[Baalz]

I've been thinking about the maps for this tournament. It seems like it would be desirable to have just one map, otherwise you run into the question with several nations of which map to use. Several of the nations are strongly amphibious so I can see some nations/players being unfairly handicapped by the lack of water/land because of the nominal designation of their nation. Seems like for optimal strategic fun even non amphibious land nations should potentially have water conquest to contemplate. Conversely, in keeping with the feel of a normal game aquatic nations should be likely forced to contemplate land conquests.

A map like Sha Bay seems like it would fit this bill. It is maybe a bit big for two people, (68 land + 12 sea) but otherwise I think it's a pretty good fit. Enough water to make a water entry worthwhile, but not (generally) required. Enough water to give a water nation a little breathing room with some strong incentive to not sit around in the drink indefinitely, with some relatively protected island land provinces to keep them from being really shut out of the land. In the event of a aquatic/aquatic matchup this would be a bit cramped and probably suboptimal, but there's a good chance that matchup may not even happen so it may be a better idea to let that be maybe an interesting dynamic if it does happen.

And while it's a bit larger than we would probably aim I don't think it's prohibitively large. Having 40 provinces per player is a problem for larger games because the leaders end up having 200+ large empires by the time they've finished their first conquest or two. Seeing as how I don't see how you could make it to having more than 60 provinces without having won I don't think it's too prohibitive. Particularly as in a lot of cases the water is just going to be ignored (including the 8 island provinces) and there are going to be plenty of unconquered indies because people go right for the throat in a duel rather than forming NAPs, etc.