Apologies for the cross-posting... but I'm not sure whether the CMNs stay mostly at Apolyton or mostly at Alpha.owo... so I've posted to both sites so as to reach the maximum audience. I'm also posting in The Game forum at Alpha.owo, to reach the widest audience.
Anyway... MtG is CMNing a new PBEM game where we players weren't sure whether we wanted a scratch start (slow but precise) or an accelerated start - SMACpoints or played by CMN (quick but less player control). A good compromise was found in MtG's idea of starting from scratch, but giving each player (including the AI) 6 colony pods, 4 formers and 4 scout patrols, except for Santiago (AI) who starts with one scout patrol, since she gets her normal rover, and the AI has production and map knowledge cheats. Each faction starts with 40 energy instead of the normal 10, except for Morgan, who has 130 instead of the normal 100. All other faction advantages/disadvantages are the same as normal.
So far, only a couple of turns have been played, but it seems to be a very interesting way to start... it speeds up the early game (no more "load game, move Scout Patrol, Turn Complete") and avoids any problems with players not liking the choices made by the CMN during a CMN-accelerated start. It also makes for some very interesting early decisions, as to whether to go for six small bases, three medium ones or one or two bigger ones.
Anyway, it seems a good answer to the perennial problem of the slow scratch start.
Cheers,
Nell
