gim's been taking better notes than I have, but here's what I see as being a bit off...
It seems to indeed be the case that whoever jumps out to grab the paratrooper bonuses first has an overwhelming advantage. This doesn't mean that whoever goes first wins, but if the first player is paying any attention to the features and bonuses on the map he's in pretty good shape, especially in 2/3 player games. You grab those guns and the land below becomes the Killing Fields.
Here are some possible fixes/suggestions that address the Killing Fields problem and other gameplay quirks/concerns.
Please note that I am not saying we should implement all of them, but I think each is worthy of discussion.1. Lower the paratrooper bonus. In a two player game the first player is looking at a bonus of 8 in the first round and 24 in just the second round of the game, which is more than enough to deny the second player of a bonus. This should be less of a problem in larger games, but even in four player games you get a +12 in your second round and can get a leg up on everybody else. Dropping the bonus to +1 for each - the paratroopers and the spaces that follow - would limit the first bonus to +4, making it harder to grab all of the following bonuses, and the +12 in the second round probably wouldn't be quite enough to eliminate all of the opponents bonuses. This is a start, but might not go as far as we'd like it to.
2. Give the P1 P2 etc. a higher starting neutral count... make players earn those easy bonuses. Once lost they'd just go back to 1, so this wouldn't affect your ability to get it back.
3. Remove the +1 for holding a gun. They are already all-powerful, why add insult to the opponent's injury? I would almost insist on this one.
4. Lower the starting neutral value of the checkpoints to give player a chance to get through there... it's bad enough that you keep getting cut down in the Killing Fields, but with a six in the checkpoints each line is like a dead end. You're better off leaving stacks on the paratroops to hold the bonuses and attacking from your internal positions.
5. Make the helipads killer neutrals. I tried slogging my way up the bridge and the cable car, and it was a drag... you automatically leave an army behind each time you move ahead. The helipads are the far superior method for getting up there, and while a starting neutral of 12 looks high it's far cheaper than taking both of the longer routes. I say make all of the helipads 12 - including the one on the castle - and have them respawn to 12. Make the helicopters a one-shot deal: throw your wad at them and hope to get across, but if you don't make it up you crash and burn in the attempt. Not to mention that the helicopter seems like an anachronism in this map to begin with, but yes, they had one in the movie.
6. Restore the missing starting locations. It might reduce use of the cable car, but in the games I've played it didn't take long for one player to eliminate the other from the airport in two rounds so I had to fight my way up the road anyway.
7. Lose the additional bonuses for flughafen, das dorf, and das schlos. In a two player game you start with bonuses just for being there, and in three/four player games you only need to nab one terit to up your bonus. Starting every round with 14 armies to place is just exacerbating the first-player-wins problem; seems we need to slow down the early rounds and require players to use some strategy. And really, if somebody is holding 21 Das Dorf territories they are already starting each round with 7 armies to place just by virtue of reinforcements, and are probably in pretty good shape overall.
8. (This one will be controversial.) Create a new feature: the Anti Aircraft gun. Turn the tower into an AA battery (since the tower seems kinda useless anyway) which would be capable of knocking out the paratroopers once and for all. It would have to be a pretty costly enterprise - big starting neutral value, killer neutral, etc. - but it would give assassin and terminator games a reason for existence.
Finally, I have to admit that when I was stamping this for gameplay I didn't get the complexities of how this would play out... I think I even said that this was one of those maps we'd just have to play before we really new what would happen. My concerns were more about the clarity of some aspects of the map, and having now played it I don't really know how somebody could play this map without BoB and the map inspect features. Some of the the connections are really hard to follow, and in only two games I've already misread the map a few times. My biggest beef is that there really needs to be more space between some territories to pick up the fact that , for example, Inn actually borders Gun AB, or that Helipad A borders Bus Schuppen.
Sorry to pile more stuff on, cairns, but if we're going to put some tweaks in this map we may as well address everything.
Alright, now discuss!
He added it as a new error to the XML checker I believe recently.