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[gman8181]

Hmm interesting. Yes, I'm pretty sure LA R'lyeh as a pretender will have disciples spreading insanity dominion (and suffering from it) while not obtaining any freespawn like a disciple of say Lemuria which would get along with death dominion.

Now though, I'm curious if your third pick will also be a cold blooded nation in which case, I am guessing C'tis is your pretender nation .

[E. Albright]

That's true, I'd forgotten that alone among the freespawn nations, R'lyeh gives its disciples all the bad and none of the good.

Oh, and you do recall that since we're talking "Golem Cult" Argatha and not "Pale Ones" Argatha, we're talking a human nation with cold-blooded auxiliaries (and the handy-though-not-overpowering Golem Crafter dominion effect), not a cold-blooded nation per se?

[USEC_OFFICER]

Team Three's final pick is ready! We'll take Marignon, please!

[E. Albright]

Team 1 will round ourselves off with R'lyeh.

[Karlito]

Asphodel

[gman8181]

Bandar

[E. Albright]

Team 1: C'tis/Argatha/R'lyeh
Team 2: Ulm/Jotunheim/Asphodel
Team 3: Arcoscephale/T'ien C'hi/Marignon
Team 4: Pythium/Sceleria/Bandar Log

Well, with that decided, the next order of business is picking a map. We have 1.5 water nations, one cave dweller, and one forest-heavy nation. Aside from that, I don't see clear deciding factors for map selection outside of the more general matters of size, layout, and aesthetics.

[gman8181]

Personally, a larger wraparound map sounds nice to me. As a disciple game with many newer players involved, I think it would be a good thing if the game lasted a little longer so people get to experiment a bit more with late game tactics. Especially now that research takes longer, it couldn't hurt too much to have a little more space.

[Culise]

I agree; a larger wraparound map would likely be a good way to extend the game.  It may also be worth considering game options concurrently with the map.  We probably don't need to muck around with value multipliers (income, resource, supply), starting provinces, or independents' strength, but for other things:

Site Frequency: We get percent values from 0-75% in increments of 5, but a simple "none/low/medium/high" may suffice.  Basically determines gem income, with certain sites giving special recruitment options or other effects, for good or for ill.  High site frequency means magic gems coming out of the wazoo and ritual spam everywhere; low site frequency means that players have to be much more sparing with spells, and increases the relative value of capitals (since factions always get a starting income of gems via capital sites)
Random events: Rare or Common?  On the one hand, common events are more entertaining, but on the other hand, there have been players who have literally died due to poor starting options and a bad opening random event (low dominion + dominion-lowering event = third-turn dom-kill).  Even neglecting that, early events can have significant knock-on effects.  It's never fun to get crippled early not because of anything you did, but because the RNG decided to rain on your parade.
Story Events: Do we want these more complex event chains? 
Score Graphs: On or off?  Llamaserver displays values turn by turn anyways, so it may be pointless to turn them off, but we can run on the honour system, no?  Oh, but keeping it on also makes it more difficult for players to run away with the game, while keeping it off converts a thorough scout network from a very good idea to absolutely critical. 
Hall of Fame Entries:: 5, 10, or 15.  Getting into the Hall of Fame gives commanders special bonuses (which they keep even if they leave after), so more slots means more bonuses for more players.  Fewer slots cranks up the competition for those bonuses. 
Limited Unique Artifact Forging Rate: If on, you can only make one unique artifact per turn, mitigating the importance of any race to Construction 8. 
Research Speed: Standard is probably fine here, but we can also use this to accelerate or decelerate the game. 
Thrones of Ascension: This can wait until we have a map, so we know the province count.  I'd like to have at least one throne per player for three thrones per team, and also a good mix of thrones of all levels, but on the other hand, a throne next to your capital can really choke your expansion in the early game, especially now that they're smarter as well as stronger. 

