New Custom Map Project

Just a quick word on numbering sea zones. I’ve tried this a couple times on various triplea maps. The largest/most complex was for my domination map, which had about twice as many sea zones as Global to deal with.

I found that it was pretty challenging to create a scheme that worked well and didn’t involve too much skipping around for sz numbers.

I was most successful when I numbered the sea zones in a boustrophedon layout. That’s when you write ‘as the ox plows’ first left to right, then right to left, alternating as you descend.
The only problematic areas were the Baltic and Black Sea zones, since the geography in those regions is such that you don’t have a way back out sometimes, so you have to make a jump.

Before that I tried a straight left to right scheme, and an alpha numeric grid type scheme. But in every case there was undesirable jumping around.

I think the advantage of going boustrophedon, is that it groups the sea zones roughly around others zones at similar values. So most of 20s, 30s, 40s etc end up in the same basic area, and you can see the next zone in the series somewhere nearby.

Depending on how substantive your changes are to the base map, or what the motivation for renumbering is (like if you are just trying to break up a few zones) it might be advisable to just add an alpha or beta after the number of the zone you’re dividing. Like sz 60 becomes sz 60a, sz60b, or something along those lines.

Whatever your method, I suggest doing it by hand very quickly first, before trying it in PS, or spending too much time with fonts and centering, until you’re sure the scheme works to your satisfaction. It sucks when you get all the way to like sz 50 and then realize the route you were on curs off or backs into a corner.

My vote in the poll is for IPC value adjustment, since I think that has the most potential to create new gameplay dynamics, and is one of the harder things to pull off with the vanilla board. Short of reprinting the entire map, there aren’t many simple ways to adjust the IPC value in a discrete “tile by tile” way, but since reprinting is your plan I’d say go for gold! And adjust the IPC values on the map directly.

Like I posted before I would like to see more convoy “routes” that the allies need to protect. At the minimum add a couple sz in the mid Atlantic between Canada and England that have a UK marker and raiding capacity stamped right in the sz. That way German subs could be spread out and make an impact especially early in the game.

It is kinda like that strat you re-posted a while back where the US builds a lot of subs to force the Japanese to build destroyers or get convoyed. The Germans were the best at sub warfare, but G40 missed the boat on this IMO (pun intended)

Just a few more quick thoughts on the kind of adjustments that I think would benefit the game.

First go with a base 1 value for all territory tiles, see where this puts the totals for each nation, especially the UK, and then see how much value you’d have to make up with the smaller nations to maintain a rough parity by sides. Then look at the two nations which have the most problematic economies for game balance, the Soviet Union and the United States, and see if you can’t do something to make these nations more interesting by adjusting IPC values.

I think there are 3 problem areas on the game map that deserve serious attention…

The Soviet Far East
The Pacific Islands
And the Mediterranean/North Africa

Something to make those regions more dynamic would be ideal. First handle those regions, then adjust Europe and East Asia so they scale appropriately.

After that stuff is determined, (if going all the way), develop the production scheme and the IPC value of the national objectives to match the conditions of the board.  To me, that’s the most sensible way to approach a re-drafting of G40. If you end up with what seems like way more money than a typical A&A game would support, I think you could consider doubling the cost of units as a viable idea. It might run at odds with your desire to provide counters for the national economies but honestly, I think a roundel counter would be better as a separate board altogether, rather than built into the map.

Basically I think the advantage of every territory having a value would be considerable, even if a 1 ipc territory was worth 1/6th the cost of a single infantry unit instead of 1/3rd, that would still be infinitely better than having a tile worth zero.

Just some ideas, not sure if it fits with the direction you wanted to take things, but thought I’d throw it out there all the same.

@WILD:

Like I posted before I would like to see more convoy “routes” that the allies need to protect. At the minimum add a couple sz in the mid Atlantic between Canada and England that have a UK marker and raiding capacity stamped right in the sz. That way German subs could be spread out and make an impact especially early in the game.

