@deepblue:

Airfields?

Everyone happy with the current airfields.  I will be adding one on the Azores per Micoom’s suggestion.

How about Europe or Russia? There seems to be a shortage of airfields in the Atlantic theater.

Put an Airfield in Iceland so that planes flying from the US capital can get there in one turn.  Western France could use an Airfield, too.

When it comes to adding airfields, you really need to ignore history.  The most important thing is to look at the relationship in size between the territory with an airfield and the sea zone next to it.  The purpose of airfields in the game are to get rid of the unrealistic situation of having a plane eat up one movement point crossing over a very large body of water, and then lose another movement point moving over a relatively tiny piece of land.  (Or vice versa.)  So, in other words, if a piece of land, such as an island is very tiny in relation to the sea zone around it, then you’re justified putting an airfield there.  Or, is the sea zone next to a territory is rather small, and most likely only represents the coastal waters, than an airfield would be justified there, too.  Now, by these criteria, you could end up putting airbases all over the place.  You really only need airbases for high traffic areas, or in places where they’re needed for gameplay reasons.  For example, Morocco doesn’t need an airfield since both the US and the UK can get planes there from their capitals in one turn.  Iceland on the other hand needs an airbase so that it can be linked up with the US capital.  Its possible one or two of the new islands in the Atlantic could justify an airfield, too, but I’m not certain.  In my original version of the map, Washington, Iceland, Western France, and Malta were the only airfields in the atlantic theater.

Deepblue, my suggestion would be to start putting seaports in every spot the people suggest one should be from a historical perspective.  Then go back and take off any that don’t pair up with at least one other port that’s three spaces away.  After that looks for ones that only link up at three spaces if you take an indirect route, but are only two spaces away if you take a direct route.  Most of those ones can be removed, too.  After that, you can look for ones that might need to be removed for gameplay reasons.

@deepblue:

I think that the icons themselves are too big and that they distract from the map and don’t need to be so large.

I propose reducing the icon down to maybe the size of the IPC icons.  In my opinion this would look better.

At their current size, the airbase and port icons will print on the map to be the same size as they are on the standard Axis & Allies: Pacific map.  Personally I don’t have a problem with their size, but if you want to shrink them a bit, that would be ok.  I wouldn’t go as small as the IPC icons, though.  At that size they might bleed too much if printed on a lower quailty printer, and if someone wants to do a reduced size print of the final map, the icons might end up too small.

Instead of associating a port with a sea zone why not associate it with the territory?

This would save us from putting two ports on territories like Japan.  Instead just put the port icon on Japan and that would represent that any sea zone touching Japan is considered to have a port.

That might work, but I’m not sure if its necessary.  On the original map there’s only one spot on the entire map were a territory has two naval ports on it.  Also, I’m not sure if its a good idea to have a territory with a naval port get that bonus for every sea zone it touches.  From a gameplay standpoint, naval ports are handy and add to the game, however they also tend to slow turns down a little bit, since they give players more options to think about.  I think the primary purpose of naval ports should be to steer the game in certain directions.  For example, the sea port in Morocco encourages the US player to try and invade North Africa, rather than just skipping over it and just going straight for mainland Europe.  The Naval ports in the pacific also help to guide both Japan and the US into the south pacific.  If you think you can accomplish these same sorts of things by having a naval port apply to every adjacent sea zone, than go for it.  Also keep in mind, that the more we deviate the rules from how naval ports work in A&A:P, the more potential confusion there will be amoungst new players.

Well, I think its looking pretty good.  I can’t think of anything else that really needs to be changed on it.  I think it might be time to start figuring out where naval bases and sea bases should be put in.  After the airbase and naval base symbols are in, I think we can start working on IPC values.

Yeah, I agree.  The UK starts with a very high IPC income.  They’re not supposed to be able to easily hold onto all of this at the start of the game.  I think the British CB in the Med is a big improvement.  It will make things more interesting in that region of the map.

@Micoom:

@deepblue:

The week is almost over.

The British CB in the Med.

I like it but still have some reservations.  It seems that this CB will be really hard to defend.  One thought I had was to trade places with the Italian CB, but not sure if that would help or not.  Any other thoughts?

