WWI

I don’t think that’s an unreasonable map size at all. Let’s see, that’s about 25.5" X 44". You could go bigger than that and still be okay. I would say keep the width to around 30-36" (~76-90cm).

Nice work i rock! I like to see what people do with game design. However, I do have two minor quibbles with your map that you might consider changing for historical continuity.

1. Iceland is one word not two (not Ice Land)
2. Vichy France did not exist until the fall of France in 1940. You may want to name that territory Southern France or possibly Marseilles?

Just a couple thoughts, but please keep up the good work!

For France:

“American Pilots”: America trained pilots to fly for france before they entered the war officially. France may purchase 1 fighter per turn at a cost of 3 instead of 7 until the US enters the war on turn 10.

Here’s another thought: number the sea zones and only bother finding a name for the ones that form discreet seas (e.g., Black, Aegean, Adriatic, etc.)  It could allow you to de-clutter the map from much of the writing and you could avoid having to coming up with names for a dozen different non-descript Atlantic zones or coming up with absurd ones like “the Celtic Sea.”

For Southern France, here’s a few ideas off the top of my head for names: Gascony, Marseille, Toulouse, Provence, Langue d’Oc, Aquitaine… (a few might warrant slight boundary changes, but I’m just throwing out ideas here…)

More thoughts:

1. “Selisia” is usually spelled “Silesia” (at least in English; idk what the proper German & Polish spellings are…)

2. Rename “Czechoslovakia” Bohemia.  The former was a word invented after WW1 to refer to a combination of (Czech) Bohemia/ Moravia and the Slovakian regions of the former Hungary, which are not really a part of the region that you named Czechoslovakia (for the most part; you might consider redrawing the territory slightly to reflect the actual boundary of the Kingdom of Hungary, unless you have a specfic game-balance region for your boundary.)

Hmm, the more I look at the map, the more I think that eastern Germany and Austria-Hungary need redrawn.

1. Their boundaries look oddly mis-shapen: they need some smoothing out.  Remember, these aren’t the jagged battle-lines of a mid-war situation, but boundaries that had mostly existed since 1815 here.

2. Also, Vienna and Budapest should have a more circular shape (especially Budapest: I’m guessing you just created a random territory to divide Hungary, but it looks almost like you were trying to draw a circle and messed up.  With so many less-important cities getting circles, you might as well give Budapest a circle, too.)

3. If you need another division for Hungary, divide off Galicia, which is basically the slice of Poland that was awarded to Austria in the partitions.

4. Rename “Western Romania” Transylvania, which was its actual territory name at the time.  The modern Kingdom of Romania had never possessed it up to this point, and its population, while majority Romanian-speaking, was probably at least 30-40% Hungarian, with a significant German minority.  Naming it as you did could be seen as taking a political stance that it “ought to have been” part of Romania, which amounts to taking sides in an old Hungarian-Romanian rivalry.

5. You could also consider dividing Romania into its two principle components, Wallachia and Moldavia to make it more than a 1-province country.

Romania really ought to be a separate country, perhaps divided into two parts (Wallachia and Moldavia as I mentioned above) but it definitely ought to be a separate country, not a region of Russia.  Bessarabia should be the region just north of Moldavia (or the northern arm of Romania) under Russian control, not a random chunk of Poland.  The entry of Romania into the war on the allied side was a significant (regional) event in the war and it is the counter-weight to the German-allied Bulgaria in this period.

I just looked back through the thread to make sure my comments weren’t redundant (I know, should have earlier…)  Take a good, hard look at the map image FMG posted and see if you can use it to clean up some of those eastern boundaries: I think that would make all the difference in improving it.  Contrary to popular belief, the boundaries of most of eastern Europe had been fairly stable for about a century before the war, so using the fluid 1942 boundaries as a foundation are hurting you here.  In fact, when it comes to “sovereign” boundaries, the only changes to the map were really products of the decline of the Ottoman Empire, the “Sick Man of Europe” as it was called in the 19th Century: Romania, Bulgaria, Greece, and Serbia had all been carved out of Ottoman domains, and even the Austrian occupation (and eventual annexation) of Bosnia were more-or-less a result of the power vacuum created by the Ottoman decline.  So the Germany-Austria-Hungary-Russia boundary should be fairly set.

Also, Italy should be smaller.  Austria’s big naval base was Trieste… which would eventually become a part of Italy.

@Variable:

Interesting project. I had worked on a similar one myself using IL’s rules as a base and simplifying them for a more “A&A” feel. My game board ended up being so huge to fit all the pieces that I currently don’t have a table to support it. Play testing is temporarily suspended…

What is your suggestion for the non-A&A pieces like bi-planes, cavalry, etc? Just curious what others are using. I bought a bunch of Central Powers pieces from Jack (Table Tactics) a while back, but had to invent some stuff to go with it.

The Conflict game on the sticky thread above looks to have some decent bi-plane fighters and bombers.  Between it, Central Powers and A&A, we should have almost everything, though we have a while to wait yet for the Conflict to be available.  It lacks cruisers and airships and country-specific infantry and cavalry, which seem to be its biggest deficits as far as pieces, but most of the A&A infantry would work pretty much just as well for WW1 (British, German, French would do just fine for WW1, though Russia, US, & Italy not so much…)

You could go to the HO figure market for more troops if you’re a bit of a uniform purist like me.  Hat has the best selection of WW1 infantry and Strelets*R for cavalry.  Check Plastic Soldier Review for even more options.  To order such pieces online, check out the following 3 sites: The Toy Soldier Company, the Michigan Toy Soldier Company, and Classic Toy Soldiers, all of which have a huge variety that you can order online.  (From just about every period you can imagine, really, though WW1 is the topic at hand; WW1 has been a bit of a weak area until recently for HO’s, but it has filled out considerably over the last 10 years or so…)

Between all of these a fairly complete WW1 piece set can definitely be built, though the different components wouldn’t match each other as well as I’d like…

@i:

So should I give north east Italy to Austria? About your other comments… well with paint its hard to make big changes to the map (tonnes of effort) but I’ll try. So don’t expect much.

I understand on the map changes… you can only do what you can do, but it definitely points to the need for a definitive, collaborative WW1 map along the lines of the Global War 1939 map, but with legit, WW1-style boundaries eventually.

To your question above: I’d say yes.  Rename it Trieste (which saves you some space in that territory to boot) and make it one of Austria’s 2 naval ports, along with Croatia.  It’s a tricky Q, though, because the territory in question also contains Venetia, I think, which WAS a part of Italy at that time…

I’d say that that’s a significant improvement right there.  I’d still like to see some of the shapes smoothed out significantly and Romania enlarged a bit, but those would be largely cosmetic changes…

How difficult would it be to change the French and Italian roundels to standardize them with FMG and/or HBG’s designs?  That would prevent any need for a new set of WW1 roundels.  Russia probably ought to get a new roundel, too, as the “hammer and sickle” is a distinctly Bolshevik symbol… but I imagine that’d be more difficult and introduce a whole new “non-standard” roundel.

Eww, you’re right, those didn’t come out so good… better to go back to the old ones if you can’t get cleaner circles than that…