It is kinda like that strat you re-posted a while back where the US builds a lot of subs to force the Japanese to build destroyers or get convoyed. The Germans were the best at sub warfare, but G40 missed the boat on this IMO (pun intended) �

I totally agree with WB, and I also can tell you exactly what convoy boxes to be added.

Seazones 107 and 108 need UK specific convoy boxes with an IPC value. Now we have a convoy chain that better model the Battle of Atlantic. I dont know what the number should be, but I figure 5 IPC is a nice number for a general convoy box. The convoy in 106 is worth 3 and the one in 109 is worth 8, so I guess 5 is a fair number.

The Russian lend lease convoy should be in 124 with a Russian symbol. The one in 125 should be solely for the occupier of Norway that control the Swedish iron ore trade.

The shipping lane between UK and India also need more convoy boxes for the Mediterranean route. In addition to the generic in 98, there should be UK specific boxes in 91 and or 92. I guess they should be worth 2 or 3 IPCs since that is what UK save by using the short cut through the MED and not spend fuel and time for a travel around Africa. Or the boxes could be standard but we give Gibraltar an IPC value of 2 or 3 for the control of the Med ? A generic box in 91 or 92 could also punish US if they attack neutral Spain.

The maps in the WWII books also show a lot of sinking in what looks like seazone 88 on our map, so maybe put a US specific box there too, with a fixed value of like 5 or something ?

I also support CVOMarc s suggestion in another thread, to make a map with 1939 borders and colors. Then we can use the same standard map for different starting years. IMHO the A&A Europe 1999 edition map is very nice for the Europe part, and my main point being that proper France and Germany should not be adjacent to Northern Italy, like they are on the G40 map. In fact the almost impassable Alps mountain chain make it difficult to travel between Germany and Italy in the real world, so if we dont want our map to be at the level of Risk, we should at least put Schwitzerland and Austria between Germany and Italy. See attachment

@Narvik:

I also support CVOMarc s suggestion in another thread, to make a map with 1939 borders and colors. Then we can use the same standard map for different starting years. IMHO the A&A Europe 1999 edition map is very nice for the Europe part, and my main point being that proper France and Germany should not be adjacent to Northern Italy, like they are on the G40 map. In fact the almost impassable Alps mountain chain make it difficult to travel between Germany and Italy in the real world, so if we dont want our map to be at the level of Risk, we should at least put Schwitzerland and Austria between Germany and Italy. See attachment

And to expand on Narvik’s point: note that the map section from the 1999 edition of Europe which he showed in his post is closer than the 1940 map at being non-date-specific, but that it nevertheless doesn’t go all the way at using this concept.  Why do I say this?  Because of how it handles neutrality.  Not only does it hard-wire into the map the nations which remained neutral all through WWII (like Switzerland), it also ignores the fact that some countries were neutral in 1939 but had their neutrality violated later (for example Denmark and Norway, which aren’t the same colour as Sweden and Switzerland).

So my two-part suggestion would be:

• to use the September 1939 borders as the starting point of the map

• to use a colour scheme which is either completely uniform, or which allocates a distinct colour / shade to the player powers and to the territories which they controlled in September 1939.  All other territories would be a single colour / shade (perhaps off-white) that would mean “these are not one of the player powers, and are not territories which a player power controlled in 1939”, without sending any predestination messages saying “it is the fate of this territory to be occupied by a player power at such-and-such a date.”

A completely uniform colour scheme, in which every territory is the same colour, is probably a little too bland visually.  The concept of a player-power vs. non-player-power colour-distinction scheme would be better in that respect.  It’s also fairly clean conceptually because, regardless of what starting date is used, the player powers (as opposed to the nations which are at war at a particular point of a game) are always the same: they’re the ones which have nation-specific OOB infantry sculpts (US, UK, USSR, ANZAC, France, China, Germany, Japan, and Italy).

