Moros , just saying , you should probably link the ship routes (by the yellow lines as suggested) as it's kinda confusing because Idk which territory in the seas connects to which.

They're connected like every other: Touching borders => Connection

Don't you see all those black lines dividing Sea into "Areas"?

@Lord Fred: If it helps, just realize that there is only 1 ship in each box in the ocean. If the boxes connect, then the ship's connect to that territory/ship.

@Moros:
1) Bonuses for "Fleets" of ships?
2) You have a lot of rivers drawn in, ala the Sengoku map, yet the territories connect across the rivers w/o showing major bridges.
I didn't analyze it strategically/realistically if its good/bad for to have crossings between territories, but just from a visual perspective, they shouldn't connect. There's a major river, a large gap in between, and no bridge. So, perhaps you could research realistically where the major bridge crossings are across the rivers and add them in visually, keeping those connections and while removing other connections.
3) Distributions: I like the "Warzones" Distribution mode in Battle Islands (4?) There's key areas throughout the whole map that lead to a fairly balanced play. Better than a typical warlords distribution where every bonus has a start, and all of the bonuses are similar in size/reward. About 3-4 territories and 2-3 bonus, so it makes it a fair start for everyone. Perhaps you could pick some key areas that would make a decent 2 team distributions where you don't all start on top of each other and noone gets unlucky with the 16 territory bonus.

Sorry Lord Fred100 but I couldn’t disagree more with more. It is very clear which sea territories connect with each other.

There are already lines in the sea which give each ship an area. If the two areas touch then they are connected, if they don’t touch then they are not connected... Simple.

If you just look at the whole ship area then its exactly how land territories work. Yellow lines between ships would just make the map ugly and in my opinion is completely unneeded.

@Chameleon
I could do that. But I want to know if other players agree, because I don't want to do it like Sir Nick and his 30 maps.

@Pooh
1. Do you mean with fleets the Arab, Viking and European ships on the map? I think those would be very hard to obtain, and not worth it.
2. In the original game, you could send armies on rivers to move faster. But as they are too small to fit territories in Warlight, they are purely decorative. They also help aesthetically, so mainland Europe wouldn't be a big blob. I think bridges and river crossing would be hard to find, especially in the Volga. And they would make the map a lot more complicated than it already is.
3. Thanks for the tips, I'll try those out. What do you think of the Large and Small Empires distributions I currently have on the new version I just posted the link to?

Moros:

My "Fleet" bonus suggestion was based on the observation that none of the ships were part of a bonus, and only serve to be transit between different points, which in and of itself is powerful, so I guess ok.

As to the existing distributions: I'm not a big fan of more than 2 team games/distributions. The players on the inside get pinched, the players on the outside do the pinching. Best starts are Large Empires E, G, H, will win most games.

Additionally, it gets complicated... are you playing 8 player FFA? or 2v2v2v2v2v2v2v2? What's good for an 8 player game is not good for a 16 player game because of splitting the mega-bonus.

Also, assuming that the majority of times this is used, a non-member will create the map, meaning 2 of your distributions will be automatically left off, so that leaves a lot of free room for expansion to the unassigned area for its neighbors.

Ship bonuses are a good idea but only for control of an entire sea or multiple straits . Atlantic, North Sea, Baltic sea, Caspian sea, Black sea,West Mediterranean and East mediterranean. A bonus for the straits of Gibraltrar messinia and otranto. These bonuses would make control of the seas more than just a covenient shorter path from A to b

Okay, the next update will contain bonuses for seas, but they will be rather large so people won't start in the sea. Sultanate of Armenia will also be corrected to Kingdom of Armenia.
And Pooh, could you please make a custom scenario of something you'd call a balanced distribution on this map?

Here are the sea bonuses. Please tell me what you think:
http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer.aspx?PreviewMap=19414

Very nice! Now there is a much stronger incentive to take over sea areas. :)

Moros, first of all, great job on the map. It's very enjoyable. However, I feel that adding bonuses for the sea territories sort of takes away from the map's uniqueness. In almost all of the games (mostly FFAs) I've played so far on the map, control of the seas has been very important for defending and launching coastal attacks that can win or lose games. By grouping them together and adding bonuses, I feel that it turns them simply into oversized land territories and sort of "dumbs down" the strategy involved on the map. The decision to either expand on land and increase your income or secure the waves to protect your bonuses is made a lot simpler with the bonuses and it isn't as game changing as before. I'm not sure if this makes a lot of sense or not but hopefully you get the idea that I'm getting at.

If in the end you do end up making sea bonuses, I would suggest to make them larger and combine some of the current ones (ex. have 2 Mediterranean sea bonuses instead of 4) or make them worth less (ex. 2 instead of 5 or 6) to discourage people from expanding solely on the seas. At the current levels, they seem to on par with the land bonuses and offer very tempting alternatives to what I think you had in mind.

The sea bonuses look really good :)
Just a suggestion as I suggested previously , why not a very thin lines bent in shapes of routes to show which ship connects to which region , so that it reduces confusion while reviewing the map?
Besides I think it might look good and a yellow line is not necessarily to be used , you can use any colour which looks suitable?

@Septastrea
Some people are against sea bonuses, and others do like them.
What I think I'll do is combine a few sea bonuses (and reduce the Mediterranean to 3 bonuses), while retaining the current values. But I'll also make a template that automatically makes all sea bonus 0, and put a link for that in the map description.

@Fred
Did you notice the lines dividing the seas into territories? Maybe I should make them more obvious, but those are the best way I can think of to show how the seas connect. If I'd add more lines the seas (in the Mediterranean especially) would become too cluttered.

Well yeah I did , but instead of that , how about a little - - - - - - -
dashes , to show the routes?
It'd look better (Removing the lines) and will show the ship routes.

But if I did what you said, the map would:
A: be less aesthetically attractive in the areas where a single sea connects to lots of land territories (e.g. Gulf of Venice).
B: be much more like all of the other Europe maps, while I want to create a different one.
And by the way, you seem to be the only guy who doesn't understand the system, while (almost) everyone else does.

Fair enough , call me slow if you wish to , but it's hard to tell which ship connects to which route (In the sea and on the land).
A little wave like thing or a wee bit line to show the regions could highlight the routes better.

http://warlight.net/SinglePlayer.aspx?PreviewMap=19414
Sorry for the long delay everyone. I've changed the sea bonus colours a bit, and added naval superbonuses. But I marked them with - before and after the name, so they're easier to remove, because they would all be gathered on the bottom of the (alphabetical) bonus list. The naval superbonuses have ~ before and after their name, because some people may not like them, and wish to remove them separately, while keeping the other naval bonuses.
It's pending public, please respond if you have any questions/criticism/comments about this system.

I don't really like the sea bonuses after all there is an incentive already to take seas and this to defend coastal territories and expand.There is no good reason to make those bonuses and if you do can you make them default 0.

And the explorer bonuses too.

It's a nice map.
I'll be setting the sea bonuses to ~2, maybe 3 next time i play this map.