[Karlito]

I'd say default magic site frequency (40), common events, no story events, score graphs on (I prefer off actually, but llamaserver makes that choice pointless) score graphs hidden but revealable by spies, 15 Hall of Fame slots, and I have no preference wrt artifact rates.

[lijacote]

score graphs on (I prefer off actually, but llamaserver makes that choice pointless)

That's no longer true. If you disable score graphs, you no longer have access to the stats.

[Denzi]

Site Frequency: Standard or atleast within a few points of standard.
Random Events: Common, since I believe that is the normal frequency. Part of the game is dealing with the hand you are dealt and given the fact we will have our nations hand-placed near each other on the map, it should not be a problem for a team to help it's own members out.
Story Events: This sounds like it might be fun, but is it really? Do we get to make any choices in the story events? If we have no say in what happens then I'll just say no to the story events for now.
Score Graphs: n/a
Hall of Fame Entries: n/a
Limited Unique Artifact Forging Rate: n/a
Research Speed: Standard Speed
Thrones of Ascension: I'd like for us to have 4 or 5 thrones per a team personally, but 3 could probably work just as well. Probably should ignore my opinion on this
Thrones of Ascension Points to Win: I believe this is an option on llamaserver, I'd like to have a throne victory require something like 75% of the thrones on the map, so it'll work like a domination victory in other games.

Friendly Nation distance: I think when the nations get placed we should aim to have the teams placed within 3 provinces of eachother (such that there are three neutral provinces between a team's nations)

[Shadowlord]

I think story events are not really intended for use in serious multiplayer games, and are still somewhat experimental, if I'm remembering what the changelog said correctly.

[E. Albright]

My preferences:

Site Frequency: 50 (standard + 10): looking at our lineups, we're magic-heavy as far as nations go. Round 401 has MA w/50, and it's seemed reasonable to me.
Random Events: Common. IIRC disastrous events are generally disallowed for the very first few turns, and as Denzi points out, we're not alone. Setting it to Rare also makes Misfortune/Luck less significant, and weights scale choices even more heavily towards Order, which is kinda tedious.
Story Events: Off. They're fun, and you do get to make choices, but they can crippling or overpowering. It's too much randomness.
Score Graphs: Off. It makes recon much more meaningful, and allows some of the sneakier stuff added in Dom4 to be more significant.
Hall of Fame Entries: 15. By midgame it's not uncommon for the first slots to be locked up by a couple of monsterous units.
Limited Unique Artifact Forging Rate: On. This makes research blowouts slightly less insurmountable.
Research Speed: Standard Speed.
Thrones of Ascension: Depends on the map. But as long as it's a fairly large map, we shouldn't be seeing people with thrones adjacent to their capitals.
Thrones of Ascension Points to Win: Depends on the number of thrones.

Map size: I'd lean towards 120-160 (10-13 provinces/player). Past that, the game can really drag on. Remember, we have spell ranges now so even with thrones it can be rough to capture all of a big map w/o a painful slog.
Map composition: Since we have one properly aquatic nation, a minimum of 1/12 sea provinces. We have an amphibian nation and a semi-(amphibious)-undead nation, too, so it might do well to double that. We also have a cave nation, so we ideally would have at least 1/24 caves, more if they're all spread out. We also need a reasonable amount of forests, probably NLT 1/12 and preferably noticeably more.

I'd personally vote Peliwyr (127+18, NSEW wrap) or Leaking Lands (124+11, EW wrap). If the consensus is that we really want a substantially larger map, maybe Fantomagoria? It's NSEW wrap, and closer to 20 per player with 172 + 60 water, though it would be better with another fully aquatic nation. It also is very short on caves, with probably less than 5 for the whole map, but that's still better than most of its size, and if we're having someone make fixed starting positions they could probably convert a few of the mountains into caves - the caves already on the map are pretty much mountains with the cave flag set, anyway.

[Denzi]

I've always though that maps like Valanis look really cool and offer some interesting interactions. It's 142 Land with 21 Sea. Would just be cool to fight it out on a floating island thinger.