However, one issue that would have to be tackled in addition to the map colours is the issue of which roundel to print on the map in any given territory. The concept of “who controlled what territories in September 1939” works for most of the map, because most (but not all) of the wars and annexations and other territorial changes that came before September 1939 were not part of active conflicts that carried over into WWII.  The exception, however, is China.  The forcible annexations of Manchuria and Jehol in 1931 and 1933 (if I recall the correct dates) arguably fall into the category of geographically-limited conflicts that were already over by the time WWII broke out, so those two territories might not be problematic.  The Japanese invasion of China proper in 1937, however, is definitely a conflict that was still in progress in both 1939 and 1941…which raises the question of what roundels to show in the Chinese territories that Japan was already occupying in September 1939.  (I suppose that’s why Larry opted to show all Chinese territories (except Hainan, probably due to its island status) as having Chinese roundels, but some of them as having orange borders.)

I don’t really know what the best solution would be for a map intended for use by a large number of A&A players.  My own customized solution (see http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=32700.0) was to use roundels to roll the map back to 1931, prior to the invasion of Manchuria, but that may not appeal to everyone because that date also affects the ownership (and even the existence) of a number of European territories.

My vote is for sea zones - but in general, sea movement needs re-thinking.  Sea zones mean something when you’re patrolling an area - but when it comes to movement to a destination - why does it take so long to get to England from USA (2 turns)? - its just a 5-7 day journey!!!  The game should have been created not with individual ship types, but battle fleet, carrier task force, convoy, and sub patrol units.

I agree that it would be cool to be able to take this map back to 1939, and have another set-up. Would caution going back any further though. Reconfiguration of some of the territories and borders would be a pretty big job, but well worth it IMO. It would be pretty cool to split up S Germany and Slav/Hung so you get Austria, Czech, Hung etc….I would also like an E Prussia please, and fix some stuff like Greece touching the Black Sea etc… Also what others posted about the Italian/German border (have the new Austria/Switz between them). Might even look at creating a French buffer territory (Lorraine?) between W Germany and France (Paris), and have Italy only border S France (not France).

The easiest way to handle all these new neutral territories are to simply give them a pro axis or pro allied stance, with standing armies silhouetted (2-3 inf) just like it is done now. Hol/Belg, Denmark, Norway were all invaded so they become pro allied and get 2-3 inf to defend. Make sure that the Germans are se-up to take them by force in a 1939 set-up. Territories like Austria, Czech, Hung, Romania, and Bulgaria become pro-axis and their standing armies are integrated into the German army (just like Bulgaria…).

You could go a couple ways for the territories that would be neutral in 1939, but fully integrated into a major power for the primary 1940 set-up as far as color scheme.

I agree it would be ok to shade them towards the power they will be integrated into for the 1940 set-up (sphere of influence). This would make it easier to set-up 1940, and count the income. Could have a darker color for territories of the main powers showing their 1939 stance, and have a lighter shade of that color for the territories that will be in that powers camp for a 1940 start date or shortly after (either by annex, or by force). Like Germany, W Germany, and S Germany are dark gray, but Hol/Belg, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Poland, Yugo, Slav/Hung, Romania, Bulgaria are a lighter shade of gray. Russian territories are a dark maroon, and Bessarabia, E Poland, and Baltic States are a lighter shade distinctive to Russia……maybe even make Vyborg, and NW Persia shaded to Russia. The only problem with that is it does make it per-determined and cuts Italy out of the neutrals other then Albania, but with a 1939 start date they would also be neutral, and would the Germans really allow them to gain Romania or Bulgaria?

If you use one color for all neutrals I would still keep the diagonal lines that depict pro axis, pro allied, and straight lines to show true neutrals but probably make them a little darker (would keep the lines for either theme). Using nation specific roundels for each of these neutrals would be cool for house rules that link the parent country to their colonies, but it could also clutter the map. You could even boost the standing armies for the true neutrals to allow them to be invaded breaking the true neutral band of brothers thing we have now.

