So I just completed Day 1.
I just can’t find a big enough flat space for this game in my house, I wanted to make the islands 6L at least apart but it wound up being 4.
“Tunis” “Tripoli” and “Algiers” were all placed to roughly resemble their places on the Barbary Coast, with Algiers and Tunis closer to the wild islands (and Malta) than Tripoli. Wild islands were placed for balance, not realism. One was close to Algiers, one close to Malta, and two neutral. A fog bank lies between the neutral islands and Malta, a reef bank between the neutral islands and the Barbary Coast, and a Sargasso Sea off to the east.
Too late to change it but I gave each Barbary city 10 food to start, and Malta 30. This worked to create a sense of the Barbary Coast being on the backfoot, but Malta’s got a big advantage in ship power already since they didn’t need to worry about food for several turns.
The Corsair ship Algiers was captured and I actually forgot to give Malta their 5 gold. Whoops. Gonna do a longer write up over on the Battle Reports section now.