[Calahan]

Sent you the zipped map file AoE, and included the 'high quality' image with it that the forum wouldn't let me display (although agree the thumbnail is (just about) viewable)

I had a good think about how to help R'yleh out while editing the map, but I struggled to come up with any more answers than I did to be honest.

I thought about leaving a free area of land (all land nations 3-4 provinces away) near a more-or-less fixed start location for them so that they could get a quick foothold on land. But the problem with that was that the nations on land became very squashed indeed, plus I couldn't see how that would stop a land nation just bullying R'yleh back into the sea. Or the reverse, and R'yleh became too powerful too quickly due to having control of all the water, and loads of land, while everyone else was slugging it out.

Thought about linking the water provinces on the right with the water provinces on the left (a kind of wraparound affect for the water provinces only) but that made things look a bit odd and very ugly. Plus again I thought it made R'yleh too powerful, as they'd get 20 provinces without a challenge while everyone else was earning theirs the hard way.

So not sure what else to suggest. R'yleh start with knowing that as the only water nation, they are safe from attack for the first few years, so that's one advantage they have over everyone else. Only other option I can see using the map editor tools is to give them provinces with extra magic sites. But again that could be giving them too much. Using sledgehammers to crack nuts and all that :-)