Best place to print a custom game board?

Sorry only just saw this

So step one would be finding the right image editing program for what you’re trying to achieve. TripleA uses raster graphics images (basically png) and is not suitable for printing. Upscaling the largest relief I’ve made in tripleA and trying to print it at 600 dpi the filesize gets quite beefy. Basically an image that’s like 50mb for use in tripleA is going to climb way up by orders of magnitude into the many gigabytes. It will also tax the RAM pretty hard if you’re trying to edit an image that large (in actual dimensions) like trying to use multiple layers at once. I have a pretty high end gaming laptop and I topped out around 8000p before GIMP started giving me headaches and slowing to a crawl.

What you probably want is an image that you can manipulate as SVG rather than PNG. A vector so you can upscale the image to any dimensions that way (basically the same way font works.) I would try Inkscape or Adobe, and try to get a pull of the image as a vector graphic.

You can start the same as you would in tripleA by creating a baseline image of the basic world map, the continent contours or world warp you want and the territory or sea zone divisions, showing just the basic borderlines in 100% black at 1px width at the desired dimensions for the digital thing.

A physical print would be much larger, so imagine that on your screen you got 72p per inch, on paper that needs to be 600 dpi. You can go lower say 300 dots per inch if it’s very graphic, but a photo quality print is basically like 600p, which is pretty hefty. In a program like inkscape or illustrator etc you can translate a raster image into something that works for stuff like signage, you know, so like making a giant banner image to put on the side of a truck or hang outside a building - same sorta deal here for the scale of the image you’d want to make. Probably the size of a 6 or 8 foot banquet table, possibly larger depending, on what you’re trying to pull off.

If you have the map drawn out at scale, you can scan in sections at A3 or A4 size with a flat scanner and then reassemble the image, to pull it at the highest resolution you can before bringing that image into inkscape to create a vector of it.

ps. here are some youtube tutorial videos on inkscape just to see what sort of stuff I mean. You can probably find more just pulling at those threads. Once you have a map design you can put in tripleA to playtest it by creating a baseline from your svg, exporting the image as a bitmap or png where the borderlines are just solid black ideally at 1px width for those lines, or as close as you can get. For a map image something that’s like 2000-4000p tall and about twice as wide or larger works well for digital sculpts which are png images at 48-54px tall up to 125% currently in tripleA. The map size in tripleA is sorta limited by the unit graphics sizes and the windows in the UI. In inkscape you can make it larger, like for whatever makes sense to have the print look decent. Anyhow, just a quick example you can skip around to see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ns028ihACs&list=PL_NagE_y_IhIBNAzw3nFBiF01OKnaltmJ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnqtnSTe6qM

https://youtu.be/kS2nrXuR128?t=2611

for tripleA you can use GIMP to make the relief images in png. Here’s an example of similar videos in that program

https://youtu.be/HLmOpEETjEo?t=646

D021FB8A-4E3F-4CA0-87BF-1CF067E9B677.jpg

Hello everyone,

My name is Sergeant gentlemen, and I wanted to show off the custom map that I’m working on.
I’m very new to Axis&Allies.org, so if there is something that I’m missing in this post please let me know.

I’m showing this off in order to get some feedback in any way possible.
The map itself is in it’s very early process.
Currently I’m done with all the landmass.
I’ll definitely add more details to the land, like lakes, rivers, trees, mountains, etc.
My custom map is gonna be a more realistic type of map.

When all the land stuff is done I’ll begin to add the borders, provinces, etc.

I quickly did some coloring for the Central Powers to show off the colors that I might want to use.
Germany black as always, and as for Austria Hungary… well seeing Austria Hangary having a white color in the hoi4 game, surely made it interesting for me to try it out.
I also think the green color fits with the Ottoman Empire, maybe a red color would also work, but then again, I’m open for suggestions.

I’ll be updating you guys on the map.

SGT. Gentlemen.

