:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D HA Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-
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.
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.
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.
😉
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.
…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?
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.
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.
@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.
Im good. I don’t use G40 map. Thanks
@SS:
@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.
Im good. I don�t use G40 map. Thanks
What do you use then?
@SS:
@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.
Im good. I don�t use G40 map. Thanks
What do you use then?
This map I use for my 40 game and HBG 39
@SS:
@SS:
@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.
There’s a few problems with the map you have presented me. For one, Bangladesh did not exist until 1971, after it gained independence from Pakistan. It only existed after 1971, after it ceased being “East Pakistan” and instead became Bangladesh.
Im good. I don�t use G40 map. Thanks
What do you use then?
This map I use for my 40 game and HBG 39
I have something better. I got rid of the Canadian maple leaf roundel because that was not adopted until 1946, well after World War II and the Canadians (RCAF) used the British roundel during World War II. I changed the Dutch roundel to the Dutch flag roundel made famous in the East Indies that the Dutch used to denote the fact that they were at war and thus, no longer a neutral country, but in fact a member of the Allied powers.
http://www.mediafire.com/view/utpmq6b7f3zoiu6/Global_1940_Sec_Ed.jpg
heh heh '46 for the Leaf ? No Way ! C’mon Canada! Defend your honor :)
