Okay, after reading Jurri's post I have finalized stuff! I agree with him that the Invisible Swarm games have always been fast, brutal, early game action. So it will continue to be like that.
I sort of dislike the look of the Lonely Mermaid map, but it is a wraparound, and of roughly the correct size, so we will use it. It's 120 provinces, 12 per player. That may be a little small for some people's preference, and considering that we have a couple of relative MP newbies, there will be another house rule:
No intentional hostilities for the first 10 turns of the game! The previous Prokrantor's influence is still felt for a short while, enough to give everyone a chance in the early game. At the time of the Awakening, however, you had better prepare for war!
I also hope that using the scales and gods mod will help to mute somewhat the extreme bless strategies. But, it does seem pretty clear that this type of game favors a bless strat.
As far as scoregraphs, they will be off, but I will try to figure out the scoredump thing and give a report every 10-15 turns. So, before the hostilities can begin, there will be a report on the relative strengths of everyone.
How does this all sound to everyone?
Lonely Mermaid
Edit: Oh, also we will need the Quickfix mod because we have MA Tien Chi. I hope all these mods are compatible, I'll have to do a test game before we start.
Quickfix mod