I was thinking of setting it around 860, with three or four factions of Angles, Saxons and Jutes, (probably, Northumberland, Wessex and Mercia, possible a Jutish Kent+Isle of Wight) with someone playing the Picts, someone playing the Irish and someone the Welsh (and Cornish?) Britons.
Here are some maps round about this period:
As long as there's some iron there, I'd love to start as Ireland, with all those plains. Though, yeah, no forests might be upsetting...
Also, I thought Wales had more of a valley in it with plains and such...it just seems like London is gonna be pretty powerful to start off with due to food advantage.
The factions will be kind of balanced with different starting territory sizes. Wales is predominantly hilly, and as reflected in the game, food can still be grown amidst these hills. I'll have a look at the resources each player is getting to start with, and may adjust the terrain slightly. Ireland is large, filled with plains and uncontested in the beginning, but unlike most of the other places, it's completely ununified (i.e. you'd have to take empty territory in the beginnning rather than starting with a complete country) and there's little in the way of forest (though I might add a few more tiles). Each territory will get one iron and one horse source.
If you have based it off of the real world version of Britain, dibs on Wales. If you've taken some liberties, still dibs on Wales. Things are clearing up here rather quickly (in that my Grandmother had gone up there as a precaution for having a mild difficulty breathing. They have it cleared up, but are keeping her just a couple days for observation.).
Cool, Wales can be yours. I've tried to be as faithful as possible to real world geography, and in doing so has given me an appreciation of how the Britons and Picts survived so long in the edges of the country so long after the Anglo-Saxon invasion, aided by the remoteness and hilliness of the land they'd been forced out to. I'm glad your Grandmother's feeling better!