I've played a pair of 1v1 games on this map. I already noted the 1v1 spawn problem due to having the game start players next to each other.
The other thing is this map is absurdly rich. By the time I had 30 cities my income was well over +1000 a turn and I was leaving tons of sites unconquered and lots of ruins unsearched. I know some of this is meant for 8 player game play but it's really over the top in a bigger way than Battlefield because you can move around on this map at 2-3x the speed you can on Battlefield thanks to road/water.
KGB