AARHE: Map files

Combine Venezuela/Colombia/Ecuador, Chile/Bolivia/Peru, and Argentina/Paraguay/Uruguay together. No need to change IPC values.

From a playability standpoint it makes no sense to have 9 little countries across the continent.

I play it like this and things can get interesting.

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.

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.

Ok Here it goes
@Black_Elk:

On a more serious note though, this discussion about Navies, while fascinating, is still beside the point.
I mean, you don’t honestly think that the unit numbers in the game, have anything to do with the real world numbers do you? If so, again I would ask, who can’t point to where the numbers are coming from?

They are hazzy abstractions, just like the IPC values are hazzy abstractions, and the problem right now, is that the abstracted numbers we’ve been using have failed to produce a two front war.

Who cares about all the other stuff if we can’t even get a two front war going? What difference does it make if the IPC and unit ratios are accurate to Nth degree, if that’s just going to produce an unbalanced game?
You see what I’m driving at here…

Believe me, I’m just as in favor of historical realism as the next guy, but I think we’ve been approaching the issue in a backwards sort of way. You have to start with the gameplay, and understand what players are actual doing with these rules and conditions we’ve set up, before you can even begin to ask questions like “are the numbers accurate to the real world?” The first priority has to be given to the gameplay mechanics, and setting them up in such a way that the Japanese and Americans actually have a reason to fight over the Pacific. If you don’t do that first, then relative accuracy with all the other stuff is pretty much pointless, because the basic game still won’t look anything like the real War.

Any thoughts?

I totally agree with this because there should be a reason to fight in the pacific (for both sides) I think if making each island 1 and isladns that get taken often 2 then there would be a reason for japan to defend them and usa to attack them.
Anyways many of the game is historical but some things had to change for unblanced reasons so that way the axis have a chance that gives them a shot.  Though i beleive that the numbers in the game are very accurate to how the real war went except the german army had more tanks and the russian army had more infantry.  The part of how U.S.A. and Great Britian, are both pretty weak is because it is the truth great britian was on its knees and the u.s.a army was not even a real army (no offence it was not made for offensive just defensive)

My bad… I forgot the 4x rule.  That clears up a lot.

thats just fine.

oh I see
thats fine
the current tech list welcomes scrutiny

check out the draft detailing the techs if you haven’t already

the heavy artillery gives you a new unit at 5 IPC 3/2, it has ability to fight in adjacent territory with -1 modifier, provided itself is not being attacked