[Valerius]

Yup, you've won. Congratulations, Squirrelloid!

As far as another game like this goes, I think the rules would have to be simpler in order to attract more players (I'm not into large games so even 8 players would be good).

The core idea was to change the end-game by limiting magic to level 6. Since that excludes most globals it makes sense to ban all of them, even those lower than level 7.

Then there were the anti-turtling measures: most spells researched at the game's beginning, no need for site searching, limiting the number of forts, even pre-assigning provinces/forts to eliminate the expansion/building phase.

I'm inclined to keep most spells at level 0 and leaning towards leaving all magic sites at 0. But I do think the fort and province rules need to be simplified. Recently I've been thinking setting rules such as no fort can border another or perhaps each fort can only border one other fort would be a simple way to keep the game moving in the later stages. As far as starting provinces, I'd probably just go with starting everyone with 3-5 provinces and having a short expansion/fort building phase (maybe a map with approx. 12 provinces/player?).

We also had some rules that had nothing to do late game/turtling (no indies/mercs, no diplo) and these could of course be changed for a second game.

As regards mind hunts, I'm increasingly of the opinion they should cost 3 gems in a normal game. But I'm not sure about with these settings. Without the Chalice, GoH or even faerie queens Bandar had to take a risk with his mind hunts. But this wouldn't be the case if someone chose Arco, or to a lesser extent TC, next game. Nations with healers and strong S worry me. But it's worth noting that if we allow indies and I include mage recruiting magic sites non-S nations would have more opportunities to protect against mind hunts.