One other thing, if you are going to change some of the IPC values I would probably do a re-set for the Russians. Make Moscow worth more (3 IPCs really?) and some of the far east 0 IPCs so the Japanese don’t get much value. I think you can consider a 2 IPC territory out east, but I would be careful not to make it a target for Japan to take or build an IC. I would also make some of the oil rich territories worth more and remove some of the NO’s for taking them. Maybe boost Romania, Caucasus and the Mid East territories (why would Persia be more valuable to Germany or Italy then for the UK?). Same with the DEI, both sides would benefit from the oil (Celb had no oil and should be lower according to Imp Leader). You could make an NO for holding a region w/resources showing that you can actually ship the resources (convoy routes, or links back to an IC).

My two cents…

The addition of Axis & Allies Europe 1999 style convoy boxes would be most welcome. I often reminisce about the mid Atlantic battles from that game. That being said, I like the G40 convoy system a lot and I wouldn’t recommend removing it. These new convoy boxes could simply act as one of the UK’s national bonuses.

My second recommendation would be splitting up Spain and Turkey a bit. On the odd occasion that the neutrals come into play, the size of those territories just don’t make sense for movement.

One thing that might be cool is adding a few railways. I’m not talking about railways everywhere such as in the Global 36/45 game from HBG, just a few of them which may or may not be historically accurate for the purpose of improved gameplay.

I would put 4 of them on the board;

1. from Moscow to Siberia that does not include Amur For Russia
2. from South Africa to Egypt for the U.K.
3. from Korea to Shanghai for the Japanese
4. from Holland Belgium to Western Germany to Greater Southern Germany to Slovakia Hungary to Romania for the Germans.

Only the owner of the railway could use them. You may move 2 land units per turn up to the full length of the railway (or less) during the non-combat movement phase only. You must hold all of the territories along the railway as far as you are moving the units at the beginning of your turn. Sections of railway can be captured but only the capturing nation can use them.

I ordered some of those railway tokens today which I’m going to use for G40. They are going to cost 2 IPC’s each and I’m going to use these rules for them. You can only build one section of track per turn. If I had a board with those railways on them I would use those instead and maybe the tokens to build anywhere else. Tactical Bombers can damage sections of track with a roll of one. The railway owner would have to pay one IPC to repair one section of track.

And did I mention blow up boxes?? One for Germany, one for United Kingdom, and one for Southern Italy. I would put the U.K. one somewhere near the bottom left of the board in the south Atlantic because that’s where I like to sit when I’m playing the U.K. since that’s where most of their action is.

@WILD:

Like I posted before I would like to see more convoy “routes” that the allies need to protect. At the minimum add a couple sz in the mid Atlantic between Canada and England that have a UK marker and raiding capacity stamped right in the sz. That way German subs could be spread out and make an impact especially early in the game.

It is kinda like that strat you re-posted a while back where the US builds a lot of subs to force the Japanese to build destroyers or get convoyed. The Germans were the best at sub warfare, but G40 missed the boat on this IMO (pun intended)

To help me decide where to put convoy SZs on map for 1942.2 and AA50 HR system I used the map provided by Black Elk in this post: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35687.msg1398495#msg1398495

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=35687.0;attach=387627

I also use this map on three Allies lend-lease  routes to Russia.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35687.msg1400223#msg1400223

This last one for South-East Asia SZs for Japanese convoys.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35687.msg1398455#msg1398455

One other thing, if you are going to change some of the IPC values I would probably do a re-set for the Russians. Make Moscow worth more (3 IPCs really?) and some of the far east 0 IPCs so the Japanese don’t get much value. I think you can consider a 2 IPC territory out east, but I would be careful not to make it a target for Japan to take or build an IC.

I’d consider going somewhat in the opposite direction. To me the main problem with the Soviet Far East is that Russia has no motivation (=cash) and no ability (=production) to actually stay and fight over this region.

I think what is needed for the Russians is like a Soviet Far East equivalent of India. Basically a high value and strategically useful territory that the Allies must hold, if Japan is at war with the USSR, in order to have any reasonable expectation of stalling a Japanese advance towards the center.

