AARHE: Map files

@black_elk said in Working on a New Map 40/41: Seeking Suggestions:

perhaps with some map making type tutorials in the same way that Pact of Steel 2 taught how to create an xml and such

:+1:

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.

new file…
fixed a few issues…

http://www.mediafire.com/?gbhfnm2hjdr

OK so after skimming a number of threads I see a lot of similarities in house rule, can we get a quick run down of all the most popular features to be added to the map?

Not pieces or border changes but stuff like…

1. ports
2. barracks (or other infantry-generating locations)

what else?

No way am I opening that can of worms again!!!  :-)

I am very happy as is, just wanted a clarification.

Tekkyy? where are you ?

yeah I checked out your USSR player aid
I feel a complex pattern might make it slightly harder to read the text on the printed thing
maybe just go along the line of one compact and one pretty presentation version

so would be nice to have additionally a simpler one for “comfort zone” reasons
it would look similar to revised OOB in colours patterns and style

when you feel happy with the infantry placement rules just tell me and I’ll paste them into the main document

I hope you’ll repost in table format though  :wink: