It’s been some years? Very infrequent anyway. I just got on to see what’s been going on. So, I added some history of my old A&A customizations. I haven’t played A&A in years (I guess). I did buy both 1940 games then, ofc, I had to make my combined version (mostly some minor PF map changes & specialized starting rules). When I see a map & I think it has inaccuracies, well, it gets changed (lol). Perhaps, I will send in my customization - it isn’t that much different from the original. Lastly, I did make a donation to support & to thank all you regulars for your work here.

Actually, Black Elk, my idea is you make a map board of all ocean spaces which are numbered & have an E-W border movement (N & S being high latitude therefore impassable). The concept is to create new Great Powers and enough neutral territories to approximate the PF values of an A&A map. My design is based on A&A Classic, however, it could be extrapolated to any of the games. The idea is to make an entirely new game board. An additional step which I have devised allows for a random placement of these Great Powers and other Territories so that each game board will be different - even the alignment of the land territories will be randomized. It is necessary, of course, to create, at least, 5 Great Powers and some neutral landmasses (neutral territories). One simply uses the playing pieces of the 5 major WW2 nations. In my home version of this, which I term ‘Allies & Enemies’ (A&E), I made up 7 sets of pieces so I could have up to a 7 player game (though, in RL, this has never occurred). My sets of pieces are mainly lead & pewter miniatures from what was available in the 1980s. I use plastic plane sets from that era for the aircraft. As to Great Powers - I & my old gaming friends from the 80s - there has been 12 Great Powers randomly created (I did all the artwork for consistency of look) - so this random Great Power creation system works (played considerably).
What someone suggested and what I must now do is to make up a you tube video of what & how I made my A&A random map board - how it works & how it changes for each game one would play.
The design pre-supposes a variable number of players (4-7 would be best, although 5 or 6 would be ‘traditional’) each playing on their own OR, alternately, somehow divided into two as equal as possible teams ‘points’ (PF) wise. I made my game designed on a map of sea spaces that are all squares sized to hold sufficient naval units - the land territories being ‘squarish’ in shape, as well. At the time, I was influenced by the off board ‘squares’ for unit placement on the old original A&A Classic map (a really bad design feature, in retrospect). Now, with A&A:WW1, which I recently obtained, I have used my design idea for original Great Powers where I use a hexagonal space map - a better way to do random alignments (as you can do 6 directions to just 4 with a square space map. Plus, in my A&A:WW1 map version, sea spaces will be more important. * Note: in either game (WW1 or WW2) my map design system uses more sea spaces as the maps of the land have absolutely no bearing to the map of the Earth (with Europe, Pacific, etc, as in the regular A&A maps). I hope I haven’t confused anyone too much.
To conclude, I need to get assistance to place something onto You Tube where you will see me, an ‘old fart’ A&A board gamer, explain & illustrate how one makes their own ‘Great Powers’.

Actually, Black Elk, my idea is you make a map board of all ocean spaces which are numbered & have an E-W border movement (N & S being high latitude therefore impassable). The concept is to create new Great Powers and enough neutral territories to approximate the PF values of an A&A map. My design is based on A&A Classic, however, it could be extrapolated to any of the games. The idea is to make an entirely new game board. An additional step which I have devised allows for a random placement of these Great Powers and other Territories so that each game board will be different - even the alignment of the land territories will be randomized. It is necessary, of course, to create, at least, 5 Great Powers and some neutral landmasses (neutral territories). One simply uses the playing pieces of the 5 major WW2 nations. In my home version of this, which I term ‘Allies & Enemies’ (A&E), I made up 7 sets of pieces so I could have up to a 7 player game (though, in RL, this has never occurred). My sets of pieces are mainly lead & pewter miniatures from what was available in the 1980s. I use plastic plane sets from that era for the aircraft. As to Great Powers - I & my old gaming friends from the 80s - there has been 12 Great Powers randomly created (I did all the artwork for consistency of look) - so this random Great Power creation system works (played considerably).
What someone suggested and what I must now do is to make up a you tube video of what & how I made my A&A random map board - how it works & how it changes for each game one would play.
The design pre-supposes a variable number of players (4-7 would be best, although 5 or 6 would be ‘traditional’) each playing on their own OR, alternately, somehow divided into two as equal as possible teams ‘points’ (PF) wise. I made my game designed on a map of sea spaces that are all squares sized to hold sufficient naval units - the land territories being ‘squarish’ in shape, as well. At the time, I was influenced by the off board ‘squares’ for unit placement on the old original A&A Classic map (a really bad design feature, in retrospect). Now, with A&A:WW1, which I recently obtained, I have used my design idea for original Great Powers where I use a hexagonal space map - a better way to do random alignments (as you can do 6 directions to just 4 with a square space map. Plus, in my A&A:WW1 map version, sea spaces will be more important. * Note: in either game (WW1 or WW2) my map design system uses more sea spaces as the maps of the land have absolutely no bearing to the map of the Earth (with Europe, Pacific, etc, as in the regular A&A maps). I hope I haven’t confused anyone too much.
To conclude, I need to get assistance to place something onto You Tube where you will see me, an ‘old fart’ A&A board gamer, explain & illustrate how one makes their own ‘Great Powers’.

