New Axis & Allies Global War Variant (free map)

Deepblue…

I just went through a world of nonsense to setup printing for this last map. As far as to getting and installing a copy of photoshop pro. Send the .psp file to me and I can do the conversion & print 'em for you. Hopefully for less than the local shop.

http://www.bionicdonkeys.com/iWeb/Bionic printing/Bionic Printing.html

3’ x Whatever. This one ends up being 75" long.

$1.08/inch x 75" = $81 + Shipping $7.5 = $88.50

-jim lee

I agree with Imperious Leader that Azores should be added.  It did have strategic value.  Deepblue, you’re right, Portugal has no value in that they are neutral, although they were sympathetic to the Nazis, if they were a neutral nation, perhaps, but that is dividing up an area, that really doesn’t need to be divided.  I also agree on not dividing Morocco into 3 parts, you should just have the part that is Vichy(German), and the part covered by the Sahara.  The Spanish owned part is quite small, and not worth the extra effort.  With regards to Brazil, they could be neutral given the time period.  I don’t really mind either way.  If they are neutral, there could be a mechanism to bring them into the game (at least their IPCs) like the other neutrals.

As for the poster, the last poster, which Positronica put out was a high res jpg I believe, that looked awesome when I printed it on my plotter, so that would do for me quite nicely.

OK I am most defiantly the person to ask when it comes to knowledge pertaining to the value of neutrals in AA. I have full and  extensive production numbers for all of these. You need any help on that?

My Bible is Mark Harrisons “the economics of world war II” which is the preeminent literature on this topic IMO.

Ok looking at the map a few things…

I think the yellow for Japan and orange you got for UK are too similiar. I think you should go kaiki for england

I think USA should be drab olive rather than that hunter green you got. Its too dark.

Germany should be less blue grey and more field grey

Soviets should be earth brown or kinda of a brown green mix. Check out a picture of the Soviet soldiers uniform in WW2 for the exaxt color.

China should be a light green or the red you got for russia.

Italy is fine and Japan is fine.

Neutrals should be cream rather than white. White has the look of incomplete ( or lacking a color) I would recolor France and her colonies french blue so people can use the same map and play 1939. In that way they wond have the print 2 maps and secondly, the french are known.

I hope you have some neat rules for this.

If you are going through all this trouble to print this map and it still is costing $88 bucks plus shipping. You should just post the updated one with no errors on it just like  Positronica did (his has the errors)  Any way Save it to a disk take it down to a Print shop, Not Kinko’s They want over $1 Per square foot for color printing. This Map is 15 Sq. ft. = $150+ in cost. Go to a blue print place or even a Printing School And they will do it for half the cost. I did it and got country cards all for less then $85.00 and I got it the next day, Ink had to dry, lotsa of color. Also it was printed on a non glossy Photo grade paper all 1 piece. ( I thought glossy would be to shiny). I’m glad I went with it, the Map is sharp.  I roll it up put 3 rubber bands around it and strore it in a Card board paper core (tube) that they gave me. We have managed to play 5 games on the original from Posi. With some surprising results and tactics. There are alot of possibilities and room for Nat’l growth for every country  from round 1 on  Thanks again for this wonderful Artwork

If you add France you don’t have the problem of Vichy anymore on your map. People can decide themselves if they want to play 1939,1941 or 1942… But you get the problem for coloring the other invaded countries like Poland, Greece etc… You could let them have the current colors, or neutral color or add them to either France or the UK. Let’s say, Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Greece, Crete and Yugoslavia to the UK, and Poland, East Poland and the Baltic States to France… But this is maybe to much nonsense… Just thinking out lout here…

If you go for France, than add Paris. and looking at the map then these should be colored into French Blue;
France
Western France
Vichy France
Corsica
Morocco
Algeria
Northern Algeria
Tunisia
West Africa
French West Africa
Niger
French Equatorial Africa
Cameroon
Syria (could also be Levant states)
Madagascar
French Indo China
New Herbrides

Actually… Its 36" x 75" = 2,700 squ in -> 18.75 squ ft. Almost 30% larger.

-jim lee

Jim,

What kind of paper are you printing on?

I have a local shop that charges $6 dollars a square foot on 25pd paper and $8 dollars for 35pd paper.  Gloss I think is $12 a square foot.

My map will be larger then the original.

Original 32.04/in by 67.5/in

My map will be:
36/in by 75.85/in

I may even make one a bit bigger if possible.

