I have come up with a new idea and I think it is totally fantastic! Let me explain:
The setting of the map is a. a frontal view of a kitchen or b. a frontal view of a fridge and some cupboards and a top-down view of the rest of the kitchen, like the... erm.. how do you call those... the working space and the fire and the dish washer etc. The fridge and the cupboards are opened (one cupboard could be used to nail the instructions/recipes on) and cooking ingredients are shown inside. Think of tomatoes, potatoes, paprikas, milk, cheese, meat, vegetables, fruits, fish, salads, beer, whiskey, etc., in short: stuff you find in a fridge or a cupboard. These things are the terits. Other countries are the things you use to make food out of them: the fire, a knife and cutting plate, the microwave, the oven, spoons, forks, etc. Now your objective is to combine neccesary ingredients and tools to make a meal. There are several recipes: several appetizers, several main dishes and several desserts. Each recipe both requires some ingredients and some tools. Let me give you an example: "Tomato soup" requires a.o. tomatoes, cream, water, some vegetables, meat balls and the fire (eventually bowls and other things used in tomato soups). Being able to 'make' something gives you a bonus. Of course, there are easier and harder recipes and this will influence the bonus. Your final objective to win the game is to be able to prepare a complete meal: have everything for at least one appetizer, at least one main dish, at least one dessert, and something to drink. To make this a little bit harder you won't be done with only the easiest recipes (like: the sum of your bonuses should be above +x).
As a final thing there are a few cook's hats on the bottom of the map which resemble the start positions. These hats are the cooks, battling with each other in their attempts to make a meal for their guests. Your cook can never be attacked (therefore never be lost) and has some sort of autodeploy to keep the armies coming in the early few rounds of the game. Every cook can attack the same things, like the ingredients in the fridge that are the most to the left on each row, same for ingredients in the cupboards, and a few cooking tools. Ingredients could work like Circus Maximus attacking: only to the right and down. Tools could have attack routes/borders/other ways of deciding what attacks what. Maybe a way to have attacks from fridge to cupboards to tools and vice versa, but it won't be neccesary.
Of course, holding all beer gives you a huge bonus and so will holding all the ingredients in the fridge and go so on.
I'm just afraid this will need a 2000x3000 px map, to contain all ingredients, instructions, recipes, etc.
