HR, first of all I have to say that's a SPLENDID Variant. My congrats.
I may agree with many of the previous comments but, although the analisys of the "starting" dynamics of a Map is important, I believe that we can't fully understand these starting dynamics if we don't look to the game develop and end.
The issue I want to call to your attention is related to the playability of the map after some years have been played. The point is FLEETS. There are so many Sea-Zones (NAtl-SAtl-Indian-Med-BS-Caspian-Baltic) and many of them are 'restricted' to certain powers. Some example:
- Germany will never put a fleet anywhere else than Baltic and NAtl until he destroys England. So Germany knows that expanding towards South or Balkans will be a losing plan. The sea will stop him at one point.
- Poland will never get out Baltic until he destroys Germany and, after that, England. So he may conquer Russia in the first years and after that he'll be trapped on East. But if he attacks Germany he will be crunched by G & R.
- Turkey can build fleets neither on Caspian nor on Indian. So he basically have no interest in fighting England and he'll mandatorily attack Russia before it's too late. If successful, he'll be basically trapped on East.
- Italy has no interest moving North or NW. He'll always be only a Med-Power (btw, I believe there are too little SCs in Africa: why fight for it?). Only reasonable start: East.
- If Russia dies, Caspian counts as Switzerland in Classic, being Russia the only one who can build fleets on it (similar thoughts on BS).
So I've opened some ongoing game and I found that there's some unpredictable Diplomacy only in left-upper corner of the map (Eng-Spa-Fra). For the rest:
- Polands are fighting Russias (what else?)
- Turkeys are fighting Russias (what else?)
- Englands are safe in their Arabian corner that nobody aims (only 3 SCs: low SCs/nonSCs ratio there). Some are idle and some attack... Spain from there!
- No life's signs on Africa
- Some I-G fights for balkans.
So I believe that strategy dinamics are rather stuck into predictability, in East half of the map, for both Early & Middle game. And this basically screws Russia and Spain more than some border issues. For End game, when only a few countries are surviving, I guess that many leading powers will have serious issues in advancing because of stalemate lines they can't break (due to the lack of fleets on the "other" side).
Ok. My intent should be clear now: I'm suggesting you to adopt either "Build anywhere" or "Transform" features. That's the main issue.
Also, increasing the SCs/nonSCs ratio in the Southern quarter of the Map (either adding two SCs or merging two couples of non-SC territories) would be useful, IMHO.
This way, Turkey would find a reason to move South relieving pressure on Russia and Spain. Italy could choose among many different starting strategies. Germany should watch his southern border while he actually have a chance to break against England, who's not the Atlantic ruler anymore. This would make Germany a target for Poland so Germany could also choose to ally with France...and so on.
I'd try "Build anywhere" or "Transform" before making any other change. Each country would have many more possibilities of expansion and therefore many more different starting strategies, whether in full diplomacy or gunboats.
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First Game to 34 SCs on Classic
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