Here is the updated baseline...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xnvwl23sf092dia/Domination_1941_baseline.png?dl=0
Looks a lot better in North American to me now. Like sure some of the rectangles may have some compression, but nothing to raise any major eyebrows I don't think hehe.
I only made one other adjustment outside the Americas, which was to split the TT in North Africa called Timbuktu-W. Sahara in two.
I would label these "W. Algerian Sahara" and "E. Algerian Sahara" or something similar.
Timbuktu was actually a mislabeling on the current map, which I only just now noticed. It might have been me or might have been Hepps. Thing is, conceived as an impassible (like when I was doing mountain ranges and such) then a skinny long tile is ok. But when it's open for movement, I think it's too long for a tile in that region. Done this way there is still a buffer between Morocco and Libya, so the skip around isn't too quick, and there's a bit more room to maneuver. I actually like the name Timbuktu, cause it reminds me of random stories my grandpa told me when I was a kid, but I put it in the wrong spot lol.
The Mali TT, immediately below these, that one should be called "Timbuktu-Mali" and then all should be right with the world again. Fingers crossed! hehe
If that one works for you, I will make the final relief from that baseline, so everything should display properly with no stray lines.
ps. few more quick ideas, first in support of doing the Vichy stuff as German rather than Neutral, and also for attackable neutrals over "move through" neutrals I guess. So I think part of the reason that team Axis is often more fun to play in these games, is because they have obvious targets and clear places to expand. But as Allies, people freeze up, like "well, what do I do with all this?" By having clear spots to gun for (the spaces that can support factory buys) it gives the Allies an idea for where to push. You know, like I'll just try to go to Africa and get something started, as opposed to a multi-round plan in advanced for how to do D-Day starting on round 1 for a payoff that doesn't happen till round 5 or 6 launching transports as floaters heheh. That's tough to get the head around, whereas "Kill Morocco" or "take Guadalcanal" is more straightforward. When you got the lily pads, the player can take it more step by step, and build as they go. Having more original owner Axis TTs accross the map, gives the Allies real targets to go after, but also having neutrals be attackable you can get routes going in a similar way. Like Greenland and Iceland for the USA, or activating Brazil or Mexico (if they aren't just under US Aegis to start already.) I found that one curious, cause there's that one American dude in Brazil but then the rest are neutral. Anyhow, I would just make em all the same, all attackable neutral standard, with larger defending forces on the spots you don't really want to see contested (True Neutrals like Switz, Turkery etc) vs stuff that you want to see trade hands routinely, which should have small forces or no forces like just walk-ins. But I still like doing the French stuff under German occupation at the outset, cause you get better parity by sides that way I think, and more for the British player to do in the early rounds. Anyway, main gist is that more factory capable spots just make for a more dynamic game overall, as the players puzzle out how best to use them or prevent the other dude from using them, and I think the French TTs in N. Africa under G control you could definitely get something going like that heheh
I didn't catch that about the factories producing income over time. That's another interesting feature to highlight in unit notes, similar to the movement bonus. The ability to invest in infrastructure that generates income over time would be a very powerful gameplay driver.
I'll admit the maintenance thing throws me a bit still, but I think unit caps gave me more hangups. Like when I would be moving my fleets and transports around, trying to shuffle the units to get the transports to unload. It did force me to break my fleets apart, but it felt like I was being strongarmed a bit, when I'd rather have kept all my stuff together hehe. I noticed it with fighter landings as well, though it didn't irk so much with the air, whereas with ships it felt like an inconvenience. Anything that slows down the transport or makes it hard to load/unload transports, since that stuff is already fairly tedious in tripleA. I'm guilty of often making non com moves during the combat phase, and here that's not allowed for transports, which I understand, but it also stalls me up.
Oh and one final final thing, on the purchase screen. When you attempt to purchase elites, but can't cause you're at your max, the purchase screen will zero out entirely. That can be a little frustrating, if you'd spent a while thinking about it but then one marine undoes your purchase. Another thing that I found was I'd buy stuff but then couldn't place it, in which case I'd reload, but it's almost like I wish I could time warp. Reverting to Purchase from the place phase would be cool, but I don't know if that can be done. I guess just edit mode it, but I did find that tricky, like just remember how much of the big stuff I could actually place. Eventually I got tired of messing up and just spammed inf/art since that felt reliable, but I might have gone crazier with esoteric builds if I'd had more place options.
Just to make sure I understand the maximum number of units that can be placed into a given tile is 4 correct?
The small factory can produce 2 units, on a tile worth 3 or more.
The medium factory can produce 3 units
The big one 4?
To me this feels like it may be bit a bit low. I also wonder if it might be simpler to have the unit production match the tile values, so it's easy to read? You know 2 units on a tile worth 2. Or 3 on a tile worth 3. Iron War also had a fairly low production cap per tile. It was 5 units there on tiles worth 5. I didn't mind, but also felt that when doing that the production has to really pair off properly by sides, without too much concentration of production or too little, otherwise the map design can overwhelm some spots with hitpoints on the double team or triple team. Or you end up where the one side just stalls out cause they can never produce enough hitpoints to overwhelm the opponent and grab a toehold. In Iron War this was a prob for USA, cause the closest places they could grab to build a factory for that 5 hitpoints was Libya or Scandinavia, or on the Pacific side other than Truk they had to basically go all the way to China before they could expand production to shore up the frontline hehe. I gather some may enjoy the gameplay that has USA playing really long logistics lines, but it helps if the terminus spot has a build as well. Even if its just a support, fewer numbers. Especially here where we can control by the Small/Medium/Large what sort of stuff gets built where. Just an idea, but more mediums near the likely fronts I'd say. Right then, off to bed! lol
