Did you change map connection? If so, and if you apply the change to the site, then how does it affect ongoing games??

I'll just add to this thread for something about the map. The MDR province, (Islands belonging to Portugal) starts as a neutral SC yet is labeled as a starting SC of Portugal.

@CCR The fix deletes the Istria province entirely and makes Slovenia coastal, so connections would be changed. It can't be applied to the site while there are ongoing games.

@CommunistChicken Thanks, I'll look into that as well.

The map is great, but I'd like to suggest few name changes for the eastern region, because some names seem a bit off for a local dweller.

1) Kalinin (KAL) to Tver. Kalinin is a Soviet name of Tver, it seems off for the map of modern Europe.
2) Olonets (OLO) to Petrozavodsk. The latter is the only significant city in Karelia, while Olonets is just some weird medieval legacy name.
3) Karelia (KRL) to Vyborg, since this area is not actually a part of modern Karelia (which roughly corresponds to OLO territory mentioned earlier).
4) I had some difficulties searching for Luga (LUG) on the real map of my country. I'd suggest slightly change the border between LUG and NOV, and rename the former to Novgorod, and the latter to Pskov.
5) Harju (HAR) to Tallinn. The former is the name of area around the latter, but in other cases you used city name instead of area name, like, for example, Paris, but not Ile-de-France.
6) Navahrudak (NVR) to Hrodna, for the same reasons as (2).

All of these are just flavor changes, probably insignificant for a person who's not familiar with the region, but in my opinion it would be great if they were implemented.

@Severin Thanks for the suggestions, I think they would be a good improvement to the map. The only one I'm not sure about is (5), as while SCs are always named after cities, a lot of the non-SCs are named after regions (France is a good example of this). The rest can be changed at the same time as Italy's borders.

Also, I have created a bug and change list for the variant, which can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-uQ4wvgd-qpnw8PQ6d_BzAbHHtn0bLRwNpSXpJvoCtw/edit?usp=sharing

Not really a bug, but Poland is horribly underpowered with Krakow being that close to Czechia with neutral SCs in the middle and Warsaw being too far away with nearly no neutrals nearby as well. I'm not sure how to fix it though

Portugal has stealth armies that come out of nowhere if you aren't looking closely.

As someone currently playing as Portugal, please don't change this ;)

Not sure if this is really the proper thread for this, but since the map creator is on here, I figured it'd be a good spot to discuss the map in general.

Overall, the map feels more than a bit...unusual I guess (for lack of a better term)? Some points to note about it:

1) The map description says SC locations (and starting locations) were based on population figures. Is this a wise way to balance a map? It seems like we come up with some very weird situations because of it. For example:

Italy -
a) Italy as a power can guarantee a +3. They are the only power that can guarantee a doubling of their size. And one of two powers where no other power can threaten a home SC in year 1 (Ukraine is the other. And while Ukraine has no threats, they can't guarantee a +2 as only VRN is a guaranteed capture). This will seemingly lead to Italy being a leading power most of the time.
b) Along with this, Italy has undisputed control of the central Mediterranean early on. With Athens not being able to reach CMS, and Marseille not being able to reach TYR, Italy can safely go +3 and also dominate the near waters with little threat almost every time.
c) Contrast (b) with other nations.
- Both of Greece's starting SCs can be threatened by Ottomans via AEG and THR.
- Ottomans has IZM threatened by ATH/THS from Greece, and IST threatened by ATH/THS from Greece, BTM from Georgia, and BCH from Romania.
- Romania has CLJ threatened by KRA from Poland and NVS from Serbia, and also BCH threatened from IST (Ottoman) and BTM (Georgia).
- Serbia has NVS threatened by CLJ from Romania.
- Georgia has BTM threatened by IST (Ottoman) and BCH (Romania).
- Ukraine has no threats to home SCs.
- Russia has STP threatened by OUL/HSK (Finland) and STK (Sweden).
- Lithuania has KAU threatened by WAR from Poland.
- Poland has WAR threatened by KAU (Lithuania) and KRA threatened by CLJ (Romania) and BRN (Czechia).
- Finland has both home SCs threatened by STP (Russia) and STK (Sweden).
- Sweden has STK threatened by STP (Russia) and OUL/HSK (Finland) and GTB threatened by HAM (Germany).
- Czechia has BRN threatened by KRA (Poland).
- Germany has HAM threatened by GTB (Sweden) and AMS (Netherlands).
- Netherlands has both home SCs threatened by LON (UK) and AMS threatened by HAM (Germany).
- UK has LON threatened by both Netherlands SCs and MAN threatened by both Irish SCs.
- Ireland has both home SCs threatened by MAN (UK).
- France has Marseille threatened by Barcelona (Spain).
- Spain has Barcelonia threatened by Marseille (France) and Madrid threatened by PRT (Portugal).
- Portugal has PRT threatened by Madrid (Spain).

