Hello, thought I'd give Genoa a whirl. Fully aware that this is not a playable version etc. . ., but thought I'd give a more or less full rundown now. I don't know how to do the fancy screen shots, so I'll try to be verbose.
Loading time was 20 minutes. For play purposes I'd recommend more gold, more advanced units (started with 4 warriors, two settlers). I'd add a worker, a fishing boat, sub iin archers and either pikeman. I met Burgundy, which promptly collapsed. Out of the corner of my map I could see Byzantium laying siege to Venice, which is captured a turn later with heavy crossbowman, maceman and knights. I'd also recommend Genoa start with mapmaking, and make it necessary construction of a fishing boat. (I was frustrated that I could build boats, but not use them).
I founded Genoa and Lucca with my settlers (I thought Lucca would be in the core area, but alas I discovered differently, either that or that civil war event still impacts all cities aside from capital, not all cities except those in core area).
A few turns later I founded what I think is where Nice is, though could be Aix or Marseilles, it ended up being named Cumae. Later founded a city near Albertville, which was name Arpinum, 2 or 3 tiles S/SW of Lake Geneva. I also founded Bastia on Corsica. It would be nice if there were some useful reason to colonize the Mediterranean islands beyond the UHV's.
Met Spain, Hungary and Andalusia, which were all Orthodox, which was frustrating as Catholicism spread quickly to my cities. Orhtodoxy seemed the default religion, as all civs I met were Orthodox except the Norse, who were Muslims. Spain and Andalusia collapsed shortly after Portugal's arrival. Andalusia first, then Spain.
Later met Austria, who had the city of "Zagrab" (2 "a's). I believe it is "Zagreb" in all languages except Hungarian (which has accent acutes over both "a's"), and that the Austrians called it Agram.
Had a few great people, all seemed to appear at the right time, though the names were still off e.g my first great merchant was JM Keynes.
By 1290 I had built some buildings. I should add that the graphics and the map etc. . . all look beautiful. When I took up close looks at my cities they all looked nice, but the Catholic church I think was stolen from the meso-american artpack, no?
Byzantium is running roughshod all over Italy, having captured Venice, now a whopping size 19, and Rome, a svelte size 6, which it captured with hussars and Swiss. It also vassalized the Turks more or less on day one.
The "... celebrate the electorate day" is written as "TXT_KEY_WE_LOVE_THE_ELECTORATE. . .".
You know what's coming next, Byzantium DOW on me and immediately destroys my only source of iron to the E of Lucca. Another issue, there seemed to be a paucity of iron on the map, and I think iron is basic for all civs survival in this mod. Placement of it near all the capitals or at least in the core area would be good. I fought them off with longbowmen promoted to guerilla 2 (guerilla is the hills upgrade, right?), they were at war with Austria and Hungary at the same time so didn't really commit to the war with me). With the balestrieri (awesome unit, BTW, versatile, balanced, maybe a tad too powerful but I think little Genoa will need it), was able to secure the iron and begin building an army of balestrieri to fight back and perhaps take Rome, which was defended by only two Swiss pikeman. The mercenaries available in 1413 where axeman, archers and warriors, so not very helpful .About 2 turns into the counteroffensive idea Hungary was defeated and Austria capitulated (and I think the Kievan Rus collapsed as well), leaving Byzantium to focus on me. I was able to hold the iron and Lucca, barely, as they started attacking with grenadiers and cuirassiers, and decided the situation was hopeless. I switched to Divine Monarchy from Electorate (more for fun than anything else), and civil war ensued; I lost most of my army aside from Genoa's garrison.
In world builder I checked out the scene. Byzantium is huge, directly controls all of Italy except the city of Genoa, much of the Ukarain, the Balkans, Wallachia, Moldovia, Bulgaria, Greece, coastal Anatolia (the Turks, their vassals, have most of the interior), the Levant, Egypt, and the lone city in Africa outside of Egypt: Barca (Bengazi for those following along at home).
Poland and Germany are small, growing, but backwards. 7 cities with pikeman and archers each. England is also small, has four or five cities in England and southern Scotland, but aside from London they're all misplaced. Cambridge is where Liverpool actually is, for example. They've also taken two cities in northern France, Paris and where Rouen should be (named Amiens), but I could be wrong and it should be Amiens and not Rouen, as they are fairly close. Newcastle seemed to be in the right spot though. The Norse had two cities, Aarhus and Roskilde. On a side note, I think Canute might be a better leader for the Norse, Ragnar was more of a pirate than a nation builder.
Overall, though I may seem critical above, I really liked it and thank everyone who's put so much work into it.
