EA Game Strolling, part 2 - send in pretenders

[Aezeal]

damn, well good luck pplz

[Duncan_Frost]

Tonight everyone else dines in hell!

[chrispedersen]

Meatloaf please. If you're going to dine in hell .. it might as well be mystery meat.

Speaking of..
Weren't we going live tonight?

[johnarryn]

Llamabeast said he would try to start it tonight, but I imagine something came up... i'm guessing we will start sometime tomorrow (Tuesday).

[llamabeast]

Yeah, well guessed johnarryn, sorry to keep you all in suspense. I had an unexpectedly hectic evening. It'll definitely start today.

[johnarryn]

Hello everyone - the game has started!

I will be changing the game to 24 hour quickhost after the 1st turn and leave it that way for awhile, as these early turns shouldn't really take all that long.

[chrispedersen]

Um. Hey..

I notice that there are a bunch of VP markers all over the place.

However, on my map, at least - they do not correspond to provinces.

Are these supposed to be provinces? And, more specifically.. are they supposed to be capitols?

chris

[chrispedersen]

Ok.. I may not understand the science of starting positions.. but ...

The whole of the south continent has 2 positions. (30 land per each

The NW landmass... has 4 capitols.. split between 53 territories..

The NE is split between 5 as well.. but there is no one in lower starting 20 territories, with only 2 contenders for more than 25 territories.

AKA: Does anyone else have a problem with these starting positions? IF they are random, can we try for something a little more equitable?

[johnarryn]

They are indeed random... however, you fail to notice a few things... there are little anchor provinces that actually connect many provinces... thus, the persons in (85) and (100) can, should and will soon have access to the southern provinces... you are correct that person in the NE has a good space of empty land underneath them, but such is the luck of the draw. Unless there is overwhelming discord in terms of starting positions, I am loath to reset, as it takes time and there is little chance that everyone will be satisfied with new positions.

[chrispedersen]

I didn't fail to notice. However, if you just do a simple race to strategic borders expansion, the disparity is huge.

Two player 27s
One player 24
One player 22
Two player 18
One player 15
One player 12
Two player 10
One player 9
One player 7

In other words, if each player moves to secure chokepoints that allows him to expand in the maximum number of territories (sure, lots of assumptions) - the disparity is ridiculous.

Try it out.. color one territory a turn for each race. One person from each of the NE and NW continents needs to be moved to the south.