A long time ago, back when we just had the Classic MB version of A&A, I started working on an idea to break all territories into smaller sections so it wouldn’t just be one battle and you get the whole territory. For example, the Eastern US territory would be broken down into all the different states so if an Axis attacked it, they would have to fight state to state in order to win that territory, and maybe some of the larger states could be split into two or three sections. I thought this seemed more realistic than just one battle and you win the entire Eastern half of the United States.
However, many problems became apparent fairly quickly. First of all, I couldn’t always find more detailed maps of some of the territories like those in central and eastern Russia, territories in Africa, Southeast Asia, etc.
Also, going from the World map to a single territory map you would have to change all the units. For example; you have 10 infantry, 2 armor and 2 fighters defending Eastern USA. If you shrink this down to just that territory broken up into many territories, it would have to be something like 100 infantry, 20 armors and 20 fighters spread out amongst all those territories. Plus you would have to figure out where to put them and it wouldn’t necessarily be an even amount. You wouldn’t have the same amount of units defending Washington or New York as you would some empty space. The same would hold true for the attackers. How many units would you have attacking each territory? Plus, I didn’t have a clue as to how to break it down like this for Naval warfare. How many actual ships does 1 battleship on the World Map represent on the smaller maps?
Finally, it occurred to me that this would make just one game of A&A take literally MONTHS to complete. Attacking a territory would be like opening up a whole new game. Granted, there are a number of unoccupied territories that you could simply “blitz” and not have to refer to the smaller maps, but any substantial combat would take hours to complete as your forces move to take a territory a piece at a time. Also, this would possibly mess up some attacks and leave a territory in a “contested” state for some time. For example; Germany invades Eastern US. Germany has 20 Inf, 8 tanks, 2 fighters and 2 bombers. The US has 10 inf, 2 tanks and 2 fighters plus the AA gun. Now, depending on how the forces get laid out on the small scale map, and also depending on luck of the dice rolls, there are any number of outcomes. On the World Map, it would be one big battle and over, likely with Germany winning . However, on the small map, it’s possible that say the Germans did well in the north. However, in the south the US forces defeated the invader and still have good forces intact. Also, on this scale, there will likely be more US forces farther inland as reserves. So now the territory of Eastern USA is basically half German controlled and half US controlled. This would drag this one battle out even longer. Now, it’s possible that the triumphant German forces in the North could possibly get whittled down to nothing as they try to work their way south.
Anyway, my point is that doing a game like this would make it take way too long and I would imagine most people would lose intereste after a while. It’s an interesting concept but if you get too detailed the game loses its fun.
