Realistic WWII Scenario

[board 3659]

@schulz makes sense to me

[Cernel]

@schulz said in Realistic WWII Scenario:

Here is the first completed draft.

I would appreciate any kind of help to reflect the true situation of 1 April 1942 especially territory values and army compositions.

This map looks like a New World Order 2.0: the scope of the map is almost exactly the same as New World Order (the main exception being that the northern half of Norway and all the Kola peninsula are cut out) but better in shape historically (New World Order has a very bad territory drawing (and naming) on historicity.).
If the rules are not too different from Revised, this can be seen as a historically improved alternative to New World Order, which used to be a popular game and still has a decent number of followers.
Of course, since the game starts at a much later date, the game is not going to be similar (thankfully, since seeing Germany attacking France and the Soviet Union at the same time is horrifying).
Here are some numbers to compare distances between this map and NWO:
Couples of territories: minimum number of territories in between for this map/NWO
Berlin - Moscow: 7/8
Berlin - Stalingrad: 10/8
Moscow - Leningrad: 3/3
Moscow - Stalingrad: 3/2
Definitely much better than New World Order for these numbers: Berlin is farther away from Stalingrad than from Moscow, and Moscow is at least not closer to Stalingrad than to Leningrad.

I don't like much the shape of your Moscow territory (which I see groups the cities of Moscow, Tula and Kolomna into one single territory). I don't think that you need to represent the german salient east of Tula: that (as well as the maximum German advance in 1941) is more like something which can be seen as a temporary penetration into a territory. Also, at this scope, I think it would make sense to have Moscow and Tula as separate territories, especially since I see that you have the nearer Mozhaisk and Moscow as separate territories.

You'll need to have something (like the ability to retreat in place) if you want to have a reason to represent Crimea as a contested territory (starting the game with both German and Soviet units inside itself). Also deciding whether Crimea is German or Soviet owned at start game.

[Cernel]

I think the maximum German advance in 1941 is better captured by the situation on 31 October 1941, when the Germans alted all offensive operations (until about mid November).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Karte_-_Kesselschlachte_bei_Vjazma_und_Brjansk_1941.png

As I said, I tend to think that the further advances made by the Germans from mid November to early December are too temporary and limited to be used to define territorial borders. It would be nice, however, to visualize a map of the territorial changes between 31 October and 5 December 1941, to see if that can be of any use.

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After having seen your current drawing, I'll definitely say that, if you have unlimited combat rounds, one round must be representing about half-a-month (about 15 days). Thus, 24 rounds would by 1 year. Thus, a battleship, for example, should take more than 48 rounds to be formed.

[Cernel]

@schulz said in Realistic WWII Scenario:

• Really I have never seen any TripleA map that UK can reinforce Egypt via Britain.

That is because no TripleA map is a realistic WWII scenario (which is the name of this topic).

[Schulz]

@cernel

Berlin - Leningrad 6
Berlin - Moscow 7
Berlin - Stalingrad 10

Moscow - Leningrad 3
Moscow - Stalingrad 4

The only issue for me is it feels like Moscow is in too much north. But it is not much easy to move it to the south while keeping the same distances and keeping all territory sizes relatively similar. I've tried to reflect both of the situations (30 October-5 December) but didn't really work.

[Cernel]

@schulz said in Realistic WWII Scenario:

@cernel

Berlin - Leningrad 6
Berlin - Moscow 7
Berlin - Stalingrad 10

Moscow - Leningrad 3
Moscow - Stalingrad 4

The only issue for me is it feels like Moscow is in too much north. But it is not much easy to move it to the south while keeping the same distances and keeping all territory sizes relatively similar. I've tried to reflect both of the situations (30 October-5 December) but didn't really work.

Moscow can be there, albeit barely, but you should rather redraw the Rzhev salient. You are showing Moscow north of Rzhev, while Moscow is south of Rzhev: extend that salient northwards.

Are you using the Mercator? The problem with Mercator is that it massively increases areas going north. That is why I gave you an equal-area projection. Any map made using Mercator as reference will have either Moscow closer to Stalingrad than to Leningrad or, if you try to keep real distances, northern territories hugely bigger than the southern ones (which will look bad and it is substantially a waste of space in the north or too little space in the south or both).

[Schulz]

@cernel

Here is the original map which is probably a mix of Mercator and Smyth Equal Surface

I think both Smyth Equal Surface and Mercator has its downsides. Mercator just look really ugly when going too north thats one of the reason why I didn't include the extreme north.

Smyth Equal surface OTOH is more realistic but the problem is it feels like a squeezed earth which isn't really pleasing to see.

[Cernel]

@schulz That is some pseudocylindrical projection, like the Ecker IV, actually, which is not a problem since you don't need it to wrap horizontally.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_map_projections#/media/File:Ecker_IV_projection_SW.jpg
However, I don't understand why you went for a pseudocylindrical since, with your cut, that is going to be barely noticeable, so you miss having straight meridians (making it harder for you to position everything vertically) to hardly any benefit in exchange.