Well isn’t that just the idea? That the CB is hard to protect in 1941/1942?  Changing it with the Italian CB would be wrong! It is fine like it is IMO.

I was looking over the map somemore, and there’s a few little things I noticed…

1. I don’t think Iceland should fall on the border of several sea zones.  Small islands, especially if you’re going to put an airbase symbol on them, work much better if they’re surrounded by a single sea zone.  If you’re not familiar with A&A:P, the way airbases work is that friendly aircraft flying into or out of a territory containing an airbase don’t have to count the sea zone adjacent to the airbase when determining their movement.  On the map, the airbases are generally placed along the border of a territory and the sea zone they are supposed to apply to.  With Iceland now touching three sea zones, you would be in the akward position of having to put several airbase symbols on the island to tie it to each of the seperate sea zones.  Another thing is that by having it touch three sea zones, you’ve basically given Iceland three seperate routes that make it vulnerable to amphibious invasion.  I think that’s far too many invasion routes for an island the size on Iceland.  I would definately suggest putting Iceland back within its own seazone.  If need be, you can slide the island a little to the south-east to give you more room to work with.

2. You might want to think about reworking the shape of the seazons in the Mediterranean so that Sicily also isn’t being bordered by so many sea zones.  I would say that having it bordered by 2 sea zones would be better than the current 3.  The Axis and Allies: Europe map might be a good place to look to get some ideas on how to rework the Mediterranean.

3. Its a little unclear if the sea zone between Madagascar and Africa touches the sea zone to the south east of Madagascar or not.  Its also unclear if the sea zone to the south east of South Africa touches Madagascar or not.  I would say to just move the line between Madagascar and Africa a little to the north, similar to where it was on the original map.

4. You’ve added a few spots where four sea zones come together in a squared corner.  Namely the area north of Scotland, the area south-east of the Philippines, the area north of the Caroline Islands, the two area west of Hawaii, and the area north-west of Midway.  You’ll notice that on the official Axis & Allies maps, sea zones are never laid out like this.  They are always staggered so that corners never come together like that.  I think it leads to more natural movement of units upon the board, and it makes it easier to visualize the placement of your fleets at a glance.  Think of it somewhat as the difference between a game that uses a square combat grid versus a hex grid.  I would highly suggest changing the layout of the all the four corner areas I listed above.

5. The UK capital symbol has been moved away from London and up onto the border between Scotland and the Great Britain territory.  Was this intentional?  And if so, why?  The German capital symbol should also be moved a little more into Germany so that no one gets confused and thinks that West Germany is also somehow part of the capital.

6. Its hard to tell if the sea zone west of British Columbia actually touches Alaska or not.  I would suggest angling the right end of the line up a bit so that Alaska is clearly shown to touch the sea zone.

7. Don’t forget the name for the island east of Primorsky.

@Imperious:

Positronica:

Can you address the issue about the lines surrounding the land masses? I find that particularly in the Mediterranean that the lines (e.g.waves) detract from the sea zone. I propose that you take a look at using only 3 lines rather than 7. Is it possible to make a test to see the difference?

Redrawing the wave lines would take a decent amount of work.  They’re not a seperate graphic on the map.  To redo them you’d essentially have to redo every bit of water on the map.  I’m way to busy with work and school right now to do that anytime soon, not to mention that I would need Deepblue’s updated version of the map even to attempt it.  Maybe once Deepblue has the map finished and redistributes the file in layers I’ll attempt it, but I can’t make any promises.

Also, one other thing.  The large Japanese controlled Island to the north-east of Primorsky is called Sakhalin.  During WWII the Japanese used it’s Japanese name, Karafuto, which might be a better name to use than Sakhalin.  I realize there’s a few other unnamed islands still, but none as large as this one, plus some people might confuse Sakhalin as being part of the Japan capital terrioty and thus they might think that the sea zone around Sakhalin/Karafuto touches Japan.  Giving it its own name will help to get rid of any confusion.  According to Wikipedia, Japan only controlled a little less than half the island with the rest being in Russian hands, but I would still say to leave it all colored yellow, since the Russians did have to land troops there to get control of it in the closing days of the way.  Since its not worth any money it will probably never come into play, but I still think its worth labeling.

