The Map Modification Question

Sounds pretty cool! I’d watch the video haha. I have a lot of old pewters from the 80s, but mine are all high fantasy, dragons and the like. My uncle had some kick ass Napoleonic era pewters, and a great set of plastic army men from the early 60s that I always pined over.

My first serious attempt at the map concept was for the computer in tripleA, a few decades ago, so pretty limited by what the thing could do at the time. It worked for a bit, but was kinda wonky and used some gimmicky ideas for the naval movement and convoys, as a way to delay the USA. It had a kind of one direction flow from the Americas to support the Entente, but the game was basically decided by what happened in Europe with the CP. I was never very satisfied, but it was a fun project cause I like the era. You can see the map down at the bottom here…

https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Great_War

Then I tried to revisit the era again, but ended up not using the WW1 map abstraction concept, opting for something that just had the whole world on view and a more free form 1898-1918 vibe, so the factions could be less rigid. Basically I wanted it to include the Spanish American war, and Africa scrambles, or Boxer rebellion-y stuff with a kind of slow build into WW1. I split the Entente into Anglo-American and Franco-Russian sides, to see if I could find a way of dividing up the world and then tacked some others minors onto each team just to see how it would work. I think I had America-Britain-Portugal-Japan on one team, France-Spain-Italy-Russia on another. Germany-Austria-Ottomans-the Dutch and China on the last. Just so the spread would be evenly distributed with some fronts in each theater to tease out. I determined it as too simplistic and anachronistic though. It was basically the dilemma of the 3 faction game and being modelled more on the playscale of Risk than A&A that proved kind of intractable. The factions weren’t entirely satisfying, though I thought it kind of fun for make believe, and colonial competition. I just called it “Domination” lol. That one had a very limited unit roster, and simplified economy, but a much larger scale of territory divisions. I think it still would have worked on a 6 ft table, but only because of the limited units. Really it was just an excuse to draw a world map projection with a warp that I liked a little better than the traditional A&A map.

https://axisandallies.fandom.com/wiki/Domination

I wanted something a bit closer to Mercator, but which would still give a much larger Europe. The squish-blob challenge I found was in how to manage South Asia and Africa, where the map compression becomes more extreme due to what has to happen with Europe/Med in A&A style games, so there was some abstraction, but a bit different than the earlier idea. I abandoned that one too, but Hepster picked it up again and revised it considerably for a 1914 era game using the same base projection but focused more on politics and a much more highly evolved roster/ruleset for this one…

https://forums.triplea-game.org/topic/1063/power-of-politics-1914-a-wwi-scenario

I’m not sure if that one would work as a physical game though without a very large map. Perhaps 2x6 ft tables to make a large square with a more extreme warp in the map projection? But basically its better on a computer I’d imagine since you can map zoom and scale to micro with the imaginary sculpts. But work on it has gone a bit quiet since last year. Anyhow, it have a few of the abstraction concepts for stuff like convoys or how to handle the Bolshevik revolution (always a toughy), or things like cities through an abstracted scheme, but not so much with the playboxes ideas.

I’m definitely interested in different ways to push the map around though. I enjoyed the Classic playboxes in the first A&A map I picked up, even if they were just sort of cosmetic zooms in that one. I liked the look of it.

I was just trying to visual what the coolest possible legacy product for me would be.

A 3 or 4 section split map, so that its easy to move or store a set board. A rigid material that doesn’t get wet or bend, or worn from folding (since its sectional.) Something printed on metal would be coolest, because that would allow for Cyanite style magnetic sculpts and also a way to stack the sectional board, using pylons or columns like an inch or so high, you could stack a set board on top of itself with the sculpts in place for easier storage on top of a shelf or corner of a table (since A&A is such a long game that would be particularly rad).

A double sided map would be sweetest, with the obverse serving as the main base map, and the reverse something more customizable. So maybe a political historical theme for the front map (all the pretty national colors, with the labeling of things like VCs or starting territory control with little roundels etc being printed directly on it.) The reverse side could be a more stripped down build-it-yourself topographical map, showing the basic territory and sz divisions, but using movable control markers to indicate things like VCs and starting territories control. On upside down, it could then service multiple scenarios or different start dates.

Magnetic sculpts, with chips, baseplates and risers for easy grouping and stacking.

WW2 nation themed unit trays, dice, and dice tower.

The underside of the box lid itself, could serve as a large battle board field for multiple encounters per turn. Something that shows the base attack/defense power (“hits at”) in Rows 1-4, and shows moves remaining on the attacker side (“moves left”) in columns to the far right or left of each row 1-5. That way all the critical gameplay information is preserved when moving sculpts from the map to the battle box and back again. Movable battle markers could be used to indicate which square on the battleboard field corresponds to which territory or sz on the map. Since there is a lot of room on the box lid, you could also have a field/marker that is used to expand a territory or sea zone that is becoming overcrowded. Similar to the blow up boxes on the Classic map, but more adaptive.

The inside of the box base could serve (as it often already does), for rolling the dice and housing the sculpt trays, but with a tower this would make it easier to save space.

