You may have to click on the image to see the headings clearly.
I am yet to commit to firm boundaries and city placements on the map, mainly concentrating on where the nations will go, and how many other nations they will be adjacent to. The Fallow Lands zone is some empty space for the players to squabble over, and a major reason to contemplate building a long range amphibious capability.
As a rough rule of thumb for geopolitics, the more states your state is adjacent to, the more likely you are to find it difficult to defend yourself. Terrain can modify this (such as mountains, rivers and fortresses). So on the whole those states listed as Peninsula Powers have only two land neighbours to worry about. The obvious strategy here is to ally with one against the other.
The Canal Power will control a route through the narrow isthmus of land that permits Naval forces to move swiftly between the “interior” and “exterior” oceans. Possibly influential, but it has long coastline that is hard to defend against landings, and four neighbours to worry about.
The Island Power, by dint of having no land neighbours, will probably be a strong naval power like England. Its controlling players could choose to build a lot of land units, but its not going to do them a lot of good.
The Small Power is the potential Switzerland of the map. It has short borders that could be completely fortified by a defensive player, but the key to its success would be skillful diplomacy.
The Central Power is the hub of the main continent, especially as all the railway networks will connect up in its cities, giving it a strong logistic base and the ability to move armies around on interior lines. It does have to worry about the Land Power though. The Land Power is big and has only one obvious route for landward expansion. I may make it harder for it strategically by giving the offshore island to another nation and possibly giving a strip of its southern coastline to another player as well.
The Medium Power will be weaker than the two largest powers, but stronger than the other powers. Its interesting diplomatic challenge is going to be steering a course between neutrality or alliance with the larger powers.
Starting Forces
Before changes are made by players, each state will have an existing army and navy that is based on its geography. Naval strength will be based on length of coastline, number of ports, and the number of sea zones the nation is adjacent to. Army strength will be based on the number of controlled hexes, number of cities, and the number of adjacent nations.
Nations are likely to have around 10 units per player on the nation team, but some will have stronger armies than navies, or vice versa, and not all units will be available at the start of the game (i.e. reserve forces will be built during the game). Its going to be impossibly for most nations to garrison their entire land border (the small and island powers are an exception) so that feeling of vulnerability is going to encourage diplomacy and surprise attacks.
Next Steps
Naming the countries and drawing definite borders. Then the cities and railways need to go on the land mass, and the sea control zones on the oceans.
Mechanics Are Easy 