@smith-family-agoge Welsome to A&A.org! Check out my thingiverse page, where I’ve remixed, compiled, correctly scaled, and prepped for printing some of the best/most relevant units for Axis and Allies: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3903067

AA_compilation.png

I have been playing around with different configurations for a custom table and wanted to note some things I’ve landed on that I really like. A main one thing is having the map mounted so that it can slide around as needed on top of a bigger playing area. My table is 65” x 95” in total with a 5.5” arm rest around the outside and the middle is a recessed neoprene surface. I have the OOB Global map mounted on 1/2” rigid foam with a 1/2” aluminum frame around it. This allows the map to slide up close to whoever’s turn it is, but then be in the middle so both players can roll dice In front of them without disturbing the map and in easy view of the other player. (Plus we like lots of room to roll the bones). This ability to adjust the surface along with a standing height, makes it comfortable for long uses because you can move around more and don’t feel as tied down.
Things I’ve learned and changed from original design - I originally used too big of a frame for the map and mounted it on too high of a foam block (you can see these pictures at the bottom) - it made it hard to see the other player’s dice and the big frame took up too much real estate. My global map is mounted on much thinner foam (the framing is bad, you can see if you look closely) but I also used much thinner aluminum angle for the frame. This gives just enough grip when needing to move the map around (I use furniture slides on the bottom, which glide very nicely on the neoprene) but doesn’t make the whole thing too bulky. Having it an inch or so off the surface keeps the dice off, but isn’t so heigh that you can’t see the other player’s dice rolls. When playing other versions (such as Zombies) the board is much smaller, but it can easily swap in and out on the same table since it can move around where ever it is needed or be pushed aside.
I originally made it normal table height, but found long reaches while sitting were harder and it just felt cramped. Standing height with a bar stool is a great way to have the best of both worlds.
The 5.5” rim around the table itself gives you a nice arm rest that doesn’t interfere with the gaming surface. I’m playing with how to best add some cushion to this part - open to suggestions. Sometimes I just lay a piece of leftover neoprene on it.
Dice bounce nice on the neoprene and stay off the floor. It also feels nice and has enough give to allow things to slide but be picked up easily. Wouldn’t definitely go with neoprene again as a surface covering.
I made the drawers open to the inside of the table so you can stay hunched over the action while accessing and stowing stuff away. 50/50 on whether I would keep this if I were to do it again. If I were doing it again, I might try to build customer drawers form scratch using actual drawer glides, but that was beyond my ability when I first did this, so I just used clear plexiglass boxes with aluminum pulls mounted on them. It’s nice having them clear, and I was happy with how the pulls came out, but without glides they can be a little fussy sliding in and out of their slots.
I originally designed the table so that I could put a cover surface back on top when not in use, but find I don’t really ever do that, so if I were to do it again, I might not mess with that part (I never even finished staining those as you can see in the pictures).
CF362D52-269F-4480-8CBB-08139099138F.jpeg A9E12EA1-66EB-4671-86AC-68C62FD30AD5.jpeg 858DE1F2-030A-4D5A-93E4-70A7D1180ADB.jpeg 8F513EE0-DA37-4BA9-880E-4D5EF7BF431F.jpeg F0188165-757B-4CC1-BF67-5045832283C9.jpeg 2E3CD627-0D31-4121-ACF8-682F9F58A40B.jpeg

@Call77 A bit late to the party, but if you don’t mind, I’d really appreciate those PDFs!

@jeffcamis:

I determined the biggest size that would fit on my dining room table would be 28 inches by 51 inches.  Can I go to a print shop have them down a map and print it in that size?

You definitely can print the map I shared with the community (look at 2Huskies link) at this size.

YG,

@Young:

Would love to hear from those who have used the file to print their own copy of my custom map… do you have one?
––I would have to say,…NOT YET ! But once I get my latest project going, which will include a large area for a
“GRAND SIZE” War Simulations Room I’ll certainly get in contact with ya’ll.
––I must say, on behalf of all of the other gamers that you’ve already helped with your wonderful map;
THANK YOU !

Tall Paul

Thanks.

this first pic is what i had been using, i manually printed things out in one page sections via “print selection” command and pieced them all together, and laminated them with clear packing tape. Ultimately it proved to be a little larger than the default gameboard like I wanted, but still sloppy looking and with some bumps here and there which complicated unit placement due to tipping or sliding:

it was larger enough than the default board that things in europe didn’t seem so crowded anymore, but shoddy looking still, and that can wear on the nerves.

So I finally said enough is enough, and took the map pdf file on a jump drive down to minuteman press in London Kentucky and had them blow it up and laminate it….it costed $118 IPCs U.S. Dollars.

Its 2 foot by 3 foot, and gives us plenty of room for stacks. I got tired of kenny’s fat fingers knocking over my german stacks and scattering them across europe…he says my money was wasted because “those damn germans were going across europe anyway I just helped you out is all”.

but here it is: