Two newbies were playing. Alex was playing for the first time; I think it had been 2-3 hours since Mini-Nostalgia started before we began taking turns because we didn't know that computers should be assigned in order – red first, then blue. Thanks to Simon5760 for pointing this out.
7. Template Mini-Nostalgia:
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Castle selection. Players choose their castles using the standard method. Castles for computer players are chosen by human players one at a time from the list of remaining castles. The player who chose the castles first begins selecting. All starting castles must be different. Before the start, the player creating the game assigns the selected castles to the computer players.
Simon5760 vs Player_ - how is it going? In 2 days, you should have the results of 2 games.