Hello Charles. In response to your various comments and questions:

Busy goes in cycles, I guess, and is dependent upon the dedication and involvement of those who run things in each group. Yes, people have shifted away from the yahoogroup based forums, but those are not the only ones gone quiet. Redscape is a lot slower than it used to be, for example, and so is judgeland.

Certainly the Powers are further apart, on average, than in Standard and there are no Venice-Trieste adjacencies, but there is a pretty good amount of interaction in the first year anyway, and afterwards, well, the armies and fleets get where they are going fast enough! I don't know that stabs are earlier, or later, as a rule. They come when they come.

Yes, the last version (2.0) had a couple of Balkan-type areas (five Powers bordering six dots and four Powers bordering 5 dots, if I remember correctly), but I altered them--lowering the density to facillitate more fluidity of movement. Plenty of conflict remains without them!

The reaon for four dot Powers instead of three dot Powers is simple. Since all of the neutrals are occupied, I wanted to give certain of the Powers the opportunity to get two dots the first year without needing assistance. For the other Powers to get multiple builds in 901, they will either need to immediately attack another Power, or work together form the start.

I am considering a lower victory criterion, but I am unconvinced at this point that one is needed. France, usually not considered an edge Power in this variant, soloed in the last playtest after all, and that was against high quality opposition.

As to no Hungarian Power, both history and board dynamics. They had only moved west into an area bereft of major competitors less than a decade ago, to get out from under the hegemony of the Khazars. They were not quite yet the force they would become. I also did not want another European Power clogging things up, which is why I have never had a Bulgarian Power. Again, less density leading to more fluidity.

I am indeed spreading they word by having playtests in multiple communities. At the moment I have ten or twelve players lined up (depending upon the maybes), so I need three to five more players.