Barring a joint effort by all the other powers to constrain Britain, Britain will win due to it's amazing starting position. All the other powers don't recognise this, leading to Britain winning.

either the mod should be adjusted for balance or the description should describe this clearly that Britain is the strongest, so that players know to work against it

Ooh don't tell Ruffhaus! This variant is apparently the closest thing he has to a son. Don't tell daddy that his little boy is not all that Daddy thinks he is!

Well here is the thing Britain starts big and and can yes grow very fast but it has bits and pieces everywhere which are smaller then the near by countries so Britain is less one country and more like 5 if I remember correctly it is like Russia in Classic it starts with 4 SC's but it more like 2 separate parts due to the nature of St. Petersburg and Sevastopol

Yes but that's negated if it always wins. The way the game works, Britain should have to gain more SC's to win so that the win conditions are proportionate. Atm it only needs to expand a little bit to win completely

Smart play can reverse this but the records definitely show an advantage in Britain's favour which I think relates them having their fingers in just about every pie [A power base in India and units scattered across map] and their control of the Indian Ocean against the fairly underpowered Ottoman, Dutch and French powers.

An Anglo-Russian alliance or players generally ignoring Britain due to more immediate threats generally ends in tragedy.

There are a few possibilities to help counteract this if you wanted to rebalance the map;

One is to turn back the clock a little to 1840 or earlier; Removing the French completely, Strengthening the Dutch to be a serious Rival in the East Indian Ocean, Putting China in a much stronger position and getting rid of the distant English ports.

The downside is that this removes the French who had a major role, would make the historical Decline of China less likely and make Japan's position very difficult unless they get a good alliance with the Dutch or Russians.

Alternatively, if you want to keep the era, the Dutch, Ottomen and French positions could be strengthened to balance the threat abit; the handful of French ports in India might be worth an SC there [admittedly this is the weakest claim], The Dutch could be given New Guinea [possibly include part of "New Holland" on the map for Australia as a neutral SC] and Syria could definitely afford to be upgraded to an SC. I don't know what the results of this would be but it seems like an improved foothold for this powers and a sudden question mark on India would definitely be cause to make old England nervous and make the players of these powers feel less left over a barrel.

As someone who soloed playing Britain on Colonial 1885 I have to agree they are a strong power. How it happened was that I happily went along with Germany's plan to destroy France while having peace with everyone else. Just taking neutral SCs, French SCs, and a couple SCs from the collapse of China made me very large, perhaps in the mid-30 ish SC range. Then Germany and I stabbed Holland which gave me another 5-ish SCs. Then I stabbed Germany for another 5 SCs and picked up my last 5 from anywhere I could find them around the world from the other powers that had finally declared war. What made this divide-and-conquer strategy work was how very other power adopted a deer-in-the-headlights look as I raced up to 45-ish centers. Maybe my promise to take no centers from certain powers in return for neutrality prolonged this. So it wasn't a completely skillless victory, but the bigger factor by far was the continued underappreciation of Britain as a threat.

However, I am in another Colonial 1885 game where Britain was one of the first powers defeated (by myself playing Germany and my French ally). (This happened a long time ago and the game is almost over now so I feel I can talk about it). So I would say based on my experience that it is more like both Britain and France are both very strong, but mutually exclusive, colonial powers (if either one gains the upper hand the other is doomed). Maybe Britain is inherently a little stronger than France. But I feel like the real story here is no matter what you do, on colonial-style maps (including Imperial II) the chances of a colonial power soloing are always going to be much greater than the chances of a regional power solo, particularly when the game involves players with a severe mismatch in skill levels (as it often does) and the default Victory Condition is set at less than 1/2 the total SCs. So perhaps if you kept the VC at 1/3 for regional powers but made colonial powers had to get all the way to 1/2 of the SCs I think you would see more coalitions forming to stop them. But this would really just be a crutch for those who cannot perceive a solo threat in time to stop it.

Also, if going with the tougher VC for colonial powers, would you apply the 1/2 VC to Germany (who starts out a little weaker than Britain/France)? Or to Holland (who is really more of an East Asian regional power because Holland's presence in Europe and Africa is laughable)? And what about Russia, who is one contiguous nation but so large that it in effect has a global reach -- but in no way has any stake in Africa?

Personally I think the map is fine. If Britain is always winning your matches it speaks more about the players in the game than the map itself

You might consider doing as the rinasciamento variant does. Each power has a proportion of the total map power at the beginning of the game, and, though small power is highly unlikely to win, If they get a significant number of centers in PPSC they get a much higher reward than if a large starting power does. It's comparative to their original percentage of power.

I like caliburdeath's idea. I always wondered why this rule was only ever in effect for Rinascimento. It could be used on any map with large imbalances in starting SCs

Ninjanrd: Nice try troll.... I've never played this map, nor have I offered an opinion about it. You'll have to climb a taller tree to snipe at me dimwit.

Having look it over briefly now Jimbozig's commentary is spot on. This game isn't unbalanced in favor of Britain, it's the level of players in the games that is imbalanced. There's no need for weighted buy in's or rewards on this map though, or any other map simply because there are different starting positions and numbers. To suggest that this is so scream of inexperience and an unsophisticated analytical ability that is fixated of SC counts. As is the case on several other so called imbalanced" maps, Britain is actually one of the most vulnerable nations on this map. Convincing myopic dot-grabbers of the need to engage in diplomacy and geopolitical tactics is an uphill climb. The PPSC and point chasing behavior of players here only serves to feed these myths.

Darkarus +1 as well. You nailed it as well.

My bad, It looks similar to your pet. I apologize, I misinterpereted the map.

What Darkarus said is true... Britain is more like 5 countries. and that can be both an advantage and disadvantage... You can use that as a mask, saying "oh, I only have 3 centers near you, I am no threat to you" to cover up the fact that you have 30 centers already... But at the same time, if you stumble in one area, you have to either let yourself be vulnerable in another to cover it, or let that area fall, thus extinguishing your influence in an entire corner of the map. It is a burden as much as a gift to have so many centers in so many different places. But it isn't overpowered by any means, just slightly stronger than the others.