New Custom Map Project

From what I understand of YG’s opening post on the first page, the project aims to do at least one but possibly two things.  The “at least one” aim is to improve the map in ways that don’t change how it functions rule-wise: making it bigger and more attractive, adding tools that facilitate play, correcting map errors that have no impact on play, and so forth.  The “possibly two” aim is to combine the improvements just mentioned with some other elements that actually do affect play rule-wise, if such modifications are found to be broadly acceptable to a majority of people.

@Ichabod:

battle board on the map

Hmm…I wonder about that.  If the map is printed on something rigid like cardboard, the repeated impact of dice on a batttle board printed on the map itself might cause the sculpts on the map to jiggle out of position.  More seriously, aggressively thrown dice might bounce/skid across the map and plow into the sculpts like a bowling ball into a rack of bowling pins, with similar results.  The jiggle problem would be reduced if the map were printed on something soft and shock-absorbing, like vinyl, but the bowling ball issue might still be a problem.

As far as battle board I would put them on the ends of table off the map like I have.
It is so convenient.
And with size of G40 map won’t take as much room as my table.
Mines  60" x  144"

In regards to the Battle Board…please see YG’s video at around 8:12.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqlha8-nCxU

I think he got the Battle Board in the right spot in his custom. In fact, that’s about where I’ve set it during a table top game when we resolved to use it.

YG, if you build this custom board…double printed (standard G40 on one side, with improvements), and some game changing aspects, like in this discussion thread…I will buy it!

Cheers!
Ichabod

@Young:

I’m looking into double printing for front and back of the boards… maybe a G40 map on one side, and a map with some house rule aspects on the other.

That would be a very elegant way of solving the question of whether the map should simply be an upgrade or whether it should incorporate rule modifications: it would have both, and players could choose to use whichever side they wish for a given game.  And if it turns out that printing the map double-sided is mechanically impossible (or too expensive), the fall-back solution would be to offer the map in two separate versions.

I think that’s a great idea too. It would be such a huge bonus to have 2 different choices of map to play the game on. It’s also a cool idea to have everyone contribute to a new game that we all have the pieces for already but only need a new playing surface.

To add a few more ideas to the discussion, here are some expanded and revised versions of the IPC-adjustment concepts and charts that I posted previously. They’re not intended to be finished products; they’re simply meant to generate feedback and discussion.  I’ll post the information about them in multiple messages, since I’d probably go over the post-length limit if I tried to put everything into a single message.  The sections and parts will be:

SECTION A: The Soviet Union and China
PART 1: Introduction
PART 2: Adjustments for the Soviet Union
PART 3: Adjustments for China

SECTION B: The Pacific
PART 1: Introduction
PART 2: Adjustments for the Pacific

======================================

SECTION A: The Soviet Union and China
PART 1: Introduction

As previously mentioned, the idea is to use IPC adjustments to discourage Japan from heading westward towards Moscow (which it did not do historically, and which would be improbable in view of the distances involved) and to encourage Japan to head eastward into the Pacific (which it did do historically).

On the Global 1940 game map, Japan can in principle launch an attack against Moscow by four different overland routes:

• Through the Soviet Union alone.  Starting from Manchuria, Japan can strike north and then west.  Under this option, Japan has to traverse at least eight Soviet territories to reach Moscow.  Various routes of this length are available, one example being the one that traverses Amur, Buryatia, Yakut, Yenisey, Timguska, Novosibirsk, Samara and Russia.

• Via China.  Starting from Jehol, Shantung, Kiangsu, Kiangsi and/or Kwangsi, Japan can strike west across the Chinese territories that are still controlled by China.  Japan’s shortest route to Moscow via China starts from Kwangsi and traverses six territories: three Chinese ones (Yunnan, Szechwan and Sikang) and three Soviet ones (Kazakhstan, Samara and Russia).

• Via Mongolia.  This route is more trouble than it’s worth.  It doesn’t save Japan any time (since it too involves traversing at least eight territories), it violates Mongolia’s neutrality (with all the consequences that this involves), and it gains Japan no IPCs (because Mongolia’s territories have no IPC value).

• Via Southeast Asia.  This is an even less attractive option than going through Mongolia: it’s the longest overland route of all, it involves fighting the UK, and it also involves violating Afghan and/or Persian neutrality.

