I was looking over the map somemore, and there’s a few little things I noticed…
1. I don’t think Iceland should fall on the border of several sea zones. Small islands, especially if you’re going to put an airbase symbol on them, work much better if they’re surrounded by a single sea zone. If you’re not familiar with A&A:P, the way airbases work is that friendly aircraft flying into or out of a territory containing an airbase don’t have to count the sea zone adjacent to the airbase when determining their movement. On the map, the airbases are generally placed along the border of a territory and the sea zone they are supposed to apply to. With Iceland now touching three sea zones, you would be in the akward position of having to put several airbase symbols on the island to tie it to each of the seperate sea zones. Another thing is that by having it touch three sea zones, you’ve basically given Iceland three seperate routes that make it vulnerable to amphibious invasion. I think that’s far too many invasion routes for an island the size on Iceland. I would definately suggest putting Iceland back within its own seazone. If need be, you can slide the island a little to the south-east to give you more room to work with.
2. You might want to think about reworking the shape of the seazons in the Mediterranean so that Sicily also isn’t being bordered by so many sea zones. I would say that having it bordered by 2 sea zones would be better than the current 3. The Axis and Allies: Europe map might be a good place to look to get some ideas on how to rework the Mediterranean.
3. Its a little unclear if the sea zone between Madagascar and Africa touches the sea zone to the south east of Madagascar or not. Its also unclear if the sea zone to the south east of South Africa touches Madagascar or not. I would say to just move the line between Madagascar and Africa a little to the north, similar to where it was on the original map.
4. You’ve added a few spots where four sea zones come together in a squared corner. Namely the area north of Scotland, the area south-east of the Philippines, the area north of the Caroline Islands, the two area west of Hawaii, and the area north-west of Midway. You’ll notice that on the official Axis & Allies maps, sea zones are never laid out like this. They are always staggered so that corners never come together like that. I think it leads to more natural movement of units upon the board, and it makes it easier to visualize the placement of your fleets at a glance. Think of it somewhat as the difference between a game that uses a square combat grid versus a hex grid. I would highly suggest changing the layout of the all the four corner areas I listed above.
5. The UK capital symbol has been moved away from London and up onto the border between Scotland and the Great Britain territory. Was this intentional? And if so, why? The German capital symbol should also be moved a little more into Germany so that no one gets confused and thinks that West Germany is also somehow part of the capital.
6. Its hard to tell if the sea zone west of British Columbia actually touches Alaska or not. I would suggest angling the right end of the line up a bit so that Alaska is clearly shown to touch the sea zone.
7. Don’t forget the name for the island east of Primorsky.