Tisha wrote:I really dislike neutrals on a map, but understand that the games on the map can be decided before you even get a first turn..
My game on this map was not so bad. It seems that the +2 bonus regions are so well connected to the surrounding areas that keeping them can be very difficult. Unfortunately this somewhat makes the whole map built around constantly breaking the small bonus regions which isn't the gameplay I expected/wanted. But even placing a neutral in each place wouldn't solve this 'problem' it would just delay it by a turn or so.
Starting positions work in such a way that if you did 9 single territory start positions the rest of the territories would be randomly distributed but this would lead to neutrals in 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 person games. It would guarantee nobody would start with a whole region 4 players and up and prevents the neutrals that do appear from always being in the same place.
The two problems with this.
1) Tisha doesn't want to do any of this. Which I completely understand. It almost seems unfair because I remember other maps where this could happen that we didn't stop. Balkan Peninsula comes to mind and the lucky drops on that map are even more defensible. Doodle Earth did enter a period of development hell over it but eventually released with the possibility still in play.
2) The +2 bonuses make up 9 of the total territories so this wouldn't solve for the occurrence in 2 and 3 player games. Although one could argue that those are never fair on most maps anyway, so meh.
