Proposed Map: Domination 1941

[Black_Elk]

@cernel Yeah I guess it really does depend on whether you want 40 or 41. The Balkans is such a headache heheh. OK so fewer divisions in Italy then.

I mean on some level, it's like you could just start slapping down random nodes and curves or something. Rather than having me draw it out for each iteration. I'm trying to think of a more expedient design for drafting.

Obviously this would be somewhat simpler if we used a standard projection of any kind, but the downside there is the map would just be too damn big I think hehe. You'd be just scrolling forever. So I guess this is bound to be a compromise. I mean I can just break out the "<insert start date month/year>" for the rough political boundaries on a separate layer or something. But seems like what we need is kinda like Hex blob for the tiles, with smaller zones that are likely to be erased at a more midscale game. The paint job I did was not really a suggested start date or TT possessions, I just wanted to show the world colored in, cause otherwise it's easy to tune stuff out. So I used a vaguely global 1940 paint up lol. Kurt said 1941 though.

Good call! Yeah I'm sure I just missed with the paint bucket, so many tiny blobs heheh

[Schulz]

@black_elk

BTW Tibet was independent. Japan controlled all Kuril islands but North Sakhalin was belong to the Soviets. I see Mozambique is divided. Also it is better to give Burma to the Raj.

With there are so many Allies nations. Is one piece Japan really the best option for gameplay? I doubt. For example WaW would be really broken if Japan was unified. One piece Japan might be unstopable in this scenario. Plus it would probably force the US investing only European fronts. I would like to learn the opinions of the community.

Also what about the Soviet-Japanese war? Should they really at war with each other?

[Black_Elk]

@schulz Good eye! hehe I guess I should probably repaint it more 41-ish in some other spots too. Just so I don't forget where we're supposed to be headed with this stuff, or keep missing the same spots with the paint bucket lol. This is like halfway there-ish I guess. Not sure how one wants to assign control in the Balkans, whether all to G, or some kind mini faction, or like who annexed/occupied what and when hehe, but anyway, did a few colors to get a better feel there. More shades then we need, but just to give a quick pass. I'll wait till we got a start date before finishing that out.

Not sure on the Japan Q. To me it would depend on the forces I guess and the SZ design. For NAP with the Soviets, I kinda like total war conditions there, but it's always problematic. I've never found a great solution that hums for me. I think it would be nice if Russia could defend itself at least though, just so it doesn't go too Classic up there lol. On the other hand, towards the endgame I kind of enjoy if Japan can mix it up. So again, hard call. I think the focus for the IJA should be in China though. I mean that tied down what, like a million dudes? There should be incentives not to galivant up north as Japan on account of that, provided China doesn't just get flattened immediately like in all the official A&A boards heheh.

Oh also, while thinking about the start date, I think it's possible (depending on the turn order sequence) to cram a fair amount into the first round. Like if you wanted Europe to feel more early 41 and the Pacific to feel more late 41, I think that's doable, provided Japan and the US go at the very end of the sequence. Like if you wanted to design a more Barbarossa thing over here, but a Pearl Harbor vibe over there, just make sure the turn order sequence feels kinda right for that I'd say.

In 41, Italy doesn't have much presence in East Africa, if any, so the scramble there would need to get fixed. I showed roughly where Free France would start, if all the rest of the Blue was Vichy (to Germany in Africa/Med and Japan in Indochina). I think we could still keep a bluish kinda tint to it maybe, like in the reliefs, to get that point across, but easier to just assign control to G, so they're more dynamic. If the Blue was starting G ownership, it would allow the British and Americans more zone to expand. I'd do the same in France, like everywhere until Paris is liberated. Control of spaces outside the main core Capital zones should probably be starting owner Attackable Neutral, which would solve a lot of issues with the regular A&A games and liberation weirdness. In other words when Torch goes down, or D-Day, those TTs in N. Africa or Normandy should go to control of the conquering power, rather than returned Free France. Better for the gameplay once the Allies cross the Atlantic I'd think.