(Just for fun, it should be noted that Japan technically has a fifth option for invading the Soviet Union: by amphibious landing.  The Soviet Union has coastlines on four bodies of water that are, in principle, all reachable by a Japanese naval task force: the Pacific (SZ 3, 4 and 5), the Black Sea (SZ 100, if Turkey is under Axis control), the Baltic (SZ 115); and the White Sea (SZ 127).  A Japanese amphibious landing in SZ 3, 4 or 5 wouldn’t actually be hard to do, but there would be little point to it because a Japanese overland invasion of the Soviet Union from Manchuria would be more efficient.  As for the notion of a Japanese amphibious landing in southern, central or northern European waters…well, it would at least have the virtue of being something that the Allies would probably never expect.)

If we therefore assume that Japan’s only two serious options for invading the Soviet Union are by land through eastern Russia or China, then those are the only two areas where IPC values need to be adjusted in some way to discourage Japan from doing so.

The original concept from a few days ago was to keep the adjustments IPC-neutral for the map as a whole.  This hasn’t turned out to be feasible, so the fall-back solution is now to have a net gain of IPCs for the map as a whole, but to keep this creation of new IPCs to a minimum.

The original concept also overlooked the fact that some of the IPC adjustments which had been proposed would have resulted in a net loss of starting income for the Soviet Union and China, which in turn would have negatively affected their ability to buy units.  In the revised version below, the IPC adjustments cause no net change to the starting income for the Soviet Union and China.  Two different methods, however, have been used to adjust the IPC values of the Soviet Union and China, as will be explained in their respective parts.

SECTION A: The Soviet Union and China
PART 2: Adjustments for the Soviet Union

Three main principles were used to prepare the table below:

• Each decrease to the IPC value of a Soviet territory needs to be compensated by an equivalent increase to the IPC value of another Soviet territory.

• These compensatory IPC increases should be spread out rather than concentrated into a small number of territories, in order to avoid making some territories disproportionately valuable.

• The number of Soviet territories targeted for an IPC decrease should be as small as possible, in order to keep the number of compensatory IPC increases as small as possible.

Based on these principles:

• The IPC values of Sakha, Siberia and the Soviet Far East were left unchanged.  Japan does not have to traverse these territories to reach Moscow, and therefore no measures need to be taken to discourage Japan from entering these territories.

• No change was made to Amur either, even though it does have to be entered if Japan wishes to reach Moscow by traversing Soviet territory alone. Japan fought border wars with Russia and Mongolia in his area in the late 1930s, and it maintained a large army in nearly Manchuria for much of WWII.  Amur is therefore a reasonable target for Japanese invasion for reasons that are independent of its potential use in the game as the entry point for a drive against Moscow.

• The remaining Soviet territories on the Pacific side of the Global 1940 map are Buryatia, Yakut, Yenisey, Evenkiyskiy and Timguska.  They have to be entered if Japan wishes to reach Moscow by traversing Soviet territory alone. To discourage Japan from doing so, their IPC values of 1 have all been reduced to 0.  This puts 5 IPCs into the redistribution pool for the Soviet Union.

• The three Soviet territories on the right-side edge of the Europe 1940 map (Urals, Novosibirsk and Kazakhstan) form a border between the Pacific 1940 map to their right and the rest of the Soviet Union to their left.  Any invasion of the Soviet Union through eastern Russia or China has to traverse at least one of these territories.  Their IPC values of 1 have therefore all been reduced to 0.  This puts 3 more IPCs into the redistribution pool for the Soviet Union, for a total of 8.

• The Soviet Union has one territory with an IPC value of 3 (Russia, which contains Moscow) and six territories with an IPC value of 2 (Novgorod, which contains Leningrad; Volgograd, which contains Stalingrad; and the territories of Caucasus, Rostov, Ukraine and Western Ukraine).  The 8 IPCs in the redistribution pool for the Soviet Union have therefore been expended by allocating 2 of them to Russia (raising its IPC value from 3 to 5) and 1 to each of the six other territories (raising their IPC value from 2 to 3).