Overall, there are 20 nations. 2 have no SCs threatened, 8 with 1 SC threatened, and 10 with 2 home SCs threatened. Of those 10 with 2 SCs threatened, 8 are 2 SC powers (Spain, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Romania, Greece).

Contrast that to "classic" Diplomacy where England has 1 threat, France has 2, Germany has 2, Russia has 2, Italy has 1, Turkey has 2, and Austria can unfortunately have all 3 threatened. The key is that there's no power that's completely safe, whereas we have 2 here, and of those two, Italy has other benefits near it (points A and B). Perhaps it will play out different than an outside analysis, but that doesn't seem to bode overly well for general balance of the map.


Other interesting things:

Portugal and Spain seem like they're destined for conflict nearly every time. Unless there's implicit trust before the initial builds/moves, the need for the small powers to grow rapidly to stay relevant will likely push them into conflict.

Lots of conflicts over single sea zones right off the bat. UK/Ireland, Greece/Ottomans, France/Spain, Russia/Finland/Sweden, Germany/Sweden, Netherlands/UK, and Romania/Ottomans/Georgia all have immediate conflicts over overseer zones. If the intent is to cause immediate war, that works, but if that's not the intent, it gives those powers who don't have those conflicts a major advantage, as they have the ability to play kingmaker while the conflicting powers have to worry about backdoor stabs. Especially England, Sweden, and Ottomans who all have 2 different sea zones they have to be concerned with that threaten 6 of their combined 8 home SCs to start. Contrast this again with Italy who has 0 conflicts and a guaranteed +3 if they want it.

Without going too much into other things since this is already a novel, I feel like some minor tweaks on SC locations or adjacencies for territories could alleviate some of these issues and is something that shoudl be considered as we see data come in.

I know it’s hard to devote the time required to play-testing these large variants before implementation; and that it’s a chore to implement and recruit at the test site first. But I think it would really improve the variants if, for example, they were implemented at the test site for four trial games as part of a regular process first. Then suggestions from those games and analysis by the variant creator were used to create the initial v1s (that, in the case of these large variants, may often never be revised later). Otherwise, we end up with some exciting but flawed variants.

Minor powers in bad positions are unaceptable because even good diplomacy may not save them. Bigger powers are acceptable, because they can still be defeated by diplomacy.

And what about Poland! The wickest starting position I have ever seen! Not only it is going to win just 1 SC the first Autumn but it's sourrending nations (Chezquia, Germany and Lithuania) will gain easily 2. And once they have built those units Poland HSC are the easiest targets for at least Chezquia and Lithuania.
Bad opening pad!

One thing I've noticed playing Ireland is that there's no reason for any of UK's other neighbours to attack the UK in the early game. France doesn't have a single starting SC within two moves of a British starting SC, and the Netherlands have significantly better expansion options in Germany than in the UK. Since Ireland starts at a disadvantage to the UK, this bodes somewhat poorly for their performance.