Here is an idea on how to improve the recon card, please vote for it on Uservoice if you like it.

http://warlight.uservoice.com/forums/77051-warlight-features/suggestions/3232227-make-reconnaissance-cards-more-flexible

Right now the Recon Card only shows one territory and its adjacent territories for x turns, where x is the value set by the game creator.
The duration of the card effect is already variable, but the range of the effect (1 territory deep) is always fixed. It would be more interesting if players could trade shorter durations for an increase in range.

Example: The game creator sets the card value to 4. Now when a player plays a recon card, he can choose between the following options:
See one territory and its immediate neighbors (range 1) for 3 turns. (1 + 3 = card value = 4)
or
See one territory, its immediate neighbors and the territories adjacent to the neighbors (= range 2) for 2 turns (2 + 2 = card value = 4)
or
See one territory, its neighbors, its neighbors' neighbors and its neighbors' neighbors' neighbors (= range 3) for 1 turn (3 + 1 = card value = 4)

(or maybe even: See one territory, no adjacent territories for 4 turns? (0 + 4 = 4)?)

Maybe the range increase needs to weigh double, because of its exponential nature? So you can trade 2 turns duration for 1 territory range increase?

One could take it even further:
- Let players also pick the number of territories to start with (recon card value = number of territories + range + duration; value 6 = either 1 terr, 1, turn, 4 terrs deep, or 5 terr, 1 turn, 0 terrs deep, or 2 terrs, 2 turns, 2 terrs deep etc.)

Discuss!

I rarely see recon cards with more than one turn duration, but putting that aside, wouldn't the ability to expand the radius be rather overpowered on certain maps?

I like adding recon cards because of the spy-type cards, it requires the most skill to get something out of it. You can play it strategically to see into multiple bonuses, but you won't know if the bonuses are complete. You can use it on the center of a bonus to see if it is complete, or you can do other things. The limited range keeps it from being overpowered, while still giving smart players an edge over players who don't know what to do with it.

My concern would be that the card changes functionality against the will of game creators like me, who might want to change the number of turns shown, but not make the card itself more powerful. It's one of my favorite cards, because of how it can be used to good effect by good players, but may seem worthless to poor players.

I can see what you mean with the changed functionality.
How about making the radius a fixed value then, something the game creator can set?
On huge maps like big us a wider radius might be desireable, whereas on smaller maps it still could be set to 1?
The problem is that surveillance cards do not distinguish between normal bonuses and meta bonuses, and therefore on most maps with meta bonuses they are overpowered because they reveal too large parts of a map.
Without surveillance cards, however, on big maps there is a gap between recon cards with very limited range and the all-seeing spy cards.

Another variant:
Trade radius for accuracy - when you play a recon card you can choose to have a radius one territory wider than normal, but then you no longer get to see the exact army numbers, only the player colours.

If you want to give game creators more control, then you've certainly removed my objection. There's a ton of variables to change though, so I'm not sure how feasible that is for Fizzer, timewise.

I agree that recon cards are pretty much worthless on huge maps, and that surveillance cards can be overpowered with meta bonuses.

A current way to make recon cards work better on large maps is to play on large maps that don't have massive single bonuses (Large USA is bad for this) and just increase the number of recon cards available. A 50 territory bonus makes recon cards pretty bad. 5-10 territory bonuses still work good for it, though.