This is Rhye's map taken to the extreme - that is we've been enlarging productive areas by stealing from desert and ocean to keep the map size small (180x180 world). Desert by the way costs 2 to keep these areas a barrier (except for Ansar, camels, etc which ignore the extra cost). Ethiopia, the east edge and the mediterranean water aren't finished here by the way, but please comment on them anyway if you have any ideas.

Questions: Will the map distortions affect naval actions adversely (too little room, etc?)
Same for air actions, e.g. am I condensing the Sahara too much?
General comments, anything you'd think should be included - I've been designing the map with historic cities and wars, etc in mind. Thus Sicily is oversized for 2 cities (Syracuse and Lilybaeum) to allow Greece/Carthage or Carthage/Rome to fight over it.

180x180 world map small? I suggest you check out my sig! :p

Looks good, at a first glance.

Echoing a comment I made re Rhye's map:
If you want to recreate the geography of 2-to-4 millenia ago, you might add more forests, especially to Europe. But then you would want to make it tough to chop them, similar to Rhye's.

Re: oceanic distortions, you can't say much without actually seeing some distorted seas! The Med looks quite normal ...

I doubt it's an issue, tho. Whatever tends to cause a lack of naval action in Civ games, it's not too small seas.

The oceans will mostly look normal, but smaller. I'm actually pretty comfortable with them, there's more to work with. The distortions that worry me are where for example the med is shrinking in the east, and how Egypt is creeping west relative to Cyprus and Crete.

'Bactria' - still have to finish India and southeast Asia, but it will soon be playable. Will be adding sheep, etc to hills to allow for cities in those regions.