[TheDemon]

One other idea I had when looking at the map manual was you could set the overlords' non-cap provs to have a certain ammount of unrest at the start of the game. They would start with only their gem income advantage but their gold income advantage would come online automatically. A bit of tax micro on the players' part. Plus, if you want, the overlords' sites can be hidden at the start of the game and would have to be discovered by searching (they would still be guaranteed).

I'm not sure if either of those are necessary at all, but the ideas jumped out at me.

As for the map, I'm thinking wraparound for sure. I'll probably crib a slice from another map and copy it a few times to make something that's more or less symetrical. With 6 overlords and 15 normals, placement might be a little tricky. I might just place overlords in some sort of equidistant pattern, mark their provs nostart, and then open a game and see where it randomly places the remaining nations.

Ideas?