Anybody have any good Imp 2 map keys they'd like to share? I'm not too picky about New Worlds but I like to have my Old World just so, with that in mind here's two I've enjoyed recently:

Cordenally (play as Holland)
Llermerdimrys (play as England)

And the ones I'm looking at now:

Ionirylf (play as Holland)
Karfauntemrys (play as England)
Dalls (play as Sweden)

Spoilers ho!


Key: Cordenally
Play as Holland
Found on the grain with five grains adjacent and a river running through it
Livestock is weak, be prepared to build ports

Holland is 8 fe/3 c/3 cu/2 sn
of which Groningen is 4 fe and Utrecht is 2 fe/2 c
Ireland is 3 fe/2 c/1 cu/1 sn
of which Dublin is 2 fe/2 c
Scotland is 4 fe/0 c/0 cu/1 sn
with no provinces of note
for a Greater Holland total of 15 fe/5 c/4 cu/4 sn

Make for the Baja California Sea on the east coast of the New World and take Malinalco (two diamonds), then head west two provinces inland and take Tipu (one gem) and south one to Ichpaatun (one gem and two silver). Azcapotzalco has another silver if you're in the mood. If you need native treasuries and ports, Tenochtitlan is northeast of Malinalco, and Mayapan is southwest of Tipu.

Also of note, one gem in Running Bear (northwest, Bay of Cuba); one diamond in Miami (east coast, Tampa Sea); two gems in Pasco (west coast, Sea of Pasco [natch]); one diamond, Ridgemont (two south of Pasco, Wounded Knee Sea); and one diamond, Mul (two southeast of Ridgemont, Brazo Sea on the southern coast).


Key: Llermerdimrys
Play as England, 7 fe/4 c/5 cu/3 sn
of which East Anglia is 3 fe/3 c, Cornwall is 1 fe/1 c/1 cu/1 sn and Kent is 2 cu/1 sn (I just love copper and tin in the same province, don't you?)
Scotland is 1 fe/1 c/4 cu/1 sn
with no provinces of note
Ireland is 0/0/0/1 sn
with nothing but grain, cows, and sadness
for a Greater England total of 8 fe/5 c/9 cu/5 sn

Along the southern coast of the New World there are two large bays, you'll see the Taz Bay if you're sailing east and the Gulf of Timucua if you're sailing west. Invade the Taino from either of these bays, Kenniwick, Arawak, and Carib (inland) each have one gem. Move west into Iroquois land, Middlesex has another gem and Peabody has two gold.

Other fun things include one diamond in Cajamarca (Limatambo/Xela Sea), on the southeastern coast of the northern New World island, and one diamond in Amir (Underwood/Amir Sea), on the north-central coast of the main New World continent.


Key: Ionirylf
Play as Holland
Livestock is weak, so found for fish. If you found on the grain where the northern river meets the sea, you're getting fish without losing any bureaucracy bonuses (but it will lie to you about how much fish you're getting, don't you hate that bug?)

Holland is 8 fe/4 c/3 cu/3 sn
of which Groningen is 2 fe/3 c, and Rijswijck is 3 fe/1 c
Scotland is 1 fe/1 c/2 cu/1 sn
of which it's all in Edinburg except the tin
for a Greater Holland of 9 fe/5 c/5 cu/4 sn


Key: Karfauntemrys
Play as England
Found in Devon, the province with scrub jutting out to the west. Look for the grain that has river in it at the extreme north of the province. Devon only has copper in the mountains, while the automatically-chosen capital province (the province known as Wales when you found elsewhere) has 2 fe/1 c.

England is 6 fe/4 c/5 cu/3 sn
of which Cornwall is 3 fe/3 c
Ireland is 1 fe/0/0/0
which is exactly as notable as it sounds
Italy is 1 fe/0/1 cu/1 sn
all of which is in Milan
Parma has ten open range. Let them have guns and ships, I will conquer the world with Parmesan cheese!
Denmark is 0/0/0/0
which is sad but I will give them cheese
for a Greater England of 8 fe/4 c/6 cu/4 sn


Key: Dalls
Play as Sweden
As usual, livestock is weak. Founding along the shorter, southern river (Trondhjem), is probably for the best. You can get two grain, two scrub, and four fish from three river/one sea. The mountains of Trondhjem don't have anything in them, so no lost bonus.

Sweden is 6 fe/4 c/3 cu/2 sn
of which Uppland is 3 fe/3 c
Italy is 1 fe/3 c/3 cu/0
with no provinces of note
Denmark is 7 fe/2 c/1 cu/1 sn
of which Jutland is 4 fe/1 c and Roskilde is 3 fe/1 c
I attacked Denmark because I thought they'd attack me first
for a Greater Sweden of 14 fe/9 c/7 cu/3 sn

For those who didn't pay attention during chemistry classes
Fe= Iron
C = Carbon (a.k.a. Coal)
Cu = Copper
Sn = Tin

I've given myself carpal tunnel grinding out map keys, but I think it's been worth it. Mainly looking for industrial powerhouses with at least a minimum of other things and no Great Power on the same island, but with minors to conquer early. I'm playing right now:

Key: Keberra
Sweden is 7 fe/4 c/2 cu/2 sn, Greater Sweden is 23 fe/11 c/9 cu/5 sn

On the southern coast of the northern island, Iroquois has one diamond, inland of which Yosi has two more diamonds. Panthar also has two diamonds, look to the northern coast of the southeastern island. Pasco, on the central peninsula, has the last diamond, and there's gold in Penniwick next door to Pasco. There are no gems that I'm aware of.

