The Map Modification Question

@master4709:

SS, that is an interesting idea with naval and air bases. What made you decide to not be able to purchase any during the game and limit 3 movement to non-combat only? Can they still be damaged by SBR?

The idea was for strategy and forcing the 1 extra turn for combat. Im not a big fan of bases but everybody else likes them. Yes the Air and Naval bases can be SBRed. Airbases still can scramble 3 planes for naval battles. Plus get the +1 move.

Are railways needed for a map this big for the USA and USSR?

For me we use the railway for Russia, US and Burma road. 2 Inf or 1 inf 1 Art can move 2 spaces ( Russia move 3 if they get there NA ) only per turn. The railroad is marked on my map.

I think I will add the convoy zone boxes to the map.

Yes I would too. Germany needs these boxes for game more.

The map is still a mess. MS Paint’s paintbrush option doesn’t appear to lay an even coat, so I can’t auto-fill within national borders, meaning that each country must be painted by hand. I’m trying to figure out if it would be wise to invest in a WaCom tablet for this kind of work and would greatly appreciate any suggestions from some of the community’s seasoned mapmakers.

I’ve calculated income (IPC values) for all the major and minor powers in the game at this point, so let’s shift gears tonight and take a look at how that breaks down, with some additional points of interest for each country. Here’s an early (albeit incomplete) preview.

Allied Powers

United Kingdom & Dominions: 54

Representing His Majesty’s possessions and Commonwealth allies west of Suez. The U.K. starts with sevenof the Empire’s eight battleships in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, and one of its two battlecruisers. The British also field a pair of fleet carriers, divided between either station.

British Far East Command: 50

All British Empire forces east of Suez, inclusive of Australia and New Zealand. There are 10 INF in greater India alone, and another 4 in Malaya or on Singapore at game start. By contrast, Australia and New Zealand are virtually defenseless. A battleship, battlecruiser, cruiser, and two destroyers comprise the Royal Navy presence here.

France: 37

France is a going concern in this game, with powerful armies concentrated along the Maginot Line, the Alpine Line on the Franco-Italian border, and in North Africa. The French Indochina garrison is also formidable, with 1 INF, 1 ARTY, and 1 FTR. Powerful squadrons of the French Navy, including 2 BB and 1 BC, are at Toulon and Mers el-Kébir. A cruiser lays at anchor off Indochina. A troop transport in the Indian Ocean carries 1 additional INF and 1 AAA.

United States of America: 130

The wealthiest nation on Earth, but humbled by the Depression. The United States Navy counts ten battleships and one fleet carrier.

Pro-Allied Minors

United Netherlands: 28

Anticipating war with Japan rather than Germany, the Dutch spent heavily on air and naval defenses in the Indies, where a BC and a SUB patrol, backed by a TAC. At game start, a Dutch FTR on Java is the closest possible air cover available for Malaya. A modest increase to the army began more recently, but there can be no illusions about what will happen if Europe falls into another war.

Communist Powers

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: 57

An industrial behemoth, the Soviets are arrayed against the Germans in the west and the Japanese in the Far East. The massive Red Army fields 24 infantry in total.

Axis Powers

Japan: 35

In terms of capital ships, the Japanese operate three BB and one BC, as well as two fleet carriers.

Italy: 22

Still smarting over the abandonment of her Entente partners in the last war, Italy has renewed its membership in the Triple Alliance. The Italian army in North Africa, amounting to 2 INF, 1 ARTY, 1 armored car (AC), and 1 ARM, is a significant threat to French possessions there. The Italian Navy includes 1 BB and 1 fleet carrier. Italy’s mobilization factor of 11 INF is high for a country of her size; by way of comparison, the British Far East Command fields 17 INF at game start, spread across a far wider operational area.

Pro-Allied Minors

Polish Commonwealth: 11

In this timeline, a client state of Germany. Considering the weight of Soviet metal arrayed on its eastern border, the Poles are likely to serve as the doormat over which its neighbors stomp with reckless abandon.

Siam 2

A client state of Japan. Poised to invade French Indochina at game start with a formidable army of 3 INF, 1 ARM, and 1 FTR. The Siamese navy is a destroyer, standing in for the pair of coast defense ships it operated historically.

Thanks! I mostly agree with your comment about per-dice research efficiency; the only reason I didn’t include additional penalties for triple-stacking your scientists is for the sake of simplicity. If you want to play with a -3 penalty, or (even better) a -4 penalty that rounds up to a -3 penalty if you roll three 1’s, then go right ahead!

Giving each Axis nation 3 tokens and each Allied nation 2 tokens tends to give the Axis an early edge in research (they will manage their first couple of breakthroughs earlier than the Allies will), but then the Allies will start to catch up and then overtake the Axis later in the war, because the Axis scientists (on average) will be more “crowded” and will take more stacking penalties.

