Posts made by Positronica

@deepblue:

Airfields?

Everyone happy with the current airfields.  I will be adding one on the Azores per Micoom’s suggestion.

How about Europe or Russia? There seems to be a shortage of airfields in the Atlantic theater.

Put an Airfield in Iceland so that planes flying from the US capital can get there in one turn.  Western France could use an Airfield, too.

When it comes to adding airfields, you really need to ignore history.  The most important thing is to look at the relationship in size between the territory with an airfield and the sea zone next to it.  The purpose of airfields in the game are to get rid of the unrealistic situation of having a plane eat up one movement point crossing over a very large body of water, and then lose another movement point moving over a relatively tiny piece of land.  (Or vice versa.)  So, in other words, if a piece of land, such as an island is very tiny in relation to the sea zone around it, then you’re justified putting an airfield there.  Or, is the sea zone next to a territory is rather small, and most likely only represents the coastal waters, than an airfield would be justified there, too.  Now, by these criteria, you could end up putting airbases all over the place.  You really only need airbases for high traffic areas, or in places where they’re needed for gameplay reasons.  For example, Morocco doesn’t need an airfield since both the US and the UK can get planes there from their capitals in one turn.  Iceland on the other hand needs an airbase so that it can be linked up with the US capital.  Its possible one or two of the new islands in the Atlantic could justify an airfield, too, but I’m not certain.  In my original version of the map, Washington, Iceland, Western France, and Malta were the only airfields in the atlantic theater.

Deepblue, my suggestion would be to start putting seaports in every spot the people suggest one should be from a historical perspective.  Then go back and take off any that don’t pair up with at least one other port that’s three spaces away.  After that looks for ones that only link up at three spaces if you take an indirect route, but are only two spaces away if you take a direct route.  Most of those ones can be removed, too.  After that, you can look for ones that might need to be removed for gameplay reasons.

@deepblue:

I think that the icons themselves are too big and that they distract from the map and don’t need to be so large.

I propose reducing the icon down to maybe the size of the IPC icons.  In my opinion this would look better.

At their current size, the airbase and port icons will print on the map to be the same size as they are on the standard Axis & Allies: Pacific map.  Personally I don’t have a problem with their size, but if you want to shrink them a bit, that would be ok.  I wouldn’t go as small as the IPC icons, though.  At that size they might bleed too much if printed on a lower quailty printer, and if someone wants to do a reduced size print of the final map, the icons might end up too small.

Instead of associating a port with a sea zone why not associate it with the territory?

This would save us from putting two ports on territories like Japan.  Instead just put the port icon on Japan and that would represent that any sea zone touching Japan is considered to have a port.

That might work, but I’m not sure if its necessary.  On the original map there’s only one spot on the entire map were a territory has two naval ports on it.  Also, I’m not sure if its a good idea to have a territory with a naval port get that bonus for every sea zone it touches.  From a gameplay standpoint, naval ports are handy and add to the game, however they also tend to slow turns down a little bit, since they give players more options to think about.  I think the primary purpose of naval ports should be to steer the game in certain directions.  For example, the sea port in Morocco encourages the US player to try and invade North Africa, rather than just skipping over it and just going straight for mainland Europe.  The Naval ports in the pacific also help to guide both Japan and the US into the south pacific.  If you think you can accomplish these same sorts of things by having a naval port apply to every adjacent sea zone, than go for it.  Also keep in mind, that the more we deviate the rules from how naval ports work in A&A:P, the more potential confusion there will be amoungst new players.

Well, I think its looking pretty good.  I can’t think of anything else that really needs to be changed on it.  I think it might be time to start figuring out where naval bases and sea bases should be put in.  After the airbase and naval base symbols are in, I think we can start working on IPC values.

Yeah, I agree.  The UK starts with a very high IPC income.  They’re not supposed to be able to easily hold onto all of this at the start of the game.  I think the British CB in the Med is a big improvement.  It will make things more interesting in that region of the map.

