Ok Cairns, let me throw some crit your way. I will spare you the thesaurus and snarky attitude
btw, I don't use thesauruses.
Now I know you have your own style and some of your maps are very complex. Waterloo is hailed as a masterpiece of strategy and complexity. I gave it few go's, not my thing, but I can see the appeal. Almost 200 active games going on that one. Some of your other maps seemed to lack any real raison d'être. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but there should always be the goal of making the best map possible, not every map possible. Being the most prolific map maker on this site Cairns, there is bound to be hits and misses. It should stand to reason though, that with that much experience, you should know what works and what doesn't. Not that active games is the only indication of what works, but it's a factor, as are other qualitations such as fun, enjoyment, replay, etc.
So, here we are with the Battle of Trafalgar. The subject matter is weak. Its a battle no one has heard of in a war no one can name. Further that, for those who know of the battle and may have a historical interest in playing, the battle itself was a proverbial blowout. 22 to 0 if you taking a tally of ships. Is that fun? To get a drop with mostly French, the big losers. Of course you can even the playing field with bonuses and connections and handicaps, but after all that is done, you have evened out what SHOULD be lopsided. It really doesn't make sense. Like if you made a map of the US Army vs New Zealand, and to make it even you had to give NZ all kinds of bonuses and such. So I think the subject is a poor choice.
The graphics, while certainly well done, suffer from some serious type blunders. You have all this text over a patterned or image background. Like the bonus legend, and that red text over the flags in the title area. Basically both of these are competing for the eye and since there is no stroke or highlight around the text, visibility and legibility suffer. It's an easy fix though. Throw a glow in there, or a stroke at 50%, or lighten the BG. Secondly, the map looks like a mess, a giant knot. Or one of those things in Highlights magazine where you have to following the curled and tangled line to help a bear get some honey. At some point, this map loses it's naval combat vibe and takes on one of confusion and disorganization. The one ways, two ways, bombardments and everything else that is explained in the legend is a mistake. While it may hold historical accuracy that Prince and Achille boarded each other or that Scipion bombarded Neptuno and not vice versa, all of this really doesn't matter to someone who isn't intimate with the subject matter. All you have done is create a series of rules that must be followed for no other reason than they exist. That is not fun.
I think the bottom line is, that you have adapted the game to the subject, when you should have adapted the subject to the game. I think there is a good demand for some raucous naval combat. But thats not what this is. This is not naval combat. Nothing about the gameplay or rules is really forcing a naval combat mindset. You could take out the boats, put it spaceships, or tanks, and have the same thing. Take supermax for example, its a prison subject adapted to the game, there are no specifics to one particular prison or rules about where a particular actor is 'supposed' to go. It is open ended with a few rules that are specific to any prison. This map here is a closed loop. Swiftsure can never attack Pluton even though they may have them dead in their sights. This map will never play out as it is historically suppose to, and why should it? Who wants to get a flawless ass whooping. Another example is Battle for Iraq, like this map, it is about a particular situation and location. But it's open ended; players can choose their own destiny, the rules are just their to nudge the gameplay, not force it. The shia hate the suni, but there is no attack route only between them, they can do what they like.
There is probably more I could say, but I am a bit tired. You have great skills cairns and relentless ambition. It's just unfortunate that there hasn't been notable progression in your ability to turn out a truly successful map.