[Nagot Gick Fel]

Thufir said:
I'm looking to startup another newbie/intermediate game in the next day or two, and I'd like some suggestions on which map to use.

My advice is to not pick large or huge maps for newbie games. You tend to learn the basics faster on smaller maps, and that's what new players need. Besides, the amount of MM you'll have to cope with after 30-40 turns tends to increase exponentially with the map size, and heavy MM is what turns newbies away from Dominions before anything else - so avoid it at all costs.

Orania is perfectly acceptable, but it bugs me a little to play on a donut

Make a copy of orania.map as orania_nowrap.map, edit orania_nowrap.map, remove the #wraparound line, and change the map title to something meaningful, eg:

#dom2title Orania (no wraparound)

are there any maps out there that have just horizontal wraparound?

Ringwold. You can also edit the Orania map file and remove the #neighbours clauses that connect North to South.

Are there any other large maps that have been extensively tested for MP?

Inland seems popular for advanced/expert games - not too big, even playing field for everyone because of the wraparound and rather uniform layout. Although it's not really suited if both Atlantis and R'lyeh are in.