1. Most of the players are wildcards: Either fairly green or with chaotic history. Cornflakes, Qgqqqqq, 2metraninja - inexperienced players. Twinkletoes, Jowy, Azza - you can't help but recall their previous Pitbosses ending in disaster. Even Commodore is prone to making some fairly wild moves.
2. Only 2 Financial civs, one of those paired with Industrious. That's Industrious, a trait shared by 3/7 players, which rather limits its usefulness. So on simple "Financial is best" logic, AutomatedTeller should be well placed. But AutomatedTeller is somewhat nerfed by Native America and an interesting start. We also have some perfectly decent setups elsewhere in the mix, like Sury or Inca. Perhaps Rome or France depending on circumstances. Note that a lot of the unique units will come too early to be much use on this size of map - even with some ultra-aggressive Jowy/Commodore-style openers. Even Twinkletoes' (relatively late game) Musketeers can be somewhat situational.
3. The starts aren't just all different: Players need to scout and plan their first cities very carefully. Many are looking at single food resources, or too much water, or no hills, or something that should guide their opening almost as much as their leader and civ. I'm expecting a few of the players to go badly wrong on turn 0/1, by either not scouting adequately, or not thinking their game through properly.
So instead of predictions, a few hopes:
Twinkletoes to not be the first player to exit the game.
Commodore/Brick to focus on Terraces, not Quecha.
Jowy to get an economy going before wading into war against the strongest opponent on the map.
AutomatedTeller to make the most of an interesting start position.
I wouldn't exactly call 2metraninja inexperienced. He's done (quite) well at CFC in the past.
Merovech's Mapmaking Guidelines:
0. Player Requests: The player's requests take precedence, even if they contradict the following guidelines.
1. Balance: The map must be balanced, both in regards to land quality and availability and in regards to special civilization features. A map may be wonderfully unique and surprising, but, if it is unbalanced, the game will suffer and the player's enjoyment will not be as high as it could be.
2. Identity and Enjoyment: The map should be interesting to play at all levels, from city placement and management to the border-created interactions between civilizations, and should include varied terrain. Flavor should enhance the inherent pleasure resulting from the underlying tile arrangements. The map should not be exceedingly lush, but it is better to err on the lush side than on the poor side when placing terrain.
3. Feel (Avoiding Gimmicks): The map should not be overwhelmed or dominated by the mapmaker's flavor. Embellishment of the map through the use of special improvements, barbarian units, and abnormal terrain can enhance the identity and enjoyment of the map, but should take a backseat to the more normal aspects of the map. The game should usually not revolve around the flavor, but merely be accented by it.
4. Realism: Where possible, the terrain of the map should be realistic. Jungles on desert tiles, or even next to desert tiles, should therefore have a very specific reason for existing. Rivers should run downhill or across level ground into bodies of water. Irrigated terrain should have a higher grassland to plains ratio than dry terrain. Mountain chains should cast rain shadows. Islands, mountains, and peninsulas should follow logical plate tectonics.
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