Is there an option to manually select starting countries?

[Dvd Avins]

Or to place one army at a time during setup?

In the boardgame, the minor advantage of selecting a country first is balanced by the minor disadvantage of using your last initial army first.

Here, if you select manual placement, the countries are selected automatically, so no advantage. An you have to place all your armies first, which is a very considerable disadvantage.

I also found, in the boardgame, that initial selection of countries and placements was a large part of the non-luck strategy in the game. Is it really unavailable in any balanced way here?

[Metsfanmax]

Unfortunately no, it is not available. Consider the feasibility: a non-real-time game where troops were placed one by one could potentially take weeks just to finish the setup phase.

[Dvd Avins]

OK, so automatic placement it is from now on. Because manual placement under these conditions is nuts. The one who places last has too big an advantage.

It's a shame. I understand the reasoning you give. But my chess games on turn-based servers take a month or two. My 1830 games take longer than that.

[Donelladan]

OK, so automatic placement it is from now on. Because manual placement under these conditions is nuts. The one who places last has too big an advantage.

The one who places last has no advantage at all. The one that places last does NOT see where the other troops are. Everyone is placing the troops blindly.
The first player to move ( in 1vs1) does have an advantage when you choose manual deployment but that's all.

[Dvd Avins]

Oh, good. It's still a swingy guessing game, but at least a fair, swingy guessing game.

[Dukasaur]

Oh, good. It's still a swingy guessing game, but at least a fair, swingy guessing game.

Yeah, most people prefer automatic drops for that reason.