Mare Nostrum

The Geography

Mare Nostrum is the current upstream version of the Mediterranean basin map. It is less a sea than a civilizational machine: Europe to the north, Africa to the south, Asia to the east, and the Atlantic connection through the Strait of Gibraltar. The board is enormous at 2848x1448, with 64% land and 36% water.

Its subregions each have their own personality: the western basin between Iberia, North Africa, and Italy; the central basin around Sicily and Tunisia; and the eastern basin of Greece, Anatolia, the Levant, and Egypt. Peninsulas, islands, and chokepoints are everywhere.

The History

c. 800-500 BCE - Phoenicians and Greeks Spread Across the Sea

Phoenician merchants and Greek colonists stitched the Mediterranean into a network of ports, colonies, and exchange zones.

2nd Century BCE - Rome’s Mare Nostrum

After defeating Carthage and dominating the Hellenistic world, Rome turned the Mediterranean into Mare Nostrum, “our sea.” Control of the basin let the empire move armies, taxes, grain, and ideas with extraordinary efficiency.

1453-1571 - Ottoman and Habsburg Contest

The fall of Constantinople and the rise of Ottoman naval power transformed the eastern Mediterranean, while Habsburg Spain and Venice fought to contain it.

1940-1943 - World War II in the Mediterranean

North Africa, Malta, Crete, Sicily, and convoy routes turned the sea into one of the key theaters of the Second World War.

The Battlefield

Terrain Overview

Mare Nostrum is a macro-strategy map with 38 nations. The sea unites the board, but the surrounding landmasses are large enough for players to build continental power bases before clashing across water.

Best Spawns

• Central Italy and Sicily - a powerful pivot between western and eastern basins.
• Aegean and Anatolia - dense with islands, crossings, and tactical naval options.
• Levant or Nile approaches - strong crossroads with multiple expansion vectors.

Avoid

• Extreme western or eastern corners - safer initially, but slow to affect the whole basin.
• Small islands without mainland leverage - useful bases, weak primary economies.

Strategic Insights

Mare Nostrum rewards layered strategy. Short-term players fight for islands; stronger players fight for chokepoints; the best players link a secure continental base to a fleet that can intervene anywhere from Gibraltar to the Levant.

Fun Facts

• Mare Nostrum means “our sea” in Latin.
• The active upstream slug is now marenostrum; the older atlas mediterranean slug is kept as a legacy map.
• It has one of the highest nation counts among regional OpenFront maps.