European Theater [1.0] is submitted for review.

[SCIkick]

New map: European Theater [1.0] by SCIkick.
Map editor link: European Theater [1.0]

[KGB]

What a visually beautiful looking map.

I hope it plays well given that some sides (Italy) get access to a strength site and 4 cities by turn 2/3 while other sides (Sweden/Egypt maybe Russia) will be lucky to have a 3rd city by turn 5 or 6.

KGB

[SCIkick]

Yea, I know but it's kind of hard to create a somewhat historically and geographically accurate map and be totally balanced as far as starting points. Rome started out big, then collapsed on all sides so maybe it will happen in game. Cheers

[Negern]

Yeah, doesn't matter in FFA, others will team up against the strong players. Remember playing this one once way back. Good map! Looks even better now. Love the use of walls on Istanbul. Looks like shortly after 53.

One way to make the less powerful starting cites a little easier to expand from would be setting the wall levels a little lower on the cities nearby.

[Negern]

Ok, I have a new suggestion. Have played 20 turns on it now in a ffa. Got one of the slower to expand starting positions, but that's not so troublesome. Things go as expected and the weaker play team up vs the stronger (and they're not so much stronger). The problem i.m.o is that starting in scandinavia forces you to play very defensive. Right now, I have 10 cities. 9 of them can be attacked by sea creatures. 8 of them can be attacked from docks. It's hard to move units from one city another, which forces me to keep decent defenses in almost all cities. Another player came into the baltic sea with one serpent and one pikeman. Almost any city could be attacked by them, forcing me to have 5-6 times the defenses to stand up vs a very small attacking force.
So my suggestion is to get some of the cities further away from the shore, and perhaps have the docks a little further away from some of the cities. Just generally making them a little easier to defend. Perhaps it could be done to some other places too. North Africa and UK?

[Versace]

Negern: You just have to take control of your sea. Some scouting and your own snake navy should be able to detect and destroy any invaders.

I am playing this map now, in early stages but I like this map a lot.

By the way I don't think Sweden and Egypt are that bad when it comes to expansion, you just have to go naval quickly. And Russia's advantage in FFA is that nobody in their right mind bothers going there so they can keep empty cities.

[SCIkick]

The main theme of my map was to be historically and geographically accurate (as much a possible at least). I'd rather not make changes to the map that don't follow this idea.. . for example moving major cities to places where there actually aren't any in real life, putting ports in places that make no sense.

Big cities have always been near water, whether it be a good port or major river. You just have to make your strategy around that. The game I am playing right now seems pretty balanced at this point.

I can see some of the points about naval units and all, but I does make sense that Scandinavia should actually have a strong navy, since that was how the Vikings expanded in the first place.

[tabanli]

I am playing Italy and I think Italy rocks.

The bless site gave too much strength. Italy already has great access to various low-def eagles cities with a sea serpent. With a blessed sea serpent, they just become too easy. You may put the bless site a bit far so that sea serpents can't get blessed.

Another possibility is to change all the sites to move bonus or UL bonus and add bless sites to every nation. I am sure every country has great temples, not only Rome and Beirut.

[KGB]

Italy is brutal if you are in team games and stuck in the middle of teams surrounding you.

But the worst side of all by FAR is Russia. I just finished a 2v2v2v2 team game stuck as Russia. It's INCREDIBLY slow to expand due to all the forced water marches across the rivers and how far away the cities are. So by the time you get to the top of the map your being majorly invaded from the West with no chance to stop it due to no time to acquire enough cities to help defend. All those water breaks need to be bridges and Russia needs another close city to Moscow to allow an easy capture of a 2nd city to help expansion to the West. A L1 ruin nearby would help a lot too. But I fear even that's not going to be enough against sides like Egypt that get 8+ easy cities before Russia gets 4 and they have a valuable corner position (I've won every time I played Egypt in solo/team games).

Incidentally Sweden/Scandinavia suffers the same issues as Russia. Very slow expansion and cities very far apart.

KGB