So yesterday we played a six player game, 4 boys and 2 girls age 19-27. Game lasted six hours. We used whole map and all resources(-1) and three barbarians. For independent civs we used minor civilization tokens and up turned villages and flagless armies and it worked just fine. For trade rules we used the old ones, in land 1 region and in sea as many regions as you ships could move. We also used the objective cards.
At start of the game the turn order was decided by dice, three objective cards and three civilization cards were dealt to each player. Players chose one of the civs and didn't reveal it yet. Startings locations were chosen and first turn was played before revealing our civs. After that we used civ cards to determine the turn order each turn, which took too much time I think.
Germany started in NA and had hard time fighting against his collapsing cities ( bad luck). Babylon started in SA and soon took control whole continent and had very large income ( he actually run out of size 4 city tokens). France started in Siperia, she tried to expand to NA, but her colony revolted. There was actually three independent villages in NA, 2 german and one France.
Aztecs started in Arabia and teched a lot. Greece, I, started in Egypt and built a lot of wonders and traded with Aztecs until they attack against me with knights and took my three best cities. After that I became they vassal and paid 5 gold every turn to stay alive. I actually managed to rebuild my imperium and had a very good income 130g/t soon with repubic/buddism combo. Stayed the rest of the game in collapsing and taxed almouts every turn and were lucky with stability checks
Spain started in Australia and soon expanded to Indonesia, Japan and SE Asia and made a surprize attack to SA against Babylon, he managed to keep one city 2 whole turns. Later Spain made a surprize attack against France and took the capitol for the rest of game. And finally christian Spain attacked against me in Africa with Artilleries and tanks against my musketmen and win game by domination victory. Babylon could have build Spaceship at the same turn, and Aztecs had tech but not enough money. I had enough money to do that but not tech yet.
Revolution action wasn't used very much.
Germany and babylon 0 time.
Spain 1 time, Christianity & Communism.
France 1 time, Christianity and tricolour action.
Astecs 2 time, Judaism & Rebublic and Judaism & Facism.
Greece 2 time, Buddish & Rebublic and Judaism & Fasicm.
Aztecs never used taxation action, they just teched and sold techs and get tribute. Greece used Consolidation action only once. No-one converted to Islam. No-one didn't find barbarians. Four plagues were found, but they didn't do anything. Fission wasn't discovered. Greece lost his capital 5! times. Conquering cities was easy.
Some suggestions:
-Palace should give a defensive bonus.
-Plague should be more effective, perhaps killing half of units in affected are.
-Resources be more useful, 1x = 5g, 2x = 10g. 3x = 20g 4x= 40g
-Maybe it is enough to randomly decide only the starting player
-Plague and barbs could be ignored in first turn.
Is palace counted as a wonder, when taxed?