It's definitely one of the more balanced maps, RNG wise.
I played a 2v2 among friends on it the other day and it was a very interesting and dynamic map. The center of the river area is really flush with resources and a sacred site, and its not hard to wall off the entry points.
But the other sacred site being on the outside away from the action is really cool. Our game wound up having a lot of fighting over the middle, but then a second front opened up on the side because the side entrance to the center got completely walled up by my opponent. So it felt like two distinct battlefields. I held the center for a while then lost it, and the center area became a tug of rope between my partner and one enemy, while I did a similar back and forth over the other sacred site on the side.
During one of the times when my team controlled the center, I built a dock and a transport ship and landed a lot of villagers just on their side of the river, built a couple of Rus outposts and put springalds in them, and they slowly picked off the line of enemy traders which happened to be cruising through there. Repeated the ferry trip to bring over some knights and raid with.
Anyway, just really enjoying this new map compared to the old one, which would frequently be a die roll of 'lets see who got more good stuff on their side of the river.'
