I'm still liking the overall look a lot, and the new organization for space in the legend will only help.
Your bonus listing is MUCH easier to read, and the gameplay elements are clearer...
However, as a fair warning I think that some of the bombardments will still need to be simplified a bit. Here's a rundown on each and the possible problems/solutions:
1)
"May bomb any special territ except defenses."My Impression: It's an interesting idea, and it looks like this map's uniqueness will lie with its theme and the variety of different bombardments. It reminds me of some kind of grand artillery (missiles/rockets included) battle, which is perfect for a futuristic war. I wish the different bombardments could have names that would evoke a reason *why* each does what it does. For instance, why can this bombard only attack specials? Does it track only certain energy signatures, perhaps, and home in on them? Or maybe this bombard causes very severe but relatively small-scale destruction- the type that could utterly destroy a facility but has no chance of significantly damaging a whole region? Could this type of bombard be called "Drones" or "Cyborg Death Squad" or "Tac Nuke" for instance?
Problems: Gameplay-wise, it is very clear in concept, but probably will not be so clear in execution, if that makes sense... I know where you're going with it, but the details will be hard to make explicit to anyone playing this map cold. How will a player know what territ is 'normal', which is 'special', and which is a 'defense'?
Possible Solution: This is probably soluble by simply adding these definitions to the legend. You've got a little free space, but not much.
2)
"May bomb any territ within 4 territs distance."My Take: This bombardment is straightforward, the normal short-range artillery. It's good to have something like this, if only to serve as a means of comparison with the other two non-standard bombards. As for a name, you can use a less explicit one as long as you're going for a standard artillery piece idea; maybe 'Long Tom' or 'Thud Gun'?
Problems: As someone else mentioned, 4 is probably higher than some players can comfortably count, and it certainly makes gameplay analysis a headache. Even a range of 2 territs can be a bit of a pain. What's more, you'll have to be careful to take impassibles into account for this type of bombardment- can a bombardment leap over walls for instance?
Possible Solution: Again, illustrative graphics may save the day on this one... if you can show a radius of bombardment for each of these guys, it would help tremendously. In any case, the goal should be to make the bombardment immediately explicit at a glance.
3)
"Bombs any territ. minimum of 7 territs range (no max)."My Take: My initial reaction to this bombard is, 'Wow this could ruin a fog of war game." If you can plaster the entire map with two of these suckers, it also means you'll be able to see the entire map. There are ways to mitigate this effect, but overall I like this bombard the least. Still, it is unique and for that reason alone it's worth consideration. Maybe lower the min. range and give it a max range? I've no idea what to call this bombard.
Problems: Similar to the previous bombard, this bombardment requires players to count higher than 2. A lot higher, in fact. Also it's really powerful, although this can be balanced by making them hard to get, high neutral, etc.
Solution: I'm working on a draft of the battle of Gettysburg that I might post soon, and anyway in it I have a rule where the cannons can bombard either their own bonus area, or bombard their own bonus area plus any adjacent bonus area. This give the cannons different ranges without requiring the players to count, plus the colored regions make it immediately obvious what can be bombarded and what cannot. In this case, it might work to make this bombard say, "Can bombard any territ in adjacent bonus areas, but not in its own bonus area." (or something like that)
Anyway, as I said earlier these problems can probably wait for the Gameplay Workshop as your concept of a bombardment map seems clear enough. Just keep the updates coming, Bob
