[moderation]

Hmm, there's not much I can add to this except to add that this type of game is inherently hard to balance. Maybe we'll get it right the next time around. Unfortunately, having a large number of allies in Dom 3 introduces a lot of inefficiencies since you have to spend a whole turn sending gold or gems or items between each other. And having forts in provinces next to your ally also hurt you because you cannot get resources from their provinces. Maybe with more space and time to expand it would not be such an issue because then allies will not have to worry about micromanaging a very small pool of gems and gold in an early war.

Also, some of the evil nations getting lucky enough to start in the middle of high income grasslands (like Abysia and Ermor and Lanka) has also skewed the balance a lot. If we do this again, it would be important to carefully consider the map and maybe build a custom map for the game. I'm not too unhappy about it though. I'd consider this game a beta test, I think games with such large teams are uncommon, and therefore it will take a good deal of testing to get this type of game balanced.