For total number of player-nations/factions, I don't think we need a crazy gang of factions overall, such that the sequence takes forever, but I think another smaller Axis faction for parity with the Allies could potentially be fun Again the turn order sequence is pretty important to make that work/feel right though. Basically to avoid a bunch of can opening nonsense. I did the colors more for style than a suggested number of factions here.

[Schulz]

@black_elk

Yes. Japan having a very easy time to steamroll China and Asian Russia is very big problem for a WWII scenario. It is really need to be addressed.

[Cernel]

@schulz It is very easy to address, actually. Under any realistic representation of production values, Japan is going to be so weak that can be handily crushed by using only a quarter of the United States power against it. The only way Japan can do anything like you describe is if you are making a map in which it has a production riduculously above any historical values of any kind.

Both Japan and Italy were not the first world countries they are today. Today Japan is the third richest country in the world (about a quarter the GDP of the United States) and Italy has a higher GDP than Russia. Back in WW2, they were backward and scarcely industrialized countries. Both Japan and Italy had about the same productivity per person, but Japan was stronger because of having more persons in Japan and a more valuable empire. In either country, most of the population was still living almost like in the Middle Ages.

[Schulz]

@cernel If Japan and Italy is going to be weakened, wouldn't Germany need to be unrealistically super strong in order to have a relatively balanced game? With realistic production values, probably the Soviet Union would be designed to doomed to fall.

There is actually another method. Make China impassable and no Japanese-Soviet war. No war with China and the Soviet Union means Japan can afford to have less production values.

[Black_Elk]

So earlier I mentioned that is relatively easy to add circles back in, once we know what's what.

Here's a rough example of how that might present, using circles at 250 for the Capital spots.

As always, it looks a bit weird doing that for Italy for some reason, although at 250 the circle just about lands where the Lines would be hehe. I slapped some fast flags down real quick just for flavor.

I'm not opposed to the circles in principle. I just think if using them, then there needs to be some kind of rough parity around the map, so it doesn't look oddball only having them in a very few places. Another option would be to do some beefy circles like this for capitals but a few smaller circles elsewhere for other key spots that make sense. Not sure what look people prefer, but just for a quickie thought I'd throw something together. I think this looks alright myself, but I don't know what others would dig lol

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0zrfcz78w7ucqi7/TripleA_4k_flags_with_circles.png?dl=0

[Cernel]

@schulz There are Europe-only maps, like NWO, Europe and Europe 1940. A realistic global map would be merely like an Europe-only map with also a Japan that has some minor impact, since the war was indeed over 90% decided in Europe alone: Japan was just a minor distraction.

If you can balance an Europe-only map, you can take that map, add Japan, India, Australia, China and make the United States and the Sovietic Union a little stronger (China, India and Australia together alone should already be about as productive as Japan but militarily weaker at start game). Any other additions are next to irrelevant.

[Cernel]

@black_elk said in Proposed Map: Domination 1941:

So earlier I mentioned that is relatively easy to add circles back in, once we know what's what.

Here's a rough example of how that might present, using circles at 250 for the Capital spots.

As always, it looks a bit weird doing that for Italy for some reason, although at 250 the circle just about lands where the Lines would be hehe. I slapped some fast flags down real quick just for flavor.

I'm not opposed to the circles in principle. I just think if using them, then there needs to be some kind of rough parity around the map, so it doesn't look oddball only having them in a very few places. Another option would be to do some beefy circles like this for capitals but a few smaller circles elsewhere for other key spots that make sense. Not sure what look people prefer, but just for a quickie thought I'd throw something together. I think this looks alright myself, but I don't know what others would dig lol

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0zrfcz78w7ucqi7/TripleA_4k_flags_with_circles.png?dl=0

@black_elk I'm personally not a fan of simple circles but for anything which has too little space for placements, but I'm not strongly against them.

Yes, the circle in Italy looks quite bad and, like Tokyo, here and in WAW, doesn't make much sense, because the city was very much next to only one of the seas (in case of Rome, the Tyrrhenian), so what does it mean naval bombarding Rome from the Adriatic or naval bombarding Tokyo from the Sea of Japan?

