AARHE: Map files

I was referring to @Black_Elk 's project.

Yup! Scale was perfect for the map…the infantry are too large to fit comfortably in Belorussia or West Russia, but they fit great in France, Italy, Africa, and China! Quality is 3.5/5 stars. Some of the infantry didn’t detach cleanly from the sprue, and the modeling is slightly chunky, but overall the pieces are durable, handsome, and clearly distinguishable.

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.

Thanks Lars.  I went ahead and took the plunge and ordered the French, Italian, ANZAC and Chinese units from HBG.  I took a look at each power’s starting units and then made an education guess as to what I would need.  They arrived yesterday and I’ve got them all sorted out and ready to go.  Just waiting for the boards to come in and I’ll get a game going.  But good thoughts on the classic units, if I need anything extra all those classic pieces will be coming out of retirement.

:-)

First time I did a custom map that’s exactly what I did, buy a world map and territory borders.  You could try to find an loder copy of photoshop like ps 6 or 7 for much less than the current gen.

1.  Where did you get the “buttons” your pieces are glued to?  I can’t find anything thats close.  I even thought about painting pennies or nickels (US 1 cent or 5 cent pieces) to glue my pieces on. Would be cheaper than buying anything i’ve seen.

Washers bought from “do-it center” Hillman fender washers– 1/8x3/4— item # 290001— box of 100 for $5 bucks…you can find them on internet and order

2.  Where did you get your pieces from.  And what size are they?  They look like 1/72 or 15 mm.  Having trouble finding good quality but inexpensive artillery, tanks, planes and ships.

Its all skytrex.com stuff  15mm infantry, 1/285 miroarmor, 1/2400 scale naval… about a buck each piece and if you place a large order shipping is free

3.  What size did you blow your map to?

60x36 from AAA flag and banner for about $155 bucks printed on 1/4 thick plastic sheets with vinyl decal applied. www.AAAflagandbanner.com  you send the link and money they print and ship.

yep

I love copy and paste  :-).

I am a big fan of Diplomacy, but can’t imagine adding simultanious movement to A&A. First, as Imperious Leader noted, there would be a large amount of moves to write. In Diplomacy a leader has to write at most 17 orders, but will generally need to issue 5-10. In Axis and Allies both the number and the complexity of the orders increases.
Second, writing down orders will likely serve as somewhat of a deterent to inivation. For example; as Germany I draft a set of orders to strike the U.S.S.R at Causcus and Karelia. If I suddenly see a stronger strategy that involves me completely changing my orders for both countries, the time I already put in that will be lost and the time I will need to write up new orders may deter me from attempting my new course of action. Having to continuously edit a page or two of orders will be tedious.
Third, in real life military leaders would re-act to enemy movements. If as Japan I ordered my units in Kwangtung, Manchuria, and French Indochina to attack China, but was attacked by units in Soviet Far East and India my attack would not proceed. Not only that, the Manchurian units would likely be diverted to re-inforce and/or counter-attack.