Thoughts on game province settings
 

I was half thinking of hosting a game with slightly non-standard settings; specificaly, having ~50% of the map divided out to the players in starting provinces. Maybe jack the indies up to 7-9, although id think a 6 to be about minimum.

The idea is to help speed past the boring early game in PBeM and get everything going alot faster.

Problems include poor province placement (not always adjacent to capital), unfair province distribution (plains vs other), and lessening value of SC Pretender starting strategies. Also might even the playing field and make diplomacy that much more prominent.

Points include increasing value of non- or poor- combat pretenders. And hopefully skipping the first 10-15 turns of a standard game, depending on settings and build orders.

Re: Thoughts on game province settings
 

Sounds interesting even to me, a player who doesn't find the initial turns boring at all, and who doesn't really want the play to be "faster".

Although it would somewhat reduce the value of SC's for initial expansion, as you say, it would also tend to favor SC's, I think for initial destruction of human players, if the initial provinces make up 50% of the map, since that implies it would be possible to attack an enemy player with an SC in the first few turns, in a gambit to wipe them out in a decisive first strike, probably based mostly on pretender strength.

PvK