I started to work on this again after seeing an announcement about pre-beta testing. Here is the latest map:
- Click image to enlarge.
There are a lot of changes here, many of which address comments made previously in this thread.
1. The Motive is gone, and the center of the map is now playable.
The winning objective is now to control at least one Suspect, Location, and Weapon on the Arrest Warrant, along with a "Detective Signature". Each room on the map contains one territory with a conditional link to one location on the warrant. The entire room must be controlled in order to enable that link. When a player has control of a Suspect, Location and Weapon on the warrant, then a link is enabled from a detective (one in each interrogation room) to the "Detective Signature" on the warrant. If one of the winning conditions is removed by his opponents, then at the start of the next turn, the troop count on the "Detective Signature" territory will be reduced to 1. I would prefer this to be a Killer Neutral, but from what I have read, that would not work as part of a winning condition.
2. Eight additional hallway territories have been added, and troops may return from the Police Station to the Crime Scene.
The front door of the Police Station now assaults the Squad Car (20 Killer Neutral), and from there the player may attack the end of any hallway. This is a one-way attack.
3. Interrogation Rooms now have 3 territories, and they (and the Evidence Rooms) now have a flat bonus structure.
The detective in each Interrogation Room is now a territory.
4. The winning objective now requires control of entire rooms.
This should prevent anyone from being able to make a quick dash for the win.
I did not turn it into a conquest-style map because I don't think I could give all starting points a relatively equal chance of winning without compromising the design goals. Also, there is no room for 12 starting points.
I also did not change the 3x3 structure of the map. I don't think that odd-shaped rooms and hallways would improve the playability of the map.
I know the legend is rough right now, and some more thought probably needs to be put into the starting & killer neutrals. And I think I would prefer a conditional bombardment from a Suspect, Weapon or Location to having the warrant territories bombard each other - maybe it will become available before this map is done.
Suggestions are appreciated.