Gopher, I think that historical accuracy can’t be taken into account after the game is started. If we have to simulate historical events we have to give up diplomacy. If we set Flanders as a strong neutral +(2standing neutral territory, same as Buda&Pest in Viking variantID=63) or if we set Flanders impassable we may make it more historical accurate, but at the same time we are worsening the behavior of the diplomacy variant, cause we are closing the already narrow zone of Norman-Norwegian interaction.
Ambassador, right, any “merging” around Flanders can’t help the Normans…
…until the English player has free access to SW North Sea in the first move.
We should encourage Norman eastern openings: County of Flanders is normally meant to belong to the Normans after the first years of play, as same as Sweden is meant to belong to Norwegians after the first year. Because of this, I am against keeping Norfolk as an English SC with a fleet.
I also like the suggestion of moving away some SCs from Europe to the main island… that makes sense especially for the Norwegian SCs. This variant is supposed to focus on Britain, in general there’re too many SCs outside of the main island: once I’ve been crowned king of England without owning a single British SC…
gameID=8843 .
Ok, accepted GLD as neutral SC.
Another small twist proposed for England:
Fleet instead of army in York; English 5th SC in Heart of England (+army) instead of Norfolk.
Norfolk neutral SC with standing army.