I am currently using bingo chips to mark territory ownerships. I really like the idea because it allows you to see in a glance who controls what and you can trace supply routes with chips on the sea hex and you can see through the chip to view the information on the map. Here is a close up of what it looks like:
http://bgd.lariennalibrary.com/uploads/Mainsite/GameIdea/GameIdea2010032...
There was nothing else on the map because everything else was hidden information, but I have realized that it makes the game unplayable because there is too much information to analyze and cross referencing to visualize the position of your forces in your head.
So the forces must be placed on the map. There can be either: Fleets, land forces, submarines, and a few special token in a hex. The problem is that I think placing tokens above the bingo chips will make the game too much fiddly to manipulate and it will hide the information because they are not see through tokens.
So I was trying to figure out various alternatives. Adding fleet tokens or pawns is not so bad because there are not so many of them for each player (3-5). It will be the same for submarines. The problem is troops.
So an idea I had would be like in twilight struggle, mark the number of troops on a translucent bingo chips so that no stack get's created. The problem is that moving troops will imply a lot of token manipulation ( replace starting position and replace target position). I could either use translucent printable sheet and stick them on the token or simply draw 1-3 X or a dot with a black marker to indicate the number of troops.
The second idea, used in most games, would be to have no control chips. You only place the troops on the board, and if you control an enemy area with no troops in there, you add a control marker (ex: axis and allies). Else your starting territories already have your flag. The problem with a system like that is that it becomes hard to visualize what you control.
Does anybody else has suggestions?
Does people think it could be OK to stack many tokens above bingo chips?
Should I better remove all bingo chips?
