[rdonj]

Certainly, pretty much every nation is balanced on a big enough map, because gradually all end games begin to look the same. With a long enough time span and sufficient gems available to players, and let's not even talk about clams... a 1500 or so province game would have the last couple of nations alive so closely balanced, I highly doubt anyone would ever win. But yes, in general and for much of the game, it would be very difficult if not impossible to find two evenly matched nations. Any given nation is stronger on some, weaker on others, and those strengths and weaknesses can change (to a point) depending on how a given player plays it. The strong nations are generally strong because they are likely to be able to defeat a larger number of nations than most other nations can. And the opposite of course for nations that are weaker. Of course, some of the "weaker" nations actually become quite strong later on, and their real challenge is surviving a certain stage or two of the game mostly intact. There are only a few nations in the game that are just never really competetive imo. And what do you know, none of them are in this game!



On a more game-related note, I don't know if you're aware of this septimius, but my team is having trouble getting in contact with illuminated one. And the hosting timer STILL does not seem to reflect the amount of time I believe we should have left on the clock at this point given a 24 hour extension. Gandalf, can you please make sure all is well here and take a burden off my worried little mind? I'm a bit worried, I think we may end up having to call in a sub. Keeping my fingers crossed though.