You could bump Radar to 14 pts. or even to 16 pts. if you really want to, but there are limited opportunities to make full use of the potential synergy. E.g., suppose Germany is using a “Dark Skies” approach to ward off Allied fleets with its enormous Nazi bomber squadrons. Britain might want both Radar and Anti-Aircraft Cruisers to help protect its fleet. Russia, on the other hand, only needs Radar – they’re not going to build any cruisers. Similarly, Russia doesn’t have much use for Jet Fighters, since if it’s suffering from a strategic bombing campaign, it won’t be able to afford much in the way of extra fighters. There’s also the concern that “Heavy Bombers” has always been an overpowered technology in every version of Axis & Allies that had tech. I tried to err in the opposite direction by making the anti-aircraft techs roughly as powerful as the aircraft-enhancement techs!

There is an “Improved Artillery” tech in some of the OOB versions of Axis & Allies, and I’ve never seen anyone buy it, except maybe Russia, who really does have to count every dollar and might not be able to afford enough artillery to fully power its infantry stacks. It is really challenging to fully exploit the advantage of 2:1 artillery support is that it’s really hard to maintain the desired ratio. E.g. if I have a stack of 10 infantry and 5 artillery, then after one round of combat, I probably have something like 2 infantry and 5 artillery, and the extra artillery support becomes moot. It stays moot on defense, too, when those artillery try to hold the ground they just captured. But if I have a stack of 20 infantry and 5 artillery instead, then my army is hugely inefficient – even with 2:1 artillery support, I’m only generating 40 pips of punch on 25 units, so I’m going to give you multiple rounds of combat in which to score hits and wear down my army.

You get the same problem in reverse if you want to only boost the artillery’s native attack power. With a stack of, e.g., 8 infantry and 3 artillery, the tech would only give you +3 pips of punch – it’s just not very exciting. You could try attacking with a stack of all artillery, e.g., 10 artillery for $40, but that just seems weird and un-thematic.

Anyway, let me know if you try out the rules, with or without some modifications! I’d be curious to see how they work in live play. I’m defending my rules so you have the benefit of my opinions, but they’re just opinions, and ultimately the house rules are there for everyone to enjoy however they like…if you think you’ll have more fun tweaking the costs or nerfing a couple of the techs, then go with what seems fun! :-)

What software program do you use to edit the map?

@Black_Elk:

That’s a clean map Ryuzaki_Lawlie!

The color selection is ideal. Though the black impassibles still jump out at me

From a design standpoint the only things that catch my eye are the two round sea zones surrounding Japan and Hawaii.

It feel like you need one in the Atlantic to balance things out aesthetically. Have you considered the possibility of one surrounding the British Isles?

Or maybe Iceland? Or maybe both?

I still think Mercator is a bit tight in Europe, a little stretching there might be ideal, even if it was just along the vertical axis. I think the map would still read fine, but you’d get a few more pixel for units into those key European spots. Also if you were willing to shrink South America slightly you could almost curve off a 10th of the map height at the bottom of the screen (which is notorious for players forgetting units in the south sea hehe) without really needing to change Africa/Australia of the pacific. Basically a slight bend would go a long way, even if using Mercator for the baseline.

Oh and I think the possession colors for Dutch Borneo and British Sarawak and North Borneo should be reversed.

My only suggestions :)

Nice work man. That would be a fun map to form the basis of a 1939 game, or any year from 39 on.

I like that you have not yet imposed on the map any extraneous information such as IPC values or VC. This means the map is adaptive for many purposes. I like the general division of territories. Only that the projection is a bit large at the poles for my tastes. If we could shrink them up slightly I think the map would be ideal. Its really more about screen dimension for me when it comes to the Big World Map that Wandering Head made. These days most screens are very long relative to their height, so standard Mercator always seems blown out a bit in tripleA to me, especially at the south end, and of course Europe is always tight. I wish the center picker for tripleA was better at housing units to smaller scales. Its a little better than it used to be, especially with the guiding lines, but still Europe loves to clutter up haha.
:-D

Again though, great design direction!

I’ll probably shift the continents (turning their general direction), and stretch out northern Africa and Europe, will probably require North America to get a bit skinny, but I think the big benefit from this, is that potentially more European spaces can be added. This will allow me to add more to the Mediterranean however (and it really needs the space), perhaps round out where Rome is. Africa, I think needs a bit more work. South America possibly as well, but I sort of need an idea of which cities can be considered major not only there, but elsewhere. Vladivostok will defiantly get added in with it’s own space.

I picked black for impassables, since it tells me that there is nothing there, no play space, it’s simply temporary, and they are there for the designer’s benefit.

I’m not sure where else to put a rounded Sea Zone, I’m considering more though.

I would like to be able to share the Axis & Allies Community maps, charts, tokens, aids, & Variants on my website. I already have one game system with map, rules, and setups that someone asked that I share with the Community, my only stipulation is that I am able to link to it within my web site that say it used a special color tank and I have it, I will link to it, tokens, etc. (It’s business)  :-D
Please email me your file(s) and a description on what you want on the site with your email or any credit for your work if you want it. It be be put on my site for downloads. If the file is too large, I will have to link it to mediafire where they can download it from there.
Thanks

use the standard rules on the first 4 pages. play the game like that before you move further with optional rules. You have to learn how to win using the basic rules first, before you get in a situation where you got all the bells and whistles on and wonder that its not balanced. It is.