[PvK]

I think it's a great map. Beautiful and huge, but still with lots of detail everywhere. There is an appeal to the enormous number of provinces, even though it poses some insane time challenges for gameplay. Some people like enormous monster games, and this provides. There are of course also balance issues, and an advantage for people who know the map in advance versus those who are unfamiliar with it.

I haven't seen the new Version, so it's hard to know which I would prefer. They sound like they both offer different things, but the newer one is more refined and balanced. The larger one will probably still have its appeal thanks to sheer enormousness. Also I wonder how the black stars for flags will will look. Part of the appeal of the map is that it's very nice to look at, and clarity at the expense of black stars all over the place might be something I'd like to be able to turn off. If it's the same image and pixel size, though (is it??), players could just use the un-starred TGA.

PvK