New East-West 6-player balanced map

[vfb]

This is my first non-random map. I fixed the east-west edges after flattening, then discovered the original palette was extra-ugly in Dom3, mostly because of hard-to-read province names. So I just darkened the whole thing.

Anyway, it's 6 players, with only six valid starting locations, none of which are water. Each player starts in similar geography, and the map scrolls East-West for additional balance.

Please give me suggestions for improvements!

I'm working on a new version to:

- Get the white province dots off horizontal alignment, to make the names more readable.

- Use a different icon for Waste terrain.

- Ditch the 'blueish-green' color, since in wraparound there's a noticeable tint change in the wrapped tiles.

- Make the borders cleaner.

- Add a few in-province rivers, so some provinces can have a 'Fresh Water' attribute.

- Add an icon to the 'Large' provinces.

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w148/vfb_dominions/SixLands.jpg

[lch]

I think it looks good, albeit a little gloomy. Having it wraparound in one dimension only is really balanced the most, I think. Without wraparound, people in the edges can be at an advantage, with wraparound, it becomes very hard to have borders everywhere. Being able to expand in two different directions without limitations seems like a good compromise.

[Kristoffer O]

N-Ice!

As Ich said, a bit gloomy, but with the right nations (helheim, yomi and the like it fits nice).

Perhaps add a cavernous system (or just a cave province) in the north and the south?

[PashaDawg]

Nice!

[Jurri]

Very nice indeed. We just played a 6-player blitz on the map and it was fun.

[vfb]

Thanks, I'm glad you guys liked it!

I love the idea of adding cave provinces (and there are 'holes' on the edges where it would be easy to do this). If the (north for example) caves are only accessible from southern neighbor provinces, then I can add tunnels between the caves and still preserve min distance between capitals. I could even do 2 maps, one where the tunnels are only east-west, and another where they go north-south too.

A few more mountains or a chasm or something should enable me to merge two provinces in each "country" to keep the count at 15 each, and also preserve min distance.

[lch]

I think the map is fine as it is. Multiplayer maps have to be simple. Adding more gadgets only makes it more complicated. You could do an extra version which has tunnels, but I suggest that those should only act like the sailing ability then: maybe jump over one of those provinces where there's a dent, not more. And definitely only east/west, not north/south.