Which settings do you play with?

[Catwalk]

It occurred to me that with all the extra starting options (I think they were added in Insecticide), the game becomes far more difficult to balance. Land size in particular is a notoriously difficult factor because the gameplay is immensely different from smallest to largest. The same goes for Power, and to a lesser extent Minerals and Climate. Never mind difficulty level and number of enemy wizards, they're less relevant to this discussion.

I'm curious to hear which settings you prefer playing with. I think we should make a decision to either remove unused settings or simply issue a statement saying "These are the default values which the game is balanced against. The other values are available for your game enjoyment, balance is not guaranteed". Maybe Fair should be considered the default value for all fields, but only if that's actually what people prefer playing with.

I play with the following:
Huge land (I like expansion and territory struggles, and I think the AI manages best here)
High Power (nodes should give big rewards, although 2.5 is overdoing it a bit)
Fair Climate (I don't like everywhere being lush, and I don't like tundra everywhere either.
Fair Minerals (Poor gives hardly any, and Rich puts an obscene amount on the map)

[Seravy]

My preference is
Fair land size (but I play all of them - probably Tiny least often)
Good power (I do use Fair and High as well, Max rarely, Weak almost never)
Climate and mineral varies, I'd say I play most of them.

[Nelphine]

While I agree with the intent if this post, number of opponents makes a huge difference as well.

I play with 1, 2, or 4 opponents usually. (2 is less common).
I play on tiny, small, large, or huge land (small is least played - I also very rarely play on fair - the ai seems best on large - on huge they can expand, but their offense seems slow)
I always play max power.
I play wet, or fair, or dry climate.
I play poor or fair or rich minerals (since I almost always play myrran, rich minerals makes a huge difference - yes the AI get them, but the challenge is to see if I can overcome the huge quantity advantage the AI gets, by making cities with perfect mineral combinations - dwarves with 2 coal, mithril, orihilacron are disgusting)

[Seravy]

I agree, number of opponents matter. I always play 4 though.