Some people felt that specified too many onerous restrictions and that took away the focus from beating the Inca records.
It's a bit of a balance. Sometimes, picking restrictive settings can make for more comparable games, at which point people can more readily learn from the experiences of each other, since the report from one person's game can have more relevant impact on the games of others playing the same Challenge.
Overall, I'd suggest that if you're targeting a tough-to-beat record, then cooking the settings, or at least not restricting them too much, can be helpful. As a very rough set of guidelines, for Quick/Normal/Epic, I'd use existing records with dates very roughly along the lines of the following types of games needing more "cooked" settings, such as allowing Huts plus Random Events, picking a favourable Leader, picking a suitable map type, picking favourable opponents, and possibly picking or at least not restricting some other favourable settings:
1 AD or earlier Religious Victory
1500 AD or earlier Diplomatic Victory/Espionage Cultural Victory
1600 AD or earlier Cultural Victory
1700 AD or earlier Space Colony Victory
Sure, there are some players who might be able to relatively easily crush those above dates, but we're targeting a wide audience of "everyone who wants to play," so while you can argue with those dates and suggest different ones, and while those dates can shift in either direction depending upon the game settings used, the core idea remains.
On the other hand, if a record is reasonably beatable no matter what settings get used, then putting in a bit more challenging settings that will help to fill out some Quattromaster/Elite Quattromaster requirements can be of help. For example, if existing records are easier to beat, then pick an obscure map type or a Leader with a relatively useless Trait that is normally hard to use to beat a record (such as the Protective Trait). Or, even try with some non-Ancient-Era starts. You could even throw in an Espionage Cultural Victory or two, which, while not really targeting existing Incan records, could help with filling out an unclaimed spot in the HOF tables while giving us an excuse to play on a map type that we normally wouldn't use.
What do you think - should go for a second "Fall of the Inca" series
Sure. I'd suggest making at least 7 of the games against Incan records, maybe more of them if you want to, leaving room for Espionage Cultural Victories or other non-Incan records that might be fun to play.
What is your ideal breakdown in terms of Speed / Map Size etc?
Personally, I'm fine with any game Speed, but if you're going to pick a Marathon Speed game, try to lower the Difficulty Level a bit; i.e. if you were thinking of hosting an Emperor Difficulty Level game, maybe make it a Prince Difficulty Level game, to help ensure that anyone who puts in the time isn't likely to have their game ruined by an enterprising AI. Alternatively, for a Marathon Speed game, keep the Difficulty Level relatively high, but cook the settings with a suitable map type and easy opponents, again so that anyone who invests the time isn't likely to have their game ruined by Zara/Sury/Monte showing up with a nasty stack of doom at an unexpected time mid-game.
For Map Size, I'd also limit the Large plus Huge games to 3 games at most, possibly having less of them, since not everyone's computer can handle those game settings very well and since they can often take a lot more time to play.
Any and all comments welcome!
Overall, I think that the last Challenge series was set up quite well.
There was certainly grumbling about the Ragnar OCC Space Colony Victory game (Game 10), but it was also the game that attracted the most interest both in terms of the number of forum messages and the number of entries, so there were certainly positive aspects to it.
Maybe the OCC setting and the smaller-sized Map Size combination made the games fast enough to draw interest, with probably the only real drawback being that people felt that the existing record was untouchable with the game's settings. So, I'd definitely categorize an OCC setting as a restrictive setting, but one that is still fun to include in a game or two, yet preferably for a relatively-easy-to-beat record.
An OCC Diplomatic Victory with Permanent Alliances enabled could make for a fun game to play against a not-too-challenging-to-beat record, for example, with some thought put into the opponent Leaders that could allow for some relatively-easy bribing situations in order to get the needed 40 years of Mutual Military Struggle for a Permanent Alliance (ignoring the 40 years of Defensive Pact option as being less feasible for a Diplo Victory game).
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