I've created a template based on africa but the unequal weighting of the bonuses has been sorted. some of them were six territories and either 3 4 or 5 armies per turn etc.. wasn't equal. now it is.

http://warlight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?TemplateID=90823

enjoy...

basically I've changed it to be 1 army per turn per territory in the bonus. Because you now have the potential to get more armies per turn you might want to play with the card settings and the neutral settings, but at least it's fair now, it was rather odd before.

Hope you like it. Feedback would be good.

Jingle

Personally, in most cases, i dislike 1 territ bonuses, and think that 1army/turn per territ is very un-equal.. it makes the 6 territ bonus a late-game bonus.. if you get stuck with 4 of those, then you've likely lost, because the people with 3 territ bonuses will expand faster.

Personally, I like how the E.Asia map underscores 1 territ bonuses, by giving the others a higher ratio... in theory, the more territs in a bonus, the higher the armies/turn to territ ratio should be, to make-up for the time taken to capture said bonus.

I'm also preferably to a map having each bonus with armies/turn = Territs-X, X being dependent on the average size of the territs to make it balance out properly, it weakens the smaller bonuses, making them not necessarily the \*best* starting spots.

my 2 cents on bonus management, \*not taking into account chokepoints and location of course*

I just wanted to say that I spent several months working on and testing this map. I didn't want to publish it until I felt the bonuses were well balanced.

I consulted a lot of people, made many test games. I even made a spreadsheet that not only took into consideration the number of territories a bonus held, but also the number of territories that touch that bonus as well as the number of bonuses it bordered. All of these factors helped in deciding the bonus amounts.

I also consulted Troll, who made the Europe map, and he helped me finalize the numbers according to all these variables.

I know I`m biased, but I don`t feel the bonuses are unequal if you consider all these factors. I put a lot of work into the map...I drew every territory by hand tracing over maps of each country...with a touch pad (!)...not even a mouse.

I`m happy that people like the map. I don`t mind if you want to go changing the bonuses around for yourself or make a template for friends. Saying it`s now "fixed"? that's the part I have a problem with. :)

....and yes, I plan on fixing the few weird connections in the next few days.

There is more to it than merely the number of territories within each bonus:
How many border territories are there to defend?
How many adjacent territories/bonuses to defend against?
How many turns does it take minimum/maximum to occupy the whole bonus?
Is it a 'transit' area in the center of the map, or some less important part?
And finally: recognizing the more rewarding bonuses is part of the game ...

Sue, firstly apologies for the offence, fixed obviously wasn't the best choice of word :$

I do appreciate the map and the work that must have gone into making it, it's great, the only thing I noticed was that some of the bonuses with 6 territories give wildly different armies, for example Egypt only giving 3 and one on the east coast that's got the same number of territories giving 5 and others give 4. I just didn't understand it as I thought it would make it pointless trying to go for Egpyt when you get better "value" from somewhere else (the armies per turn per territory in a bonus). Therefore it just removes the area for the game as we'd all play for the better bonuses. I agree that 1 army per territory isn't perfect especially with neutrals set to 2. I just couldn't think of a different way of doing it. I guess if I understood why some give different armies to others I'd view it differently :)

Frazer

I think the Egypt cut was a bit much.. I think it would work better with a 4 bonus, and bonuses such as S.Af would do with a higher cut..

Madagascar is 3 bonus for 6 territs, which makes sense considering how easy it is to hold, and many in the center are 5/6 or 11/12 etc. which makes them more valuable and thus more fought over. but the mere fact of them *being in the middle* makes them harder bonuses to capture and hold.. most maps without a wrap-around, if you get caught in the middle with equal bonuses, you will lose, because you have to fight people with equal income on multiple sides.. sue tried to counter this by making more centralized bonuses stronger then the ones on the outside, and thus easier to defend.. Imho some of the bonuses on the west side could use a slight decrease, to compare it to egypts increase for the same relative defense, but overall it's not too badly balanced, imho.