Modular G40 Map Overlays: SZ Splits, Cartography fixes, New Victory Cities, and more!

7/24/2026 UPDATE:
I’m back and working on this effort again! Please expect periodic updates and keep the suggestions coming :)

In this thread, I will be releasing G40 map overlays to add experimental and expanded historical and strategic/geographical features, including new IPC values, territory subdivisions and border changes, Sea Zone reconfiguration, new minor powers, and the like. As with my AA50 Modular Overlays project, I will be using Tjoek’s incredible ‘restored’ maps as my starting point, so if you haven’t seen his incredible work restoring, cleaning, and fixing the G40 and AA50 maps, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

These changes are designed to be modular, swappable, and reversible way: print & cut out the overlays (or partial overlay) you want, stick them on top of your current printout or OOB map with removable poster putty, and voila- new scenarios and strategies await!

Completed Overlays:

1. Canadian Western Canada
2. Soviet White Sea Canal
3. Soviet North Sea Route
4. Soviet Vladivostok
   4.1 Amur/Korea border somewhat fixed/extended southwards
   4.2 Amur raised to 2
   4.3 SZ 5 redraw
   4.4 Convoy Zone added to SZ 5 (did you know that fully half of US Lend-Lease to the Soviets- far more than any other port/route- arrived via Vladivostok?)
   4.5 Recruitment Center added
5. Japan SZ 6 Split
6. Japan Kyushu split
7. Japan Hokkaido split
8. Aleutians IPC-ification and update
9. New Guinea IPC-ification
10. New VC: Istanbul
11. New VC: Rio de Janeiro
12. New VC: Cape Town
13. New VC: Singapore

Planned Overlays:

• Identify Straits & canals
• EUS subdivision
• WUS subdivision
• Exchange Maldives for Ceylon?
• Free France implementation ala G40 Lite?
• Add Communist China
• Add Strait of Messina
• IPC-ify italian islands
• connect Sicily to Italy

Community suggestions:

• Fix Columbia coastal borders
• Sierra Leone under British Control instead of Neutral
• Represent Borneo as Dutch (perhaps you could split British Sarawak into its own territory
• Add Sakhalin Islands
• Pro Axis Iran
• Make Mexico a Pro-Allied Neutral
• Make Argentina a Pro-Axis Neutral

@CentralCommando said in G40 Map Overlays:

@vodot Wow! I don’t have many suggestions, but here’s the ideas I thought of:

• Sierra Leone under British Control instead of Neutral
• Repurpose one IPC from Queensland and give it to New Guinea, highlighting its importance during the Pacific campaign.
• Represent Borneo as Dutch (perhaps you could split British Sarawak into its own territory.
• Represent Western Canada as Canadian.
• Add Sakhalin to Soviet Russia
• Create a land bridge between Sicily and Southern Italy.
• Pro Axis Iran
• Make Mexico a Pro-Allied Neutral.
• Make Argentina a Pro-Axis Neutral.

G40 is already a really complex game, so not too many more divisions should be made. A lot of your additions sound good though!

Thanks for the input, these are great!

What do you mean by “Represent Western Canada as Canadian?” ‘De-yellowing’ the territory?

@CentralCommando

Really? On the one I looked at earlier it’s Canadian-roundeled :) Maybe Renegade fixed it in their reprint? I’ll check some of my older AH boards tomorrow…

@CentralCommando well either way, here you go, my first G40 overlay :) Absolutely zero work on my part for this one- a copy-paste right from Tjoek’s raw map file.

Overlay #1: Candian Western Canada!

EDIT:

I found the offending version of the OOB map, complete with Honolulu in the wrong place and all of Hasbro’s other hilarious geographical shenanigans that Tjoek and many others worked so hard to document and correct :)

“Copyright 2012 HASBRO” in bottom corner.

@barnee said in G40 Map Overlays:

@vodot

Hi vodot

Make Columbia border the Carribbean the way BlackElk did with UHD

I hadn’t seen that map from Black Elk, I’ll take a look thanks @barnee!

@Titus said in Modular G40 Map Overlays:

@vodot Just as I sent my standard map out for printing! You bully! Looking forward to your work! I finally have a global setup and am working my way through my first game.

@Titus I’ve just sent out this file to be printed a bit larger than OOB. I made it using Tojak’s map as a template. Do you have any advice on uploading images that look good despite the dimension limits on this site?

