Victor Sullivan wrote:No worries, koontz. Now onto my next concern: starting positions.
The kings carry too much weight not to be starting positions. You unfortunately only have 7 of these, so it won't be able to accommodate an 8-player game. In addition, not all of the iButhos are very balanced (as you have pointed out in your list above), so this is also cause for concern. Will you have the river warriors and territories within the 150 yard line be random drops, dealt out with the starting positions, or be random drops with the rest of the territories? Will even just the regular territories have to be dealt out in starting positions to a certain extent? These are things to consider. I feel this will likely be the largest stumbling block.
-Sully
Hopefully this image will answer most of your concerns.
[bigimg]http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/6095/version6testdraft.jpg[/bigimg]
I have kept the kings neutral to stop lucky drop syndrome. All players start equal (depending on drop and play order).
All troops start random, if a game starts and you have 4 troops in the 150 yard line, big problem but the next game you may get none.
The kings stay at 7. This was done with some thought behind it. Any game larger than 7, the kings become very important as there is not enough to go around (I started with only 5 but saw this as to low). It is just another element of the game play that is not done before apart from the small maps and that is only because people play large games on them. Another thing is if the site ever went into larger games (12 players) then even 8 would not be enough.
Reduced Schiess to 5 neutrals to make it easier to get to winning condition (I could probably reduce Chard and Bromhead to 5 as well but most players will not go for the winning condition).
Mpande iButho now only has one point of entry. The other 2 becoming one way assaults out. This becomes stronger, maybe to strong so one can be removed.
Phunga iButho stays the same.
Dabulamanzi lost one of the river attack routes so needs to defend without being able to assult. This should give it some weakness.
Shaka is now immune to the 150 yard line. With the new +2 and 3 auto deploy makes it a lot stronger. (This makes the case to reduce the kings to 3 neutrals, move the whole iButho or removing it completely)
Kingul has lost one of its river warriors. Easier to capture and defend.
Ndaba has lost 2 territs (both within the 150 yard line). Reduced the territs that attack the king to 3 (missed a border there, will add it later).
Cetshwayo has an added territ within the 150 yard line. Not really happy with this so will remove it if at all possible without destroying game. (Missed an army circle, will add it later).
Increased territories able to attack king to 3.
Added bonus for river warriors. This will change to anything. Any ideas?
Total bonus troopsCetshwayo 20+3 auto
Dabulamanzi - 15+3 auto
Ndaba - 14+3 auto
Phunga 8=3 auto
Kingul - 6+3 auto
Mpande - 4+3 auto
Shaka - 2+3auto
This is the new bonus structure.Total river troops within iButhos (the ones not on the water or bridge)Cetshwayo 4
Ndaba 3
Kingul 1
If the bonus was to hold 3 adjacent for +2, this could work and even some things out. It would make taking those iButhos that have the dry river running through them harder to capture and hold but once they were, would be almost imposable to retake.Total troops that degrade 1Cetshwayo - 5
Dabulamanzi - 4
Ndaba - 3
Phunga - 4 (could be reduced to 3)
Kingul - 0
Mpande - 0
Shaka - 2
Apart from Phunga (to many) and Kingul (none) this is pretty even. Remember though, these may lose one troop but you have to have them to get into the outpost so that evens it out from losing a troops to being able to get the winning condition.
Nice! Now it's gameplay time! 
oops, I mean 
