[PvK]

Responding to original question, without full quoting:

* Size and players affect balance a lot, but large maps don't "break" balance. They just change it. I'd say that small maps with many players are the most unbalanced, because there are fewer options and super-combattants and first-strikes are favored. When there is plenty of room, then there are many more options, god choice is less important, and everyone has time and opportunity to come up with something effective to do. Initial strength may be relatively less important than on crowded maps, but it's still useful for kick-starting initial growth, which tends to be a self-reinforcing effect.

"Are non-recuperating combating pretenders like wyrm or cyclops more useless in bigger maps, as they have to fight more in a longer game, hence getting more afflictions?"

Nothing is entirely useless, and "more useless" is a contradiction in terms.

Players who think non-recuperating combat pretenders are ineffective, want to have their cake and eat it too, without having to take any risks or learn how to fight effectively or manage risks.

Focusing on affliction risk doesn't make sense to me, although on a simple level, if you want to kamikaze your pretender recklessly as much as possible, then yes this will be an effect.

Large maps do reduce the importance of pretenders, and especially combat pretenders, for the basic reason that there is only one of them, so they are a smaller part of a larger world. In a large world, even if you have nothing that can beat an enemy pretender, you can easily win if you can consistently beat his other armies. If the map is so small that there are few armies, few battles, it becomes hard to avoid a single ultra-powerful unit.

"Are researching/rainbow pretenders less useful in smaller maps?"

I'd say so. Especially if a combat pretender can show up at your doorstep in the first few turns, before you can develop a counter.

PvK