Will Millennia have an Earth map?

[Concept]

And, if so: Based on the geography of the Starting Locations,

Which of the 18 CIVs, based on these factors, would be advantaged or disadvantaged:
1. Expansion to new base sites for additional resources.
2. Conquest for taking other Nation's resources/geography.
3. Peace for the purpose of trade; gaining resources that way.

For example:
1. Does Britain have the least space to expand early on, but can trade with other Nations being somewhat protected from geography?
2. Does Zulu have Africa, half-way up to Egypt, having the most space to exand early on, minus sahara desert, but from there, depends on Egypt?
3. Does Aztecs have Central America, being trapped inbetween America and Brazil, where they might be conquered like a broken Warsaw Pact?
4. Is there alot of Warfare in and near Europe because of all the nations that start out there, competing for land: Spain, France, Sweeden, Germany, Russia, Rome, Greece -> Ottoman and Persia?
5. India and China might go after each other in Asia for Asia's Dominance, but does Japan settle Austrailia and trade with both of them to gain an advantage?

Now, how does it change, if certain players are taken out of the equation at the very start? Which nation(s) have the most to gain, or most to lose, based on the competition?

 

[Gedemon]

Just to answer the thread's title, if the game's moddable, I bet someone will make convert one

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I do not know enough about the game to speak to any of the questions above, but as a fan of Earth maps I am happy to speculate

Ideally, Millennia would take the best practices from Civ VI, Humankind, and Old World (as well as RFC) while navigating the challenges inherent to an Earth map. The three titles provide reasonable comparison as they too feature districts as urban tiles outside the city center and all have Earth maps overlapping in the Mediterranean.

My favorite way to play the Mediterranean in Civ VI is Egypt or taking Phoenicia, Spain, or Portugal to the New World. Staying local, there are many problems most of which can be addressed by available mods. For one, even with Europe enlarged, land is cramped. Combined with European overrepresentation, this leads to limited room for expansion. You can shrink city distance to two, but that only addresses the number of cities without necessarily improving the land for more cities. Rome, Greece, and Macedon struggle even more in that Civ VI's limited movement hinders early expansion and conquest through European chokepoints (doubling unit movement helps here). On top of that, early expansion across the sea is significantly delayed, so good luck colonizing as Phoenicia or Greece unless you change the tech requirement or allow settlers to embark at the start of the game...

Gedemon's TCL map for Humankind really opened up the Mediterranean for me, partly due to the way factions evolve, lessening the pressure to start in the Mediterranean as long as you end up there at an era that suits you. Humankind's smoother movement alleviates several of the issues with Civ VI and there are many suitable battlefields for the early game. That said, by the mid-game, districts fill the map and Europe is unassailable by anything other than amphibious assault (a consequence of game mechanics not the mod). Civ VI actually avoids this because the cramped land limits city size thereby delaying districts.

As one may expect, Rome has a quite viable early game on Old World's Mediterranean map. Where Old World really adds to Earth maps is naval transportation, which is not locked deep in the tech tree but rather offers seamless and enjoyable movement around the Mediterranean especially compared to alternatives offered by Civ VI and Humankind. Even amid brutal sieges of Greece with hostile naval reinforcement, I find this entirely preferable. The map does struggle in that even with a rather focused part of the world to represent, Italy just does not have much land, and Rome has a hard time building routine districts due to mountains and the tight coastline.

For Millennia, these reference points spell out some suggestions and some challenges for an Earth map of its own. (I should say that I'm confident the developers have played Earth maps before and have some ideas of their own...) Land is quite important, as cities need to expand but this expansion has a major impact on how battles are structured (often where they can even be fought). With the largest map sizes expected for Earth maps, movement has to be a priority, naval transportation even more so to explore and reach other parts of the map. And the elephant in the room...how to make Europe playable without taking too much away from the rest of the world

From what I can see in the screenshots, some gameplay mechanics would definitely come up in an Earth map. Irregular borders reminiscent of Old World could have a big impact on the early game in crowded regions. Smaller named settlements and independent forts/outposts/resource extractors could also help with settling some of the more awkward parts of an Earth map.