Otherwise the Russians (and other Allies) have no real reason to invest in the area. The starting Soviet stack might stick around for a few turns, but in fairly short order (as soon Japan outpaces their ability to deadzone) they just fold into a full retreat.

I think the NAP is only interesting if it’s backed up by something effective. Japan should be just as interested in maintaining it as the Russians are.

I’d also like to see a return to convoy boxes, as an economic anchor, and a way to give the naval game a bit more independence.

Ps. I would seriously just take Evenki, Novos and the Tunguska territory between them down to a single tile worth 3 IPCs and stick a major on it! This would give the Soviets that much desired production center behind the Urals, with 2 routes into China and one to reinforce the far East.

Similarly, I would collapse Yenisey and Yakut into a single territory worth 2, so it can serve as a potential minor, and a desirable buffer tile. Rather than decrease the production and increase the distance I would go the exact alternate direction. Provide the Russians with the means to make a stand, and to go on the offensive in the case of a pacific strategy. With enough money you could flip the Russian situation here on its head, and get away from the whole idea of forcing the Russians to play a purely defensive game in the East because all their far eastern territories have been reduced into Japanese speed bumps. That’s the only way to make that region of the map dynamic in my view, since having it all carved up and worthless just puts it out of play for the Allies. I’d rather it be conceived as a position from which to threaten Japan.

It’s actually possible to play out that situation on the vanilla map, if you conceive of the territory tiles I mentioned before as being collapsed (for Russian movement and production purposes), potentially with a nod to the railways. Of course they would need money to make the theater operational, so an increase at Moscow would seem desireable. 5 or 6 ipcs would be totally justified, I’d go as high as 10 there, easily, if the rest of the map was reworked at a base 1 ipc per tile sort of play scale. I think Russia should be a power more on par with Germany, if the map is supposed to reflect the reality of World War II. Right now they’re a good 15-20 ipcs shy of where they need to be.

I struggled with voting on the poll between configuring sea zones, territories and IPC values of territories, however with not knowing what the thought is on new configurations I went with IPC values.

Its always been a mystery to me why some well fought over territories have a zero value?  Also, it was mentioned earlier about the eastern Russian territories if one of those could be a 2 IPC value that would be huge for the Allies to build a minor and stem the Japanese sweep that invariably occurs.  Or huge for Japan if they capture the minor.

Actually, most of the items on your poll would be great to see.  Thanks for the effort YG.

I changed my mind about the blowup boxes. You can always use task force cards or anything really to set your units down on and then you don’t have to permanently mark up your map with the blowup boxes. In the game I’m playing now I’m using a set of coasters from HGB that has each nation’s symbols on them. They’re very cheap and the perfect size to use for a blowup box. It also looks kind of cool too.

YG,

I voted for IPC changes on the map. My particular interest is Russia.

My opinion may not sway anyone, but as a US Army Logistics officer, I never liked how Japan can march all the way across Pacific board Russia to help Germany get Moscow (by lowering their IPCs for unit purchases). I don’t believe this feat possible in real life. I understand this is a game. But please consider how territories end up being too much like the board game Risk, where every territory is the same, no terrain features, and infrastructure development is taken into consideration…ect.

One person, I think Black_ Elk said for you to start with all territories having a value of 1. I’m of the opposite opinion. I think only coastal Russian territories on the Pacific board should have a 1 IPC value. Eastern Russia is mostly just wilderness. How many resources were really extracted back then in the middle of that tundra? Probably not a whole lot. The eastern Russian territories other than the coastal ones should all be 0 in my humble opinion in order to lower the incentive for Japan to march across northern Russia.

The 6 IPC values taken from the Pacific board would then be added to European Russian Territories. My opinion for the distribution would be 1 extra to Leningrad, 1 to Stalingrad, 1 to the Urals, 1 to Bryansk, and 2 to Russia.

Germany may gain a few extra IPCs while marching towards Moscow, but now Russia may only face losing their pacific board 3 IPCs (coastal territories) as a Japanese player may not go further.