However, the circles for the capitals match the big roundels nicely, so that is a plus.

This said, I'm not sure what the Indian circle is representing, but New Delhi is not there (this beside the fact that Calcutta was more important).

As for the Sovietic Union, it may be good having a circle also for Leningrad (to have a big territory in a cleaner way than enormously distorting the territory) and for Kuybyshev (which was the back-up capital of the Soviet Union had Moscow fallen). I suppose Moscow, Leningrad and Kuybyshev can all be capitals of the Sovietic Union, in the sense that nothing capital-related would happen before all three are lost (that is the TWW way, not the WAW way).

However, in cases like the United States, Canada, Australia, India and Italy, there is the problem that the capitals are not the most important cities, so you have an economic capital and a politic capital, and usually the economic capital is more important. For example, it is certainly economically worse for Italy to lose Milan than to lose Rome. A similar observation can be made, mutatis mutandis, for, respectively, New York and Washington, and so on. This is particularly extreme in case of Australia, where the capital is economically next to irrelevant and there is not a single undisputed economic capital.

[Black_Elk]

@cernel Yeah, all that makes sense, and then there's the added downside that if someone wanted to go back in later and change something, and you have a bunch of circle stuff that needs to be erased, that's a total chore. I'm not a really a fan. They might be expedient, but also a crutch. I think the cons sorta outweigh the pros, when it comes to circles hehe. Better to do it up without them I think.

Oh also, just since we're on the subject, it might be nice to just nix the whole concept of capitals entirely. Almost all of the gamey distortions in the A&A endgame come from the capital capture dynamic and looting the purse there. If that aspect of the game didn't exist (or was changed sufficiently) perhaps a more interesting and historical endgame could materialize.

[TheDog]

@black_elk
My 2p, I prefer non circles, so just a TT shape for me.

Id prefer Tokyo to be only accessible from the southern coast.

Also Im planning for VCs for Capitals, Industrial Centres and Oil Reserves and the like, so lots of VCs, if that helps.

[Black_Elk]

@thedog Sounds good to me. So circles are out, by popular decree! hehe

On my next pass, I'd like to erase all the mountain ranges too I think, and just do some political contours there to see how it feels. We know where they'd need to end up for Global and the like, but I'm not sure we'd need that sort of stuff for more divided map like this one, for all those reasons mentioned on the previous pages. I find them sorta visually distracting too, the more I look at em, so I think they should probably just go. Like the circles, they could always be added back in later if someone wanted. I can save a separate draft with those features remaining, but I sorta feel like it's up to us to curate best practices for the design on that one. There's gotta be a better way to create choke points or block fighter transits, without having to move literal mountains, I mean right lol.

[TheDog]

@black_elk
You have probably seen the method used below, but just in case you have not. A thick black line represents an uncrossable mountain range. It's easy to add later and maximising unit spaces, but it does not look good.

The image was taken from one of my early attempts at a Samurai map.

[Schulz]

BTW I have drawn Paris connections like this way;

[Unternehmer]

Dear TripleA Community,

may it be a better idea to redraw the passable territories on the map in key areas (Western Front, Eastern Front, Mediterranean, North Africa, China and South-East Asia) in more equalized dimensions?

For example, 1 territory is roughly 175x175 km. If more detailed political ownership is desired, than 100x100 km. or 150x150 km. or 200x200 km. or 250x250 km. etc. But important is roughly equalized dimensions for all territories to avoid geographical distortion.

To my mind this kind of geographical realism is better than administrative or political borders as the game is mostly played through major nations and all minors are always within their correspondent majors.

For example, to redraw all the borders using territories sized 175x175 km.

Why?
From Rome (Mediterranean coast) to Pescara (Adriatic coast) is 175 km.
From Pisa (Tower of Pisa, Mediterranean coast) to Ravenna (Capital of the Western Roman Empire, Adriatic coast) is also 175 km.
So, Italy is roughly 175 km. wide.

Also, Japan is roughly 150-200 km. wide, and it seems that 175x175 km. territories are better to represent more equalized dimensions of territories in the game key areas (Western Front, Eastern Front, Mediterranean, North Africa, China and South-East Asia) than 150x150 km. or 200x200 km.

