[Calahan]

Just a quick thought, if we were to start the game with 15 nations instead of 16, would that give some players a bit of an advantage due to the map being designed as 16 fixed land starts? Since there would be a lot of free Indy provinces to grab where the missing capital was meant to be.

Maybe just advertise for "1 more player required", fair chance someone will jump onboard. (all this is assuming of course that 'coobe' is AWOL again)