- Click image to enlarge.
2 territories added - Cobb's Creek and Boathouse Row.
Changed the airport to Hog's Island
Northern Liberties up to 5 bonus
SW Philly still 2, could be a debatable 3 bonus
Bridges start as neutral 3's territories split between players at 42.
47 total territories - 4 starting neutrals, 1 killer neutral
Bridge-toll explanation rewritten to be clearer
Hopefully that's all the concerns for gameplay, but I know how this works, I know I'm not done till the stamp comes down!
The starting neutrals of the bridges gives early game protection for bonuses, but the bridges still must be guarded at some point to hold bonuses, and also to prevent backdoor runs from players attempting kills.
The underdog bonus will certainly add new strategic thoughts; especially in team games, but those thoughts shouldn't override the necessity to win the game and unnecessarily cause build game scenarios. Max value of the underdog bonus currently gives a player with 1 remaining territory 7 armies to work with.(3 standard + 4 bonus) Teams may try to use this to their advantage to gain extra armies, but in the process weaken their own teammate. I can see an issue that opposing teams may not as aggressively go after 1 player for fear of the underdog bonus coming into play. Instead, I see teams looking to build bonuses, the bridge bonus especially since they start neutral, as well to gain control of bridges to have reign over the map to make kills when ready. The quads game might be the most concerning since all players will start with 5 territories, just 2 territories from the start of the underdog bonus at 3 territories. But that bonus is just 1 army, and may not be worth the early weakening of players on the same team, and still benefits the opposite team in my opinion. Should make for an interesting Beta test.
Don't screw it up.... bad dice, misdeploys, or misadvances will likely cost you a game you should have won even more so than normal with the unique underdog bonus!