@Micoom:

@deepblue:

The week is almost over.

The British CB in the Med.

I like it but still have some reservations.  It seems that this CB will be really hard to defend.  One thought I had was to trade places with the Italian CB, but not sure if that would help or not.  Any other thoughts?

Well isn’t that just the idea? That the CB is hard to protect in 1941/1942?  Changing it with the Italian CB would be wrong! It is fine like it is IMO.

I was looking over the map somemore, and there’s a few little things I noticed…

1. I don’t think Iceland should fall on the border of several sea zones.  Small islands, especially if you’re going to put an airbase symbol on them, work much better if they’re surrounded by a single sea zone.  If you’re not familiar with A&A:P, the way airbases work is that friendly aircraft flying into or out of a territory containing an airbase don’t have to count the sea zone adjacent to the airbase when determining their movement.  On the map, the airbases are generally placed along the border of a territory and the sea zone they are supposed to apply to.  With Iceland now touching three sea zones, you would be in the akward position of having to put several airbase symbols on the island to tie it to each of the seperate sea zones.  Another thing is that by having it touch three sea zones, you’ve basically given Iceland three seperate routes that make it vulnerable to amphibious invasion.  I think that’s far too many invasion routes for an island the size on Iceland.  I would definately suggest putting Iceland back within its own seazone.  If need be, you can slide the island a little to the south-east to give you more room to work with.

2. You might want to think about reworking the shape of the seazons in the Mediterranean so that Sicily also isn’t being bordered by so many sea zones.  I would say that having it bordered by 2 sea zones would be better than the current 3.  The Axis and Allies: Europe map might be a good place to look to get some ideas on how to rework the Mediterranean.

3. Its a little unclear if the sea zone between Madagascar and Africa touches the sea zone to the south east of Madagascar or not.  Its also unclear if the sea zone to the south east of South Africa touches Madagascar or not.  I would say to just move the line between Madagascar and Africa a little to the north, similar to where it was on the original map.

4. You’ve added a few spots where four sea zones come together in a squared corner.  Namely the area north of Scotland, the area south-east of the Philippines, the area north of the Caroline Islands, the two area west of Hawaii, and the area north-west of Midway.  You’ll notice that on the official Axis & Allies maps, sea zones are never laid out like this.  They are always staggered so that corners never come together like that.  I think it leads to more natural movement of units upon the board, and it makes it easier to visualize the placement of your fleets at a glance.  Think of it somewhat as the difference between a game that uses a square combat grid versus a hex grid.  I would highly suggest changing the layout of the all the four corner areas I listed above.

5. The UK capital symbol has been moved away from London and up onto the border between Scotland and the Great Britain territory.  Was this intentional?  And if so, why?  The German capital symbol should also be moved a little more into Germany so that no one gets confused and thinks that West Germany is also somehow part of the capital.

6. Its hard to tell if the sea zone west of British Columbia actually touches Alaska or not.  I would suggest angling the right end of the line up a bit so that Alaska is clearly shown to touch the sea zone.

7. Don’t forget the name for the island east of Primorsky.

@Imperious:

Positronica:

Can you address the issue about the lines surrounding the land masses? I find that particularly in the Mediterranean that the lines (e.g.waves) detract from the sea zone. I propose that you take a look at using only 3 lines rather than 7. Is it possible to make a test to see the difference?

Redrawing the wave lines would take a decent amount of work.  They’re not a seperate graphic on the map.  To redo them you’d essentially have to redo every bit of water on the map.  I’m way to busy with work and school right now to do that anytime soon, not to mention that I would need Deepblue’s updated version of the map even to attempt it.  Maybe once Deepblue has the map finished and redistributes the file in layers I’ll attempt it, but I can’t make any promises.

