Do we still want to use Biddyn for the map? It is 81 land + 9 water provinces, which won’t leave much room (10 land/nation). I am okay with that, but if you get a throne and/or some heavy cav near you to start, you won’t have many expansion options at the beginning.
Peliwyr may not be bad at 129 land + 17 water. This would give a water nation a better chance too, although Therodos doesn’t appear to be heavily reliant on living under water.
I am a little confused on how the Cataclysm works. From the manual:
Cataclysm
This is a way to force the game to end after a certain number
of turns. The Cataclysm will cause horrors to appear and start
destroying Thrones of Ascension. (These are powerful horrors.) Every Throne destroyed also reduces
the number of Ascension points required, so a winner should appear
shortly after the Cataclysm begins. In the unlikely event that
no one owns a Throne as the last ones are destroyed, the horrors win.
When the horrors appears, can you battle and defeat them? Or does the horror automatically destroy the throne? If you can’t defend, it would lean toward giving the game to the person who has the best luck (who doesn’t have their throne destroyed first). If there is a battle, then it is fair to an extent. Also, if we do 8 level 2 thrones (16 victory points possible), after each throne is destroyed, the victory points required will also go down, it seems. So, if we decided on half the thrones, then as they get destroyed, it would give someone a chance to hold the last one or two to win the game at the end, otherwise the horrors will eventually take them all and nobody will win (if the victory condition is too hard to achieve), or the last lucky person holding the last throne will win by default.
Just some thoughts and questions to consider. I am just trying to understand how it works.