Playability: 3. Starting with TC and 3 villies on a large island separated from the other islands by water (!) with no shallows paths, a setup I always like. We have a nice home island with lots of wood, some stone and just enough gold to get to Iron Age. In this scen the CP actually built transports and landed some high end troops on my island, causing considerable damage before I could stop them. Later in the game as soon as I conquered any of the other islands, I would spare their port and start a trading route to earn more gold.
Balance: 2.5. I took some early attacks from P2 but as I built up I created lots of triremes because I had lots of wood, and soon blockaded his main port so that his ships were sunk as soon as he launched them. After that I was not in danger, just slowly blasting away at enemy fortifications and later landing on enemy soil.
Creativity: 3. The map is either heavily worked over, or created from scratch. The victory conditions were creative but not implemented. However the topology of the map showed a lot a thought and work.
Map: 3.5. The enemy fortress islands showed very sophisticated topological thinking, they had little passages barely accessible and other routes blocked off in just the right way to make it as hard as possible for me to gain control by simple naval blockade or by a landing in anything less than very superior force.
Instructions etc. : 1.5. In German and English but the designer should have had a native English speaker review the instructions. Win and loss statements missing, victory conditions incorrect, I won by simple annihilation.
Comments: Possible download for practice taking out the Brown player in the West, nicely put together fortress island.