Also, one other thing.  The large Japanese controlled Island to the north-east of Primorsky is called Sakhalin.  During WWII the Japanese used it’s Japanese name, Karafuto, which might be a better name to use than Sakhalin.  I realize there’s a few other unnamed islands still, but none as large as this one, plus some people might confuse Sakhalin as being part of the Japan capital terrioty and thus they might think that the sea zone around Sakhalin/Karafuto touches Japan.  Giving it its own name will help to get rid of any confusion.  According to Wikipedia, Japan only controlled a little less than half the island with the rest being in Russian hands, but I would still say to leave it all colored yellow, since the Russians did have to land troops there to get control of it in the closing days of the way.  Since its not worth any money it will probably never come into play, but I still think its worth labeling.

I would just skip putting in a German Convoy zone.  I tried adding one myself when I first made the map, put there’s just not even close to enough room.  Plus, the relatively short hop from across the Baltic sea from Scandinavia to mainland Europe is quite a bit different than transporting goods across the Pacific, Atlantic, or even the Mediterranean.

Also, before we start moving around, adding, or removing too many convoy zones, or changing the rules for how they work, we should clarify what their purpose is from a game play perspective.  The Atlantic convoy zones are there to give Germany an incentive to put his subs to use, and to possibly even buy a new sub or two each turn.  They’re also there to punish the UK is she tries to ignore her convoy routes and instead focus solely on invading mainland Europe as quickly as possible.  The Italian convoy zone is there to make sure that Italy doesn’t just abandon control of the Med and dump all its money into helping Germany push against Russia.  The convoy zones in the Pacific and to an extent the Indian Ocean are there to make sure that Japan tries to maintain a naval presence in the Pacific, rather than just turtling at sea and going for a big push into India.  The US also needs to have high value convoy zones in both the Atlantic and the Pacific so that they have a greater incentive to put money into both theaters, rather than just completely ignoring Japan or Germany until the other is destroyed.  Also, the southern UK convoy zones can be usefull if the game ends up going in a non-historical route, i.e., if Germany gets solid control of the Atlantic, the convoy zones to the south give them an incentive to try and go for control down there, too.  Or if Italy gets control of all of Africa, they might start sending ships out into the Indian ocean or into the south Atlantic.  Or if India falls to Japan, you could see the Japanese fleet pushing towards Africa.  Basically, by putting convoy zones all around the world, you make sure that any area could potentially become a fully featured area of gameplay.

IL’s idea of adding a dice roll to how attacking convoy zones work is interesting, but I’m not sure if the game needs any more randomness.  Also, if we went with IL’s rules, would that mean that every convoy zone is the same?

In the original version of this map, the starting IPC values were as follows…

Germany - 50
Japan - 40
Italy - 24

Russia - 44
UK - 75
USA - 85

I intentionally gave the Allies a much higher IPC total than the Axis for two reason… One, its more historically accurate, and two I think it leads to better gameplay.  If both sides start out with similar income, then the game can easily turn into a stalemate that drags on forever.

As for the UK’s income, I realize that this seems a little high, but this high income only really lasts if the UK has a way to defend it all.  After the first round of the game, the UK can easily find itself down 10-20 IPCs due to loss of territory and convoy zones.

As for the convoy zones themself, I really like them and think they add a lot to the gameplay.  If you’re not familiar with the rules for them, here’s how they work…  Each convoy zone is a seperate territory.  If an enemy ship enters the convoy zone a control marker is placed in it.  The original owner of the convoy zone does not collect any income from the zone as long as this marker is in place.  The original owner of the zone, or one of his allies, can clear it by entering the zone with one of his own ships.  (Transports can’t capture or clear a convoy zone.)  Also, the enemy doesn’t need to keep a ship inside the captured convoy zone to maintain control of it.  Even after he leaves the zone, the control marker is left in place until someone from the other team clears it.

