Re: New Game
Graphs off for VP does not work as well, for it can be hard to determine exactly how many a side has. But for provinces, this is not an issue. Even if all your spies are caught, you will have a good idea of how large a territory each of the game leaders have. You will be trading inforation with your allies to get an even closer tally if needed. And when somebody is eliminated, pretty much everybody in the game will know who did it and adjust the province count appropriately.
In my only other game with graphs off, I remember sending spies to the edge of Abysian (Aku) territory to get an idea of where his border with Man and Pangaea was. I knew about his border with R'lyeh since I was allied with that watery race. So I made an informed estimate of how many provinces Aku had. We then exchanged province count with each other over MSN and he had something like 22, which fit my estimate of 20-25.
I remember watching a big battle (on the other side of the map from me) between Pasha Dawg and Boron, and they were both issuing false proclamations about it. So I took screen shots and posted it on the thread. Aku remarked that my Pythium spy was a long ways from home, which he was. I also recall keeping that spy alive for something like 40 turns. He eventually got caught, as they all do at some point.
Unlike army size, gems, income, dominion and, to a lesser extent VPs, province count is incredibly difficult to mask whether the graphs are on or off. In my opinion, being able to hide these other graphs is what makes it attractive to me. I will have my spies roaming to keep tabs on all my neighbors regardless of the score graph state.
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