lackattack wrote:The question then is, how will this be implemented and how will cartographers maintain it...
I don't think cartographers need to maintain it. It would be lots of extra work.
It can simply be determined based on the XML if a map will allow you to drop on 2 or more territories on certain settings.
First of all - can we allow all team games or will some maps not allow you to drop any armies even in team games?
You can roughly divide all territories of a map in 3 categories:
- normal
- starts neutral
- coded as starting point
Of these, only the normal territories allow troops for manual deployment. When a territory is coded as starting point, it always starts with the troops it is coded with. But if you have 1 normal territory and 1 starting point territory, the 2 troops from the normal territory go to manual deployment, so you get to choose if you put them on the normal territory or the starting point territory. On the other hand if both are starting point territories, then you don't get to choose, because they won't give any troops for manual dep.
So, to allow for manual deployment, for singles games a map must have for each player at least 2 territories that do not start neutral, of which at least 1 territory must not be coded as a starting position.
In the case of team games, the 2 territories minimum doesn't apply, but each player must still start with at least 1 territory that is not coded as starting position.
Even in team games, if each player only has 1 territory that is coded as a starting position, then manual doesn't work (because there are no troops to distribute).
I think a code that checks the XML for these definitions shouldn't be too hard to code.