I'm probably extremly bad at this but I will try:
Small Earth Board map
MME
Rise of Rome (or the map that's used for the template, don't know the name)
Duel
Scrabble
Siege of Feldmere
Final Earth
Europe Huge
United States
Truel
The map for the Guimora Template from CW.

How does this work? The first who gets it right (or the one who gets the most answers right) wins?

Edited 10/1/2022 17:26:43

My answer
Active games is what matters here.
* Ladders have a 3 day boot
* The Warzone ladders have a lot more players than MTL
* QM has a 1 day boot
* Clan Wars is real-time, so not relevant
* Diplos en roleplay games take ages, sometimes literally years
* Lotteries usually finish fast, Duel finishes almost immediately usually as mentioned by someone else above
* Fizzer did mention a while ago that a majority of games is created through QM

So with all that taken into account, my list:
1. Small Earth Board Map - QM, 3 of the first 4 templates
2. Modified Medium Earth - 1v1 ladder + QM + auto game
3. Battle Islands V - active seasonal ladder (can't believe nobody mentioned it yet)
4. Imperium Romanum - QM, but also very popular template outside QM
5. Rise of Rome - QM, but also a very popular classic outside QM
6. Final Earth - 2v2 ladder + QM, plus teamgames take longer
7. Siege - QM with LD template. LD is really slow and games take forever to finish
8. A Song of Westeros and the Free Cities - the most popular Westeros map and likely quite some active diplos on it
9. Europe - 3v3 ladder, but that hasn't many teams/players compared to other ladders. Games take forever though.
10. Scrabble - for some reason very popular, but I think games are more often RT than MD (and we are talking about "active games" at a certain point in time, which means >90% of games will be MD.
11. United States Big [3.1k] - I could have picked any out of this one, Europe Huge, Big World, Issander's Africa or Biomes. I'm choosing United States Big because its games tend to last very long and quite a lot of people still play it.


What about historical data?
I'm also curious about the historical data like Onoma answered above. Interestingly, I disagree with his answer for good reason.
So for those interested, here is my best guess for the all-time rankings, taking into account also maps that were popular in the olden days. The number of players and games did not increase that much compared to the past and the number of maps was much more limited in the past as well, so I think the maps with the most total games in history will be much different from what it is now.
Additionally, real-time will have a bigger impact on the count than it has in the "active games" list.

The top 10 - a clear order
1. Modified Medium Earth (1660 votes) - For many years now used for the 1v1 ladder and default strategic 1v1 template, and a bunch of QM templates. Also a staple of Clan League and default for auto games.
2. Earth (4656 votes) - The original Earth map of Grundie was the go-to map (probably half of the games) for several years in the early days. It's hard to see that massive lead being overtaken when the current landscape is more splintered and dominated by more recent maps. Only the blanket presence of MME should have achieved this (relatively easily).
3. Rise of Rome (4233 votes) - Extremely popular map when it launched and for many years after, up to this date. Its 4233 votes should say enough. One of the few maps (the only?) that is popular among all types of players.
4. Small Earth (3157 votes) - the original Small Earth, from Grundie. Existed many more years than the new small earth, as seen by the number of votes that the map received. However, did not have as much of a presence as the new small earth map, so their numbers may by now be close with the newer small earth taking it over soon if it hasn't already.
5. Small Earth Board Map (1635 votes) - the new and more well-known small earth map. Very often used for a few years, while the maps above it had usually almost or more than double as many years to accumulate games.
6. Final Earth (1087 votes) - A surprisingly limited number of votes, possibly because it only appears late in single-player? It is the 2v2 ladder map for a while and truly the map for the default 2v2 template all over the site.
7. Imperium Romanum (3528 votes) - Its overall popularity can be seen from the sheer number of votes it received. It is and was very often used for both strategic and not that strategic games for years.
8. Europe (3883 votes) - The original Europe map from Troll was used for a lot of purposes for many years and then popularised as the go-to 3v3 map. Of course, people don't play many 3v3s at the same time. Compared to the other maps, the time spent at this map is much larger than the number of games on it.
9. Duel (1024 votes) - For obvious reasons, people have been doing silly lottery duels and chicken games on it for years.
10. Medium Earth (2749 votes) - used for both the old 1v1 and 2v2 ladder, so that must count for quite some games. However, relatively quickly replaced by respectively Final Earth and MME, while before the ladder, the Earth map was the standard, so it shouldn't rank too high.

