First requirement is you need to have an The second player in the game screen choose a setting of his choice. Others do not have anything to say and there is no veto. So he can type, let's say, Narrows. The third player decides starting ressources=medium. the fourth player, and so on... Dunno why it is like this or where it began, but the second player is always the first to choose, and the host will choose a setting after the last player, and the second player will continue if other settings are available. Once a setting is decided by a player, it can't be changed, of course. Settings up for grab are: Map Type *Assigned captains is when a player choose this setting, he is automatically a captain, and must name the enemy captain. The enemy captain will have the first choice for his first ally, then the player choose one of his ally, the enemy captain continue and so on until all players are in a team. Then you start the game. Some of the odd settings, or settings that made me think *bleurk* turned out to be very interesting games most of the time. Don't be affraid of the settings and play the game, you will be surprised... and you'll even see some stuff you didn't think about yet, or that no ones really discuss in forums because they are not "popular" settings. Some are obvious and make sense to good players, but what is the best courses of action is really not known because there is no discussions. As an example, one game was a gigantic map, 25 pop, Iron start with medium ressources. One player went for the economy, building more villagers (usual strat more or less), one player plucked down an archery range as his first action, built a horse archer and sent him on the hunt, while me I started to wall my area like crazy because I was at the end of my teams. Turned out the horsie found the "booming" player and started to kill a lot of villagers... Some villagers trying to sneak in near me bump into my walls. Sadly, a tranny came on the shores a few minutes later, etc, etc... So if you're up to it, sometimes, stuck one of these between two games and try this out. It is very interesting for a change.
Map Size
Victory Conditions
Starting Age
Starting Ressources
Reveal Map (on/off)
Fixed Positions (on/off)
Pop Limit (In RoR only)
Civs Choices (Random, Players choose their own, Enemy pick civs, no same civ in the game, no same civ in a team, etc...)
Teams (Top vs Bottom, Even vs Uneven, *assigned captains).