The IPC adjustment table for the Soviet Union is therefore:

Buryatia          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 0 IPC
Yakut          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 0 IPC
Yenisey          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 0 IPC
Evenkiyskiy          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 0 IPC
Timguska          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 0 IPC
Urals          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 0 IPC
Novosibirsk          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 0 IPC
Kazakhstan          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 0 IPC
Russia          Old value: 3 IPC          New value: 5 IPC
Novgorod          Old value: 2 IPC          New value: 3 IPC
Volgograd          Old value: 2 IPC          New value: 3 IPC
Caucasus          Old value: 2 IPC          New value: 3 IPC
Rostov          Old value: 2 IPC          New value: 3 IPC
Ukraine          Old value: 2 IPC          New value: 3 IPC
Western Ukraine          Old value: 2 IPC          New value: 3 IPC

SECTION A: The Soviet Union and China
PART 3: Adjustments for China

The IPC redistribution method which was used for the Soviet Union is not suitable for use in China’s case.  China has fewer territories than the Soviet Union on the Global 1940 map, and some of them are already under Japanese occupation at the game.  This means there are fewer Chinese territoires to choose from when deciding which ones should be targeted for an IPC reduction and which ones should not.  This situation also limits the number of Chinese territories in which compensatory IPC increases can be made, and therefore creates the potential for excessive concentration of IPCs into a few territories.  A further complication is that Japan’s shortest route to Moscow via China traverses Yunnan and Szechwan, two territories which are already of special value to both China and Japan because control of those territories determines whether or not the Burma Road can contribute to China’s war effort.

The IPC adjustment solution which was developed for China is based on the fact that special OOB Global 1940 rules apply to China (rules which state among other things that China has a rural economy and decentralized government).  The IPC adjustment solution developed for China assigns two possible IPC values to each of the territories originally controlled by China at the start of the game: their original value of 1 IPC when they are controlled by China, and a downgraded value of 0 IPC when they are controlled by Japan.  This concept is expressed in the table below by the IPC value “1/0” (standing for “one or zero” not “one divided by zero”).  As a map symbol modification it could be expressed as 1*, or the printed map figure could be left unchanged as long as players remember that the Chinese territories originally controlled by China have two possible values.

The two-value system for China has both advantages and disadvantages.  Its advantage is that it helps to discourage Japan from advancing into Chinese territory (because Japan gains no IPCs from doing so) and that it avoids creating the problems which an IPC redistribution would cause in China’s case.  Its disadvantage is that it is a less powerful deterrent to Japan than the IPC redistribution method which was used in the Soviet Union’s case: Japanese territorial gains in China do not translate into IPC gains for Japan, but they do translate into IPC losses for China and this something which works to Japan’s advantage.

The IPC adjustment table for China is therefore:

Anhwe          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Chahar          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Hopei          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Hunan          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Kansu           Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Kweichow          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Shensi          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Sikang          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Suiyuyan          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Szechwan          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Tsinghai          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC
Yunnan          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 1/0 IPC

SECTION B: The Pacific
PART 1: Introduction

In the same way that territory values in the Soviet Union and China have been adjusted downward to discourage Japan from moving westward towards Moscow, territory values in the Pacific have been adjusted upward to encourage Japan to devote more of its war effort to the Pacifc Ocean.  (These adjustments may also have the beneficial effect of encouraging the US to fight in both theatres rather than concentrating its war effort in Europe.)

The adjustments have been made by creating additional IPCs, not by redistributing existing ones.  Only Pacific island territories have been adjusted.  Most of the adjusted islands are territories with a 0-IPC value on the OOB map; however, not all 0-IPC islands have been increased in value, and not all of the value increases have been to 0-IPC islands.

As in the case of the IPC adjustments in the Soviet Union and China, the IPC increases in the Pacific have been kept to a minimum, and have been spread out rather than concentrated.  To maintain balance, the Allies (as a group) and Japan (the only Axis power in the Pacific) have been given the same number of new IPCs.

On the OOB game map, the following named island territories in the Pacific theatre have an IPC value of 0:

ALLIES:
United States
Aleutian Islands
Guam
Johnston Island
Line Islands
Midway
Wake Island
United Kingdom
Fiji
Samoa
ANZAC
New Britain
New Guinea
Solomon Islands
France
New Hebrides
AXIS:
Japan
Caroline Islands
Hainan
Marianas
Marshall Islands
Paulau Island

SECTION B: The Pacific
PART 2: Adjustments for the Pacific

Since the Allies and Japan are supposed to receive an equal number of new IPCs, the first problem to be solved is to reduce the imbalance between the number of 0-IPC islands initially held by the Allies (12) and by Japan (5).  On the Japanese side, moreover, the island of Hainan is not a good candidate to have its IPC value raised because it is in fact a Chinese territory which was captured by Japan in 1939, so it will be removed from the list; this drop Japan’s initial number from 5 to 4.

The French territory of the New Hebrides will be removed from the list because of France’s peculiar status in Global 1940, and because this territory was historically jointly administered by France and Britain as an Anglo-French Condominium.  It is remote from Japan, and it was controlled by the Allies throughout WWII.