You could also go the other way with the income as well. Move the 6 infantry from Buryatia to Siberia or disperse them to the west and make Buryatia an impassable zone. Take the IPC’s from Buryatia, Yakut, Yenisey, and Evenkiyskiy. With that you could double each of the territories value to the east of the impassable zone. With the 18 infantry and 2 AAA the Russians could hold off the Japanese for a few turns anyway. In a bizarre game where Germany sucks the big one Russia could build a minor factory over there because the IPC value would allow it. I don’t see that happening against good competition though.

There has to be a great deal of natural resources in that area that Japan could utilize in their war effort since their island nation has limited resources. The reason they went to war with America was because of the embargo that kept them from getting fuel for their war machine against China and Southeast Asia. Doing that would turn the Mongolians against them but that wouldn’t be the end of the world, so it would still be unlikely that they would attack Eastern Russia but that doesn’t mean that they can’t do it to secure resources (IPC’s). The only impossible thing they couldn’t have done was skate an army all the way to Moscow from the Pacific Coast. If they are still hell bent on getting to Moscow they could go through China or violate the strict neutrality of Mongolia with the consequences that go along with doing so.

If you take everything away from Siberia you would be rendering a large part of the map as useless as South America is in G40. I think we could find a way of making it somewhat relevant without completely suspending our belief in reality.

Well to be clear, my long standing position is that Industrial Production Capacity is just a poor way to characterize the basic game points in use.
:-D

I understand that Larry wanted to connect his game points to the real world in some sort of meaningful way, but it just isn’t executed very well in many instances. The discrepancies with relative value are all over the place.

As long as we hold to the idea that the game points must reflect real world industry in a 1:1 way, we’re going to keep coming up against this issue. The issue where the game’s internal economy doesn’t align with the needs of the gameplay, but can’t be changed because that would break with the supposed historical reality. A reality which isn’t accurate anyway, but which is made entirely inflexible by the proposed definition of the game points as IPCs in the first place.  I just don’t see a good way to resolve the issue in a consistant or satisfactory way, until you ditch the problematic definition, because the rigid definition is what’s hamstringing us.

I think there are a number of ways we could approach the Russian backdoor problem, but my gripe with the IPC system at large, is more foundational. I would like to see a situation where we can use them as generic “carrots” to encourage historical play patterns, without having to worry about how that connects (or fails to connect) to things like natural resources or population or whatever.

In fairness, the logistical challenge of the Japanese getting to Moscow via the China route would have been equally improbable. All those Chinese spaces are currently worth 1 ipc, regardless of whether it’s a larger population center along a river or some backwater desert province in the far west. Taken all together, unoccupied China is worth more than the United Kingdom. It’s just kind of hard for me to take it all that seriously, which is why I prefer a system that gets away from the strict definition of IPCs in favor of something more abstract and easy to adjust on the fly, according to the specific needs of the board in various places.

@Black_Elk:

I think there are a number of ways we could approach the Russian backdoor problem, but my gripe with the IPC system at large, is more foundational. I would like to see a situation where we can use them as generic “carrots” to encourage historical play patterns, without having to worry about how that connects (or fails to connect) to things like natural resources or population or whatever.

Regardless of what the IPCs stand for – whether they’re just regarded as abstract game points or whether they reflect real-world economics – their current structure discourages historical play patterns when it comes to Japan.  The non-coastal Russian territories on the Pacific side of the map have IPC values of 1, and the central Pacific islands have IPC values of 0.  This (combined with Moscow’s reachability by Japan as a high-value joint Axis target) encourages Japan to direct its war effort westward by land towards Moscow (the direction in which Japan did not go historically) rather than eastward by sea towards Hawaii (the direction in which Japan did go historically).  It would make more sense if the IPCs were reversed, with most of the Russian territories being dropped to zero and the central Pacific islands being raised to 1.  The Chinese provinces of the deep interior could likewise be dropped to 0, as a further disincentive for Japan to head westward.  Japan never got more that about one-quarter or one-third of the way into China in WWII, and likewise did not view China as being an alternate route for reaching Moscow.