First of all, Congrats maimin_matty! And Methos, Seasian and The_Sheriff. I wish I could have seen those games.
Another idea that could have been used would have been "not the same civ during the night". Whether civs are selected secretly, or a player could choose after another would need some thought... But each players would have played Shangs only once.
In the final (with matty 5 games, and seasian 4 games) we would have seen on Continental or Narrows some Phoenicians and Minoans. There would have been some interesting choices. Do use Shang in the beginning, or keep them for the finals?
Naturally, I agree with MacRat on all players being Shangs... it equalized this area and left no doubts. The only thing that remained was really the starting position.
2 out of 3 was a must also. I'm happy it was like that. Finals could have been 3 out of 5 too.
I think matty was clever too. Against Seasian, he went tool far much earlier than against the_sheriff. He probably knew Seasian was tooling early. He also knew (because of delays) that Seasian was watching him play against the_sheriff, so in the final he changed slightly his strategy. Leading the final 1-0, he gambled a rush on the TC and it paid off.
Looking forward other events like this one.
Angel Omnivac