Nikolai, top notch post.

A general question: how would you reconcile the fact of perfect pathing (surprising but true, you were right) with the foibles that AI gets into? You say that during player's turn only one stack is being moved so the full-strength can be used. But the same must be true for AI, who can only move one stack at any one time; so they could apply the full-strength algorithm first to the one stack, then to another, etc.

Finally, some minor questions: would you recommend that inaccessible islands that sometimes share region borders with mainland regions, should be separated into their own properly colored region, so that pathing to mainland regions won't be affected?

What's the conclusion on convex requirement. Is there one?

Does opinion 10 say that there should be lots of moves for use, or that there should be few? Seems like the former, based on your other conclusions.

re: opinion 18: yes in total, but not at the same time; the AI turns aren't calculated all together, but one by one, and by each stack within each faction's turn.

re: opinion 13: really? That would be a heartening conclusion overall, if true.

re: opnion 11: how :-P

re: opinion 1: very important one, also how :)

That's that for now. It's all very provocative (in a good way). Very good post.