Also, if it bothers anyone that there’s both convoy zones and pretty much the whole world, just look at it this way…  The IPCs generated from convoy zones don’t just represent natural resourses and labor.  They instead represent the increased efficiency gained by global trade through a willing network of colonies and partners.  Or think of it like this…  If Germany captured all of the UK’s territory in WWII, would Germany have been able to increase its industrial output by the same level that the UK had prior to its capture?  I think the answer to that would be “no”.  A bunch of subjugated territories aren’t going to work as well together as a group of willing trade partners.  The convoy zones, while not perfect, help to represent this portion of a coutry’s income that can be blocked, but not captured.

Linking convoy zones to specific territories, sort of like how its done in AA:P is ok, but I’m not sure if its worth the effort and extra hassle involved with keeping track of all of it.  Plus, its hard to say that a single convoy zone represents the trade with just one territory and not a whole region instead.  If we assume that convoy zones represent everything from smugglers, to trade with neutrals, to trade with remote parts of normal territories, then I don’t see anything wrong with keeping the convoy zone in play even though some of the territories in the region near the convoy zone might have been captured by enemy ground forces.

One more thing concerning territories…

I think maybe Fezzan should start under German control.  I hate to take a territory away from Italy, however as the map is right now, Germany doesn’t start with any North African territories bordering any UK territories.  I’ll admit I don’t know the history all that well, but it seems like it would make sense for Germany to be able to start fighting the UK right away.  I know we could always just setup German units in an Italian territory at the start, but I hate making exceptions like that.  Giving Fezzan to Germany would solve the problem.

@losttribe04:

How can one obtain units for the new China and Italy forces?

If you have A&A: Pacific, A&A: Europe, and A&A: Revised, you’ll have enough different colors of pieces to play on this map.  I suggest using the following colors for each country…

Germany: Black German pieces from A&A: Europe or grey German pieces from A&A: Revised
Russia: Maroon Russian pieces from A&A: Europe or A&A: Revised
UK: Tan UK pieces from A&A:Europe and A&A:Pacific
Japan: Red Japanese pieces from A&A:Pacific
USA: Green US pieces from any of the three versions
Italy: Cream colored UK pieces from A&A: Revised
Neutrals: Orange Japanese pieces from A&A: Revised
China: Brown Chinese pieces from A&A: Pacific (Or just use US pieces if you don’t use the special chinese rules.)

That will give you all the different colors you would need without having to dip into any older versions of the game.  The setup looks real nice, too, since by using all your pieces from the three versions of A&A listed above, the sculpt quality of the pieces is all very uniform.

I’m not sure if its worth the effort of giving China special rules.  It might just be easier to give China a decent number of men at the start, and make sure that they have infantry units spread throughout all the western territories.  The time it takes them to march their troops from the west to the front with Japan will approximate getting a few new men each turn.  For people who really want to seperate China farther from the rest of the US player’s pieces, a variation of the AAP rules could be included in the rules addendum.  From a gameplay perspective though, weather or not the Chinese men come marching in from the west, or if they just pop in at Chungking, I don’t think its going to make much of a difference.

Also, if we do go with a variation of the AAP rules, I like the idea of control of the Burma Road giving China access to Artillery units in some way, however there aren’t any Artillery pieces in the chinese unit color.  (For those of you that don’t have AAP, China doesn’t use American infantry units to represent its own.  The game ships with a bunch of dark brown colored infantry units to use for the Chinese.  The Flying Tigers still use an American fighter piece, though.)  Also, in AAP there’s rules that prohibit Chinese units from going beyond any Chinese territories, or captured chinese territories that are held by Japan at the start of the game.  Furthermore, in AAP, these captured chinese territories are marked on the map so that if they are liberated by the US or UK, the IPC from those territories goes towards giving China men, instead of into the bank of one of the allies.  Also, in AAP, there’s no Russia.  In our map, Japan will very likely have to deal with a nearby, hostile Russia, too.

