Just played my first game on the Gilden map, first off I was excited since resources were abundant.  That excitement rapidly changed to, "Oh c**p!, That's a lot of units, which then changed too, this is not asymmetric, this is slaughter"

I have really enjoyed the beta up to this one particular game.  I am curious what influences where a player starts on the map?  On the first beta release I pretty much played the same tiny map over and over again, which was the Aereon map.  It seemed that the starting location was always the same.

I know Brad has hinted that what I experienced was to be expected, and believe me, I felt much like Denethor looking out the walls of Minas Tirith, however this was very early in the game.  I could understand this happening mid-game, so, can we expect to start close to the Sorcerer King?  It seems like a major disadvantage.  Granted when the Sorcerer King kept making diplomatic offers, perhaps I should have paid more attention to the offers.