Using a sectional map rather than a folding map, with pylons everything could be stacked on top of itself, even for a set game. And then moved around easily from spot to spot. Basically a longer box, with a narrower attack profile hehe

The 1942 game map in print is 40″ x 26″ but its comprised of two folding pieces of cardboard which is harder to move around without a backing and takes up a lot of space when set. Global and AA50 also use folding maps. A rigid sectional map that was more like 12x24 in 4 panels would be larger when playing but easier to transport when set, and a lot smaller when stacked so you could have something a little closer in total size/space to the game box itself. Just a few inches taller. With magnets stuff wouldn’t shift around, so it’d be easier to leave out without dominating the room.

Then for the manual something like a gamemaster’s guide, or a players handbook or DMG in D&D but for Axis and Allies. Like with a layout of the standard rules for the scenario or campaign that comes in the box, but also with a section at the end on the history of the game, and ideas for how to customize or create new scenarios, paint sculpts, add to the game and whathaveyou.

Something like that would be platinum plus. Take all my loot hehe

I use a LL chart for Russia and sometimes UK gets a Destroyer. Plus in Ger NA I have if they get they can buy a Ger piece and place at a Italy ic or buy Italy 1 piece and place at a Italian ic. I think this is best way so you don’t interfere with the Transports. Besides I have enough convoy raiding going on in the Atlantic. If you guys are interested in my rules and game NA just to give u more ideas I can post more here if you’d like.

I played another game with India at 5, but I played against myself instead of the AI (first time doing that!).

Russia got absolutely diced in the heavy Ukraine strafe, and so West Russia was abandoned R2 and with no fighter support (Iceland gone G1, no other good routes) Germany rolled over them on turn G5.

Once the fighter route was gone I went heavy tanks in India, hoping to swing out against the Japanese and provide defence for Moscow.  I did have 8 UK tanks about to rush in to Moscow for defence (on UK6), but that would have exposed India on J6 AND Japanese tanks were closing in on Moscow as well, so it would have been a 1 or 2 turn delay at most.  Japan had the luxury of building a factory in Manchuria for north route tanks and just stacking Yunnan with art and inf (with their fleet in the adjacent SZ) and deadzone Burma, so the UK troop buildup in India couldn’t really pivot out of India as much as I thought.  Any foray out of India, and the 5 IPC factory would be gone, so the two armies stayed in the gravitational pull of one another.

I’ve never really done a KJF, but I think that might work a lot better with 5 IPC India.  I might read some KJF strategies and try it out.  So far, 5 IPC India is a failure, haha.

The Allies may indeed have problems getting numbers of units into Europe and Asia, but the whole reason they need to do this in the first place is because Russia has such woefully inadequate starting attack power!

The Soviets can barely trade with Germany or Japan for 2 territories a turn, before they start hemorrhaging ground units in the process, forced to make terrible trades at a loss just to prevent Axis blitz paths or landing spots. This means that the Germans can advanced along a broad front, with only modest sized stacks, and Russia is totally unable to contest them.

Instead, because they cant attack on their own, the Soviets are almost completely reliant on UK/USA to run direct counter attacks for them, against a relentless Axis advance. And this all happens in their own backyard, right in their own core Russian territories!

And its not as if Russia collapses only when they receive zero aid from the West (which might be understandable) but they collapse when they don’t receive the full maximum aid. Like literally almost all the UK/US ipcs from the early rounds dedicated just to holding the center.

The western Allies routinely send dozens of fighters and as many ground units as they can to prop up Moscow. And even then Moscow gets hammered.

Honestly if I was designing this thing from the ground up, I’d give Russia an airforce on par with the other powers. Like 3 fighters AND a bomber. Or hell even 4 fighters AND a bomber!

They’d still have the weakest starting airforce on the board.

I just think its rather lame, that the Russians are so nerfed in A&A. It feels totally ahistorical.

They had superior tanks to the Germans, even by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Germans who always tank drive. They had some the best fighter aircraft in the world by the time this game is supposed to start, and yet it is the Luftwaffe that always crushes. They had the numbers, and yet it is Germany who always pushes the massive ground stacks.

It just doesn’t look like World War 2.

The way the Royal Air Force is always camped out in Russia, and Monty is taking his tank columns on escapades through the Caucasus. For real?

If you want their income so low, they should have starting TUV. Or conversely, if you want them to have low starting TUV, then give them more income. But if you shaft them in both areas, then the game turns into this weird deal, with the western Allies running the show in Red territories.

The Russia design is just silly OOB. They have low income and as such will buy infantry and artillery as a matter of course, almost exclusively. They don’t need more inf, what they need is air power, so they can trade that infantry effectively, the way the other player nations do.

I think a single additional Russian bomber is a decidedly modest expansion compared to what they should really have, if you want to reflect their historical position during this period.

@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.

ahh ok good.

AARHE stands for Axis and Allies Revised: Historical Edition.

A set of house rule with enhanced realism, to be used on top of LHTR 1.3.
Comes with historical justifications in italics for each rule.

The two stickied threads has the files.