It’s been some years? Very infrequent anyway. I just got on to see what’s been going on. So, I added some history of my old A&A customizations. I haven’t played A&A in years (I guess). I did buy both 1940 games then, ofc, I had to make my combined version (mostly some minor PF map changes & specialized starting rules). When I see a map & I think it has inaccuracies, well, it gets changed (lol). Perhaps, I will send in my customization - it isn’t that much different from the original. Lastly, I did make a donation to support & to thank all you regulars for your work here.

I originally designed this unit independent of any other source in the 1980’s when there was only A&A Classic available.
Corvette: move 2 (or 3*) Attack value = 1 and Defence value = 1. Cost is 6 PF.
(* For my A&A variant game & map I give Naval Units a move of 3)
(** I added the Corvette to compliment the original naval units of BB: Att 4 Def 4 +24 PF, Cr: Att 3 Def 3 +18PF & DD: Att 2 Def 2 +12 PF & the CV being Att 2 Def 2 +18 PF plus may carry 2 Fighters OR 1 Bomber)

I originally designed this unit independent of any other source in the 1980’s when there was only A&A Classic available.
Motorized Artillery: move 2 (same as Armor) Attack value = 4 and Defence value = 1. Cost is 7 PF.

I originally designed this unit independent of any other source in the 1980’s when there was only A&A Classic available.
Motorized Infantry: move 2 (same as Armor) Attack Value = 1 Defence value = 2 Cost is 4 PF.

I originally designed this unit independent of any other source in the 1980’s when there was only A&A Classic available.
Artillery: move 1 (same as infantry) Attack value = 4 and Defence value = 1. Cost is 6 PF.

There is a way to have new maps for Axis & Allies where virtually every game would be a different map.
Reference my post in the ‘Other Axis & Allies variants’ section. It is on Pg 2 and is called ‘Creating your own free form A & A nations’. This process requires work to create both a new multi-square Ocean map, a number (minimum 5) of Great Powers (eg Ger, UK, USA, etc), their associated nearby neutral territories & some other neutral territory islands & multi-territory landmasses. A person could use a hexagonal map rather than one of squares (which I did for my free form A&A:1914 game map). The idea is to make up random lands which can be randomly placed on an Ocean map board. The idea is to have Great power PF values that are close to each other in value and to have enough neutral territory values for PF increases. This takes work to create but you won’t be playing A&A on the same map ever again.
(I should find a way to illustrate what I’ve done via uploaded pictures)

@MacNaughton Yes. I have made up random WW1 Great Powers and related neutral territories all of which can be placed on a map of sea zones. In this way the map can change from game to game. This does take work to make the physical components. The game itself offers the parameters ( a statisitacal analysis of the map & PF values) to make up your own map.

@thrasher1 Yes, you can make fictional A & A maps. You can also have variable placement of these fictional maps so that A& A games can have varying maps (to a degree). This is regarding a board game style variation. A computer programme generated random map would necessitate software coding to really have random fictionalized maps.

This article is more properly termed ‘Creating your own Axis and Allies map, nations and land territories.’ This article is on how to create your own individual and variable land territories. I base the following on a statistical analysis on the A & A Classic game and my design is independent of any other source.
If you examine the Classic map (or any of the other maps) you note the nations (what I call the major powers) and also the neutral or occupied nations (what I call ‘territories’). All these territories (land spaces) whether part of a player nation, or otherwise, have numerical PF values. When you statistically examine these values you are able to extrapolate some value ranges and, for the major powers, whether they may be single territory nations (island or land) or whether they are multiple territory land powers. All this can be randomized as follows using 3D6 dice. Hence we will begin;