I will be posting a PDF of the final map.  Not sure if a JPEG version is necessary but I can do it, no problems.  Your PSP file on the other hand will not happen I am not using Paint Shop Pro to create the file.

Micoom,

Thinking out loud is good, just don’t answer yourself.  :-D

Thought of France myself, but you pointed out the major issues with that idea.  So let’s put that on hold for 1939.

Paris was never going to be removed.  I just haven’t added the cities yet (Will add them this draft).

Deaths Head 420,

Thanks for joining the discussion.

Good ideas on getting this thing printed. I will have to look around.  I am looking at around $90 bucks to do mine at the moment.

Has anyone printed it on glossy paper?  My print shop is pushing it… of course… $12 bucks a square foot.

If you could shed some more light on the game play of the map that would be great!  I am interested on hearing how things worked out and any suggestion you might have in this department that goes for everyone else also also.

Imp,

I will look into adding the Azores.  Which sea zone and approximate location within the sea zone do you suggest?  I am thinking center, extreme left in 32 or maybe center, extreme right in 31, preference?

I am assuming you are referring the wave effect around the land masses.  I not sure how Positronica did his but if I were to do it I would use, maybe… trace contour filter, or select the border move the line out a few pixels with alter, lay a line, smudge blur, repeat.  I would have to look into it and try a few things to get the effect I was looking for.

Let’s hold off on the set up sheets until we have the map the way we like it. But yes I do plan on updating them.

Your Map suggestions:

I disagree with the Japan UK comparison.  Group members that have printed off the map Jim, pdel21, others, please chime in a let me know what you think.  I have had a sectional proof printed off at the printers and did not see an issue.

Your color suggestions are understandable but….  It will be a large pain in my a** to change these colors, I may be willing to lighten a few of them if the Group thinks it’s necessary, let me know.

I was hoping to do a 1939 version of this map, at a later date.  Add Belgium, Natural countries allow the German player to break out.

Did my reply get lost?

-jim lee

I guess it did, rats!

The orignial was done in paintshop pro. What are you creating this next version with?

As to ,pdf files. If its being done with a paint program, all the .pdf file will be is a .jpg in a .pdf wrapper. From a paint program, if not the original format then .jpg with some compression would be best. With drawing programs .pdf files are the bees knees.

When I printed the original I upped the size to 36" to fit my machine. This set the length to 75".

My pricing is $.03 per sq in. For square feet… Multiply by 144 gives $4.32 per square foot. 24 lb Coated paper, not glossy. + $7.50 shipping.

And there you have it.

-jim lee

Put the Azores in SZ 31, then it will add alot of new ideas for germany who can now first the first time actually SBR america into submission.

And that way the americans will also view it as an important base because it can be an unsinkable aircraft carrier and mess with U-boats.

I spend ( wasted actually 1.5 hours) downloading PSP trial like 4 times and it never fully loaded… so i cant yet view the map w/o it pizelating. Please provide a PDF of this ASAP. That RAR extention converts to PSP and then its a mess.

http://www.geocities.com/acrawford0/portugue.html

info on the history of these islands.

Don’t feel too bad. I spend an entire day getting the Photoshop pro trial program running just to find out it can’t center the image when printing. Well it can, if you don’t want it scaled… But it can’t scale an image this large… Sheesh Nightmare!

-jim lee

Jim once you got it working can you PLEASE PDF this thing and post the map?

PSP extention is a load of crap!

Below is what I have come up with for the Azores.  If the group likes what I have done, I will add it to the next draft.

Does everyone like the idea of it being a staging point for bombers?  What is the actual mileage could a WWII bomber actually fly from the Azores to America and back?

http://www.mediafire.com/?fnwqqmntmzm

Imperious… This thing -is- a bit image therefor the pdf file is no better than a .jpg. The only version I have is the original. You want a .jpg of that?

Remeber : Just because its .pdf doesn’t mean you can scale it up or down. Its -still- a bit image.

-jim lee

deepblue,

the colours on the map that Positronica did (the orangish Japan and all that) were fine by me.  I printed the adjustment you made, and that came out equally as well.  I have no problem with Russia, Germany, UK, USA or Italy in terms of colours.

Yeah as far as gameplay goes acouple of tweaks are needed I noted a few a while back. I don’t have my map handy but some anchors are dumb, cause they are. Coroline islands i think it is, doesn’t reach japan it should. The sea zones adjacent to Normandy and Spain  and the anchor don’t work. In other words useless to Axis. and they control it. Both sides of Japan need an Anchor.  I made some notes but I don’t have them with me I’ll get back to you.