Once upon a time, maps were divided into bonuses. Each territory was part of exactly one bonus, all bonuses had a value larger than zero and all was well in the world.

Nowadays, some territories are not part of any bonus at all, some are part of multiple bonuses and some bonuses have a value below zero (or zero, to "disable" them). This causes a number of issues.

So, here's an idea, allow map makers to define groups of bonuses. This would have the following effects:

- When someone wants to play without superbonuses, all they have to do is clear a single checkbox.
- This is far easier than zeroing out the values of all superbonuses (especially since those are usually "hidden" amongst a large bunch of other bonuses).
- It would actually remove them from the game, which is not the case when you only make the bonus worth zero reinforcements. This will make the AI's behaviour more predictable (*without* changing a single line of AI code!!), since it will no longer try to complete a superbonus by "stealing" its subbonuses from a teammate. It will also prevent people from using a spy card on superbonuses (which sometimes cover nearly the entire map; in a later stage, maybe Spy cards could even receive checkboxes determining on which groups of bonuses they can be applied??).
- In the "Overridden bonuses" box it would only have to tell which bonus groups are active in the current game; this is much easier to understand than a huge list of zero'd bonuses (a huge list which it is easy to hide other sneaky changes in).
- Once this system is in place, map makers could use it to separate bonuses they know some people won't like (such as negative bonuses, or 1-reinforcement-for-1-territory bonuses (such as national / state capitals on a map of Europe / the USA)), so these can be easily disabled.
- On all currently existing maps, all bonuses would become part of one "Default" bonus group (this can be converted automatically, no manual updates to existing maps necessary!).

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I didn't make a UserVoice for this yet. First I'd like to give everyone a chance to give feedback. Can you give examples of additional problems / inconveniences this would solve? Can you suggest tweaks to make this proposal better? Do you just want to voice support and confirm my expectation this will be a popular suggestion? Please, hit reply and share your input!

(Apologies for the double post; should've remembered this earlier)

This idea came from a discussion on whether or not the new "Alternative Europe" map should have superbonuses. There was a (rather long) discussion about it in [this game](http://WarLight.net/MultiPlayer.aspx?GameID=2720351) which was (deliberately) never started.

Also, the reason why it is important (if you consider the AI's behaviour important at least) to not zero-out but actually remove bonuses is because the AI *will* try to complete superbonus, *even* if its value is zero. Discussion about that (and link to example game) in [this thread](http://warlight.net/Forum/Thread.aspx?ThreadID=3739).

i agree with everything and by spy card i presume you mean surveillance card after all spy cards spies on people and neutrals surveillance bonus and superbonuses

I am completely for this idea, it would be so convenient to so many map makers as well as players!

Awesome Idea, it would solve many problems, and as a map maker, it would make it longer to make a map go public, but would add so many new options for gimmicks.

Another thing that you may consider adding to this is to allow a decision to add or not add bonusses to the random Warlords/Cities distributions. Right now, most mapmakers add their own versions, but these are pre-set. For variation in play, random Warlords is often really nice (strategic settings!). A superbonus adds an additional territory to the distribution, throwing a correct random Warlords distribution completely off.

But yes, I think this is a very good suggestion.

@IronHeart:
Yes, I always get Spy / Surveillance / Reconnaissance mixed up; I actually thought "let's doublecheck this before posting", then completely forgot to *do* so. :s Good catch, thank you!

@Kingu:
Very good point, I'll make sure to include that in the UV suggestion when I write it up.