[Schulz]

@cernel You are right, its better to work over a map with straight meridians (like Mercator), I didn't care much about it really since it is not a world map. But If I would turn it into World map then I would use Mercator but cutting the extreme north.

[Cernel]

@schulz said in Realistic WWII Scenario:

Smyth Equal surface OTOH is more realistic but the problem is it feels like a squeezed earth which isn't really pleasing to see.

Really, since you are using so little of the globe, that should be next to no issue for you as long as you pick a standard parallel that is about in the centre of your map. For example, a version you may like is the Balthasart projection. But, as I said, you can really have whatever standard parallel you want by simply shriking the image of any cylindrical equal-area with any graphic program.
https://map-projections.net/single-view/balthasart

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The Mercator is a very bad choice for a map depicting most of the globe unless you want to have increasingly bigger areas as you go north so to split them into more and more zones representing smaller and smaller portions of the real world. Otherwise, you'll end up with something like having a very small "Italy" and a very big "Finland" like in "Big World", in which you have too little space in "Italy" and "Greece" and way too much space in "Finland" and "Norway" - also ridiculously enourmous Greenland and Baffin Island.

[Cernel]

@schulz said in Realistic WWII Scenario:

@cernel You are right, its better to work over a map with straight meridians (like Mercator), I didn't care much about it really since it is not a world map. But If I would turn it into World map then I would use Mercator but cutting the extreme north.

I believe the one closest to what you are using but with straight vertical meridians is the equirectangular projection.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equirectangular_projection#/media/File:Equirectangular_projection_SW.jpg
The eqirectangular is substantially something in between of an equal-area and a Mercator.

[Schulz]

@cernel Balthasart and eqirectangular are both great I could even use one of it as base map if I had known but unfrortunately the drawing is almost finished.

Mercator is actually great since it enlarges Europe and provide more space but if a mapmaker will use it, they should totally cut anything above Leningrad. Anyway I could see the only possibility to represent Pacific is just basically having two separate fronts considering the current size.

[RogerCooper]

@schulz I really like equirectangular. The directions are true, which is more important for game purposes than equal area.

Check out this XKCD cartoon What Your Favorite Map Projection Says About You

[Schulz]

@rogercooper Me too. I do believe a map should look aesthetically pleasing to see which Mercator really provides it (minus anything over Leningrad). Plus it enlarge Europe.

Another problem with a realistic map would be wasting %80 of territories due to lack of actions. Like most of Oceans, inland of America/Asia and Sub Sahara etc...)

[Cernel]

@rogercooper said in Realistic WWII Scenario:

@schulz I really like equirectangular. The directions are true, which is more important for game purposes than equal area.

Check out this XKCD cartoon What Your Favorite Map Projection Says About You

Equirectangular is good if (like in this case) you want to depict a relatively small portion of the globle (like only mostly Europe). However, if you want to depict a large parte of the globe, that projection is still too distortive (about in the same way as Mercator albeit much less than that): you should always use equal-area projections for that.

@Schulz That is just in case the distortions Mercator gives happen to be what you want. But do you really want to over-size Australia, Siberia and Alaska with respect to Insulindia? Moreover, as I said, good luck having Moscow closer to Leningrad than to Stalingrad while using Mercator.

[Schulz]

@cernel I don't want oversize Siberia or Alaska that's why I said I am fine with Mercator only if anything over Leningrad is cut.

Equal-Area projection imho isn't good either for a world map project because you will end up with abundance of territories that will see no action like Sub Sahara Africa, Inner America/Asia Oceans etc... I am just thinkink that a realistic game should either cover only European fronts or it should have two separate maps inside the same game to avoid having too many unneeded territories like this one;

[RogerCooper]

@schulz Equal-area projections distort direction which for this purpose is worse than distorting areas. The distance distortion near the poles can be compensated for by using wider areas.

With a zoomable computer map (as opposed to boardgame) the empty parts of the world are less of a problem. It would be interesting to see if such map is good for play. There are lots of scenarios with distorted maps.

[Schulz]

@rogercooper I would like to create a world map with the most realistic frontlines and least distortions as much as possible but there are problems:

1. My current map is already 5000 pixel wide turning it into World Map without distortions would make it probably 50000 pixel wide which would make it almost impossible to work over it. Plus incorporating tons of new territiories and adding Japan-China would exceed XML hence slow down games especially on online.

2. I don't think it is easy to depict the Pacific front realistically. There would be not much reason for US to invest in here when the distances even greater than Atlantic plus lack of valuable targets unlike Northwestern Europe.

3. Japan will also have not much options other than rushing India. It is also problematic to set Japanese-Russian situation.

[Cernel]

@schulz said in Realistic WWII Scenario:

1. My current map is already 5000 pixel wide

Make it 10,000: a good number of placement spots for 100% sized unit images and a decent visual for most 4k monitors.

[Schulz]

@cernel I will use 48x48 images with 100% zoom rate. I think doubling the zoom rate would be unthinkable. How could anyone play missing to see air units and their possible travel routes.