Therefore,
A-B (… km.) represents roughly … territories 175x175 km. including A + everything between + B:

• Taranto-Milan (860 km.) represents roughly 5 territories 175x175 km.;
• Dunkirk-Marseille (890 km.) represents roughly 5 territories 175x175 km.;
• Paris-Berlin (also 890 km.) represents roughly 5 territories 175x175 km.;
• Berlin-Vienna (525 km.) represents roughly 3 territories 175x175 km.;
• Vienna-Triest (345 km.) represents roughly 2 territories 175x175 km.;
• Berlin-Istanbul (1750 km.) represents roughly 10 territories 175x175 km.;
• Leningrad-Stalingrad (1550 km.) represents roughly 9 territories 175x175 km.;
• Stalingrad-Baku (1020 km.) represents roughly 6 territories 175x175 km.;
• Kiev/Kyiv-Stalingrad (1040 km.) represents roughly 6 territories 175x175 km.;
• Minsk-Odessa/Odesa (880 km.) represents roughly 5 territories 175x175 km.;
• Shanghai-Shenzhen (big city near Hong Kong) (1220 km.) represents roughly 7 territories 175x175 km.;
• Shenzhen-Hanoi (870 km.) represents roughly 5 territories 175x175 km.;
• Hanoi-Imphal (Burma campaign) (1280 km.) represents roughly 7 territories 175x175 km.;

Moreover, due to much worse weather conditions and a weaker transport network, the Eastern Front should obviously have more territories per 1000 km. than the Western Front.

But even if we take pure geographical dimensions, it seems that the Eastern Front should have much more territories, be much wider and deeper and therefore have different playstyle:

• more Blitzkrieg playstyle on the Western Front;
• strategic width and depth on the Eastern Front;

The same applies to Chinese and South-Pacific Front where some important engagements with Japan forces took place.

Currently most TripleA maps:

• overrepresent Western Front and underrepresent Eastern Front by trying to somehow make them equal. But they are not equal.

Mild weather, good infrastructure, and much smaller frontline suitable for perfect Blitzkrieg on the Western Front vs severe weather, weak infrastructure and 3-4 times wider and many times deeper frontline on the Eastern Front suitable for more strategic playstyle.

• overrepresent Latin America, Africa, Middle East, Central Asia and Siberia. Maybe I am too old to understand the importance of these regions for any TripleA map especially if these maps leave little place for naval warfare.

• underrepresent naval areas (Battle for Atlantic, Pacific campaign, etc.) and make them too narrow for naval warfare with aircraft and carriers.

As far as I understand, aircraft from the carriers or land bases should have at least 2 squares advantage per move over any ships and submarines.

Therefore, carriers and aircraft would always keep at least 1 square distance from ships and submarines. Biggest naval guns fire on 40 km. distance (Jamato BB) whereas aircraft can attack from 400 km. distance (destruction of BB Jamato) and always keep carriers out of range.

[Cernel]

@unternehmer Not a bad idea, but I'm not seeing how you would do this nicely but by using an equal-area projection. You should be aware that, in doing so, Europe will be a very small part of the map. For example, you will have almost as many territories in Brazil or Australia as in the entire Europe.
The area of Europe (with European Russia) is 10.18 million square km, Brazil is 8.5 million square km and Australia is 7.6 million square km. Once you take out the irrelevant Komi and Nenets republics in the north of European Russia, Europe will be about as big as Brazil or Australia.
Still, this is not an actual board-game, so it is not bad having most of the map being virtually useless (because it is not actually taking space).
I understand you are not asking to apply this method everywhere, but, if you don't while using an equal-area projection, the alternative would be having bigger territories in non-key areas (like many maps already do, but even more extremely so than, say, WAW).

[beelee]

@thedog said in Proposed Map: Domination 1941:

@black_elk
You have probably seen the method used below, but just in case you have not. A thick black line represents an uncrossable mountain range. It's easy to add later and maximising unit spaces, but it does not look good.

