Hmm, the more I've thought about this arena issue the more it begins to annoy me.
If it was just intended as a small distraction in game fine, but if no one on this board says they bother with it, then it becomes solely a sink for AI commanders. I don't really care weather or not the effect on the AI is great or not, the arena amounts to the same thing as periodically going trough every AI nation and randomly (or not so randomly) removing a commander. Now if that were implemeted in the game I wonder how many people would be more bothered by it.
So I repeat my request to make the arena optional at the game creation phase. Shouldn't be all that hard to add another option when you already can choose site frequency, indie strengths, ...
Now some people will again say, 'don't worry, its not a big effect on game play...' to them I say, 1st I disagree with the potential effect on game balance for the AIs, and 2nd, if it really isn't a big deal, and you never use it, then why keep it around in the first place? I'm not asking for it to be ripped out, merely made optional at the start.
Of course if the risk/reward and cost/benefit of the arena were tweeked I'd probably change my mind
