During the playtest at LinCon we discussed among other things a few tweaks on the map to make it more balanced. I took some notes and are therefore reporting the ideas, but they are not originaly mine.

Our main concern was that Arabia was too week. If Arabia could claim Africva's Horn, it would be better. By spitting Nubia, Merve, Aksum and Ahmar Nubia would need 6 turns insted of 3 to reach the spot where arabia may cross the water. Nubia wouldn't need to take Africa's Horn any longer anyway, so there should be no conflict.
Arabia would also need an improved Arabian dessert. By splitting Natud in a North and a South as well as slitting the two (0) areas into four (0) areas and one (1) area (to the south) it should make Arabia strong enough.

Chorasmia has too many city sites and to litle space, remove one city site and add one pop limit should do the trick.

The indian pensuela (three nations in total) would need an improvement. Adding 2 city sites and 3 areas with a total of 5 more pop limit should do the trick, as well as give the next two civs some more breathing room. All in all the east has (physicaly) larger areas than the west, so splitting some areas should be no problems.

Another thing we noticed was the problems of seeing the difference between Thrace anc Crete as well as between Assyria and Babylon, especially from the other side of the board. Perhaps swiching the collors somewhat could be in order?

I would like too hear what the rest of you think about therse issues, especially from you who wasn't there.

Jonno,

Did you play with the newest version of the rules and map?

Yes, we played with 2.03 Draft rules (from my comp), the map Chrisp downloaded may 21, and the Civcards I got for download from my server.
That should be the lastest version all through.

We also came up with the idea to put the nine trade card stacks in a row, as well as the census. This will make things easier to overview, and there's plenty of room in the Sahara.

Arabia and the four Indian civs need more space and more city sites.

A few more notes:

In the future the colors will probably be switched. But for now we want people to be able to use thier old counters... so the colors will stay.

I'm removing a city from spain, and taking a city from Chrom and adding it to India. I've had lots of complaints about India but there is a big problem with making them "on par" with the west. This has been discuessed heavly on www.redscape.net. The simple fact is that india is very secture (no Med to raid from) so they need a challange. Maurya in particular will never be touched by more than 2-3 civs at most. This will give the two india cives 5 city sites each and many very good wilderness city locations.

It is true there are LOTS of cities around palastine/egypt/Babylon but keep in mind those city sites come with a huge lack of secuirty. If you are egypt you are facing:
Nubians (now that I change the nubian desert to a 1)
Assyrians
Arabians
Babylonians
Africa
Just on the land borders! Not to mention the other 4-5 powers that can launch a naval invasion.

There is also Urbanism which should really help india and those who have to build wilderness cities.

Try and play an entire game through though. It takes a differnt mindset to play India, but it can be done!

Arabia is also another interesting one. First.... they need to make the crete sacrfice and take the horn of africa - they have an AST designed for them to be able to. I made it a bit easier today by making a 0 barrier. If they can hold the horn they are in a pretty secure position and have a GREAT ast. It's challangeing but very possible.

Question: How did the blow up of Hellas work?

It worked fine. Whe had a discussion of from what areas you could go to what areas over the border to the enlargement, but decided to treat it just as if Grece actually was as big as the enlargement made it look, and it worked fine.

This is my interpretation too, I tried to make this as obviously as possible on the map (thats why I moved Ithaca's southern border far into the Mediterranean (compare with the older maps)), but perhaps this should be clarified in the rules as well.

The problem with India is not necessarily India's problem. but rather Arabias. Any sensible India player will look west to find more land, and there Arabia, an already weak civ sits right in India's way...

/V