Inaccuracies with the Eastern Territories of the Soviet Union/Global 1940 map


  • I noticed that there are inaccuracies with the eastern territories of the Soviet Union. Evenkiyskiy is the name of Evenkiy Okrug, and it really does not mean anything by itself, unless it is used with the natsionalnyy okrug. Okrug can also be used in Russian to describe American counties, such as Okrug Kroforda (Crawford County, the county in Pennsylvania where I live)

    Yenisey is the name of a river and is the name of a river in Russia, but it is not a name for anything. But you’re gonna ask me, “Mississippi is the name of a river and a state, right?” Ohio is too. Yeniseysk was the name of the territory in World War I that was later abolished by the communists in their bid to reform Russian territories. Mississippi and Ohio are used officially to describe these states and rivers. Ashtabula County comes from a Native American name.

    Yakut S.S.R. was never an SSR (or Soviet Socialist Republic) because it was never granted the status of a Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) the way that the Kazakh SSR was or Estonian SSR. It was an ASSR, or Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, like the Crimean ASSR, which was merged with the Ukrainian SSR in 1954, and again in 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea and “reunited” it with Russia. ASSR is one step below an SSR.

    Oh an Imperious leader, the “skiy” suffix is used in Pacific 1940, on the EvenkiySKIY territory on the map. Is this an incorrect non-English name that I see?

    Yakut S.S.R. should be renamed Irkutsk (or Irkutskaya Oblast) because it is exactly where Irkutsk would be on a map of Russia.
    Sakha is just another name for Yakut SSR, which the native Sakha language name for the territory in question, just like how Ohio from a Native American name or that Erie, Pennsylvania is from the Erie language and is also the name of the county surrounding it.

    Are you gonna say that Saegertown is not on your map, either? Saegertown does exist and it not on very many maps due to its small size, but it is there. I go to their library to exploit their free interlibrary loan from the State of Pennsylvania, which they do not charge, compared to Meadville, which keeps ripping me off for $1.00 that pay for a book that does not come in.

    Buryatia is the modern Russian name of that territory and from 1923-1958, it was called the Buryat-Mongol ASSR.

    Timguska should be spelled Tunguska and again, Tunguska is the name of the river. I think that Timguska should be renamed Altay Kray (Altayskiy Kray) because that is the territory that it appears to be filling in for on that map.

    On another note, wouldn’t it be ridiculous to have a map where Ohio is called “Keystone State?” and Pennsylvania is called as well, Pennsylvania on the right territory of Pennsylvania. Sakha and Yakut SSR are both the SAME names for the same territory.

    I have no idea why the Eastern Soviet Union was not redesigned in their efforts to promote a better Axis & Allies.

    I think that Yenisey should be renamed Krasnoyarsk because the territory called Yenisey on the map appears to encompass most of Krasnoyarsk Kray (Kranoyarskiy Kray) or Krasnoyarsk Territory.

    Guam does not even use its correct geographical shape.

    Neither does Okinawa. These islands appear to be just genetic dots on the map, just a lump of nothing.

    The Northeast part of Korea appears to occupy the entire southeastern part of the Soviet Union.

    The Mekong delta is occupied by Siam, when it should go to French Indo China.

    The Dutch insignia used on the game board is incorrect because the one used on Sumatra, Celebes, Java, and Dutch New Guinea and on Suriname was changed in October 1939 so that the Dutch planes would not be confused with British planes or French planes because of the similarities of the insignias.

    The Dutch changed their markings to an orange triangle outlined in black in October, 1939, which was 8 months before this game takes place in June 1940.

    If this game takes place in 1940, then how come it uses the 1939 Dutch insignia?

    The original game’s (historically inaccurate) Dutch insignia used in the game. This insignia was abolished in October 1939. The Dutch Forces in the East Indies also used the orange triangle because it was the standard Dutch insignia for all Dutch forces.

    The geographical shape for the Philippines is correct, but Midway is not.

    The rest of the Aleutian Islands appear to be missing from the map.

    Here’s what the Aleutian Islands looks like.

    As you can, the rest of the Aleutian Islands are absent from the rest of the map.

    The Solomon Islands belonged to Britain, not ANZAC/Australia/New Zealand, as depicted in the game.

    Honolulu is on the wrong island.

    The Gilbert Islands ACTUALLY looked like this.

    If you please, I would like to see the correct geographical outlines used for the various islands on the map, such as Malta, Okinawa, Gilbert Islands, Guam, and Palau Islands.

    Malta looks like this.

    I do not want, nor need Gozo or the other third island to be depicted, just Malta.

    Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica use their correct geographical silhouettes/outlines.
    All these islands look like tiny dots on a map that do not use their correct geographical outlines.

    The Mariana Islands looked like this.

    Johnston Island looks like this on a REAL map.

    The Line Islands look like this.

    New Hebrides ACTUALLY look like this.

    Europe 1940 map has incorrect geographical shape of Malta.

    I am sorry that I was unable to show photos of the different islands because I am not allowed to post links on here.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    Do you have the same issues with Risk?  That small wooden blocks and asterisks do not look like armies and cannons?  That not one of the territories on the board hews to any geographical or historical real life anything?

    Did you not notice that gigantic areas of the map are massively distorted from their real geographical proportions so that you can fit piles of poker chips and plastic men into them?

    Did you note that the distance represented by one territory can be 50 miles or 1000 miles?  Do Newtonian physics not apply to wargames that some ships can travel a few miles in the same time it takes fleets to travel halfway across the Pacific?

    Did you note that Germany and Japan never fielded one strategic bomber in real life but from the start of the game they have 2 each while the powers who actually did have such bombers start with one each?

    Did you note that the game does not end with a nuclear strike on the Axis?


  • Oh boy.  :roll:  beat me to it Team.

  • '17 '16 Customizer

    Wow! Dude….it’s a game board. Get over it. I couldn’t even finish reading your post once I realized what you ranting about. Seriously though…this has got to be the craziest post I’ve ever read on this forum. Nitpicking the territory shapes & names on a game board? Now I’m never going to look at my Monopoly board again…LOL…thanks for the laugh anyway.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    Mr. Maddog

    Are you trying to say that Baltic Avenue is not a real place with $4 monthly rents?  Please advise ASAP as I have $200 burning a hole my pocket and I am looking for a new place to live after this next dice roll.


  • :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D HA Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha  :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-

  • '17 '16 Customizer

    @taamvan:

    Mr. Maddog

    Are you trying to say that Baltic Avenue is not a real place with $4 monthly rents?  Please advise ASAP as I have $200 burning a hole my pocket and I am looking for a new place to live after this next dice roll.

    Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.  :wink:


  • I usually place a high value on historical and geographical accuracy, and I cringe at purely unnecessary errors of the Global 1940 map (like the “Timguska” one, which always makes me imagine that Tim Hortons has opened a coffee shop franchise in Siberia), but I understand why A&A maps have always included distortions of size or shape or both: because the real world is inconveniently proportioned for practical tabletop gaming.  The Pacific Ocean is (in both senses of the word) the biggest problem of all: it occupies about one-third of the globe’s surface, and most of it consists of empty water, so from a gaming perspective it would be a colossal waste of table space if it was depicted accurately in a board game.  The USSR and China are a land-based examples of a similar problem.  (My G40 map analysis over here http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36590.15 includes an analysis of the distorted way in which China is depicted.)

    I agree that some of the problems of the G40 map can’t be justified for any practical reasons, but I’m willing to make allowances for the distortions that give the players more elbow room where it’s needed.  The G40 map is in many ways an impressionistic depiction of the world as people saw it from a military perspective in WWII, with the size of depicted territories often equating roughly with how much combat action took place there (a good example being North Africa compared to the rest of Africa), similarly to the same way that the light and dark areas of a Siamese cat’s coat correlate with the temperature of different parts of its body.

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    Mr. Marc,

    I also value verisimilitude, in the sense of the “appearance” of being real or realistic.  However, the belief that games should actually BE realistic in toto is highly undesirable.

    Attempts to make games more realistic almost always make them 1) more complex 2) less fun.  This is why I’ve never played Advanced Squad Leader (or hundreds of other AH chit fests) and never will.

    The belief also forms a consistent criticism of whatever is produced;  I would rather LH spend 1 hour improving the setup, developing a new game, or rehashing controversial rules than 100 hours researching who controlled Sierra Leone in  March 1941 or trying to find an appropriate name or picture for an insignificant landmass or exactly what pantone colors the dutch insignia is made up of.

    The irony is that it is precisely these “inaccuracies” that increase the risk (no pun intended) and effort required to produce games or new editions of the games that small, irrelevant details are corrected while glaring omissions in the rules are not.


