Slanwars [2.0] is submitted for review.

[slanmaster]

New map: Slanwars [2.0] by slanmaster.
Map editor link: Slanwars [2.0]

[slanmaster]

small adjustments

[smursh]

Half of the starts(orange, green, red, teal) have a lvl-1 ruin close to the path to a nearby city allowing a fast hero t hit the ruin and attack the city getting a big xp boost. Orange is close enough for any hero to do this while some of the others can only do this with sorceress.

By comparison some starts like orange and black have there closest ruins isolated so if you head for it will be several turns to get anywhere else useful. This seems like it will give those 4 starts an advantage by allowing faster hero leveling initially. Not sure if that would get countered by other map features but noticed it in the test game of the previous version.

[smursh]

correction, yellow and black have the isolated ruins - not orange.

[KGB]

Black has a L1 ruin right above the Capital on the way to a city. It's the 2nd L1 ruin that's isolated (which is less of an issue). Yellow is the only side with a L1 ruin not on the way to a city.
KGB

[slanmaster]

Fair point smursh, thanks for the notice. But i as KGB points out i think you missed that black also has a ruin on their way to the nearest city north.
For the sake of fairness though i'll move one of yellow's ruins to be more streamlined with expansion. (Its tricky to create this impression of assymetry while still keeping the map balanced). I've tried to make it possible to reach both a L1 ruin and a city on the first turn with 14-18 move, should that be your priority.

I am also suspecting that the yellow start is a little weaker than the others in general, not sure, but it's been on the receiveing end most of the time.

[KGB]

It's probably more to do with the fact that there are hills preventing expansion towards the middle and unless you take a Dwarf hero or make Giants/Dwarves your expansion in that direction is slow. Coupled with the fact there is a huge expanse of nothingness (few cities, far apart) on the other side of the river compared to other areas on the map.

KGB

[slanmaster]

KGB, that makes sense. I have adjusted it slightly so that yellow now have a road through the mountains, and that teals first city on the plains are a little further north up the coast. Maybe the race for the great plains will be more even now.