[DrPraetorious]

On reflection, I agree with Teraswaerto - if a "no messages" setting appears in the next patch, I will set it.

Okay - in the playoff round, random events will remain common, but each player will begin with 3 provinces. That seems like it would buffer bad events somewhat but still allow SC pretenders their place (which is the problem with multi-province starts.)

The number of start locations and the distance between them will tend to restrict maps to 200 provinces+, depending on how mountainous they are, etc. That's somewhere between a "medium" and "large" random map.

I'm not doing random nations. I don't want to start a flamewar over it, but I think that tests breadth of familiarity with the game nations, rather than skill as such. Put another way - I expect people to bring strategies they've tried and tested in other MP games and try them out on eachother, which you can't generally do if you're handed a nation you haven't played much.

However, I think a skilled player should have a winning strategy worked out with at least a few of the nations in each period, so that's what I'm requiring. It is entirely possible that no-one will choose Bandar Log - fine, that is acceptable. To an extent, this will also have the benefit of creating a "strongest nation" poll for each era.