How about what a radiation nexus bonus is?

2006-06-26 22:19:16 - <player> receives -2 armies for holding irradiated territory
2006-06-26 22:19:16 - <player> receives 1 armies for holding a radiation nexus

No mention of a radiation nexus on the map itself or in the legend. This was first turn ...

Yes, I think that would help enormously in this example (and others). In a sequential 3-vs-3 game if the game starts with the first player on a team, and the first two players just fort everything to the third, it's possible for the third to kill someone on the other team before they've even taken ...

given similar player skill

Two or three players who play on a team together all the time does not equal similar skill to a few random newbies. It's not insurmountable if you are better than your opponent, but if you play someone as good as you and they have such a huge lift early you're SOL ...

In non-team games with cards or in games with three teams, it's never insurmountable. In games with two teams (2 on 2 or 3 on 3) if one team gets really great starting position AND they go first, it is very possible that the other team ends up with a huge army disadvantage and a huge positional ...

I scanned through this forum and didn't see mention of this, but I've been bothered by it since I started here: randomizing starting army placement can, in certain game types and given similar player skill, turn the game into 100% luck.

I know the game is fundamentally luck-based, but it's all ...

I agree that scoring should be based on your score at the start of the game. It's not a big deal programatically, and I'm saying that from the PoV of a person who does database programming for a living. There's at least one row somewhere for each player in any given game, tracking things like ...

Amen, terrafutan. I came to the boards specifically to bring this up... I've had people long delay games they could've easily won three or four turns earlier, always waiting until the last hour or so to do anything, and letting every turn time out. This can easily add days to the length of a game ...

It's very obvious that some people do what you described intentionally. Generally it's a (relatively) high rated player starting a game, who is fully active in other games they are playing, but mysteriously deadbeats when they find that their start is really poor. I've seen it happen in one six ...

It's not so much a problem of the strategy itself, which at times will pay off (early on, if you have a big stack no one wants to attack) or horribly backfire (if someone who cashes in earlier manages to wipe you out while you're stalling), it's the cost to the other players. People who only have a ...