All in all, I just don’t think adding in the China rules from AAP is all that worth it.  Its doesn’t really change all that much gameplay wise, and to make it work it will require the map to be marked up in ways that would be unique to just one area of the world.  One might ask, if China is getting such special treatment, why aren’t other minor powers getting the same?  I say just focus on the six main countries, (though Chungking should be a VC).  Just treat the Chinese units as American units like they are in Revised.  All we’d really gain from using the AAP rules is the need for another color of pieces.

@Audacity:

The lure of a sea battle is great.  I only hope the WoC distribution gets sorted quickly and that I get my pieces soon.

How long did this engagement take to play out?  Interesting that I just picked up a used video of Readers Digest on WWII Naval battles.  In it were the stories of the Battle of the Atlantic, Coral Sea, Midway, Leyte Gulf and Okinnowa.  A neat piece of this game seems to be the ability to use ships named exactly for real ships in the war.

thanks for the battle report.

The battle went fairly quick.  Maybe about an hour.  We played with 200 point fleets, instead of the standard 100 points, so things would go even faster probably if you went with only 100.  If you have enough pieces, though, I’d play with 200 or 300 point fleets.  The rules are nice, but there’s still a lot of dice rolling involved.  With smaller fleets, one lucky roll can drastically change the entire course of a battle.  With larget fleets, stuff starts to average out a bit more and good strategy can overcome a few bad dice rolls.

I played Naval Miniatures yesterday.  It was actually pretty fun.  The rules are much better than the Starwars: Starship Battles game that came out a little while back.  (In case you’ve played the game, too).  There’s a decent amount of strategy involved, though the smaller point-size battles you run, the more luck comes into play.  The system includes rules both for doing a small amount of damage to an enemy ship per succefful hit, or for doing enough vital damage to completely destroy a target in one hit.  (The Hood also has its own special “design flaw” rule for getting killed in a single hit.)

In the game I played, I was Japan.  My fleet consisted of the Yamato, two carrers, 7 flights of planes, one sub, one destroyer, and one small sub-chaser.  My opponent played the US.  He had the Iowa, the Washington, the Tenessee, one destroyer, and two subs.

In the early game, as the two fleets were closing, my planes managed to sink one of the subs, get a couple torpedo hits on the Washington, and sink the lone American destroyer.  Once the two fleets came together, I used some skillfull manuevering to draw the Iowa in close and negate its range advantage.  Then the Yamato charged in to point blank range and did enough vital damage to send the Iowa to the bottom in a single salvo.  At the same time, my lowly 4-point sub-chaser took out the other American sub.  My opponent then made the mistake of focusing all his remaining power on the Yamato, instead of going after my carriers and trying to get a point victory.  The Yamato took quite a pounding, but its heavy armor held up long enough for it to chase down and sink both the Washington and the Tenessee, winning the game.

@deepblue:

Roads In or Out?

I am in favor of the rule I suggested (obviously).  How does the group feel?

I vote for putting roads in, but try to put them in in a subtle way on the map, so that players who don’t want to play with them can just ignore them and they won’t stand out real glaringly on the map.  The roads and/or strategic move system can then be put in as optional rules in the rules .pdf.  As for what roads to go with, I would go with the 4 I had on my original map, (though maybe you could try to redraw them in a prettier manner.)  Plus the Lend-Lease road from Persian Gulf to Caucasus that I.L. mentioned sounds like it would be nice, too.  As for the Alaskan Highway, I would leave it out.  All that road really does is make it even more impossible for Japan to attempt an invasion of the US.  For gameplay sake, I think Japan should still have some sort of outside chance of taking over the US.  I’m not saying it should be easy in any sense, but the possibly should still be there, however slight.  The Alaskan Highway just makes it even easier for the US to repel an Alaskan foothold than it already is.

