I don't know if this has been suggested before, but I was thinking about a balance between auto and manual picks, especially for multiple day game/tournaments where it can really add some delay back and forth.

In addition to manual and auto pick, you can have auto-territory.. (and maybe auto-super-territory for maps like feldemere) which works like this: You're automatically assigned a territory bonus (for each pick) and then you before starting, you get to pick a territory within that bonus that's yours. You wouldn't be able to see other picks, so it's more work to code, but I think it would be a nice balance between the speed of auto and the "fairness" of manual.

Especially for e.g. the nice tourneys "hosted" by Phunky where it's auto distribution and 0 income. Having a start with a first income boost vs not is a huge advantage.

What do you think?

If you can pick any territory from a fixed bonus, but can't see anything else, there will always be one objectively best territory to pick, so I am finding it difficult to see how this would be much different from auto dist

That’s exactly why it’s better than auto. Though I’m not sure that on every map there’s exactly one best territory in a bonus

Maybe I’m not being clear on this. With territory distribution after you click I start it would automatically assign a bonus of northern Gaul to one player and Africa to another. They would each have to pick a specific territory in that bonus as a start but couldn’t pick a different bonus etc

There is a best territory in Northern Gaul and a best territory in Africa, so why will it not be like auto dist with just fewer options than normal (because always the same territory will be taken)

just hopping in to bring it into modding perspective
mods can alter the territories that are pickable, but these changes will be applied to all players unfortunately. So if a mod sets a territory to pickable, everyone will be able to pick it

Problem with the bonus picker is that you could accidently end up with a mega bonus and so the modders would need to filter out that (prob but a cap on the amount of territories...)

without arguing best territories, it's a compromise between manual (which can take too long and require too much coordination in multi day pugs) and auto (which can be just luck of the draw). Call it semi-auto.