• Roundels mean nothing. They would never be used to denote anything even appearing control for an area. Instead the flag would be flown. The current icons are just designs so that you can tell which nation has control of an area at a given time.

    Thats it.


  • True enough, I suppose, but that’s not really my point.  My point is, they use accurate aircraft roundels for all of the powers right up to the point where they are going to finally add in Italy and then they get it backwards (and give us an Iranian roundel, of all things…) Of course, after the A&A Guadalcanal cruiser mix-up, why should I be surprised?


  • Eh, the Soviet Roundel is a complete fabrication… but what they did was cooler. The roundels have never been accurate. I just hope that we don’t get an onslaught on “target symbol roundels” in 1940 with UK, France, ANZAC, and Italy all using them.


  • Yeah, you’re right, now that I think about it a little more.  The Soviets just used a big red star, right?  And I agree that the one they came up with is cooler.  For the pretty much all of the Commonwealth forces, (ANZAC & Canadian, especially, since I hear that they’re going to be soon getting their own CM’s in the AA40 series), I think that their respective post-1947 roundels would be a good choice, as they are logical and consistent take-offs from the British target theme, and yet don’t look so similar at a glance.  I can see your point about “too many targets…”  All the more reason, in the Italian case, to go with the 3-fasces roundel, I think…


  • My point is, they use accurate aircraft roundels for all of the powers right up to the point where they are going to finally add in Italy and then they get it backwards

    No they don’t they use whatever seems like it will help identify the nations control of a territory better than another icon. If they felt the platter of spaghetti and meatballs worked better to identify the Italians, they would be using that.

    They do not have any rules where if they use some aviation roundels and at other times do not, it does not mean that they are incorrect because they are not applying the aesthetic equally.

    In other words the pieces are chosen because they represent some aspect of that nations forces. If they use a medium tank as a icon in one case and a heavy tank for another, or light tank, it makes no difference so long as the tank is Soviet, German or British LOOKING.

    All this roundel “thing” makes no sence whatsoever. And all the games have the same icons, so they will continue. AS long as it is consistent it will work fine.


  • Yes, but apparently they HAVEN’T been consistent so far, which is my basic point.  Apparently they used different ones for the miniatures and the boardgame so far, leaving room for some confusion.


  • Yes and that fact does not make it incorrect or somehow ‘wrong’. Their is no book that says “when you make a game with plastic pieces everything must be the same class and if you have roundels they must only use aviation ones for all nations and no types.” I never saw that in print.

    The game has no different values for the pieces by nation nor do the roundels do anything but signify who has control.

    I guess if Germany had stronger tanks ( they have different values) and the ‘piece’ was a Panzer 1, then perhaps it would be proper to be historical because the Panzer 1 was crap.

    The map is not consistent because if it was then Europe would be very small and the useless benefit of having consistency will get us nowhere, because now the consistent map is unplayable and the pieces are all over the place.

    The IPC awarded on the maps are not consistent with historic because some nations have too many and others have too few. It does not account for growth.

    I colors are not consistent with the color of the historical uniforms

    The sizes of the pieces are not consistent with the scale of all the pieces. The Battleships are too small, They need to be about 5 feet long so they are in scale with the infantry.

    The game is designed to make it functional and easy and balanced. That is a greater good than maps with 200 naval bases and every nation having 10,000 roundels for each territory that you switched out each turn as the roundels are switched out at different war years, so that Rio De Oro can always be pure as snow.


  • IL’s words are wise indeed.


  • Dude, chill out, Imperious!

    Clearly, and perhaps a bit ironically, it is very important to you to explain why this isn’t important to you…

    I find the CM’s to be a significant part of the game’s overall aesthetic appeal, right after the board and pieces.  (Doubly so when an enlarged version of the CM logo is placed on the board to mark each “capital” as the boards tend to be…) Thus, discussing what they ought to look like and what the logic behind their design is supposed to be is a topic I find interesting.  (I’m certainly not dogmatic or set in my views about them; if you have followed the discussion on this and a couple of other threads, you’ll notice me admitting to being mistaken a couple of times, changing my mind a couple of times and taking things I hadn’t thought of into account at least once that I can think of…)

    If you find them unimportant and discussions about them uninteresting, that’s cool.  But then why you’d expend so many words arguing with those that do find them interesting and significant to try to convince them (I suppose) that they are uninteresting and insignificant  is something I can’t begin to understand…


  • I am sorry, but my post was to only point out the validity of this issue of consistency does not seem to hold true. It does not matter if you or another likes the roundels a certain way, but that is of course aesthetics. Their is no proven foundation that it is somehow a ‘mistake’ or incorrect that it was done this way. You express it in a way that makes an appeal to some objective value that somebody messed up because they didn’t make it the way.

    So i thought you were making some point outside of your tastes as part of some objective like a theory of design.

    I was presenting some reasoning as to how that cannot make sence from an objective point of view.

    Of course it is really just an opinion as to what only looks better according to tastes and has no basis historically. I now got that point from you.

    ok take care.

  • Customizer

    I use the roundel with the 3 axes and bushels instead.  It stands out pretty well from the others, and looks better in my opinion (As well as representing the regime intended).  The coloured roundel with the single axe and bushel is nice too.

    And I did notice the mistake on the colours of the one they used as well.  I believe Kreighund also had mentioned this?

    In addition, I hate the colour they used for the Italian units.  I prefer to use the British units from revised with the light green to represent the Italians instead, as they stand out better.  I may actually take the AA50 Italians and spray them that same light green, but I’m not sure how paint will stick to that shiny plastic.  May need to use an etching primer first.

    Or maybe I’ll wait to see if they use a different colour in AAE40.  Wizards seem to like switching colours from game to game.

    Check this site out for roundels:

    http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Roundel

    Cheers

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