E40 and G40 ABattlemap modules preview


  • Hi all.  I’ve been getting a head start on some of the work for the E40 and G40 ABattlemap modules to save me some time later, and I’d love your input for the toolbars.  Please offer any requests, suggestions, comments, etc.  I am especially wondering if anyone has an idea for the far-left section of the G40 toolbar.  I currently have it labeled as a “mobilization zone” for placing purchased units ‘in production’, but if anyone has an idea for anything more useful I will gladly hear it.  If the global political rules are exceptionally complicated, I could use that space for an “at war matrix” (who’s at war with whom), which would be used for convoy disruption Infoview calculation, but I can’t imagine that being necessary.  Perhaps the new rules will present some other need that will be able to utilize the space, but let me know if you have any ideas.

    PS - if anyone is interested, you may download the .PDN of my map (includes all necessary layers for P40, plus what I have for G40 and E40 toolbars) here: http://www.mediafire.com/?nyt2nnmgiig
    E40 toolbar.jpg
    G40 toolbar.jpg


  • Looks really good. You did a great job on the Pac40 battlemap.


  • Thanks for working on it early.  I anticipate once the global game comes out in August.  This site will be flooded with games played for G40.  Larry mentioned that the NOs will be straight forward and a little less complicated than the P40/E40 ones. :-)  Pics look great so far.


  • @questioneer:

    Thanks for working on it early.  I anticipate once the global game comes out in August.  This site will be flooded with games played for G40.  Larry mentioned that the NOs will be straight forward and a little less complicated than the P40/E40 ones. :-)  Pics look great so far.

    So, assuming I will be able to work on these modules when Europe comes out, which one would people like to begin playing first?  Europe or Global?  If there is a consensus, then that is the one I will work on first.


  • I’m sure Global before Europe


  • Global will be the most played

    I think you should include a Indian roundel for India, and also make India a full power

    Good idea the diplomatic matrix

    It’s this compatible with 0.79 or we must update to 0.80?


  • @Funcioneta:

    Global will be the most played

    I think you should include a Indian roundel for India, and also make India a full power

    Good idea the diplomatic matrix

    It’s this compatible with 0.79 or we must update to 0.80?

    If you check the second picture he posted he has a separate space under the UK roundel for England and India IPCs, though it would be EXTREMELY helpful if they were separate on the info box for counting IPCs as well.  I’m not sure how complicated the coding would have to be for that with using a single UK roundel that gets counted separately based on the territory or if having a completely separate Indian roundel would be easier…


  • @SAS:

    @Funcioneta:

    Global will be the most played

    I think you should include a Indian roundel for India, and also make India a full power

    Good idea the diplomatic matrix

    It’s this compatible with 0.79 or we must update to 0.80?

    If you check the second picture he posted he has a separate space under the UK roundel for England and India IPCs, though it would be EXTREMELY helpful if they were separate on the info box for counting IPCs as well.  I’m not sure how complicated the coding would have to be for that with using a single UK roundel that gets counted separately based on the territory or if having a completely separate Indian roundel would be easier…

    It’s easy: if it’s on the Pacific board, it belongs to India, even if British untis took it. If it’s on the Europe board, it belongs to the UK, even if Indian units took it


  • @calvinhobbesliker:

    @SAS:

    @Funcioneta:

    Global will be the most played

    I think you should include a Indian roundel for India, and also make India a full power

    Good idea the diplomatic matrix

    It’s this compatible with 0.79 or we must update to 0.80?

    If you check the second picture he posted he has a separate space under the UK roundel for England and India IPCs, though it would be EXTREMELY helpful if they were separate on the info box for counting IPCs as well.  I’m not sure how complicated the coding would have to be for that with using a single UK roundel that gets counted separately based on the territory or if having a completely separate Indian roundel would be easier…

    It’s easy: if it’s on the Pacific board, it belongs to India, even if British untis took it. If it’s on the Europe board, it belongs to the UK, even if Indian units took it

    I understand that, I just mean for the purposes of the program I don’t whether it’s easy enough to just have two separate totals under UK in the info box (which would obviously be calculated based on whether they are on the left/Europe side or the right/Pacific side) or if it’d just be easier to create a new roundel for either side and leave it at that (Union Jack for England side or something based on the Indian flag for the India side…).  If it comes to it we could manually count it like you would have to do with an actual board game, but the info box on Abattlemap makes that easier and if we could keep it easier by having the program count the separate English and Indian territories itself it’d be much better.  I’m talking practicallities of the program, not the game itself.


