(July 11th, 2020, 21:17)Fluffball Wrote: I think there's just way less copper in general because of the huge tundra areas. I'm going off memory but I'm pretty sure some of the maps don't have enough easy copper for 2 entire players? For example the upcoming game I remember there's at least two copper resources in the southern inhospitable ice where no cities will be till end-game.
I think that's it, indeed.
I actually like the cold setting for the tournament, it seems to be the best fit so far.
There's the whole copper situation that means early effective wars are actually possible (cuts both ways, though, since AIs won't launch wars without strategic ressources : bordering a warmonger lacking metals is safer, initially).
But mainly, it means that with less viable land, the AIs are more clustered at the start. Which leads to proximity wars instead of silly across-the-map pointless offensives targetting their "worst enemy". Have we had any of those this year, actually ? On top of my head, I can't recall any.
And games seem to be more likely to end with a domination win than in previous seasons where 80% of the games ended in next-turning until a ship reached Proxima Centauri.