Preview of the GW1936v4 Map

@dsumner Too much orange palette in Asia, not fond of the “pimples” that represent Jungle, needs to be toned down. Like the logo better, not fond of seeing under the water topography. Spain, Italy, and UK properties are too similar. France and water areas too similar. USSR needs to be earth brown, not orange. Railroads are everywhere, only need them in transiberia with understanding no rails in Afrika. Colors in China too strange and not pleasing to the eye. Map should be taller so Afrika isn’t so “midgetized”.

@dsumner Some good some bad. mixed bag. If your a fan of yellows and Orange over 80%, go for it!

Version 3 map was way better. This looks like a jam up. Anyway still good work

@dsumner said in Preview of the GW1936v4 Map:

@general-6-stars
Just out of curiosity, what is it you think makes the v3 map better?

The way the colors are all different

@dsumner Well the cartography is decent, as is the detail. color of oceans is correct and the sea lanes of trade. Logo is a step above the V3.

@dsumner

As someone who’s never seen a Global War game before, this is a historian’s dream! Poland is so detailed! Railroads! Are those sea lanes I see? Jungles? Even mountains that aren’t the Himalayas!

@superbattleshipyamato

The jungles spots in the photos don’t look good though. Almost like somebody with measles.

@imperious-leader said in Preview of the GW1936v4 Map:

@dsumner Map should be taller so Afrika isn’t so “midgetized”.

You do realize this is a 4 foot tall map already, right?

@trig yes i do but its still not pleasing to the eye. certainly something could be done, global 40 isn’t like that

@imperious-leader

100+ dollars for just the map is hefty though.

The politic (beside the usual wrong “Axis&Allies style” thing of giving a red field to the German “roundel” (The Swastika should have it.) and the use of the WW1 Italian roundel instead of the proper WW2 one, I suppose to avoid Fascist symbolism) part seems decent for a game, even though I’m a bit annoyed by approximative names like “Western Germany” for what is only the northern part of it and, similarly, a very generic “Western Russia” for a small and northerly part of what may be western Russia (as the primary meaning of Russia in 1936 is the Russian SFSR, so western Russia can be practically everything west of the Ural mountains). Even if we assume we are thinking to the western part of European Russia, Great Russia or Russia proper, Moscow is still in the western part of it and, for the far western part, I’d rather think of a portion of territory centred in Smolensk. Easily better names could have been, respectively, “Northwestern Germany” (or “Hamburg”, being the second most important city of Germany) and “Kalinin”.

On the politics, the only major annoyance I’ve spotted so far is the absence of Kuybyshev (unless it has been placed somewhere too much to the east), which would eventually be the back-up capital of Russia in 1941 and until 1943. If the river which in the map is joining the Volga is the Samara, then I guess the Saratov territory could be renamed “Kuybyshev” or “Kuybyshev - Saratov”. Besides, both the Kuybyshev city and its oblast had a bigger population than Saratov city and its oblast, according to 1933 and 1939 data. It would have also been a nice touch to see the Volga shaped as to show its characteristic Samara Bend, by the way.

However, if this map is supposed to picture 1936, maybe the map-makers (or the map-maker) should have used a period map for the topography too… They certainly didn’t, otherwise I would not be seeing the Rybinsk Reservoir (that big “lake” the map has in the “Western Russia” territory), which was just starting getting water in 1941 (and this is supposed to be a 1936 map)…

Now (with internet) is really exceedingly easy to find maps. I found this one (in German, but I’m looking at the topography) in about one minute now (courtesy of Google), for example:
https://www.etsy.com/it/listing/554542239/1936-mappa-vintage-della-russia?ref=sold_out-10&frs=1

I’ve also checked a 1940 original atlas I own and there in no water there.

Gameplay wise, it might be worth merging the two south Italy territories into only one: historically, they fell shortly together and I can see there is not much space there for pieces with this drawing. Similarly, it may be preferable merging the Netherlands and Belgium, as they are small and got attacked about at the same time. Estonia and Latvia could be merged together too. Conversely, “Central Romania” could really be split into at least in two territories (on the Carpathian mountains) or into three if drawing the borders so to show the borders of what would eventually be the historical Hungarian annexation of part of Roumania (not meaning anything like this should actually happen in the game). The same can be said of that huge northern Swedish territory.

By the way, I’m almost sure that the name “Central Romania” is wrong: that country was called either “Roumania” (British English) or “Rumania” (American English) at the time. However, it was “Romania” on Italian and Romanian atlases at the time, and I cannot exclude it may have been the same on some English ones too.

@cernel

Perhaps it’s a good idea to not merge separate countries to give the option to only attack one of them.

@superbattleshipyamato said in Preview of the GW1936v4 Map:

The jungles spots in the photos don’t look good though. Almost like somebody with measles.

However, the forest areas in the pictures don’t appear pleasant. similar to someone who has the measles.

@briangates

Yeah.