vfb: Maybe they aren't enough different vfb. My plan was to squeeze the players tighter to about 8 provinces per player. But that's about the same as Forge.
1) I squeezed the map by roughly 50%.
2) The map was specifically chosen to penalize water nations so they can't turtle. There is one small sea of 4 provinces which I will set to #nostart. The rest of the water provinces are small lakes not connected. This will force any water nations to get on land fast or die.
3) CBM 1.6 makes entering water easier with manuals of water breathing for N gems.
4) Cummulative VPs is huge. You get one vp every year for each capital you hold. So setting the cummulative at 6 for example ends the game on turn 72 no matter what. It won't devolve into a giant stalemate. I think we should got more than 6 though
Probably say if you get 4 caps and hold a couple years you win.
My view on Forge wasn't that the settings didn't work. Just that no one could win in less that 120 turns.