How I plan to have awesome battles with my friends

Rent an AWS Extra large instance (linux) at $.64 an hour

15 GB memory
8 EC2 Compute Units (4 virtual cores with 2 EC2 Compute Units each)
1,690 GB instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
EBS-Optimized Available: 1000 Mbps
API name: m1.xlarge

or

7 GB of memory
20 EC2 Compute Units (8 virtual cores with 2.5 EC2 Compute Units each)
1690 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: High
EBS-Optimized Available: No
API name: c1.xlarge

depending on what is limiting cpu or memory

It's cheaper then snacks, can support huge maps.

also can one of the $10,000+ backers rent a
Cluster Compute Eight Extra Large Instance
60.5 GB of memory
88 EC2 Compute Units (2 x Intel Xeon E5-2670, eight-core "Sandy Bridge" architecture)
3370 GB of instance storage
64-bit platform
I/O Performance: Very High (10 Gigabit Ethernet)

It would be awesome if their were a server of this magnitude for the community to play on.

I am assuming the server code is Linux compatible too?

Also you could patch multiple amazon instances together for one giant map possibly universe size.