Haha, well, take some time with the OOB map first and then let me know what you’d like to try as far as tweaks go.

RE: image uploads, I’ll echo @CentralCommando’s words above: I think the pic you uploaded there looks terrific for a preview, just like your AA50 version; for full size hi-res printable map files you would need a google drive share etc.

Starting where I left off with AA50, here are The North Sea Route and the White Sea-Baltic Canal. For the WSC on the G40 map I also added Lake Ladoga and moved Leningrad to where it belongs on the coast of the Gulf of Finland/Baltic Sea. I’m going to experiment with a 2/3 smaller font for map features like this, let me know what you think.

Provisional Rules would be the same as AA50:

2. White Sea Canal
If the USSR controls Leningrad and neither Sea Zone is hostile, then during the non-combat movement phase the Soviet player may choose to have up to one naval unit with IPC cost <9 in either Sea Zone 127 or 115 take the “White Sea Canal” between these two Sea Zones. Taking this route uses the entire movement allowance of the moving ship.

3. North Sea Route
If the USSR controls both Nenetsia and the Soviet Far East and neither Sea Zone is hostile, then during the non-combat movement phase the Soviet player may choose to have up to one naval unit in either Sea Zone 127 or 3 take the “North Sea Route” between these two Sea Zones. Taking this route uses the entire movement allowance of the moving ship.

Unless they are being transported by the transiting naval units, all land and air units completely ignore the presence of the White Sea Canal and the North Sea Route.

The Overlays:

For Context:

The second wave of overlays is here, mostly focused on the North Pacific:

4. Vladivostok
o Amur/Korea border somewhat fixed/extended southwards
o Amur raised to 2
o SZ 5 redraw
o Convoy Zone added to SZ 5 (did you know that fully half of US Lend-Lease to the Soviets- far more than any other port/route- arrived via Vladivostok?)
o (Optional) Recruitment Center added

5. SZ 6 Split
o …into 6a (Sea of Japan) and 6b (Pacific-facing Japanese Coast)

6. Kyushu
o 2 IPCs added
o Split off from Japan (optionally reduced to 6 IPC)
o A minor factory should go here in setup

7. Hokkaido
o (1) IPC, split off from Japan
o SZ redraws, now bridges SZ 5, 6b, and 6a

8. Aleutians updates
o 1 IPC added
o Connected to Alaskan Mainland
o Now bridges SZs 1, 2, and 8.

9. New Guinea updates
o Both halves now worth 1 IPC

Overlays:

!

Overview img:

…and the fourth: More Victory Cities and love for the global south!

10. Istanbul

11. Rio

12. Cape Town

13. Singapore

Coming back to this project now after some much needed time away, I realize that many of my intended modular overlays and tweaks for G40 are shared between three mostly but not completely overlapping desires for G40:

• to make the standard 8-power G40 game more straightforward, balanced, and ‘open’/fun
• to make possible and reflect on the board a 1939 or 1938 start date.
• to pursue a long-shot variant that includes global Comintern Soviet ambition as a viable third power able to win on its own, similar to (but far simpler than) its implementation in HBG’s GW36.

To those exciting ends, I’m chasing the below major areas of change, mostly in parallel:

1. Subdividing more Neutrals:

Some Neutrals, like Brazil and Spain, are comically large monoliths. Moreover, I have in mind the future goal to enable both powers (or, in the comintern case, all three powers) to simultaneously influence a single neutral, as of course they historically did. I have draft rules to that effect, but to reflect the potential for the consequent civil war and resistance, some bifurcation into at least 2 sub-TTs of these Neutrals is needed:
– Brazil (three TTs)
– Argentina
– Sweden
– Spain (2-3 TTs + Belearics, Colonies)
– Turkey
– Saudi Arabia (3-4 TTs incl whole new Neutral(s))

2. Neutral Realignments

To make a Comintern power and a pre-40 start viable there will obviously be some balance adjustments, and a few new rules (reduced or altered diplomatic penalties for invading true neutrals, for example). This will necessitate segmentary re-alignment for some Neutrals, most prominently Republican Spain with it’s raging civil war; Additionally some other Neutrals will have National affiliation (Benelux, Spanish, and Portuguese colonies, for example). Eventually I envision a version where on-board visual Neutral “alignments” are removed in favor of a dynamic system (place colored d6s in the capitals, maybe), but for now at least the below modular alterations will be done:

