I'm a person who likes to have non-random things. I like to have things orderly. In AoK for example you always had 2 boar, some deer, berry bushes and sheep in your starting area. But in AoM sometimes you only have chicken with a deer or two. Sometimes there is no food in you starting view or very little. In the crucial first moments of the game, searching for somewhere to gather food, even for 5 seconds, can hurt your game. Another thing that I think is too random is placement of gold mines. In one game (it was a 2v2) my partner and I had 3 or 4 mines on our side and the opposing team had 7 or 8. Am I the only one who thinks this is unfair? And I know I could have traded or I could have rushed but why is it that I have to base my economy on whether I trade or not and the enemy has the luctury of not worrying about it? My final rant is placement of your satrting TC. Now this doesn't alawys happen, but sometimes it does. In the last game I played it was an Archipelagio (sp?) map. It was a 3 player FFA. Two people (one was me) started on the same island, while the third player got his own island. Very annoying. What I'm basically saying is that sometimes games can be too random, so random that it can cost you the game. Feel free to flame me.