Oh Please! One swamp area on the right that had terrain pattern of swamp/forest that noone, except for fliers (Hello Caelum) could move more than one province a turn for 3 consecutive provinces?

Maybe I just don't see the point of having bottlenecks that don't allow some sort of advantage. Also the bottleneck in question has one single province that is the central connection from both sides so a castle there, will limit movement of enemies but still allow people to forward field.

As for the 14 provinces and 1000+ gold, depending on the provinces (if you got one of the sweet areas and all of them were the large ones, near the top and along the right) that should be obtainable. Considering that each patch of 'good high income provinces' is beside a big patch of 'thematic TERRAIN provinces'. So unless you are playing just a few nations on a 200+ nation map and each person controls vast areas of connective land between terrain types, those lands should be a heavy point of contention.

Of course you're entitled to opinion and play preference. But blood nations are no longer crippled and thus allows options that were not able on the previous original Cradle map and this Version of Cradle does not make swamps "something I have to control in order to get to these other good lands and have to slog through unless I have fliers" and instead makes them just as key strategically and economically as others.

Before you decry the adjusted bottlenecks, I'd suggest playing C'tis at/around those swamp areas and see if they are fitting as opposed to "With Pangaea there are not enough bottlenecks because they have Forest Survival"

[ July 31, 2004, 03:04: Message edited by: Zen ]