• Spanish colonies and realignments
• Pro-Soviet Chile
• Pro-Axis Argentina
• Pro-Axis Iran
• Portuguese Colonies
• Dutch Colonies

3. Preparation for potential 1939 or 38 start date and additional powers

To make a 1939 or 38 start date setup possible, and to create the possibility of new playable minor powers (Axis and Allied Minors, Communists) possible, several TTs will gain pre-war ‘Neutral’ designations that will apply in that scenario:

• Poland (both halves, Allied Minors)
• Slovakia Hungary (Pro-Axis, Axis Minors)
• Romania (Pro-Axis, Axis Minors)
• Bessarabia (Pro-Soviet)
• Albania (Neutral)
• Scandinavia (Norway, Denmark, Vyborg)
• Baltic States
• Mexico (Pro-Allied)

Others will have colors and ownership reassigned to support a '39 date and Comintern power:

• Most aligned Neutrals --> Allied/Axis minors
• Kiangsi --> KMT/Chinese nationalists
• Chahar and Anhwei --> Communist Chinese
• Canadian splits and IPC adjustments --> Canada

4. Enablement of the removal of National Objectives

I (cordially but strongly) dislike National Objectives, believing them to be a design crutch and a confusion to players. “Objectives” should be in the eye of the beholder, I say, and should readily suggest themselves to a strategic mind from the gamestate itself. To that end, several territories may need a slight IPC boost of some kind to compensate for the loss of NO income and to reinforce the strategic value of those territories. New Victory Cities can also serve a similar function.

To account for some strategic NOs and to lay the foundation for a potential Comintern victory path, the following new VCs are suggested in addition to those already added above:

• Gibraltar
• Vladivostok
• Chongqing (Szechwan)
• Mukden (Manchuria, Japanese-occupied)
• Madrid (Spanish, Pro-Axis neutral)
• Bucharest (neutral)
• Buenos Aires (neutral)
• Tehran (neutral)
• Batavia (Dutch; neutral)

To account for island and territory control objectives, many territories will gain ~1 IPC in value:

• Most currently valueless islands
• A limited number of vital strategic areas; North Africa/Mediterranean, Eastern Front

Note on Oil and Resource NOs: these are not map overlays per-se, but my intent would be to replace Oil and Resource related NOs via my Very Simple Resource Rules:

• Place 1-2 Resource markers (Metals, Grain, and Oil Derricks) on the relevant TTs. For each Resource in a TT a power controls, they gain +2 IPC at the start of their turn.
  Potential TTs with resources would include:
  – Oil:
  — South Central US (x3-4)
  — Venezuela (x2)
  — Romania
  — Iraq
  — Persia
  — Saudi Arabia
  — Caucasus (x2)
  — Dutch East Indies
  – Metals:
  — North Central US
  — Ontario
  — Sweden
  — Western Germany
  — Urals
  — India
  – Grain:
  — Central US
  — Canada (central, western)
  — Ukraine
  — Central Russia (various)
  — India
  — Central China (various)

5. Additional strategic fun & opportunity:

Most of what I’ve done earlier in this thread fits into this category, and I will of course continue to seek to add some additional and historical (or potentially historical) possibilities and potentialities to G40 by making various modular map changes and additions:

• SZ & Island reworking, particularly in the Pacific, to map to better ‘map’ to geographical features like archipelagos, seas, and bays while also encouraging contested landings (e.g. placing all large (and a few small) islands between and not within sea zones):
  – West Indies
  – Iceland
  – Azores
  – Balearics (Spanish islands)
  – Both Italian islands
  – Crete
  – Madagascar
  – Maldives
  – Straits of Melacca (Singapore)
  – Dutch East Indies
  – Philippenes
  – New Zealand

• The splitting of monolithic, nigh-impossible to invade bastions like Japan (already accomplished above) but also the Eastern and Western US

• Other TT splits or adjustments to aide the implementation of a Comintern alliance and '38 or '39 start dates.

6. Community Suggestions

Finally, I will of course continue to implement community suggestions, whether they’re things I totally miss, advice or ideas from G40 players much more talented and experienced than I, or fun and interesting things that you would love to see or try out on the board. Keep them coming!

Some of these not already incorporated into #1-5 are:

• Fix Columbia coastal borders @barnee
• Sierra Leone under British Control instead of Neutral @CentralCommando
• Add Sakhalin Islands @CentralCommando
• Fix Greek Borders (thanks @SuperbattleshipYamato)