The next tier - order not so clear anymore
11. Four Castles (838 votes) - quite popular for 4 player FFA for a while, even had a seasonal ladder on it. Now also in the QM list, so it keeps on accumulating games
12. Poland Big (657 votes) - very popular among people from a certain country. This country used to have the second largest player base for a few years. And it's been a seasonal
13. United States Big [3.1k] (1249 votes) - the go to big map for a long time
14. United States (1883 votes) - by Troll. Did you guys even know it existed? It was extremely popular for years, although I haven't seen it used for several years now
15. Eastern Asia (1411 votes) - used a lot in the old strat community
16. Fall of Jerusalem - The Crusades (1263) - very popular for a few years
17. Scrabble (1113 votes) - I really don't know why, but people do seem to play this map a lot...
18. Double Earth (944 votes) - This map was surprisingly popular in the olden days, likely for lack of better alternative (sorry Fizzer)
19. Bracketology (1028 votes) - another old map that you'd be surprised how many games were on in the olden days
20. Africa (958 votes) - The original Africa map, from sue, very popular in the olden days, one of the oldest maps I believe
21. Huruey's Castle (1490 votes) - briefly very popular and extremely well known (although I suspect it got most of its votes through singleplayer)
22. The Siege of Feldmere (822 votes) - popular in multiple circles
23. Ursa:Luna (799 votes) - everyone seems to know about it, but I can't recall ever seeing an actual game on it
24. Battle for Middle Earth (869 votes) - The original Middle Earth map was quite popular in the olden days
25. The Big World Map (1284 votes) - most popular world roleplay/diplo map?
26. Europe Big (1005 votes) - most popular Europe roleplay/diplo map?
27. Modern Europe (999 votes) - similarly often used for roleplay/diplo, I assume
28. World Big (848 votes) - yet another roleplay/diplo map, taking games from each other
29. Issander's Huge World (789 votes) - see previous ones...
30. A Song of Westeros and the Free Cities (826 votes) - similar to the world and Europe maps, there are many Westeros maps as well, so the roleplaying/diplo games are likely spread out
31. The Lands of Ice and Fire (753 votes) - another popular Westeros map
32. Battle Islands V (746 votes) - The most popular among the Battle Islands maps, a staple in the strat community, and next to Elitist Africa (two different versions) and MME, the only map to be a seasonal twice as far as I know.
33. Europe AD 1600 (1651 votes) - Judging from the sheer number of votes, very popular in the years after its launch (2012), but both in concepts and aesthetics later surpassed by Rise of Rome and others.

And then some - top 100 I guess, but not sure if they come close to top 20
Republic of Macedonia - popular in the strat community (no-split macedonia), but also surprisingly large number of votes for the map (>800)
France - Used for French Brawl, but that's about it
Issander's New Strategic System: Africa + Elitist Africa 3.0 - There have been 3 versions I believe, splitting the play in between them (Issander's version original and still QM, I think, EA 3.0 MTL+CL). Despite the popularity in the strat community, too recent and too niche to be near top 10 all time.
Biomes of America - niche as well, and too recent to be anywhere near the top 10 maps I think, but may be in 10 years
Ancient Greece - I'm on the fence about this one, and considered ranking it. Ultimately I decided against it because it has competition from several other similar Greece maps, limiting it to the single template for which it's used. I won't be surprised if it would turn out to be a top 20 map on the other hand.
Volcano Island - Typical strat template, but I don't feel it sees any use outside of that, also judging from the low number of votes that the map received (~250) compared to all other maps mentioned by name.
New York - Big - An old map that got quite some run in the olden days, but unlike others (Europe, Africa, US) did not see any recent use
Quad Earth - Another old map used for FFA in the olden days.
Cash Money Lottery - Popular 40 player lottery template. I may be underestimating the number of lotteries, but I don't think this one would make it into the top.

Seasonal maps
A few maps have been used for the seasonal ladder, usually also used in MTL and CL. If I didn't mention them here, I believe they are not played enough to make it near the top 10, although the amount of seasonal games by itself should be enough to catapult them firmly into the top 100.

