I am considering switching to the use of individual hexagonal tiles with different terrain types. This will be a good way to offer replay value by allowing the easy creation of different maps, and will be easier to balance than a map of Europe.

Here are the different terrain types and their effects.

• Mountains:  Players cannot place units on mountains, and supply cannot be traced through them.
• Hills: Owner gets +1 defense, and +1 attack when attacking adjacent regions.
• City: Worth 2 VP instead of 1 if controlled at the end of the game.
• Water: +2 defense when being attacked from a land territory. Additionally, when doing a move or attack action any two land territories connected by a continuous path of friendly land territories is considered adjacent. However, water tiles do not give victory points at the end of a game.

  Players will have the option of playing on a symmetrical map, or playing on a randomly generated map.

There will be several balance changes.

• Players will have the option of taking a move action.
• When attacking another territory, any additional cubes that participated in the attack must move to that territory if the attack is successful. Also, players must declare how many cubes they are using in the attack before combat is resolved.

  On the negative side, these terrain rules do add complexity to the game and increase the learning curve. As a result, they will be only added in an expansion, or if I find a way to simplify the base game.