"Simple" War-Game idea, need help!

You might need more variable victory conditions than '1/3 of the board,' due to differing numbers of players.

I'd say that even deep and simple games can probably handle more than one type of unit. I'm not sure I can think of a time period where I would want that much theme sacrificed in the name of simplicity.

Your idea of covering units up with 'shells' (check out 'Stealth: The Game,' for a game that uses shells!) would probably be referred to as 'fog of war.' This has been accomplished in the past with things like blocks, printed on one side. These have the advantage of not having to ask your opponent(s) to look away for a second every time you forget where your different armies are! There's the downside that this wouldn't work as well with more than two players. I don't think the shell idea scales well either, though, seeing as there would be more people to accidentally get a peek whenever someone needs to check/ move/ place/ whatever a unit. Honestly, I haven't played or read about a board game with multiplayer fog of war like this. Has anyone?

Have you played 'Napoleon's Triumph?' It seems like there are things--hidden units, out-maneuvering, simplicity, lack of randomness-- that that game also set out to accomplish. I've read that the designer has really great notes/ diary-type-stuff about designing those games too, so maybe that's worth checking out!

Do you dislike hexagons for any particular reason? They are my favorite sort of random map creator. they seem like the simplest shape to use if you're going for geometric shapes. Um, I have never seen anything like this, but maybe if you had some free-form territory shapes, like little mini-boards, each one with a different number of 'connection points.' And then players took turns setting them up so at least two connection points connect to two more on other boards. They'd probably be kinda rounded, so the board fit together like a puzzle, with spaces in between (could be lakes, mountains, desserts . . . anything impassable in whatever world your game is set in) and once it was set up, anything that touched could be moved between.

:)

You could use terrain tiles to randomize a board, mix um up face down then lay them out.

Are the number of units in the shell the life of the shell?

You could give each shell a single attack power of 1 damage, to destroy 1 unit. Having multiple shells arounf an enemy shell will boost the attack, ie 2 shells 2 damage. Do you have generals for boositng attack and defense?