EDIT within 2 minutes to fix a missing "/b" which made all the text bold. If that disqualifies me, so be it. :-)

Edited 10/1/2022 20:45:26

1. Small Earth Board Map
2. Modified Medium Earth
3. Imperium Romanum
4. Duel
5. Rise of Rome
6. Small earth
7. Earth
8. Medium Earth
9. Europe
10. Scrabble
11. Final Earth

1. Modified Medium Earth
2. Small Earth Board Map
3. Imperium Romanum
4. Europe
5. Rise of Rome
6. Final Earth
7. Battle Islands V
8. Duel
9. Siege
10. Northern Europe and Greenland
11. United States Big [3.1k]

Alright, I'll have a try at this list.

1 Small Earth Board Map (blue oceans)
2 Modified Medium Earth
3 Rise of Rome
4 Imperium Romanum
5 Small Earth (original)
6 Europe
7 Scrabble
8 Siege
9 Battle Islands V
10 Final Earth
11 United States Big [3.1 k]

I excluded Duel because those are usually fast games and shouldn't be active for long.
Good luck to all entries!

1) Small Earth Board Map
2) Modified Medium Earth
3) Final Earth
4) Rise of Rome
5) Imperium Romanum
6) Duel
7) Europe
8) Siege
9) Four Castles
10) Scrabble
11) France

I couldnt be bothered to check a bunch of ongoing games, so this is what my gut feeling says:

1. Small Earth
2. Moddified Medium Earth
3. Rise of Rome
4. Imperium Romanum
5. Europe
6. Final Earth
7. A Song of Westeros and the Free Cities
8. 1v1 duel/lotto map
9. Scrabble
10. Europe Huge
11. France

QM players:
Are at least in N+1 games -> nothing happens
Are at most in N games -> join another game

diplo players:
Are at least in M+1 games -> nothing happens
Are at most in M games -> join another game


Game length shouldn't matter unless it is an unusually long/ short game for their category (QM template or diplo template)

Edited 10/2/2022 22:00:45

I agree with you, καλλιστηι , up to a certain point. Of course, many people will play a mix of QM, ladders and diplo, but even among those, I would argue that most players will limit themselves to a certain amount of diplos (and by design a certain amount of QM and ladder games) rather than a certain maximum of games.

Where I disagree, is how this information is useful linked to the information that we do have.

Namely, we don't know which percentage of active games is QM vs. ladder vs. diplo. We do know that among created games it's obviously QM > ladder > diplo, although it's unclear how large the difference is.

Now, if a QM game takes a week and a diplo takes 3 months (13 weeks), then you need to create 13 QM games for each diplo to get an equal amount of active games for the two categories.

That's also why in my second list (all-time created), there is no diplo map in the top 20, while in my first list, I included 1 and considered 2 more.*

*United States Big is mostly not used as diplo map despite its size

1. Small Earth Board Map
2. Modified Medium Earth
3. Rise of Rome
4. Imperium Romanum
5. Scrabble
6. 1vs1 Duel (ninja and pirate)
7. Europe
8. Siege
9. France
10. Europe Huge
11. USA big

lol math wolf

1. Small Earth Board Map
2. Modified Medium Earth
3. Imperium Romanum
4. Rise of Rome
5. Europe
6. Final Earth
7. Battle Islands V
8. Scrabble
9. Siege
10. Northern Europe and Greenland
11. Limalia's Gargantuan Westeros

And what was it?

I am so ready for the mind-blowing update to this thread

GIVE US THE NUMBERS!
pretty please?

I hate cliffhangers...

Might we will also get a neat POV video of someone watching the numbers and then flipping hey keyboard in rage :)

Voting is over! Congrats to everyone who voted, you're all winners in my eyes. Some are just more of a winner than others.

A few of you guessed 8 out of the 11 correctly, but only two of you did better than that, with FiveSmith and Umi guessing 9 out of the 11!

CORRECT ANSWER:
1. Small Earth Board Map
2. Modified Medium Earth
3. Imperium Romanum
4. Duel
5. Europe
6. Rise of Rome
7. Final Earth
8. Battle Islands V
9. Europe Huge
10. Small Earth
11. Siege

FiveSmith and Umi both got 9, and I just now realize I don't have a fair way to determine whose list is "more in the correct order", so I'll just award you each the full coin prize. Congrats!

Congrats, FiveSmith and Umi!!!!!

way
to
go
5S + Umi!!