  • India should not be a power form the beginning, Canada or not. Larry is probably trying ensure that Dutch East Indies money is not spent on Europe instead on Asia (where should), but there are more easy ways of preventing a ignore Japan strat, and yet Larry continues refusing to do them (splitting more the American mainland, keeping 6 VCs as victory condition for Japan in global game, deleting the ACME wall or making a solid non-agression pact rule)… and anyway I doubt that ignoring Japan is going to be possible in global. This India split is going to do more bad than good because it prevents some Africa or Europe money going to India, and without that money, I don’t know who India is supposed to hold much if setup is the same as in AAP40

    Said that, we have India as playing power, like it or not, and so we need totally separate toolbars and markers for UK and India, at least for AABattlemap


  • You could probably also make Funcioneta (and a few other people) very happy by including a “no-Canada markers” version of the map for basic gameplay so there won’t be any confusion :wink:, though of course most people will just use the one based off the normal map, which could also be useful for any Canada-mod games. 8-)


  • @SAS:

    You could probably also make Funcioneta (and a few other people) very happy by including a “no-Canada markers” version of the map for basic gameplay so there won’t be any confusion :wink:

    Like “no-Homers” markers? I would be fun!  :mrgreen:

    But no, this is not another Canada rant, it’s a India rant  (sorry, Apu)  :-D


  • @Stoney229:

    So, assuming I will be able to work on these modules when Europe comes out, which one would people like to begin playing first?  Europe or Global?  If there is a consensus, then that is the one I will work on first.

    Global!  :-) :-D :mrgreen:


  • Alright thanks guys!  Global it is.

    @Funcioneta:

    It’s this compatible with 0.79 or we must update to 0.80?

    No, if I am able to include sector info files (read below), I will be including features that require the latest version of ABattlemap, which I will call .80+, since it is different from the first version .80 but was not given a different version number.  Read this post for a description of version .80+.  If I didn’t include the feature of automatic NO calculations, I could probably make it compatible with .79f, but that seems unnecessary since people should probably be upgrading to .80+ anyway for the convoy disruptions feature, bug fixes, and other things.

    @Funcioneta:

    I think you should include a Indian roundel for India, and also make India a full power

    @SAS:

    If you check the second picture he posted he has a separate space under the UK roundel for England and India IPCs, though it would be EXTREMELY helpful if they were separate on the info box for counting IPCs as well.  I’m not sure how complicated the coding would have to be for that with using a single UK roundel that gets counted separately based on the territory or if having a completely separate Indian roundel would be easier…

    As of right now I have included the India (SEAC) roundel for the purpose of keeping its income separate from UK income, but I think it’s better for the rest of the UK pieces to not be separated between 2 different powers, since they all take their turn together anyway.  You can download the module as it is so far to see what I’m talking about.  The consequence of including the separate India flag, however, is that France will not be able to be “allied” with the other allies in the module due to apparent limitations in the program.  We won’t know how much of an effect that will really have on the game until it comes out.

    The bad news is that it is possible I may not be able to include sector information for the global module at all, given the sheer amount of territories/sea zones it will have and limitations and/or bugs within ABattlemap itself.  For a while I thought that the program wouldn’t support more than 255 sectors in a module (tho I haven’t tested it), but I noticed today the “behavior” of one of the tools suggests that may not be the case - so hopefully, if  I can avoid the bugs (or what I presume to be bugs), we’ll still have a nearly-fully-functioning module.