Two more promising keys:

Key: Llonddegumrys
England is 8 fe/2 c/2 cu/3 sn, Greater England of 21 fe/7 c/7 cu/3 sn

Key: Arnirthyr
Sweden is 7 fe/4 c/4 cu/2 sn, Greater Sweden of 22 fe/13 c/11 cu/4 sn (but you need to take four minors to get it all)

There used to be a nice list of "special" keys on the fansite "The Daily Imperialist", but sadly it somehow isn't to be found anymore on that site.

"Elli" as map key generating 12 Gems in the NW is the only information obtainable there now in regard to this topic.

Yeah, link rot is a plague for Imperialism isn't it? There's a wikia page with a map key list

http://imperialism.wikia.com/wiki/Map_key_%28Imp2%29

They've got sections for lots of provinces, lots of grain, and lots of diamonds/gems, but nothing for lots of iron (and a little of everything else) which is how I like it. I don't know if "basic playability" is a criterion for their keys, or even what that means necessarily -- I better have two copper/tin and one horse ranch to start, but maybe other people are willing to rely on trade for their horse artillery? It's all about personal taste I guess.

Rhaganeth is all I need to say.

About the special map keys mentioned above, 7 years ago!

Eden - produces a map with mainly grain fields (old world) and I think it was sugar in the New World? Not sure.
Scotland - mainly hills.

These are the two I remember.

The link above has some good ones, try them and by the time you are done I believe it won;t matter anymore! ;-)

Tistollaen, Portugal with 9 provinces, good amount of wood and iron, and new world has multiple provinces with diamonds, some of these are close to Portugal.

So I was looking around for maps that would be fun for multiplayer, where there are at least two (or more) viable major nations, and for some maps that have a decent number of resources to start with for a faster start with plenty of trade war opportunities. Then, I also decided to find some maps with very few trade resources at the start, forcing players to trade with other major nations and look overseas. I prefer the higher trade maps as you get that interesting trade war dynamic in the beginning and it means even very resource poor countries are still at least potentially viable, but both styles make interesting multiplayer game options. I also included the land mass types as follows:

Map Types
Single Continent - A Single Large Continent with all Major Powers
Continent+1 - A Single Large Continent plus a single major power on its own Island or Small Continent
Continent+2 - A Single Large Continent plus two major powers on their own Islands or Small Continents
Continent+3 - A Single Large Continent plus three major powers on their own Islands
Two Continents - Two Large Continents with Major and Minor powers on both Continents
Islands - Small Landmasses where Major Powers generally start isolated on their own islands, no more than 2 major power connect on any landmass.
Varied - Doesn't Quite follow the rules of any of the above.

---Balanced Trade Maps--- (Where all basic resources are available to trade for all major powers at game start)
Number of units of resources sold at game start:
MapKey Type Wool Tmb Tin Cop Iron Horses
Power Continent+1 3 4 2 2 3 1
Drake Varied 2 11 1 1 2 1
balloon Two Continents 2 7 1 1 3 2
Fighter Varied 2 9 1 2 2 1
Tinland Two Continents 3 16 2 2 2 None - Avail to all Majors
Ivirk Two Continents 2 7 2 4 3 None - Avail to all Majors
Dollark Continent+1 4 7 1 1 2 1
Die Kinder Islands 2 5 2 1 4 2
Iridium Continent+2 2 5 1 1 3 1
Gluck Varied 2 7 2 1 2 1
junior Continent+2 4 4 1 1 2 1
Balanced Continent+3 4 8 1 1 2 2
Dag Two Continents 4 9 2 1 4 None - Avail to all Majors
Erfon Islands 5 4 2 2 4 None - Avail to all Majors
Ceanay Islands 6 4 1 2 5 1
Cornbread Continent+1 6 5 1 1 2 None - Avail to all Majors
Perm Continent+1 2 3 2 1 4 1
Classic Single Continent 3 1 1 2 2 1
Angaun Single Continent 1 9 1 2 2 2
------------------------------------Note, see the attachment for an easier read!-----------------------------------------

---Low Trade Maps--- (Where basic resources are scarce or unavailable to trade for major powers at game start)
Number of units of resources sold at game start:
MapKey Type Wool Tmb Tin Cop Iron Horses
Dermeana Islands 1 13 0 0 0 0
Swoff Single Continent 2 11 0 0 1 2
Cenerork Single Continent 4 8 0 1 0 1
Cagen Nan Varied 2 15 0 0 0 0
Ardallagaegh Continent+1 0 13 0 0 1 0
Carog Ioy Single Continent 4 6 0 0 0 0
Pellag Erystwyth Islands 3 18 0 0 0 0
Llevea Islands 3 12 0 0 0 1
Tanirmig Single Continent 4 14 0 0 0 0
ju5jqkmj Single Continent 3 14 0 0 0 1
------------------------------------Note, see the attachment for an easier read!-----------------------------------------