Well the poll software limits one to ten options, and with 13 Tribunals doing 4th ed and 5th ed was the only way to make it work...
And Rome not on the list... I would love to see Rome get a rewrite. A very tough Tribunal to play in. I voted for Greater Alps. I think it is a well done Tribunal that does not get enough play.
I would like to see a Rome book as well and to play in a story with that setting.
I am currently playing in Theban tribunal and it is for me, the most excellent tribunal I have experienced or of which I have read.
Counting votes however I went with the two Tribunals that I really want to read new source materials about, Levant and Alps. I cannot express my wish for a Alps book enough. The Alps are quite a mystery to someone who has no 4th Edition experience.
Having played in the Rhine, I think the setting is eh? The developed nature of the tribunal is relaxing a bit for new players, since the tribunal is far from complications with outsiders, but it is also a tradition heavy region. Really easy to bludgeon a new game into bits with the weighty expectations of such a region.
I know... it was a cheeky opportunity to get it mentioned again.
"Lion of the North: the Loch Leglean Tribunal" isn't on the list either, which is the one I'd vote for, since I can't vote for Hibernia right now. 
For me it would all depend on what type of saga we wanted to play. Each of the tribunal books has a certain theme, and it would depend on which we wanted to explore. Last time we started a new saga we wanted to run a bunch of sea borne adventures, and the Thebes Tribunal was the perfect setting.
Honestly, I like the areas outside the tribunals, Mythic Iceland for example, places where the Code doesn't hold water and the magi can be stinkers if they want to be. Since we're not adverse to a little research, in the past I've proposed Mythic Armenia and Mythic Finland to my group. Both were shot down for various reasons. I still might try to invigorate the Mythic Finland idea, basing the saga on the legends from the Kalevala.
Matt Ryan
Of those on the list, I went for Thebes. Reasons? While great effort has been made to make the play style slightly different for each Tribunal, I think Sundered Eagle is where that aim really hit its stride. I totally buy the magi of Thebes as being culturally distinct from those of the other Tribunals. They have their own concerns, their own ways of going about things, and even (if memory serves) their own language with which to work magic. It just feels like a Tribunal should - different.
I need a +1 button, because I agree. I tossed in Blood and Sand because having that war zone next door means I can send the covenant into harm's way whenever necessary, and have just about any sort of foe there make sense.
-Ben.
I'd point out that the question is "which Regional book" rather than "which Region"; and since I find 5th edition books generally of higher quality than books from previous editions, and require less work to use in a 5th edition saga, I'm heavily biased in their favour.
That said, my first choice was Guardians of the Forest, hands down. Why? Exactly for the reason opposite to that influencing the choices of marklawford and Leonis_Bjornaer. GotF is the most versatile and well-rounded tribunal book, with a huge number of possible hooks, none of them so "fundamental" that that it's necessarily part of every saga faithful to the book. Also, it's the least "alien" compared to what one would expect the typical ArM5 setting to be.
Every later Regional book was designed with the goal of making it "different" from what had gone before. This makes sense from a marketing perspective, but it tends to make other Tribunals both weirder and more one-dimensional. So, it's easier for at least one player in the troupe to dislike them, and they more heavily condition the mood of any saga run in that Tribunal.
My second choice was the Cradle and the Crescent. This may seem a contradiction to my previous statement, in that tC&tC is one of the most exotic regional books. However, it's a genuinely exotic setting rather than just another Tribunal with a weird spin. While I could with little difficulty "colour" a Rhine saga to have the same feeling as a saga based in Thebes, or in Normandy, tC&tC is something else entirely. And it's just such a nice book!
I almost agree with you. The changes in the charges in the tribunal I found that detracted from my initial good impression of the tribunal. I read it, though "·this is messy as hell" and discarded the tribunal since I would have to negotiate significant parts of the tribunal with the troupe for it to work for all of us. Or that was my impression. In 1220 it is certainly a war torn area (more than it appears in the tribunal book IIRC), and that is good for sagas, but the political ranks put me heavily against it even if it contained interesting stuff.
OK Arcane Connection number 6 on this issue out now - arcaneconnection.podomatic.com/e ... 0_35-07_00
For my present saga, I went with Stonehenge, since I had a whole group of virgin Ars Magica players who all had varying levels of interest in history (from 'some' to 'I have a degree in History'). One reason was that the Stonehenge book fits in nicely is because it's stats-free, so even if the players got hold of the book, they wouldn't start using certain magi as (incorrect) baselines. The other reason, which the Troupe mentioned early on, is the greater general familiarity with the British Isles than other parts of Europe. They figured if they had to absorb a new system, they didn't want to have to absorb a completely new culture setting as well.
Now that I think about it, I think I've only ever used two ToH books, Stonehenge and Rome. From memory, I've played in Sagas based in the following Tribunals:
- Provencal (1993-1995) (no ToH book; some Tribunal details from ArM3 book Mistridge)
- Rome (1996-1997) (used ToH:Rome)
- Novgorod (1998-1999) (no sourcebook used; ToH:Dragon and Bear was out, though)
- Loch Leglean (1997-2000) (no sourcebook used; ToH:Lion of the North was out, though)
- Stonehenge/Normandy (2001-2002) (some ToH:Heirs to Merlin)
- Rome (2008) (no sourcebook used)
- Stonehenge (2009-2010) (used ToH:Heirs to Merlin)
- Stonehenge (2011-Present) (used ToH:Heirs to Merlin)
In my experience, Stonehenge is popular when brand-new players are involved (for the reasons listed above), while more experienced Ars Magica players, or new players with a good grasp of medieval history, are willing to locate the saga in other parts of Mythic Europe.
I've been playing in a saga set in Novgorod since 2004, and I think the setting is amazing. According the to the storyteller, the Dragon and the Bear supplement is incredibly rich and filled with great materials ripe for storytelling. If even half of his saga came from the book, I must totally agree.
The thing that drew us to this area was the idea that it was on the fringe of the order, and due to the Pagan nature of much of the land, the supernatural would be a little more present in everyday life of the populace. So the Code might be a bit looser. The politics are very interesting, and hell... The mongols invade. It's just awesome.