Banned list commentary:
Nan Madol: Gives way too much culture. You can see that in my Epic 2 victory the ridiculous drops and it would be even worse for someone who was optimizing in a serious MP game. It's very similar to Scythia and VA that it gives you double--it should give you one culture not two.
VA, Scythia: No commentary needed. Double stuff is way too much for this game to handle. Maybe for a tactical wargame like Age of Wonders where you can BS things but here you just die. VA might be okay on Pangea but it doesn't make sense to unban it for just one map type.
Hungry: +2 movement. Other civs can technically do this but there's no way to trigger it. You can also use enemy roads in this game. It's basically turn 0 Super-Cossacks that last through the entire game that would consist of Rape (take out army), Pillage (get science!) and Burn (razing due to finite luxuries).
Picks by Civ: One Greece leader is clearly better than the other and the other two leaders are totally worthless because their abilities are impossible to trigger (just DoW). Can you culturally flip a city-state? One of the extra leaders might be useful in this format then and Woden might pick her. I don't like the No DoWing city-states rule that caused that so that really doesn't count.
No DoW city-states: I feel raiding is the true culprit and that should have been banned. They just don't want to play the same game over again (rush the city-states).
Stuff that didn't get banned but considered:
Australia, Multi-unit blockades, DoF, Raiding (expect farms and fishing boats), Disasters, Anyone who can get +2 movement, Occupation variant rule, Sumer, Rome & Russia
Australia: Implict collusion. It only takes one d-bag to declare over and over again to give Australia double production for the rest of the game while they are dying. This is not a theory and would have happened if Archduke posted his thread because Sub offered Rowain 1g for 1g.
Multi-unit blockades: Dumb and easily removeable because you cannot deny guilt. Didn't happen because DoF is worse and not banned.
DoF: Gives someone a free unstoppable first-strike. Not removed because you do it to yourself by proposing.
Raiding (expect farms and fishing boats): Implict collusion. They keep repairing because they are annoyed at a third party. This could actually happen like with Australia--two civs fight eachother to the death while a third civ comes in and raid-farms and the team keeps repairing (no worker-charge spent).
Disasters: Wanted to remove but couldn't. PREPARE FOR SALT!!!!
Occupation variant rule: One settler plant in someone else's backline means the person who killed you cannot use your cities. Very bad, big problem and we should have found a creative solution but no going back now. At least the salt will be good.
Sumer: Now that you start right next to someone they might be too much. Didn't matter here because no-one got them this game.
Rome: Very strong, not seriously considered on banned list for GS due to power-creep.
Russia: Cossacks come too late to ban the civ even through they are broken (effectively equal to a commando in civ4). I value being able to win games you shouldn't very highly. That's what truly powerful civs can do, but Cossacks are too late.
Edit: Forgot about "Anyone who can get +2 movement". Other stuff not on the banned list is much more powerful but I considered banning it because +2 movement is dumb and shouldn't be possible ever. Like Biorhythm being much worse than other EDH cards but being ban still because it shouldn't be possible to do 100+ damage off a single card.
