A board can have neutral territories starting with zero, even on an abandon-off board.  This is great because then taking those neutral territories does not grant a card.  If the designer wants to continuously keep those territories neutral, even if a player has passed through them, unfortunately, when they are reset by neutral reset they suddenly now have to oblige by abandon off and will only reset to 1 and not their previous zero value.  I'd like neutral reset to be at the discretion of the designer such that the designer can have neutral resetting to zero, even on an abandon off board, but, if a player passes through the same territory they have to leave a troop behind (abandon off) as a cost of movement of which the troop left behind would then subsequently be lost when it neutral resets to zero neutral at the end of their turn.

Basically, I'd like neutral reset to actually be able to "reset" to the initial neutral value and not be forced to be 1.  I would like neutral reset to be unrestricted by abandon-off just as the initial board setup is unrestricted by it so neutral reset can actually reset and not reset+1.  It would give the designer maximum latitude in the design process and not hand out free cards for players on the rocks by allowing them to go after a neutral 1 territory.

Thanks a lot!

Tom has indicated that territory minimums would be time consuming to program, so in the sense that this offers designers a somewhat kludgy workaround - sure.  On the other hand, if territory minimums are foreseeable in the future then your proposed feature would be redundant.

That said, why stop with neutrals? Why not make an additional factory that takes 1 off any color, not just neutral? My sense is that if he can't program the latter easily, he won't be be able to do the former - but I would happily be wrong.

I'm don't really think I'm talking about territory minimums because I'm not talking about player troop counts.  I'm just saying that autoneutral reset ought to reset to zero no matter if abandon is on or off just as the setup values can be set to zero no matter the abandon setting.  If autoneutral reset worked the same no matter the setting then it offers more flexibility because the designer could choose the reset value through the reset and whatever they decide to add in bonus, counting from zero.  So, I don't see it as a cludgy workaround as it would be refining what auto neutral can do rather then trying to achieve anything else through it.

In fact, it seems entirely non-redundant to territory minimums as territory minimums, as I see it (with my limited knowledge of what they are proposed to do), seem to be designed to control player troop counts during game play to ensure that player counts are mandated during attacking/movement whereas neutral reset is simply dictating the neutral count upon reset.  So, doesn't one dictate player values and movement while the other dictates neutral values only during an end turn (beginning of turn) reset?

I don't see the point of over complicating it by suggesting that another factory be made to take 1 off any color either, just that auto neutral (since it is exclusively dealing with neutral) be able to reset to zero in every instance and then the designer can add on what they want from there by assigning the bonus value.  I really don't see where the programming hurdle comes into it like it does with territory minimums... Though, I'm not a programmer.