PBEM - what options make the best game

[SiTheSly]

I'm thinking of dunking my toe in the PBEM waters and was wondering what people's opinion was on making the game balanced.

Obviously some people are more experienced than others but assuming two players of equal experience what would be fair?

I was thinking of Italy for the CP and no transfers to Russia. The transfers to Russia would be hard to validate or is it better to leave it as it is since a human CP player would probably block the Baltic. When the Keil canal is operational I think that be would best, since although the TE could send the RN into the Baltic it might be a risk since it would leave the very valuable Atlantic wide open and its to expensive to return the fleet and sail it out again since you lose an entire turn while it returns.

With Italy going CP it gives a decent sized fleet in the med which combined with the Austrian one should be able to close the eastern med or even both if France is attacked first and cannot afford the fleet maintence resulting in all trades lost.

Anybody worked out the best PBEM set up?