If this game didn't involve blocks, I'd probably order it just for the map. What I like so much about it is the rare character found in, say, Silent War: the map is a machine. It's not depicting terrain, or trying to represent the real world. It's a device for orchestration of and state tracking for a process. That's a different kind of beauty.
I kind of like it. While maybe not Mark's very best, not every map can be an artist's "best work". And I for one don't need another nautical chart style map on sepia parchment- those kinds of maps are nice, and I particularly love the map Mark did for the new Blackbeard, but several games have used such maps recently. The 1805 map by comparison has a completely orginal look- deep, dark. "Deep Purple."
