@Vendetta said:

@KurtGodel7 They could probably use a bit of a buff to deter the AI from invading them right away. Germany could take Switzerland or Spain's border provinces on Round 1 with just the forces from the neighboring territories, Britain could probably do the same with Portugal, Leon, or Andalusia if it brings a transport and planes.

I think it would be good practice for invading the neutrals to require about one turn of setup by moving in enough forces from other territories, so that the enemy player might see it coming and prepare countermoves if they choose.

Also, Gibraltar having a border that extends all the way to Portugal is definitely an error - it should only touch Andalusia.

I've fixed the Gibraltar error.

For game balance, it might be helpful for the Axis to quickly turn Spain into a stronghold. Of course, Britain is likely to invade somewhere. Like NWO, that somewhere could be Scandinavia, France, or Spain. In my test game I chose for Britain to invade France, and America Atlantic to invade Spain. (Which is also what I personally would do if playing NWO.)

Britain is able to exert good invasion pressure quickly. Stronger neutrals in Spain would slow down the initial German conquest of it. Thereby making it easier for the Allies to take away Spain. If the Allies own Spain, that's a very good base from which they can push east to take more of Europe.

If the Axis is able to be strong in Spain, then the initial America Atlantic invasion would need to occur in northwest Africa. An Operation Torch, if you will. America Atlantic's income grows over time. Partly that's because of an income nerf. It's most nerfed early game, and the nerf decreases gradually. On round 10 there is no more nerf. But partly its income increases by researching new technologies.

@Cernel said:

@KurtGodel7 Gibraltar working like Suez is very debatable. I would say hell no for Gibraltar and I would tend to still say no in case a single alliance owns every territory on that strait (meaning owning both Gibraltar and Morocco with your drawing to block enemy movement).

What I mean is, for example, that, if Germany would have had the Bismarck fully repaired in Brest and then moving through the strait into the Mediterranean, Gibraltar itself would not have impeded that happening (of course, the ships in Gibraltar could have).

If the question would be whether you can fully close the strait with mines once you have Gibraltar, I'm not feeling qualified enough as a miner to answer that... (but surely no in case the strait is contended, for example the Axis controlling Gibraltar and the Allies controlling Morocco)

The matter could be made some clearer with a more correct depiction of the situation, like having Spanish Morocco (maybe Tangier too, but I would consider it being part of Spanish Morocco thus avoiding having it on the map) and Gibraltar being limited to what it was rather than covering the entire European part of the strait.

I'm anticipating that the European theater of this map will feel a little like New World Order, and that the Pacific theater will feel a little like The Rising Sun. In New World Order, it's normal for there to be a naval competition between the United States on the one hand, and Germany/Italy on the other. If the Axis loses this competition, the American fleet enters the Mediterranean. At which point life becomes very hard for the European Axis.

Currently I'm concerned that the European theater could be unbalanced in favor of the Allies. If I allow Gibraltar to serve as a gateway to the Mediterranean, then that allows the Axis to get out of that naval competition--so long as it is able to hold Gibraltar. My thought is that Italy should take Gibraltar on its first turn. Then turn it into an Axis hard point, and thus prevent Allied entry. Britain and America Atlantic can still exert good pressure on Germany in the west. But not the kind of "cut Italy's throat" pressure that would have been the case with an American fleet in the Mediterranean.

If it's a choice between good game play and historical realism, I'll try to achieve both. But, if I'm pushed into a corner, if I have to take one or the other, I will take good game play.

As for historical realism: I acknowledge that treating Gibraltar in this way is a stretch. It was difficult for coastal guns to hit fast moving ships, even with late war advances in radar. Ships sailing into or out of the Mediterranean would have been within range of the coastal guns, but the majority would have gotten through. I am doing this because I think it's best for game play, not because it is a maximally accurate depiction of history.

Am I 100% certain this is best for game play? No. If it seems like this rule hinders rather than facilitates a good, competitive game, I'd be open to changing this.

@KurtGodel7 said:

Mostly I didn't want to create more territories east of Berlin

I don't think you needed to have 3 territories for West Prussia, Danzig and East Prussia either. I would have suggested 2 territories there instead of 3: one being "Danzig - West Prussia" and the other one "East Prussia". The border can be really wherever sensible so long as Danzig is in the former and Koenigsberg in the latter.