The image was taken from one of my early attempts at a Samurai map.

the moutains look cool

[Black_Elk]

Here it is with all the mountains removed

Some interesting points on the previous page. I can definitely see advantages to redrawing the entire globe with some kind of different scale for every TT in km, but then I'd also like to make use of this work I've put in over the years.

I mean basically I drew this thing out by hand. Hand and mouse, at any rate. There are easier ways to quickly produce a world or regional map by copy pasting satellite images or whatever, but to me it loses some charm doing that hehe. Everything that's a little off here, is at least a little off cause of my shaking hands or random cartooning anomalies or a hepps curve ball lol - but at least it's kinda original in that way, which I think counts for something. Clearly I'm partial, but if the choice is between scrapping it or noodling it across the finish line, I'd like to attempt the later lol.

Ps. Here, I just finally got around to reworking the French contours to match the new warp there. I put the basic regional divisions, so you guys could decide how best to subdivide or collapse them. I think whatever ends up happening there, the Germans should roughly balance (in terms of neighboring TT size) like where the fronts meet, just so both sides have enough room to operate.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yx2kasbwjb7tuxk/TripleA_4k_baseline_france.png?dl=0

[Black_Elk]

Oh also, here, I keep forgetting to do the draft examples it in white too, in case it's easier for people to see the border lines that way when it's smaller hehe. There ya go

Oh and one more thought regarding the relative power balance, or whether or not to allow Japan to attack Russia etc. On the one hand there is some interest in creating a game that follows a set historical sort of play pattern, on the other, it's fun to paint the map your colors through conquest, like in a SP type situation. It would be kinda sad if there wasn't the possibility of Globe trotting there, like Axis doing crazy stuff once their primary objectives are sorted. From what I recall the main reason Japanese couldn't execute a campaign into Siberia like the IJA were pushing is because they had so many dudes tied down fighting in China. So then they went with the Navy's plan right to sprawl across the Pacific vs the British and Dutch and US. But like I kinda dig the idea that Japan could choose to invade the USSR again, but it should have a domino type effect somewhere else. I think the main way to make it work is to give the Soviets production and money in the far east. Basically the opposite of the Classic board approach. By making the TTs more valuable and encouraging their defense, it makes it less of a simple prospect for Japan to just funnel unopposed there. Also with the USA more in the backfiend out of Alaska, I think you could set up a fighter transit that way to make it tougher for Japan to just blow out in all directions at once heheh. No soviet Co-location rules would be a bit of a double edged sword in that instance, but I think it could work for more realism. The alternative is that the game sorta defaults to a Risk form of play where factions aren't as tied down, but just immediately start growing in ahistorical ways. That can still be fun though. I just feel like it should happen more endgame.

Really what you need is a way to get the first few rounds to feel like they nailed the timeline, 1941, all the big plays and lead out from there. If you can get it so that stuff like Torch or Guadalcanal can happen in round 3 I think that's a good way to quickly get from a 1941-ish frame, to 1942 turning point time frame. Like anything that happens there could tilt one way or the other, so maybe you end up with multiple high castle alt realities by the end, but it still feels cool. I think the idea to frame out the technology as a core component is a fun approach, cause then you can get a vague timeline going from that too. But basically I think it should open with a couple set piece campaigns that make sense. So the idea of Japan just instantly flipping the script to burn the treaties and attack the USSR seems kinda weaksauce. I don't know if we need a hard rule for it though. I mean provided we have other ways through map production/starting unit design, to address the usual dynamic (the one that has Japan just gunning towards Moscow inevitably hehe) we should probably explore those if we can, and save an impassible zone or a non-aggression restriction as the last resort. Like if it still can't be made to work right and feel fun using those other methods.

[beelee]

@black_elk yea i think theres plenty of ways to discourage an early JPN soviet war without hardcoding it. Making China a bit stronger and PU penalties for early DOW seem to work well imo.

Other ways one could approach it as well. Extra dudes activate like the Mongols in global, making soviet asia TTys 1 move only for land units, china too for that matter, etc ...

Just depends on what the mapmaker wants