I must say i'm dissapointed with this mod after seeing all of the good comments
.
the hordes of barbarians are impossible to be broken thou, especially for nations such as Russia, which gets invaded with at least 10 units a turn, at around 240 A.D i had 3 cities, was literally backwards, and had basicly no chances to stay around with military or whatever, if you call that balance i dont care to know what you would call disbalance..
The Unit graphics are really bad, at least some of em` for example the ancient spearman for slavic nations, they re so ugly i had to turn of my monitor when a battle enganging them was fought, also some units dont have basic team colours, they re all black.. like french are black, portugal are black, german are black, i'm talking bout unit colours. I had to turn the discs on to know if i'm getting invaded or a friend is just passing my territory..
This scenario was or at least people used to say such things suppose to provoke the AI to build cities in historical order, damn i was surprised when i saw romans near siberia..
or Greeks in Germany.
Also i'm amazed how could you choose such a varienty of useless civ's doing the same error sid meyer did >.>
Byzantines are Pretty Much as Ottomans as Persians, if we would talk into that, yeah of course persians are barbarians from the east that conquered "turkey" and created a civilization, ottomans are arabs, byzantines are romans etc.. but hey, they do take the same territory!!!!!!
You can also count out the babylon, and why would you do Byzantines if Romans are already there, Byzantines= Romans if someone didnt know, the only diffrence between those 2 are that Byzantines got conquered by barbarians 200 years later then the "Romans" so you call them.
Also Rhye, are u "hebrew"? since adding Israel is like the worst idea ever, i'd like to notify you that "Israel's" only accomplishment was to steal of a country and eliminate a nation (Palistinians), and even then they were hiding behind the ol` Uncle Sam.
Its almost like you would live happily in "some kind of country" and all of a sudden a few guys with books, supported by military entered it and said "hey, my god told me its my place, so screw you people and get the . .. .. .. . out."
Austria is the same, even in its golden age (1850-1918) it wasnt anything special, they were a weak farmer country with severed military,
Also you did forget countries such as for example:
"Cossack- Ukraine" yeah this country have a strong national indentity and should be definitely there.
"Polish- Lithuania Commonwealth" 1400-1600, the strongest country in the world.
Also a Cheroke should be putted in america to stop the rapid American expansion..
But of course i did find a few pluses in this scenario:
Indeed it is the fastest loading huge earth map.
If your gonna tell me the graphics look good, you would be insane, if you were in need of some graphics you could take them from the base of conquests firaxis, for example, the flintlock infantry, it look much better if you just used those from napoleonic era scenario.
Same goes for some of the UU's, but it aint much of a deal.
If you havent noticed not only the area is crowded, but hell does it suck to see 5 civ's that are quite similiar as far as culture, terrain, population goes which are of course the Byzantines, Persians, Ottomans..
Also if you were to remove byzantines austria would advance in the right position leaving russia the terrain it has.
and yes, i'm negative toward the ideas of having jews there, since they havent achieved much in the whole history counting out their "religious history", no it doesnt affect todays world, althou u might give some kind of an example.
For first Ukraine would stop the expansion of civ's such as Austria, Dutch toward East which is kind of . .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ., since i saw Einhoven in syberia last game i played..
and oke you should definitely study the history of east europe, if you think the "Ukraine is only from 1991".
To be exact Ukraine as a country is quite young, but as a nation, they were struggling for independence since early middle ages, first having numerous uprisings against the poles (Polish-Cossack War) if you heard about it? It was called "Chmielnicky's Uprising" when Ukrainians stood before polish hussaria, the polish masacred them, leaving none behind..
WW1 when Ukraine did fought for freedom at the side of the central nations, which were prussia and austria, prussia promised them they will have their own independent country built on the border of russia when they win, unfortunately for ukraine Central Nations lost.
After the war, they were struggling with polish AGAIN, with various "underground goverments" fighting mostly for Lvov, at some point they almost succeded..
and Finally they reach independence in 1991!!
Your telling me a country that fought 900 years for freedom, and an independent country isnt worth the attention?
They never gave up, they re truly amazing.
And as far as poland goes same as Ukraine would stop the western countries expansion, in fact you should take all cattles, wheats from the dutch since they are agricultural.. and . .. .. .. . do they expand.. 10 times as far as russia hah.
and Poland, historically poland is worth 10 times what austria is worth, since they were a power for almost whole their existance, and even when they dissapeared from the map they fought, and achieved their goal, Austria was strong only in the WW1 period and Napoleonic Era, but even then they werent much either, since all they had was military, they were an extremelly poor agricultural country, google "Galicia" if you wanna see some photos of starving people in Austria.
also Poland will expand to fast, as far as iroquis will take the "Canada" territory, US will take the most making global superpowers on the american continent such as for example iroquis, maya, inca.
Russia is defected, you took her away literally everything, they got no chance to expand or whatever since they are surrounded by barbarians, and fast expanding countries, in fact it ends like this that the Russians are the weakest in Europe cept maybe German who are even weaker, but hey the Dutch pay of for all of them since they freaking become a superpower >.> YAY DUTCH.
You could consider adding instead of for example:
Byzantines
Persians
Austria
The countries i mentioned or at least a few african nations, kongans for example..
HELL!
But i guess all i'm gonna get is critized, as i said i dislike this map alot, unlike Double your pleasure for example which is quite similiar as far as advancement goes.
But Rhye dont be mad, c'mon you should require some criticism, since all those asslickers basicly wont tell you nothing bout it, since they re behind in history, knowledge, language, whatever, or just plain think that you put up so much work into this that cock slapping you wouldnt be to gentle.
I'm not gentle, you have to get used to it.
)
They are as Arabic as the Scots.
For your information Rome fell in 471 and Byzantium fell in 1453. You must have a weird way of doing math! 
