The good map

[SevenSpirits]

You can make a "held" barb by putting a barb unit on a hut.

[dazedroyalty]

Are those Oases FP tiles as well?

[Nicolae Carpathia]

They look like plains oases. It's a FFH thing

[oledavy]

Interesting concept Mist - will be interesting to see exactly how it plays out.

You're effectively forcing people to establish two widely spaced cores, with the northern one in extreme proximity the neighbors. My one concern is with the northern part so far away and hard to settle, if one civ gets there in force sooner than its neighbor and pink dots some of his 'share' away, there won't be much that the intended owner can do about it. The game will simply collapse into a lower state of energy with the short-shrifted player unable to reclaim their lost land due to the distances.

Defending is going to be an absolute bitch before Railroads. You send a large force down the middle, fork the two cores.

[Nicolae Carpathia]

You're effectively forcing people to establish two widely spaced cores, with the northern one in extreme proximity the neighbors. My one concern is with the northern part so far away and hard to settle, if one civ gets there in force sooner than its neighbor and pink dots some of his 'share' away, there won't be much that the intended owner can do about it. The game will simply collapse into a lower state of energy with the short-shrifted player unable to reclaim their lost land due to the distances.

vs

Defending is going to be an absolute bitch before Railroads. You send a large force down the middle, fork the two cores.

[Mist]

Just so I understand, I ignore the ice and just assume 5 of those directly adjacent to one another?

Yup.

If so, I kinda like it. Might I suggest a couple of hills at the coast to potentially encourage more naval warfare. After all, settling on those silver tiles will be pretty important for intercontinental trade routes.

Can do.

Just as an afterthought, what about a potential pass through the mountains? Would have been nice to use a FfH-style 'held' mob there to prevent an early killing but easily unlocked later (eg a single longbow) for some skirmishes. As it stands, there won't be much tactical warfare as everything will be going through the middle. Just a thought and no idea if it can even be done on BtS (I'm thinking it cant without a barb city).

It's possible ( a barb longbow on a hill with AI script "Unknown" would be effectively held ) but they requested no gimmicks, and I believe this would constitute a gimmick

You can make a "held" barb by putting a barb unit on a hut.

That would work too.

They look like plains oases. It's a FFH thing

Yes, I'm a dirty FFH iconoclast with no respect for proper terrain. Think of my grass floodplains and tremble in fear

Interesting concept Mist - will be interesting to see exactly how it plays out.

You're effectively forcing people to establish two widely spaced cores <...snip...>

Defending is going to be an absolute bitch before Railroads. You send a large force down the middle, fork the two cores.

This is mostly what I hope for. Disjointed cores should be harder to defend and require some sort of standing army. If someone piles lots of hammers into claiming and developing the north, he should be vulnerable in the south, but at the same time, noone should feel free to neglect the coast either. And there's the two marble/stone sweetspots in the desert that are pretty critical to at least partially hold.

[Square Leg]

This is me probably being dumb - why do all the food resources have 1 less food than expected?

[Mist]

Some sort of WB artifact, it shows ok once you go into a game ( see starting screenshots )

[Mist]

Final version of the WB save ( minus actual leaders picked )

Dropbox Link

[Mist]

And the map as played with proper civs in

Dropbox Link