The British territories of Fiji and Samoa will be removed from the list.  They are remote from Japan, and they were controlled by the Allies throughout WWII.

The US territories of Johnston Island and the Line Islands will be removed from the list.  They are remote from Japan, and they were controlled by the Allies throughout WWII.

The US territory of the Aleutian Islands will be removed from the list.  Two of the Aleutian Islands were occupied by Japan for part of WWII, but they proved to be of little use to Japan and they were kept under regular bomber attack by US forces for much of that time.

Based on the adjustments described above, the revised list of 0-IPC Pacific territories which are candidates for an IPC increase now features a more balanced number of 0-IPC islands initially held by the Allies (6) and by Japan (4):

ALLIES:
United States
Guam
Midway
Wake Island
ANZAC
New Britain
New Guinea
Solomon Islands
AXIS:
Japan
Caroline Islands
Marianas
Marshall Islands
Paulau Island

If all of these territories are raised in IPC value from 0 to 1, there remains a 2-IPC imbalance to be corrected between the Allies and Japan.  The method which will be used to solve this problem will be to allocate 1 extra IPC apiece to two strategically important Japanese island territories which saw particularly heavy fighting in 1945: Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

The IPC adjustment table for the Pacific is therefore:

ALLIES:
United States
Guam          Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
Midway          Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
Wake Island           Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
ANZAC
New Britain          Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
New Guinea          Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
Solomon Islands          Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
AXIS:
Japan
Caroline Islands          Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
Marianas          Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
Marshall Islands          Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
Paulau Island          Old value: 0 IPC          New value: 1 IPC
Iwo Jima          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 2 IPC
Okinawa          Old value: 1 IPC          New value: 2 IPC

Thanks!  I developed the tables purely from a conceptual base, not on the basis of any actual testing, so they may not stand up to actual use in an actual game, but they’re a potential starting point and they can of course be adjusted in any number of ways.  I wasn’t sure where I was going to end up when I started working on them, but in the end I was happy to see that redirecting Japan 180 degrees from west to east can apparently be done with fewer IPC changes than I initially thought might be needed.

You’ve put a lot of thought into this CWO Marc and I commend you for your efforts. The innovative 2 value system for China is a great idea to address Japan’s conquest of China, making them decide how many territories they should spend the effort on vs. the reward they receive.

These changes may also help to balance the game as well. I think it should be play tested a number of times to see if it shifts the balance just right or a little too much. I can see Japan becoming weaker and Germany getting stronger as the shift in IPC’s moves to the west and right into the path of Germany. That might not be such a bad thing as Japan is an overwhelming, unstoppable force in most of the games I’ve played. The question with that will be does Germany smash Russia too fast because they gain access to the extra IPC’s while Russia loses them faster than if they were protected behind the capital (assuming Japan didn’t raid Russia ). If that happens you could always shift the IPC’s again away from the German front lines, back to Moscow and territories bordering it. Another thing you could do to help the Russians is install the Tankograd rule in some form that was discussed in an earlier thread to balance out the increased threat from Germany.

Overall I think you’re really onto something with these proposed changes to IPC values. It would certainly spice up the battle in the Pacific.

CWO Marc, I see that you have put a lot of thought into this, couple of things though.

I really like that you made some of the far east Russian territories 0 IPCs to deter the Japanese, but I agree with GeneralHandGrenade that you may find the Germans benefiting from it and causing some trouble. I would concentrate on increasing Moscow, and maybe other VC, and Caucasus. If you increase Moscow then the Germans don’t get more until they sack it. You could increase Leningrad, Stalingrad, and Caucasus and reduce the NO’s to offset it. I wouldn’t raise any of the other 2 IPC Russian territories because the Germans are already concentrating on the southern route (both Ukraine territories, and Ros). Plus I believe you are going to hear from those that wanted a 2 ipc territory somewhere east of Moscow to supply units to that front if needed, or to represent Russian production moving away from the German lines.

On a side note:
I think it would be cool if the Russians could split their Major IC in Moscow into 3 Minor ICs when the Germans get with in 2 territories of the Russian capital. One minor must stay in Moscow (and can be used), but the other 2 minors can move to a territory north or east of Moscow (maybe choose between Novo, Urals, Yak, or Bury?). The Russians keep fighting until all their ICs are captured. This would take the 10 production of the major and split it to 3 minors keeping production at 9 units.