  • …and dont get me startet on the Rio de Oro issue…


  • This is a game which is historical enough to be recognized but doesn’t overdo it for gameplay.  We could go on and on……Eastern Russia is all wrong, islands are WAY to big and badly shaped for the most part, UK should control New Britain and Sierra Leone and part of the West Indies, Western Canada was part of Canada not UK, U.S. should not control Mexico and Central America (except the Canal) and all the West Indies and Greenland, Vyborg is freaking huge, China looks as big as we wish it were, the Islamic portions of Russia beside Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan disappeared, Persia looks like a monkey, Afghanistan is freaking HUGE, Africa looks like my uncle sat on it, Djibouti disappeared as well as Rio Mini and much more, Spannish Morocco got invaded by France, Gibraltar looks enormous, Albania is so big I want to cry, Yugoslavia wants to know what the heck happened to its connection with Greece, Bulgaria wonders why Albania touches it, and now I’m ranting and I ain’t even half-way finished.

    Good grief!

    By the way I love this map sooo much.

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    I’m less worried about the naming conventions, and more annoyed that there aren’t any “places of interest” anywhere in Soviet Asia. Every single territory is worth 1 IPC, none of the territories form a useful chokepoint, none of the territories serve as a useful staging ground from which you can threaten an above-average number of neighboring territories…it’s all just a featureless mass. When I think about playing Japan in Global 1940, I want to have a NAP with Russia just so I don’t have to wrestle with the boredom of invading Timguska!

    Ditto the inaccuracies of the connections among Greece / Bulgaria / Yugoslavia / Albania. I don’t care if a territory has the correct shape, but I would like it to have the correct neighbors. The presence (or absence) of those connections is part of what drove centuries of conflict in the Balkans, and if you want the ability to imagine alternate histories as you play there (what if Churchill was able to hold the line in Greece? where would the British have expanded to next?), then it would be really nice to be able to draw on the strategic lessons of those centuries of conflict, rather than have to flush it all and figure out a new set of tactics based on what appears to be a thoughtlessly cobbled-together section of an otherwise good map.

    That said, it is pretty embarrassing when the names of the RISK territories (Irkutsk, Yakutsk, Kamchatka, etc.) are more accurate than the names of Axis & Allies territories, even if only in a small region.


  • Well I thank the people That make these maps and if something’s not right oh well I don’t have the time or sources to make my own maps.
    If there’s stuff you don’t like then by all means fix it yourself.
    😉

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17 '16

    If the map designers released their graphics as an open-source digital image, I’d sing their praises and fix anything that bothered me myself, with no complaints. Instead they’re charging $100 for a piece of heavy cardboard that I can’t edit, that has mistakes (like Greece/Yugoslavia) that a bright  middle-schooler could find by looking at a globe or checking Wikipedia.

    Overall I think the designers did a reasonably good job, but since this is at least their fifth version of this game title and they’re all professionals, I don’t think it’s unfair to point out their mistakes.


  • If the map designers release their graphics as an open-source digital imagery, then they should be paid for there time and effort of designing map.

    You then pay a $100.00 for digital graphics file, make your changes and then spend another $75.00 to $120.00 to get it printed.

    Since this is at least their fifth version of this game title and can’t get it right, then don’t buy it.


  • I guess the map designers made all this mistakes on purpose, just to start an extra conflict inside the original conflict, man. Dont tell me they made the map wrong seven times in a row just by accident, I dont buy that, man.


  • @Narvik:

    …and dont get me startet on the Rio de Oro issue…

    Rio de Oro was as Spanish territory at the time of WWII, a fact which isn’t clear from the Global 1940 map (which lacks a good mechanism for showing the colonial possessions of non-player countries).  Is this the problem to which you’re referring or is there some kind of different issue with that territory?

  • '21 '20 '18 '17

    Territories that you cant land on don’t even form part of the gameplay.

    Gameplay.  This is the key.  Everything else is an extra to convince you that you are not playing army men on the carpet at grandmas house.


  • @taamvan:

    Territories that you cant land on don’t even form part of the gameplay.

    Gameplay.  This is the key.  Everything else is an extra to convince you that you are not playing army men on the carpet at grandmas house.

    “Gameplay is key.” Exactly.  This is what I was sarcastically trying to say earlier: the map has flaws, but either they don’t matter in gameplay, or they are made that way on purpose to better reflect gameplay.  Take Albania occupying part of what should be Yugoslavia: that is because we want Italy to be able to take Bulgaria turn one if Germany doesn’t.  It all makes sense from a gaming point of view and although there is no excuse for the inaccurate names and such, it doesn’t matter.


  • @SS:

    Well I thank the people That make these maps and if something’s not right oh well I don’t have the time or sources to make my own maps.
    If there’s stuff you don’t like then by all means fix it yourself.
    😉

    I have my own maps for download if you want them, I have modified A&A Europe to have Bessarabia moved to its correct location and so on.

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