1. Roll 3D6 for size of great power where; 3-11=single Territory Great Power (62.5%) or 12-18= Multiple Territory Great Power (37.5%)
   a) If Single Territory roll 2D6 where; 2-5= Island Great Power (28%) or 6-12= Land Great Power (72%)
   b) If Multiple Territory roll 2D6 where; 2=2 Territories (3%), 3-4= 3 Territories (13%), 5-6= 4 Territories (25%), 7-8= 5 Territories (31%), 9-10= 6 Territories (19%), 11=7 Territories (5%) & 18=8 territories (3%)

• I used Fra & Italy as single territory great powers plus the regular 5 player nations to give better percentages & I weighted the multiple territory great powers to not have too few or too many territories (as you may see).
  ** There is a range of PF values for the individual Great Powers. I made the range run from 8 to 13 ( a difference of 6).this is weighted, as well, to have most Great Powers to be the same (for balance purposes), hence;

2. Roll 3D6 for the Production Factors (PFs) of your Great Power where; 3-4= 8PF (2%), 5-7= 9PF (14.5%), 8-10=10PF (33.5%), 11-13=11PF (33.5%), 14-16=12PF (14.5%) & 17-18= 13PF (2%).
   A Single Territory Great Power is given the numerical PF value as indicated.
   However, a Multiple Territory Great Power has all territories, except the first, initially assigned a PF value of 1. The first territory is always the territory with more PFs than any other. Then, for every territory initially at 1, a further 3D6 roll is made where the territory value changes as follows; 3-9 = 1PF (value remains as 1) (37.5%), 10-13= 2PF (46%) & 14-18= 3PF 16.5%). * This may increase the Multiple Territory Great Power PF total above 13 but in only rare instances of many territories and higher die rolls.
   There are, therefore, three different types of Great Power, namely;
   A) A Single Territory Island Great Power such as Japan or the United Kingdom
   B) A Single Territory Land Great Power such as France, Germany or Italy
   C) A Multiple Territory (Land) Great Power such as the Soviet Union or the United States
   The next step in territory creation is to determine how many nearby ‘neutral’ territories will be somehow adjacent or 1 sea space away from your Great Power (if an island). Hence;
3. Roll 3D6 to determine the number of nearby neutral territories where; 3= 1 territory (.5%), 4=2 territories (1.5%), 5=3 territories (3%), 6=4 territories (4.5%), 7-8= 5 territories (16.5%), 9-12= 6 territories (48%), 13-14=7 territories (16.5%), 15=8 territories (4.5%), 16=9 territories (3%) , 17=10 territories (1.5%) & 18=11 territories (.5%).
   Next, one must randomly determine and in some manner, an orderly way, in what direction from your Great Power these neutral territories lie. Here there will be differing results so long as they are randomized without bias. Specifically, where one has an Island Single Territory Great Power the first random roll will determine in what direction the nearby neutral territory land mass will lie the requisite one sea zone away. The direction and what the arrangement of these neutral territories will be can be either a clump of territories rather round in shape or may be an extended chain of neutral territories (or some combination) all depending on the random dice rolling. After determining these neutral territory positions it is only necessary to determine the PF values of these neutral territories, as follows;
4. Roll 3D6 to determine the PF value of each neutral territory where; 3-11= 1 PF (62.5%), 12-13= 2 PF (21%), 14-15= 3PF (11.5%), 16=4PF (3%), 17=5PF (1.5%) & 18= 6PF (.5%).
   Following these steps above will result in a Unique Great Power and related nearby neutral territories all with specific PF values. This is just to create one of, at least, five Great Powers. As in the original A & A Classic map there will be at least one neutral continent similar to South America. One will also need to have several ‘large islands’ meaning other multiple territory islands and also some single neutral territory islands to fill in the map. All of these territories will use the #4) 3D6 roll listed above to determine their PFs.
   Note that one must use the PF points total from an A & A map and extrapolate from this, normally, as if one had five players, hence one should have five real life players make up their own unique Great Power as illustrated above.
   Also, one must make a map of sea zones and number these zones so that these new ‘lands’ may be randomly placed on a map. Sea spaces can be numbered sequentially. Furthermore, there is the matter of ‘names’ for land territories (land spaces). Some manner of logic should be used. I chose & my friends chose specific nationalities and then we used an atlas to randomly pick specific names (we used randomized atlas index entries). Using random alphabet letter generation also helps. Note one will have to create borders. Adhere to roughly equal sized areas (for ease of unit placement & room for same). Note this whole process of making new paper maps & of course a sea map board will take some time.
   Although this suggested random map creation system seems difficult it is not if one has some guidelines to follow and one follows it to conclusion.
   Lastly, you will have a unique A & A game map whatever A& A version you like playing and You and Your Gaming Friends will have their own ‘unique Great Power’.