Making all of China worthless to Japan is also going to be a hard sell IMO (personally I’m not too crazy about it either). Some peaple even give the Japanese a 5 IPC NO to conquer all of China. I think there could be some Chinese (and Russian) territories with a dual IPC value, but not all of them (maybe 5 territories on the back side?). I have also heard some say that one of the Russian territories east of Moscow should have a dual IPC value w/IC for the Russians to use, but if taken it becomes a 1 or 0 IPC territory and the IC is removed.

I 100% agree with your Pac Islands evaluation. I have an Island NO for both the US and Japan if they hold 5/7 of the islands you listed (3 US & 4 Japanese). I agree that you could make all those 1 IPCs, but I also think that a better NO could also do it for those mid Pac islands. I feel that the existing Anz NO puts value to the 3 Anz territories that you posted. If you did bump the 3 the Anz territories I think you would also need to adjust that NO. Iwo and Okinawa were very strategic, so yea they could go up because the US passes them by often times.

ALLIES:
United States
  Guam        
  Midway      
  Wake Island  
ANZAC
  New Britain  
  New Guinea  
  Solomon Islands
AXIS:
Japan
  Caroline Islands  
  Marianas
  Marshall Islands
  Paulau Island

Another thing to think about while redistributing the territory values is to make the VC worth more. You could strike a good balance, and eliminate some of the NO’s that are awarded for taking them. Add 2-3 IPCs to each VC and you probably don’t need to list half of the German and Japanese NO’s.

Thanks for the input GeneralHandGrenade and Wild Bill.  As I mentioned, the tables which I posted above are primarily meant to stimulate discussion.  I designed them mainly by looking at the Global 1940 map rather than at the Global 1940 rules – so at best they may need adjustments to adapt them to actual play considerations, and at worst they may prove to be either unworkable (mechanically) or tough to sell (which is a point that was mentioned by Wild Bill).  Which is fine; I developed the tables because I knew that this little project would be a fun problem-solving exercise, which it did indeed turn out to be.  If the results are in any way useful to A&A players, either as they are or in modified forms, then all the better.

Regarding the shift of Soviet IPCs to the European side of the game map, there seems to be some overlap between the comments from GHG and Bill.  If I understand the comments correctly, both GHG and Bill feel that putting too many of the redeployed IPCs into Soviet territories which are open to rapid capture by Germany would work too much for Germany and against the USSR.  Their proposed solution, as I understand it, would be to keep some of those redeployed IPCs in Russia/Moscow and in a couple of other places mentioned in the original table, but to put the others to the east of Moscow (though still to the west of the 0-IPC north-south barrier formed by Urals, Novosibirsk and Kazakhstan).  There would actually be a historical justification for this, given that the Soviets moved many of their factories eastward to put them out of German reach.  On the Global 1940 map, Nenetsia, Vologda and Samara are well positoned to fulfill that function.  Archangel could also be thrown in for good measure; as I recall, it was a busy port city during WWII.

Bill’s paragraph about China brings up an interesting possibility.  The tables as originally designed use the IPC-redeployment method exclusively for the Soviet Union and the dual-value 1/0 IPC method exclusively for China, but Bill’s paragraph indicates that a blended approach might be better.  The two techniques could certainly be blended.  In the Soviet Union’s case, some of the territories between Moscow and the Pacific Ocean could be given a dual value of 1/0 (rather that their existing value of 1 or the value of 0 proposed in the tables); that would be quite easy to do.

China is a more tricky case because it has fewer territories to play with than the USSR, and its territory configuration is awkward.  One of the things that surprised me when I started studying the map for the project was to see that China (as configured on the game map) offers Japan a faster route to Moscow that the eastern Soviet Union does: a 6-territory route as opposed to an 8-territory route.  Keeping all of the China-controlled Chinese territories at 1 IPC provides no deterrent to Japan.  Dropping all of them to 0 IPC is an effective deterrent to Japan, but it robs China of its income.  Dropping some of them to 0 and redeploying those IPCs to other Chinese territories is (I think) problematic for the same reason that GHG and Bill cited in relation to the USSR: given that China is so cramped, those redeployed IPCs have few places to go, and those places are potentially open to rapid capture by Japan.  But I’d certainly be happy to see a proposal for an alternate table that would resolve this problem.

What about expanding South America so that it can become a viable theater of war? It feels like so much of that part of the map is wasted.

Perhaps more segmentation in IndoChina and the CBI theatre? I always feel that the fight in that area goes too quickly.

I don’t like how the latest HBG map deals with North Africa. I think there needs to be a separate Tripoli half-circle. However, I think the A&A Global 1940 map deals with North Africa fairly well overall.