YARG - Yet Another RAND Game [Isokron's Midgard wins!]

[StrictlyRockers]

One of the down sides of having known preplaced starting positions is that it takes some of the fun and surprise out of the game that comes from not having any idea where your enemies started. It eliminates some of the mystery right off the bat. For me, that is a lot of the fun, not knowing which way to go or what you might find.

Also, for nations that have good early ritual spells like Blight or Hurricane, they can target their opponents' home provinces with foreknowledge of the locations. That to me seems somewhat of an unfair advantage to those nations. So, on the whole I think I'd prefer to start with random start locations, even though this may give some nation a "bad start location". You take what you get and you try to make the most of it. Some games are better than others. Although I am content to play with pre-placed starting locations, my preference is for them to be placed totally randomly.