Big maps, few players: Balance?

[Chazar]

Following this forum I got the impression that people tend to prefer larger maps, albeit this seems to unbalance the game in my opinion. At least I got the impression that quite a lot of threads discussing the game balance might be due to people using big maps with too few players.

E.g.: I wouldnt play Ulm versus Caelum in a 2player game on a large map, since this leaves Caelum too much time to develop their magic weaponry, which is their strength.

There are certainly much more balancing issues related to the size of the map played on.

(What else can you think of? Are non-recuperating combating pretenders like wyrm or cyclops more useless in bigger maps, as they have to fight more in a longer game, hence getting more afflictions? Are researching/rainbow pretenders less useful in smaller maps?)

So I just want to see how people are really playing the game, whether they follow the games recommendations and whether someone has already thought about altering the game settings to offset these issues. The poll is rather meant to be some additional statisitcal base for the discussion - and whether the problem exists only in my mind.