that just makes it more interesting - less predictable and therefore more re-playable.
