map suggestions?
 

I'm hosting a game for six players, and would like to ask which maps people have enjoyed playing. I'm trying to find one that will give a balanced start for all six players, and which provide interesting tactical structure, like choke points and powerful special provinces.

We have played Tyrande (which was fun!) Arduria (which was too big for us), and Yalun-To (which was fun for everyone except the guy who got stuck in the northern island, playing a non-sea-faring race. The Dark Fenns/Stone Heavens choke point was the center point for the whole game!). I see that there is a lovely map of Europe on:
http://www.illwinter.com/dom2/maps.html
called "Undead Total War" which uses "Zen's Europe Map".
Karan looks fun. Invaders looks fun (though small). Britian, Parganos look interesting. Theatre of War looks like it might fit the bill, though it also looks rather huge. Sea and Sky and Land of Milk and Iron have possibilities...
I've also considered some of the randomly generated maps, but have no experience with them.
Comments from anyone who has played any of these maps would be most welcome! Are there other places to download maps?
Thanks!
Merry

Re: map suggestions?
 

The Ringworld map is pretty interesting, I'm not sure how balanced it would be, but there's certainly no risk of getting stuck by yourself.

I know Karan is often played (and looks quite beautiful).

Re: map suggestions?
 

I like Parganos, albeit some people feel it has too much terrain and not enough gold. ( I feel it balances out and makes for a different kind of game; Cradle of Dominion (the other map by the same guy ) is even more so. ) I'm also not sure if Parganos was ever updated on the download sites to have some provinces #nostarted that needed it.

Yalun-To? *shudder* Between the bottle neck, and the northern part being totally cut off....

Zen's Europe might be a good one for you to try - can't remember the provinces, and whether it'd be good for 6 or not.

Other than that, there's still something of a void for medium-small maps, I think (ones from 80 to 120 provinces).

Re: map suggestions?
 

You can find a fixed Version of Yalun-Tu when I played it. It includes a change of connecting the north to the south by province 60. It also fixes a bunch of the nostart positioning and adds a little more population since a good portion of the map is mountain/desert.

It is actually pretty fun for 5ish people as long as you understand there is alot of water, everywhere and can be prepared for it.

Try the attatchment to try it out.

As for 6 players, 6 players can play my Europe map and have themselves a good ol' fashioned war, but you might want a few more (9-12 is pretty good). The map I think has 120ish provinces and most maps you want to try to find a happy medium of players/province ratio and 10/15 is pretty good. Depending on the starting conditions and provinces in order to get wars started asap http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: map suggestions?
 

There are a number of maps at my site www.dom2minions.com altho most of them are epic sized (500 provinces). Most are not listed at Illwinter.