@deepblue:

Turn Order
C) Europe and Pacific Theaters Separated

1. Germany
2. Russia
3. Italy
4. United Kingdom
5. Japan
6. United States

I vote for this turn order.  I think it will play out nicely.  My other reason for choosing it, is that the starting setup for this tun order would require the least amount of alteration to make it compatible with 1. Germany/Italy, 2. Russia, 3. Japan, 4. UK/United States.  If we go with the 6-turn list from above, then the only real changes that will be needed between a starting setup for 6-turn and 4-turn is that the UK in the pacific theater might need a small number of changes to compensate for going either before or after Japan.  Everything else on the board could be left the same.  Assuming we put out a new rules .pdf to go with the final realease of the map, I think we should go with a standard 6-turn system for the regular rules, and then we can add a rules addendum that would list the slight setup changes needed for the UK to allow for the alternate 4-turn system.  I have Adobe Acrobat Proffessional, so once we get around to making the rules, I can put together a .pdf file that’s as detailed and robust as we want it to be.  It also wouldn’t be hard to release an alternate UK setup card, too, so that players who are always going to play 4-turn wouldn’t even have to look at the rules addendum to see how the setup is altered.

@deepblue:

After my first pass I would have to choose:

1. Russia
2. Germany
3. United Kingdom
4. Japan
5. United States
6. Italy

No matter what order is chosen I think Germany and Russia should stay together and Japan should go before the US probably back to back.

If UK goes before Italy that would allow Italy to control East Africa, allowing Mogadishu to be Italy’s fifth victory city. Per Larry’s List

I think that turn order would work fine, however it does raise one issue.  By going with a turn order that has Russia moving before Germany, I don’t think the starting setup would end up being compatible with people who want to play an “All-axis move together, then all-allies move together” style game.  Granted, no matter what turn order you put together, if you setup the game with 6 seperate turns in mind and then try to switch to a 2 turn game, you’re going to have some issues, however the Russian/German front would be the most glaring.  If we went with say…

1. Germany
2. Russia
3. Italy
4. United Kingdom
5. Japan
6. United States

If you did that it would probably be easier to come up with a starting setup that would be compatible with both styles of the play.  The only major spot of concern really would be areas of conflict between UK and Japan, since in a 2-turn system, Japan would get to move before the UK instead of after.  Conflict between Russia and Japan would be a potential issue, too, but hopefully the starting setup would be put together in such a manner that neither side would have much ability to go offensive on each other.

If this is set before Pearl Harbor, maybe the setup should place Japanese units in the same square as American at Hawaii.  I know after talking with some members of my gaming group they suggested that if they played Japan that they would not attack the Americans to by time.  I really don’t like the sound of that.  Just putting that out there.

I struggled with the same issue when I put together my map originally.  In Axis & Allies: Pacific, there is a special rule that on its first turn, everything that Japan attacks only gets to defend at a 1.  This makes Pearl Harbor a very tempting target since all the expensive ships there are easy kills with a defense of only 1.  In my map I didn’t use those rules, and instead I tried to compensate by putting less american units at Pearl Harbor, so that the Japanese player would still have an easy time killing everything there.  Ideally, I’d like to use as few special rules and non-standard setup procedures as we have to.  With the right play testing, I think we can make Hawaii a tempting target with the following…

1. Make sure that Honolulu is an important VC for Japan to go after.
2. With its IC in Hawaii, the USA can add two more units there each turn.  If their starting fleet is of the appropriate size, and the Japan player then decides to not attack it, then the US player adding two more ships to the fleet on turn one should make that fleet strong enough to be a major thorn in Japan’s side starting turn 2.
3. Give Japan enough other forces at the start so that they don’t feel as if they really need to bring the Pearl Harbor attack fighters back towards Japan right away.
4. Don’t give the US more than 1 fighter in mainland Hawaii.  (I gave them a bomber there, too, in my original setup, but now I think we should maybe take that away.)  If Japan feels like the only way to do serious damage at Pearl Harbor is to attack Hawaii itself instead of just the Sea Zone around it, then it becomes less tempting of a target, since attacking the mainland drastically cuts down the range their fighters have when moving away after the battle.  (A fighter that only attacks the Sea Zone can make it all the way back to Bonin Island afterwards.  A fighter that attacks the Hawaii mainland can only land if one of the Japanese carriers stays close enough to Hawaii to put itself at risk of being sunk on USA turn 1.)

