First and foremost, I want to thank Red for running a wonderful game.  I had a great time reading all of the NPCs and rules even before it began. (I was stalking the thread....)  I'm on this site for reading/writing above all, and the rich prompts, hilarious antics of Red, and world building were beautifully done.<br/><br/>My hearty thanks extend to all the players as well.  There was an assortment of great Aspirants and posts in this game.  The RPed story lines were great fun to follow.  I also know a couple of you have pointed out Chevis; let me assure you it's a little flattering and embarrassing coming from other writes that are so skilled.  Regardless, thank you, my sentiments are definitely returned.<br/><br/>In terms of the game, before trying to venture down the road of constructive feedback, I want to say that I have been very happy with it.  (Honestly, doubly-so, I confess that I feared my fun might end when the big alliance came up.  While I was playing this game with only about 30 percent strategy and 70 percent intent to be constructively silly, I did have some fears of Chevis becoming irrelevant quickly.  Specifically, I was afraid I would be blocked from silly writing fun.  That turned out not to be the case, however, and I was so pleased!)<br/><br/>I guess that still brings me to the question of alliances.  I think whether the *actual* effect of them (as demonstrated in the game,) is a guaranteed sweep, the fear of that is powerful.  That is in part due to the fact that I believe Ontan was on-track in bringing up historical precedent of it crashing games; I concur.  Personally, I would advocate for no formal alliance system period.  I think there is more or less already a very significant buff in players reaching out to each other in games, and agreeing to coordinate attacks/movements/etc.  You really don't need any extra buffs on top of that.  If you really want a group win-condition, have a truce system in place.  Beyond that, I know myself and some others really didn't want an alliance in this game, but sort of felt like their hand was being forced for an advantage.  I think by eliminating the formal alliance system you can both solve it being the 'right' way to win the game, and prevent the all-too-frequent in-group sweeps that occur in similar games.<br/><br/>To that end, I want to speak on the goal of relevance.  I'm not sure what model you wanted Red, and both are very valid:  There is more or less the model where leads get progressively more obvious, and people are outright eliminated over the weeks and/or walk away due to irrelevance.  There is the alternate model of more or less trying to maintain the feel that it is 'anyones game' as long as possible: I feel Hexville astounded me at its level of providing the latter.  I liked that a lot.  Whether that is by design or intent, I don't know.  I will say that due to Elliquiy's very high right of attrition in games in general, I have always questioned the viability of games on this site where people are deliberately narrowed down.  People often drop like flies in games here for reasons not about the game; that's no judgment, just observation.  Regardless, you end up in a bad situation if you’ve cut the writers that are willing to continue, and the ones left are fizzling out.<br/><br/>Regardless, if keeping everyone relevant as long as possible is an intent, I would say it might be helpful to make sure everyone continues to have some sort of writing prompt to do each week (unless nobody does on a given week).  Let people feel like they are gaining control of an area, even if it is an alleyway.  There's going to likely be attrition if people either A) feel like what they do doesn't matter at all due to actions against them, or B) if they don't get much opportunity to react as an aspirant.  I honestly really wasn't paying close enough attention to know how many people felt like this (I never did, I just had that momentary fear with the alliance.)  Regardless, to discourage drops making sure people still feel like they are making some sort of impact seems important.<br/><br/>In terms of minions, I admit I hate RNG and RNG tends to hate me.  I fared better than usual on this, I have to admit.  Regardless, I think because minion traits are so punishing and rewarding, if they are kept around they should probably have origin and expiration dates.  There were some very strong minion traits and some fairly negative ones.  I think by having minions lose their gained traits (positive or negative) every one or two turns, you would at least eliminate  any feeling that people were getting disadvantaged for the dice they rolled vs what other people rolled five turns ago.  If people only have one turn to use this positive (or negative) minion trait, it might also encourage better strategy.  That at least seems reasonable in my head (alternatively, simply drop the minion trait system entirely.)<br/><br/>Finally, in terms of timing, I confess because I have a lot of writing to keep up with in addition to stupid, boring real life obligations, I (in contrast to some others it sounds like,) was really happy for the gaps between turns.  I also believe stagnation is one of the great marks of Elliquiy game attrition, so I'm mixed.  I guess as someone who runs games on here, I am forever searching for the fix.  Sometimes as a GM life comes up, obligations come up, and if you have to take a longer than usual to process a turn, you ideally don't want to come back to an empty room.  A lot of times you do, even when you try to give people things to keep busy with and offer plenty of advanced notice you will be unavailable for a the next ten days, or what not.  I don't know the solution here, unfortunately.<br/><br/>Regardless, I think there is a lot of GREAT going on in the game.  I loved the continued relevancy, I loved the sense of random events, I loved the system of first gaining minions and then NPCS by increasing influence.  The NPCs were colorful and added a lot to the world.<br/><br/>Ultimately, while I'm sad to see it go, please know I'm walking away grateful for a great game experience.<br/>