Westeros Unlimited [7.0] is submitted for review.

[Pillager]

New map: Westeros Unlimited [7.0] by Pillager.
Map editor link: Westeros Unlimited [7.0]

[Pillager]

Isle of faces now has a port, Dragonstone's defense has been ghostified to repel those pesky barbarians.

[Versace]

[stormsteel]

[tabanli]

Islands are too close to each other and be cause of that it is all shores, giving 3 move cost. Player starting at the Islands already has disadvantage in terms of mobility. If the islands can move one square apart and giving ways to 1 move cost water, it would help out a lot. Otherwise, frankly, Islands are terrible. Yes you can get an eagle first but how many eagles will you need?

[KGB]

Quite a few spots on this map are very tough start spots. Especially in FFA games. In team games it's different because you might have a close team mate instead of multiple close enemies.

As for the island player, you have to take the Galley. That gives move 1 on shore and with 17 total moves allows the island player to quickly move between islands and reach the shore. Once there you can vector over armies. Also a Sea Serpent is a much better initial investment than an Eagle.

KGB

[Pillager]

I haven't started on the Iron islands, but I can see how they could be a tricky place to start.

Which starting spot is the worst? Which is the best? I'm curious to know how folks rate them. Has anyone played every side yet?

[tabanli]

I only played this once. But I think Green is by far has the best starting point. You have two directions to expand, North and South and there are much less obstacles over there. So while your Barbarian goes North and do lots of damage, you can send your second hero to South and get a lot of XP without much contest. Or you can have your Leadership/Chaos/Ruin/Ambush hero go North and wait for the Barbarian for the second hero so that you can slowly develop him.

On this type of maps, usually top/bottom or the corners are the best spots. They are well guarded. So white and orange are good too. However on this map they have some obstacles so I gave Green preference.

Bad starting points, besides the Islands, are the Black and Yellow. They are too close, so they are bound to clash. To make things worse, they will soon be assaulted from the other side too. So I wouldn't like to play them either.

[KGB]

I'm playing Green in an 8 player FFA. It's not as good as you make it sound. The towers on this map that separate the countries are all guarded. Guarded well enough that it's not easy to move anywhere very fast or get a quick knockout of a neighbor. You have to move north immediately before Red/Yellow/Black occupy the middle so your initial expansion is in a fixed direction. The only choice is a solo Barb or the rest of your initial stack or all of your units in that expansion. Expanding south is actually harder than it looks. The key city there is guarded with several units and very strong walls so that you won't be taking it early on. That means no access to the island cities and 2 south/east coastal cities without a flying/waterwalking/serpent riding hero (an initial Barb going that way gets 2 cities which is not enough to reach L2 and get Waterwalk so he must then struggle for XP by wasting time with gold sites and towers).

I do agree however that It's a better start than Yellow/Black (Black at least gets a private strength bless site) /Red/Cyan. I think Orange might have the best start spot as that player gets to avoid any early conflict regardless of how the others expand (Yellow must expand north first too before considering moving really far south).

KGB

[tabanli]

Quite a few spots on this map are very tough start spots. Especially in FFA games. In team games it's different because you might have a close team mate instead of multiple close enemies.

As for the island player, you have to take the Galley. That gives move 1 on shore and with 17 total moves allows the island player to quickly move between islands and reach the shore. Once there you can vector over armies. Also a Sea Serpent is a much better initial investment than an Eagle.

KGB

This is another counter-intuitive aspect of the units. I keep discovering those little things when it is too late. When I pay more, I usually expect to get more. Now the middle unit is better on the shore while the cheaper and the more expensive are better on the water. Meanwhile the cheapest unit is better on the river than the most expensive one and the most expensive one is better on the ocean. If you are not cofused by now, there are bunch of other tricks that makes the heroes move faster than you would expect. WHY WHY WHY....

It probably made sense when we compare the units with the real life experience but, WHY WHY WHY??