Ok, as we near Halloween, my mind turns towards creating a 'spooky' design of a Haunted Castles map.

There would be 4 castles that would also act as capitals once taken.  The castles would have a bittersweet initial effect of adding +3 units per turn via factory bonus, but also reducing income by 5 unless a magical item is located by the owner. If the owner indeed finds said item (amulet, ring, crystal, key) by traversing one of several possible paths, than the income bonus would shift to +15.

Castles would be surrounded by the haunted countryside (leading to the aforementioned paths).

The map would definitely have to be fogged and thus, sight would be important.

In regards to sight, there would be several towers spread around the map to generate sight radius of 2. Castles would be made up of 3 component parts (walls, inner courtyard, and central tower). The central tower, if taken, would generate sight for radius 2 around the castle. Inner courtyard would represent the capital location.

However, I wonder if said map is possible and if factories can assist in the mechanics?

Can factories be used to randomize and/or shift where a magic item would be located (perhaps generating a very large neutral unit count to locations that are not, or used to be, an item location)?

Also, can factories be used to incrementally close paths behind (ie - autocapture to neutral and add 1 unit per player turn up to a max count)?

Yes this is possible, sort of...

The way to make this "random" distribution of items... you'd have to do the following:

Add a territory for each player off the map called Player #.  This territory is included in every continent that player 1 owns, so it specific to that player.  Assign those to each player as capital cities, or at least give them no borders so players cannot leave the territory.

Add another territory off the map for each player (can be more than each player, but at least enough for each player).  Include each of these territories in continents that have different item locations.  Make the game setup based in the rules, and leave ONLY these territories empty (not neutral or allocated).  At the start of the game, these territories are randomly distributed between the players.  Make sure each player only gets one.

Stack the continents...  So  Player 1 + Setup 1 + Key location = For P1 the Key is located here, this game.

Does that make any sense?

For closing paths, you got it right.  Universal+N continents to adjacent territories on the grid.  It gets weird, but it should work.

This could be an opportunity to use that collaborator account we'd discussed.

Yeah, I'd be up for that.  I envisioned a large central play area to include the castles and towers and lots of territories and the paths offshooting towards several point extending towards the map's extremities.  That would leave space for the offboard locations Nygma described.  I'll work on the base map image.

I asked tom to chime in on that thread, but he hasn't yet.  If he's against it I don't want to make one.

It'll take me some time to create the image anyway, so hopefully he will respond before then.

Here is the initial map as I'm designing it - using a hex background.

http://www.wargear.net/boards/designer/6876

I'll clear out some of the sides of the map for both the magical item paths and the offboard factory spots and I'll add some other things like bridges for rivers (plan to add another river as well).

This calls for a crazy number of contients for filling in the neutrals behind you.  Can we make it a bit smaller (larger hexes)?

Oh, don't worry.  The paths won't be too large (maybe 5 or 6 territories max) per each.  I've added a sample path - at the end will be 4 potential locations for magic items (1 for each of ring, amulet, crystal, key) with central spot to attack into each from.  There would be 4 spots on the path to revert back to neutral.

Ed, Kjeld -  the map image design is nearing completion. I can pretty it up a bit and add some doc boxes.  All the green forest area and grey paved roads at the map's edges can be used for offboard factories.  There are 10 locations for the 4 magic item.  How many locations do you think I would need to get the mechanics to work.

Can you put a few territories down and invite me to a match?  I am having a tough time visualizing certain aspects.

Sure - I'll put down just the basic routes (not all the territories) and the paths to the items.