pamoa wrote:For this I'll make a poll
either+1 first set of three
+3 each following setBavaria (Electors)
Preussen (Prussians)
Spanische Niederlande (Spaniards)
Österreich (Austrians)
Münster (Bishops)
starts neutral
I voted for neither... I think that coding the cannons as starts is a more interesting option, as doing so wouldn't interrupt any of the current features of this map (which are quite good).
Option 1: I think you had it right with the +2 bonuses for the cannon sets. +2 seems appropriate for the map and for the size of the bonuses, and it's easy to explain in the legend and easy to understand as a player.
Option 2: Right now I believe you have 42 territories; coding five cannons neutral means you are down to 37, which is an awkward start. 37 means a four or six player game will have 6 neutrals to start, a five or seven player game will have 5, and an eight player game will start with 10 neutrals across the board. And you wouldn't even need to code all three cannons in each set - you could code just two in each set and the third would be assigned randomly, maintaining the possibility of a player getting two cannons in one set.