What has happened?

[Chazar]

I believe you can set up games like you are describing (3 start cites for 1 side and only 1 for a different side) in scenario maps. ... Unfortunately those can't be ladder and are not a very popular ...

Yes, I know; and this is exactly what I am criticizing!

Restricting it to scenario pretty much throws away these capabilities of the game; reducing the number of available interesting games right form the start.

[smursh]

I disagree that a game which started with say 2 cities on each side would automatically be less popular. If it was given as an option for the map creator and starting cities were designated it could be set up and balanced easily.
Not all players will like a map like that but some will. Same is true of almost every map, some players like mirror type maps, some do not play them.

[KGB]

Smursh,

My point (that Chazar was agreeing with) was that players seem to pretty much exclusively play ladder mode games now. Probably 80%+ of the non-password games are that way. Thus any map / game mode that can't be ladder is automatically not popular.

I believe you that players would play games that had 2+ starting cities or large amounts of starting units if those could be ladder games.

KGB

[Qube]

I'm a noob that gave up on the game. The old guard of FFA pretty much squeezed me out. I'd get to the endgame and have folks kamikaze me so their buddy can win. That sort of behavior gets old fast!

[KGB]

Was it Ilja, Felix and Crassus who was doing this to you?

What you describe does not normally happen in FFA games. Most players make alliances but few actually make Kamikaze attacks to help someone else win because they hope they can profit from the alliance by having the other guy do the heavy lifting.

FFA games are wildly unpredictable by nature. I much prefer 1v1 or team games.

KGB