It's a good starter board. Has a couple of non-contiguous borders and the castle bonuses are a good way to get things moving. Past that, nothing special.
Nice board with nice mixture of gameplay. Basic layout and movement and Risk gameplay, although the single Castle continents provide the ability to quickly jump into a battle. Another great board for beginners!
This is still one of my favorite maps to play. It would be tempting to do stuff like give the castles defense modifiers but the game just plays really well without them. I love how the continents are used more as an End Game grab rather than a way to keep you in the game.
It keeps true to the concept it was based off of and plays great as a basic map. I'm a big fan and you should be too!