@maverick_76:
To me the map looks super, I can’t wait to just set it all up and then drool (hopefully not on it) for like the next 30 minutes.
One way to protect the map from drool would be to cover it. Several months ago, in anticipation of the Europe 1940 game’s release, I bought a large sheet of clear acrylic (custom-cut to the size I wanted) which I’ll be placing over the complete global map. This is partly intended to protect the map from scratches and spills and other mishaps (including drool), but it’s also meant to ensure that I’ll have a completely flat surface on which to put the roundels and the sculpts. Although the Pacific 1940 map looks great, I find it annoying that the surface is uneven due to the joint between the two panels and the creases along which each panel folds.
A fringe benefit is that the plastic sheet will enable me to correct the roundels which are printed on the board. I don’t like some of the printed roundels because they’re not historically accurate (like the Italian one), and I dislike the fact that some of the printed roundels don’t accurately represent which power actually had jurisdiction over certain territories (like the Solomons, which were a British protectorate, not an Australian or New Zealand one). I’ve made myself a boxful of custom roundels which are to my liking (laser-printing them on sticky-label paper and applying them to solid white bingo chips), and I’ll place them on the map’s printed roundels before covering the map with the acrylic sheet. The roundels used in the course of a game will then get placed over the plastic sheet, where they won’t disturb the underlying layer of baseline roundels.