Okay, I'm gonna make a stab at a few game settings now.
Please let me know if you have STRONG objections to anything below. I want all to enjoy the game, but if minor objections keep coming up we might not start ever...
Llama suggested people might want to know their teams for thinking about making a pretender. This made sense to me. I didn't know a better way, so I have randomly made teams of 2, they are color coded in the first post.
I am willing to do Urraparrand as a map. I have never played it before. I was thinking I would look at it this weekend, and pick 4 sets of start locastions for 4 teams. I would try to make them all as balanced as I can. I would then number them 1-4, and tell Llambeast the numbers. The three teams I am not on would each pick a random number, first come first serve. My team gets whatever number is left. Everyone would then know where everyone else starts. This is the only solution I can think of for Urrapparrand. If we did 8 Gates, we could have random starts (well, each start is roughly balanced). That is easier, and perhaps more balanced, but I think we have objections. One advantage to 8Gates would be that because of the gates you could probably make it to your ally pretty quickly no matter where you started on the map.
I will have graphs off, renaming on. All othe settings default. For Urraparrand, it is set to 150% gold I think. I would leave this as is.
So.. in summary:
-randomly made teams of 2 (1st post)
-default settings, graphs off, renaming on
-urraparrand with semibalanced, semi lottery starts
Please post to confirm this is okay, or to post major issues. Thanks!