I would just skip putting in a German Convoy zone.  I tried adding one myself when I first made the map, put there’s just not even close to enough room.  Plus, the relatively short hop from across the Baltic sea from Scandinavia to mainland Europe is quite a bit different than transporting goods across the Pacific, Atlantic, or even the Mediterranean.

Also, before we start moving around, adding, or removing too many convoy zones, or changing the rules for how they work, we should clarify what their purpose is from a game play perspective.  The Atlantic convoy zones are there to give Germany an incentive to put his subs to use, and to possibly even buy a new sub or two each turn.  They’re also there to punish the UK is she tries to ignore her convoy routes and instead focus solely on invading mainland Europe as quickly as possible.  The Italian convoy zone is there to make sure that Italy doesn’t just abandon control of the Med and dump all its money into helping Germany push against Russia.  The convoy zones in the Pacific and to an extent the Indian Ocean are there to make sure that Japan tries to maintain a naval presence in the Pacific, rather than just turtling at sea and going for a big push into India.  The US also needs to have high value convoy zones in both the Atlantic and the Pacific so that they have a greater incentive to put money into both theaters, rather than just completely ignoring Japan or Germany until the other is destroyed.  Also, the southern UK convoy zones can be usefull if the game ends up going in a non-historical route, i.e., if Germany gets solid control of the Atlantic, the convoy zones to the south give them an incentive to try and go for control down there, too.  Or if Italy gets control of all of Africa, they might start sending ships out into the Indian ocean or into the south Atlantic.  Or if India falls to Japan, you could see the Japanese fleet pushing towards Africa.  Basically, by putting convoy zones all around the world, you make sure that any area could potentially become a fully featured area of gameplay.

IL’s idea of adding a dice roll to how attacking convoy zones work is interesting, but I’m not sure if the game needs any more randomness.  Also, if we went with IL’s rules, would that mean that every convoy zone is the same?

In the original version of this map, the starting IPC values were as follows…

Germany - 50
Japan - 40
Italy - 24

Russia - 44
UK - 75
USA - 85

I intentionally gave the Allies a much higher IPC total than the Axis for two reason… One, its more historically accurate, and two I think it leads to better gameplay.  If both sides start out with similar income, then the game can easily turn into a stalemate that drags on forever.

As for the UK’s income, I realize that this seems a little high, but this high income only really lasts if the UK has a way to defend it all.  After the first round of the game, the UK can easily find itself down 10-20 IPCs due to loss of territory and convoy zones.

As for the convoy zones themself, I really like them and think they add a lot to the gameplay.  If you’re not familiar with the rules for them, here’s how they work…  Each convoy zone is a seperate territory.  If an enemy ship enters the convoy zone a control marker is placed in it.  The original owner of the convoy zone does not collect any income from the zone as long as this marker is in place.  The original owner of the zone, or one of his allies, can clear it by entering the zone with one of his own ships.  (Transports can’t capture or clear a convoy zone.)  Also, the enemy doesn’t need to keep a ship inside the captured convoy zone to maintain control of it.  Even after he leaves the zone, the control marker is left in place until someone from the other team clears it.

Also, if it bothers anyone that there’s both convoy zones and pretty much the whole world, just look at it this way…  The IPCs generated from convoy zones don’t just represent natural resourses and labor.  They instead represent the increased efficiency gained by global trade through a willing network of colonies and partners.  Or think of it like this…  If Germany captured all of the UK’s territory in WWII, would Germany have been able to increase its industrial output by the same level that the UK had prior to its capture?  I think the answer to that would be “no”.  A bunch of subjugated territories aren’t going to work as well together as a group of willing trade partners.  The convoy zones, while not perfect, help to represent this portion of a coutry’s income that can be blocked, but not captured.

Linking convoy zones to specific territories, sort of like how its done in AA:P is ok, but I’m not sure if its worth the effort and extra hassle involved with keeping track of all of it.  Plus, its hard to say that a single convoy zone represents the trade with just one territory and not a whole region instead.  If we assume that convoy zones represent everything from smugglers, to trade with neutrals, to trade with remote parts of normal territories, then I don’t see anything wrong with keeping the convoy zone in play even though some of the territories in the region near the convoy zone might have been captured by enemy ground forces.