It is ironic how Europe has simultaneously the best and the worst map coverage in AoE3.
It has by far the most maps compared to it size now but it almost entirely reuses terrain and vegetation from other parts of the world.
The Americas, Africa and Asia have a lot of unique custom terrains for different maps.
Overall I would say North America is still the best represented continent in the game.
They went for quantity over quality when it comes to Europe. These new maps are going to take that to the extreme.
I dont mind them reusing the same snowtexture and i certainly cant differentiate between a norwegian and a canadian fir. But i like the new treassures, the lighthouse and the lumber trader… Although idk how they play and if the limited wood will obliterate inca winrates on a map like greenland.
As for the general layout of the new maps, i have to trust your experience as a map maker
Yo creo que el mayor inconveniente de los mapas europeos, es la falta de animales propios y de arboles propios, en inglaterra por ejemplo podrian poner conejos como animales cazables.
Yeah that stuff looks fine to me as well (though the Iceland volcano could really use a touch up).
That’s my main concern. I think they are going to be a slog to play on. It completely upends the entire way you run your eco to not be in line with how the game is balanced.
I also strongly disagree with the Lumber Importer being a good addition. It is a cop out and makes the new maps look and play terribly. They added a ridiculous amount of them so that the maps have some way to get wood and it looks atrocious. Half the maps are loaded with lumberjacks and their cabins despite otherwise being desolate rocks with nothing else in sight. And since they are treasures, it displaces all the other treasures so there aren’t even Polar Bears on a map like Svalbard. You also don’t need to send villagers out to get wood so map control is going to be mostly military units going out to flip these huts to your side.
That’s mostly a matter of preference, but the artificially straight, symmetrical layouts of snakey desolate islands doesn’t look great to me.
ngl Norwegian Sea’s preview feels weird compared to the rest of the seas for having a part of Norway with two islands selected.
I didn’t check out the new maps. Lumber trader and lighthouse do what?
Idk if I fully understand what is being described, but what about an upgraded trade route with an increased resources per second number compared to other maps? It might overly favor Otto but if everyone is getting a bit of wood through an in base TP and there are more TPs to fight over it could be very interesting for all but a few civs.
Sounds like it shouldn’t be a map in the ladder pool. Inca are ok in Survival, but…
Lighthouses give huge LoS and you can research spies for some reason
edit: if i recall correctly they also show the location of every single fish and whale
Lumber traders trickle wood on maps that lack forests (greenland etc.)
Are these TP sockets or basically the European mill food trickle control points?
Edit:
That could be fun actually. Some civs might have reason to send a wood trickle instead of 3 vills. Denmark had one I think, and the taxes would help too.
European mill trickles
I think it was 0.6w/s which seemed very low. But devs have another month to think about it and maybe by that time lumbertraders have a completely different mechanism
It’s a novelty that’s worth a single map. But it’s like a third of the new maps that are like this.
And it looks absolutely ridiculous having a dozen lumberjacks bumming around on the tundra.
I especially like this new concept of maps that span two different regions, like Bering strait with Asian animals and natives on one side and American on the other. I saw it in the 7 years war historical map, though it was a bit glitchy and unpolished. But such a cool concept!
Maybe we could one day get a special “world” map with all the different regions represented by tiny little continents haha
Maybe lumberjacks could be affected by market techs to scale on the lategame too.
Also, trading routes could be buffed on the wood crates.
I also like virgin islands with the euronatives. Although i expected it instead on quebec with bourbons + hurons to give it a french touch
It’s a great concept. A good idea for a map would be Gibraltar with part of Morocco and having like 1 trading post site for 1 out of 3 random European natives (Bourbon, Habsburg and Hanover) and 1 trading post of Berbers on the other side.
Also another similar but not exactly like the regions would be an English Channel where you have the French and Lowlands side and the English one.
U might like “northsea”, it has 3 big landmasses:
Britain, scandinavia and continental europe
Gibraltar is also on the loading screens since knights of the mediterranian, so there might be a good chance for exactly that in future updates 
I dislike the way it lumps them all while a potential English Channel map can focus only on one part of mainly England and France (would bea fun “what if” France successfully invaded England or vice versa during the timeline) by separating it from Scandinavia.
Absolutely. Also Sicily feels missing especially when Garibaldi was chosen as the Italian personality where he led the Expedition of The Thousand to Sicily.
Yes, there are a lot of maps, but they reuse many assets…
Instead of being a captureable location, could it be a place where you build a TP and receive a trickle of wood?
That would be great too.
More biome diversity would be great. I want Europe to be much more distinct from North America in this regard.
What I loved most about the original game is that even the smallest details were thought out. For example, macaws in the Amazon, the vulture eating a bison carcass in Texas, etc. I want more of that.