Aerial Attack wrote:Besides Mississippi and Louisiana already connect even w/o the bridge (brown section just above CSS Manassas and to the right of the Mississippi river). Right now, the bridge is just something pretty - if it were to connect Mississippi to Arkansas instead ...
The bridge from Miss - Louis. was placed there so that it was crystal clear that the two can attack each other (per suggestion by someone earlier in the thread).
To put an attack from Ark - Miss would almost remove any reason for even having the river extend that far, but, to keep the topography realistic, the River needs to remain.
The gameplay as it it drawn now should be good though. It gives ample crossings without connecting too many states across rivers.
To me, one of the strong-suits of this board is that it's not one in which players will be able to develop a gameplan at the beginning and just stick to it... With 13 ways of getting bonuses, a unique grouping of "continents" (including bonuses for both fleets), combined with somewhat restricted attacks across the rivers, it should provide the kind of dynamic that keeps players on their toes and having to continuously re-evaluate their tactics.
in short, I don't think this will be the kind of map where anyone will take complete charge from the very start.