Hi guys,

just a brief variant design heads-up: I've now finished implementing a couple of further changes to the variant. Eastern Europe has undergone considerable change since my reworking of other parts of the map (v3.2).

The Smolensk buffer space (basically the territory Poland ceded later in the 17th century to Russia) now shields Moscow from a first-year attack by the Poles. Yet as Moscow rather than Novgorod now stretches to the White Sea (ie. part of what's designated as the Norwegian Sea in the game), Moscow may be nonetheless targeted in 1649 (albeit only by a Danish descent on the Muscovite port of Archangel, so to speak).

A new province is located between Karelia and Moscow, Onega. This refashioning of the map allows for a new axis of attack in a Russo-Swedish war.

The sum of these changes in Eastern Europe very much alter Russia's opening play. Also, the dynamics in the North-Eastern triangle are somewhat changed by the extra Smolensk buffer edging Poland and Russia somewhat further apart.

Since I now realise that the unicoastal character of Abo was not in keeping with the intuitive reading of the map by most folks, I've decided to turn it into a bicoastal province. I had contemplated both approaches prior to the game and opted for the unicoastal option without it being a strong preference of mine, so better now to go with what I now understand is the more natural solution.

I hadn't added coastal labels to the past normal-sized maps since I thought that say the space round Holstein was simply too congested to fit them in. Fortunately a little rearranging of labels and the use of the smallest still legible font allowed this after all. So that ought to give players a "one stop" map reference.

All-in-all, I think both the lowered victory conditions and numerous map changes present a huge difference compared to v3.0, i.e. the one being used for the present playtest.

That being said, I'm tempted to yet:

a) Add a Magdeburg buffer space between Brandenburg, Saxony, Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg, while still having Lower Saxony and Brandenburg remain adjacent (arrows indicating this). I think gameplaywise this would be beneficial, but it might be cutting it close in terms of available space.

b) Also have Hesse and Franconia touch another, while Saxony and Swabia would remain adjacent. Another red-arrow-crossing. Arguably easier to fit in than the aforementioned Madgeburg idea, but I kinda fear it might look odd. I guess I'll just have to try that out one day and see whether such a change works for me aesthetically.

Other than perhaps those, I don't think I have any other possible changes on my radar. Though I guess one never knows what ideas might hit you next.

Cheers,

Charles