[joe_the_user]

You really only need 5 people. I haven't played with seven very often and I didn't find it improved the play much, if at all.

Just as much, if you set a hard 15 minute time limit, you get the play down to 4-5 hours (especially if you also say victory is preponderance on the board, not total elimination of all other players).

[xpe]

I have mostly played with seven. 7x6 interaction pairs = 42. That's twice as much as 5x4=20.