I am strongly in support of continuing the current game as-is. If the point of resetting is to give people a 'clean slate' for diplomacy that seems needless; a) I genuinely don't think anyone's actions need to be reset and b) you always need a few years for international relations to stabilize because people haven't tested out the mechanics and haven't built or burned friendships. The current crisis is a chance to set the stage for the rest of the game, I would just prefer to move forward and lick my wounds from whatever comes next.
I second this. Current WWI seems to be just a prelude for the Brave New World to come. I mean, many nations may perish along the way, and players may need to shuffle to new successor states, but it's an interesting mess we're getting into, regardless of who wins this war. To be honest, I'm having a lot of fun with this, even though I may not necessarily achieve much with my nation.
I also don't think the concept of two superpowers is flawed in and by itself. The simple truth about the Art of the Possible is that Great Britain and France both had achieved the state of almost full autarky by the beginning of the game, plus they didn't have serious ideological differences, such as the capitalism vs. communism struggle between the USA and the USSR. It doesn't mean they wouldn't compete with each other. All it means the other countries' players had to be more subtle in their geopolitics, not challenging the superiority of the Dual Powers directly. Because let's face it, if you want two superpowers to open the "superpowers' club" to other participants (or dissolve it completely), then you're inviting the superpowers to cut you down to a size. More practical approach would be to make the superpowers believe their superiority is unchallenged, feed their desire to compete against each other more aggressively (by making them feel they have a strong backing and stable position), and wait until they get too tied down in their rivalry. I'm not blaming people for not being as subtle in the game - it's up to them to decide what's fun and what's not. But I just don't think EQ is to blame for the imbalance. The Dual Powers' alliance is a fruit that we grew ourselves.
In general, I think, any game that starts in the middle of an intense imperialist "Great Game" would be destined to turn into a big world crisis with ever-shifting alliances, simply because at least two or three nations will have their interests and power projection capabilities
everywhere. So, the "clean state" of diplomacy is possible only in two cases:
1. If we start nation-building almost from the scratch, similar to BOTWAWKI.
2. Less "global" period of history, when even powerful nations couldn't be projecting their influence and military power to every corner of the planet. (Still, on regional level thing may get pretty messy very easily. After all, all global imperialist powers of the 19th century grew out of regional powers that subdued all of their regional competitors and extended their reach to other corners of the world. In other words, nobody is safe from being bullied, no matter how you plan you game.)
With all of this in mind, here are my preferred solutions:
1. "Freeze" this game by not allowing any more diplomacy until EQ is free to GM it;
2. Go for another BOTWAWKI (still, I think many players will be disappointed to find that the rules of survival in BOTWAWKI are not much different, and bullying and backstabbing are still the very salt of "realpolitik" in the Wasteland);
3. Completely new alt-history game, this time set up in a different time period (I have nothing against 1900s, but starting in 1900 all over again feels repetitive).
P.S. Randomization of factions doesn't sound too attractive to me. Lack of attachment to one's faction seems to be the main reason for drop outs, along with being busy IRL and good ol' ragequits.