@Cernel said:

@Vendetta said:

@Cernel Why? Northern and Southern Pomerania have never been formal divisions of the province, it was divided east/west (Hither and Farther Pomerania). And Neumark's placement doesn't look wrong to me.

Let's compare the map

@KurtGodel7 said:

The latest iteration of the map.

with a 1941 map for the Great German Realm

I'll firstly say that, yes, if the Neumark would still exist, that would be by far the best name for this territory, especially connection wise. Indeed, the "Neumark" territory in the map closely resembles the eastern part of 1941 Brandenburg merged with the southern part of 1941 Pomerania: that would be more or less the old Neumark.

Unfortunately, not only by 1941 the Neumark is gone (as that can be said of Bavaria and Austria too and others), but it really means nothing as it is even dismembered into smaller subsets of two different territories (Pomerania and Brandenburg). The reason why I like Bavaria and Austria but not Neumark is that the former are obvious and unambiguous sets of existent territories, whereas the latter is just nothing any longer.

The territories of Pomerania and Neumark as drawn are together (meaning if they would be a single territory) Pomerania as the closest thing that they can be as of 1941 (even though there is the problem that Neumark borders Lower Silesia), meaning that that the closest thing that the territory drawn in the map and labelled as "Neumark" can be in 1941 is a part of Pomerania (next close would be a part of Brandenburg, but then Brandenburg would be adjacent to West Prussia). "southern Pomerania" is not a division of Pomerania: it is the division of Pomerania which the map makes, meaning the southern part of it as it happens to be split in the map. I said "northern Pomerania" and "southern Pomerania", and I assumed that the lower case would have hinted that those are not formal divisions. I could have said "seaside Pomerania" and "inland Pomerania" or "lower Pomerania" and "upper Pomerania". None of these are formal (as far as I know), so whatever works.

Now I can see that the argument here would be "Why are you splitting Pomerania as a name in two things which have no basis as names (and you just made them up) when you have an historical division with the name Neumark?". The point is that first of all it has to be a division of Pomerania: it cannot be just Neumark. In this case, the only name I would find acceptable is "Pomerania - Neumark" (next one being "Brandenburg - Neumark"). This would mean saying that this is the part of Pomerania corresponding mostly to the old Neumark, but I think that this would look very ambiguous unless maybe we call the other part "Pomerania - Stettin" or "Pomerania - Pomerania" (with the ambiguous meaning of what used to be Pomerania before the addition of the Neumark), neither of which I also like.

However, I can see that you may want to have the name "Neumark" with the meaning "this is the region corresponding to the eastern part of Brandenburg and the southern part of Pomerania which used to be Neumark". To me, that makes no sense, so I would rather call it as something meaning the southern portion of Pomerania or the eastern portion of Brandenburg, with a definite preference for the former. If not "northern Pomerania" and "souther Pomerania", then "Pomerania - Stettin" and "Pomerania - X", where X would be Neumark or the name of a city or something in there.

If splitting Pomerania in twain, I would actually much suggest splitting Pomerania (meaning the merging of the area which is currently split between Pomerania and Neumark) on the Oder river rather than how it is split now or any other way. The only problem with this is that the western portion would be rather small but not actually here considering that Pomerania is way over-reaching on the west (which is great in this case, so you can have enough space for units in the western part), so having the Oder river as the border between the two Pomeranians would be just fine (and way better than the current drawing also considering how history went down). Done that, you can call them a number of MUCH BETTER ways. I would suggest "Stettin" (also since this would comprise a lot of territory which is not Pomerania) and "Hinder Pomerania" respectively for left and right of the Oder, but of course they can also respectively be "Hither Pomerania" and "Hinder Pomerania".

So, if you can just merge the Pomerania and Neumark territories into a single one and then do the split on the Oder river instead, you will have both a better map (both for politic divisions and for topographical/military reasons) and better names there.

I appreciate the thought and effort you've put into a post like this. Below is my response.

Note the existence of Spanish Morocco.

Pomerania divided into Hinder Pomerania and Hither Pomerania. To address @schulz 's point, the border between Warsaw and Krakow is now longer, making it clear those territories actually border each other.

Here is France, redone. Also note the stronger neutral garrison for Switzerland.

There were some changes I didn't make. Mostly I didn't want to create more territories east of Berlin, west of the Soviet Union. I did not believe that new territories in that region would improve game play. But I was willing to redraw borders for existing territories, at least to a limited degree.