I welcome your comments, good and bad.
Italy should of course have an IC. This is a mistake I made while simplify the map, even though you say it’s still cluttered!
I’m not sure Vichy France ever called itself that, but you may be correct. I’ll look into it.
The ports are Naval bases and are the only place damaged capital ships can repair. They also help with movement insofar as it cost no mps to move into/from a port, therefore ports which border 2 szs can be used to “jump” a sz. They therefore play a vital role in my naval refueling rule, which requires every ship to dock in a friendly port to refuel every turn. (Though my proposed tanker piece can be used to bypass this). I’m also considering that ships can only be constructed at NBs, only one per turn per NB; OR they are built at the IC itself, then launched at the NB the following turn. Finally ships can take refuge in NBs giving them protection against enemy attacks, rather than having to stay at sea every turn, which leads to the unrealistically high loss rate of fleet in the early rounds under standard rules.
I’m not keen on abbreviating titles myself, but on a map which has to be readable at a glance I don’t want to use tiny fonts. Maybe I’ll rename all szs by number in future.
I deliberately wanted wider oceans to make naval combat more significant. Perhaps the USA-Hawaii gap is too wide, I’ll look at this again. One effect of having wider oceans is the increased importance of small islands as naval/air stops/refueling bases. Places like St. Helena or Midway are of course economically worthless but can be logistically vital. Perhaps I have overdone them here, but at least it gives authentic names to sea zones rather than another sz number…
The US Australia thing is correct for Summer 1942 onwards. By that time the Allies had agreed to the US taking complete command of the entire Pacific war, including the armed forces of Australia and New Zealand, while the UK dealt with things in the India Ocean. Australian units from here on were under effective command of MacArthur’s SWP Command:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_West_Pacific_Area_(command)
Gameplay wise this has several effects.
As you point out this excludes the UK from the Pacific, however in most games the UK tends to abandon the area anyway in favour of more critical theatres such as North Africa and India/Burma.
With the US in Australia, the importance of the Pacific theatre can be boosted because:
Sydney is now an American VC AND has a (2 unit/turn) IC, making it the closest US production centre to Japan. This makes it much more important than in Revised, and worth fighting over for both Pacific powers. The likely combat in this region is therefore entirely authentic, witness the Coral Sea and New Guinea campaigns.
