[Squirrelloid]

Look, here's how game 2 is going to play out with those teams: Ashdod and Ermor are going to be the 'front line' of the Set team, deployed both to one side. They're going to choose another team and kill them, all of them, by turn 25 (some minor fort sieges may still apply!). Then they're going to move onto the next team. In the meantime, Shinuyama starts summoning tarts around turn 25 while being fed all the relevant artifacts by C'tis.

They're just going to ignore the AI. Why bother fighting them? It'll distract everyone else while they kill real players. And since the AI will be 'improved', not fighting it will save a lot of team resources.

(in particular, ideal deployment involves Ashdod up front, Shinuyama guarding one flank, Ermor on the other flank, and C'tis protected in the back - attack direction will be towards whichever side Ermor is on. I assume MA C'tis gets recruit-anywhere for its best mage, so it'll be a great research rusher, as is Shinuyama with Bakemono Sorcerors. I'm tempted to say Ermor should run really research light for quite awhile to maximize reanimation, but it will need enough Thaum for gateway to ferry reinforcements to strategic labs. And ideally, they want to hit the astral team first since they'll be the strongest later, and killing them early will remove the threat - possibly just bypassing Rlyeh if it's too annoying to kill, although i imagine hordes of undead might do the trick.)

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The first thing I'd do is ban Ashdod. They are not suitable for MP games, especially not in vanilla.

The second thing I'd do is let teams create their own theme. Everything is justifiable post hoc as a 'theme', and it lets teams choose nations that actually work well together rather than pre-chosen themes that end up with good teams and bad teams.