[Septimius Severus]

Thank you rdonj for your defense and Squirrel for your commentary.

Squirrel, what I meant really meant was that in most strategy games, the developers/designers sort of "balance" the game by giving each faction certain strengths and weaknessess. Counters are provided for this, that and the other thing. Globals can be dispelled, tiny units can swarm and bring down much larger units, etc, etc. I think some things were put into the game for reasons the designers thought best. Of course the players know best, I'm just saying ...

I would like to preserve at least one game with a thread here on Shrapnel that is largely vanilla (with all its glorious imperfections and imbalances), not because I am anti-balance or anti-CBM, but rather because I think that it is important for players, especially noobs to play the game vanilla in order to appreciate the extensive balance modifications that CBM makes. Perhaps I am a bit of a purist, but I believe also that players should have a choice as well. And there were some AI considerations as well.

I remember when I played Space Empires, one could join either a vanilla game or one using Capt'n Kwok's balance mod (I wonder if Kwok and QM are related?), both types were readily available. I'd like that to be the case with Dom3 as well. Aside from Gandalf's server, it seems they are getting harder, and harder to find.

Rdonj, Chris came up with some great ideas for keeping team alternates in the loop and interested, aside from giving them forum access which I thought was a good idea as well, they can be set to work gathering intel (maybe from IRC, isn't that where people gather to chat about the game or something?), researching, creating maps, etc. We need to find more ways to get them involved, perhaps letting your alternates play a turn or two every now and then, to give em a chance to get some action in and keep em loose.

Of course there are some alternates, like Grudgebringer who turned out to be very reliable, and a few others I can't remember now, forgive me.