    @SAS:

    You could probably also make Funcioneta (and a few other people) very happy by including a “no-Canada markers” version of the map for basic gameplay so there won’t be any confusion :wink:, though of course most people will just use the one based off the normal map, which could also be useful for any Canada-mod games. 8-)

    I never really intended on putting the canada markers on the map anyway (they’re not on the Pac40 map), since they ostensibly provide no function.  However, now that you mention it, since there may likely be canadian house rules similar to what you had speculated in another thread, maybe I will include them!  Thanks for the idea ;)

    What does everyone think?  Should I include them? (see attached)


  • @Stoney229:

    I never really intended on putting the canada markers on the map anyway (they’re not on the Pac40 map), since they ostensibly provide no function.  However, now that you mention it, since there may likely be canadian house rules similar to what you had speculated in another thread, maybe I will include them!  Thanks for the idea ;)

    What does everyone think?  Should I include them? (see attached)

    No, you should not include them in the map. The reason is clear: if we are going to mod the game, we will give Canada a full new color instead (other powers have not the roundels after all). You can include a separate file with the marker and the toolbar for modders


  • @Stoney229:

    As of right now I have included the India (SEAC) roundel for the purpose of keeping its income separate from UK income, but I think it’s better for the rest of the UK pieces to not be separated between 2 different powers, since they all take their turn together anyway.  You can download the module as it is so far to see what I’m talking about.  The consequence of including the separate India flag, however, is that France will not be able to be “allied” with the other allies in the module due to apparent limitations in the program.  We won’t know how much of an effect that will really have on the game until it comes out.

    Why France cannot be allied? And anyway, what matters? This is not TripleA anyway. Or it’s matter of NOs and convoy calculations?

    Well, I think it’s better have the things polished and make a separate toolbar for India and another for neutrals, but your choice

    Anyway, I loaded the preview module with 0.79 and it worked … saving the NO boxes, that seem have odd behaviours. Good point with “unknown Europe”  :-)


  • Other stuff, could you make Dutch East Indies purple like in old AAP41? This way, it’s more difficult confuse them with “Indian” East Indies (Borneo)  :lol:


  • @Funcioneta:

    Why France cannot be allied? And anyway, what matters? This is not TripleA anyway. Or it’s matter of NOs and convoy calculations?

    Including India pushes France down to being the 10th power, so then I can’t identify France in the list of allied powers (in MapInfo.txt) as a single-digit integer, which seems to be how it is parsed.

    Yes, it is a matter of NOs, but I am not thinking it will affect convoy disruption calculations.  Maybe I will just not include the automatic NO calculations, then it would not be an issue and I think I can then make it compatible with .79f (although .80+ would still be required for all the features like convoy disruption).

    Alternatively, I could swap China and France since it would probably not matter with china, but then the order of powers on the toolpieces palette would not fully reflect the turn order in the game.

    @Funcioneta:

    Well, I think it’s better have the things polished and make a separate toolbar for India and another for neutrals, but your choice

    putting in another row of toolpieces makes the ToolBar and InfoView windows larger, taking up more space on the screen and making the viewable area of the map smaller.  Also, when you mix India and UK units on a territory/sector, they would not “stack” like units of a single power normally do, cluttering up space on the map and making them more tedious to move.

    @Funcioneta:

    Anyway, I loaded the preview module with 0.79 and it worked … saving the NO boxes, that seem have odd behaviours.

    Yes, that is right.  I’m curious, is the any particular reason not to upgrade to .80+?


  • That’s very reasonable. I dind’t know the single-digit issue. Then, you can keep the current tool bar, wait until we know the global rules and then make changes if needed

    About not upgrading … I was fearing not being compatible with old AA50 and Revised modules. I’ll check it now


  • OK, I updated to 0.80 and all old stuff still works nicely

    I checked P40 3.1. It has improved, but seems you didn’t used the convoy option. I’ll add two things:

    • There are a bunch of unused markers at z52. Since kamis and cash are represented, you should delete them (I guess you forgot do so and anyway is easy modding the start file)

    • In dummy toolbar, kamikaze marker should be under minor IC marker, and damage counters for AB and NB should be under AB and NB markers. With current toolbar, damage NB counters will add 6 IPCs to neutral land total (like aaguns)… not very important, just for polishing it

    Anyway, great job

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