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Originally Posted by Lung Drago

It turned out many of the maps with fixed starts have 3 province gap between capitols. So, it's propably just me thinking it's too close, lol. Well, absolutely no experience with dom3 map designs, really.

That's true, but they still make very poor starting provinces. It simply isn't good when your capitol is on or neighbors many of these

http://i538.photobucket.com/albums/f...ultiplayer.jpg

Here is an example of a lineup. I tried to make it so there at least 2 land neighbors for each, one 3 provinces away and one 4 provinces away. Looks good for the most part, but since it is not a wraparound, some players are still somewhat lonely out there. Especially position number 11 and 2 alarm me. That frickin stupid island in the sea between them makes a logical another spawn point, but since it's an island, it's not an option as start. All spawns have 4 to 5 neighbors. No idea if this would actually work out.

An alternative could be "Alexandria" or "Asia Twist" maps. These have fixed starts already available, they are a little bit bigger though (made for 2 more land nations mostly). Orania ends up on ~17 provinces too.

Wait, I thought that your home province always gets a certain population and income, regardless of which land you start out on?

Personally, I really don't like the idea of fixed starts, as it makes exploration to find your opponents' capitals insignificant, and is asking for remote spell spams from half across the world. In your changes to GotG, it looks like starts 2 and 6 get huge advantages, a) being in corners and b) having large uncontested swathes of land that are likely to have lots of gem-generating or even unique sites.
I'm fine with tighter spacings (even if I were a land nation) -- simply because it prompts head-butting faster, which is the point -- as long as people get their cap circles. I understand though if others want more playing room.

Orania I feel has too little water for both R'lyeh and I (esp. considering that water sites are meh, and so is their income -- a tradeoff for relative defensibility). Asia Twist looks really pretty on the other hand, so it gets my vote if you deem GotG unsuitable despite my arguments. Alexander (is that what you meant by 'Alexandria'?) also looks good, though it's up to you to decide if there's too much water for the squamous among us.