Limited thanksgivin' game?

[Anaconda]

Anybody interested to engage on limited size thanksgiving game in which we should try to run as many turns per day as possible from wed evening to fri evening and then proceed in slow pace?

I am idling these few incoming days with some editing work and school work, so mostly on my computer and able to rush the beginning phase.

Mods: CBM1.6, magic sites, anything else... (?)
Settings: HoF 15, renaming on, research difficult, last man standing, independents 6, one starting province, site frequency 45-55, random events rare, graphs E, (?)
Map: milk and honey or cradle of D (?)
Hosting: I can run host if using skype for turn delivery, otherwise someone might want to set up game on llama (?)
Age: open for debate (?)
players: 4-7 or so (?)


Anybody interested?

[Squirrelloid]

Not that i'll have time over thanksgiving (family time is family time), but your map and setting suggestions are crazy. I'd tone them down to something sensible.

Rare events just makes misfortune a 'no duh' choice instead of just very good. Bad idea.

Difficult research is not generally a good idea.

Cradle of Dominions with 4-7 players? Seriously? You want a map half that size (105 optimal, maybe 140 provinces tops, assuming 7 players). More than 20 provinces per player is just ridiculous. Actually, 20 provinces per player is still pretty ridiculous.

[Anaconda]

Of course those can be changed.

[Gregstrom]

The only recruitable unit should be the Nahualli, I reckon.

[Omnirizon]

I wouldn't characterize Difficult Research as generally not a good idea. I would say it depends on the dynamics you are looking for, but just as often as not it, it is a good idea.

Granted, it favors rushers and big-blessers, but CBM takes steps to reduce the advantage afforded such nations (removing the Oracle from Mictlan, for example) and some games will forbid dual-blessing, or big-blessing altogether (although that latter seems extreme)

Were it not for the favor it gives some nations, I would say Very Difficult Research should always be used for MP games. It keeps things in each game stage for longer, and makes research strategy a much more powerful aspect of overall strategy.

Rare Events, however, is always a bad idea. It makes the Luck Scale way to weak, so that it is never worth taking luck, and almost always worth taking misfortune.

[Illuminated One]

What bugs me about difficult research is that it takes ages before you can use any sort of fun strategy with many nations (i.e. I don't consider the army part of dominions standing up to the magic part or to other games - and the lower level spells are often not useable on their own or because of AI reasons), otherwise I'd think it's a very good idea.

Considering map size - what matters not is player to province ratio imo but the total amount of provinces. If you play with 10 players or with 4 player on a 150 province map, the player owning half the map has always the same amount of micro.

[Anaconda]

My original idea was to bring back old school playing where nobody should not be dropped off at the beginning for BS reasons such as vampire count storming succesfully your walls ect, but instead they could actually build their realm in peace. That is why rare events - which everybody taking luck scales could be able to compensate by taking turmoil and also this is why quite big map suggestion with only few players....however when suggesting seven or so players that was because I knew that most of us here are from Americas and we would not be able to get many players anyway. And the original idea maintains the reason for slow research. Low level spells would be more usefull for longer time period. I would have also been willing to go so far as taking very slow research, while I know it faces lots of resistance.

Well, the window of opprotunity for rushing the beginning is now closed maybe for ever for me.