Also, even if Japan were to choose to skip attacking Pearl Harbor, it would be pretty rare for them to skip attacking the Philippines.  An attack there, while not as big of deal to most Americans as an attack on Hawaii was, would still probably have been enough for FDR to get America into the war.

Removing the railways and roads would probably work if you put in some sort of other strategic move.  Another simple option might be to just say that infantry and artillery can move two spaces during non-combat, however that might prove too unbalancing.  Also, the idea of having SBRs affect this tactical move ability is an interesting one, and might actually make SBRs more usefull.

As for the starting position of the eastern front, I stand by my suggestion to pull it back a tad, especially if Germany gets to move first.  Ideally Germany’s starting setup would put them in position to be breathing down Russia’s neck at the end of turn one, but doing so would leave Germany spread a tad thin.  Also, I don’t we need to get super hung-up on making sure the entire map ALL starts in the same month of 1941.  The turn order itself can signify the passage of time, and thus I think the European Theater can reflect a slightly earlier period than the Pacific Theater.  As for Italy, after looking at the new map a bit more, I don’t really regret the changes to Abyssinia and Italian Somaliland as much.  Giving Greece to Italy makes up for it enough, and I think Italy still has a lot of play options at its disposal.

As for the turn order, it could possibly be changed from what I have listed.  Whatever its changed to, though, there’s a few considerations that I think need to be followed.  First off, the turn order should always alternate between an axis player and then an allied player.  That would keep things more fair by not allowing either side to have two powers move back to back.  Secondly, USA should always have its move after Japan, assuming that the starting setup for Japan is right before Pearl Harbor.  Here’s a few other possible turn orders that I think would work well…

1. Germany
2. Russia
3. Italy
4. United Kingdom
5. Japan
6. United States

The benefit of this turn order is that all the real important stuff in the Pacific Theater doesn’t happen until the very end of the turn sequence.  This helps justify having the European Theater start at a slightly earlier date.  The downside of this order though, is that Italy gets to move before the UK, which depending on the setup might allow Italy to make more initial gains than would have ever been historically possible.  However, with Italy’s territories changed the way you have them on the new map, I think this turn order might work better than the one I originally had listed.

1. Russia
2. Germany
3. United Kingdom
4. Japan
5. United States
6. Italy

This turn order would be closer to regular AA:Revised.  (The new order I put together for my map originally was based on combining the turn orders from AA:E and AA:P.)  If you went with this setup, I would still pull the eastern front one space back towards Germany, however don’t give Russia the front line power in its starting setup to have a realistic chance of pushing Germany back any farther on its first turn.  Instead the Russian player could either gamble on pushing Germany back, or he could reinforce his front lines and try to balance how many reinforcements he can put on the road to Moscow without leaving the road to Stalingrad wide open.  It would give both Germany and Russia more gameplay options on their first turns.  Having Italy go last probably wouldn’t be too bad either, and with the UK going before Italy, you could give Abyssinia and/or Italian Somaliland back to Italy and put the UK in a position to take them on the first turn if he chooses to.

1. Germany
2. United Kingdom
3. Italy
4. Russia
5. Japan
6. United States

This order would allow the Russian player to see what both Germany and Italy are going to do before having to make his move.  It would also put the allies in a better position to see how the UK if fairing before deciding what tactical routes to commit to.  The UK would still go before Italy, which could justify giving Abyssinia and/or Italian Somaliland back to Italy, and the Pacific Theater would still be kept at the very end of the turn order.

So, anyone else have any comments on which of these turn orders, or any other turn orders they think would be he best?  To be honest, I think we should try to settle on a turn order sooner rather than later, cause I think the turn order can greatly impact the allocation of starting territories.

Hey, Deepblue, great job of the changes and edits you’ve made to the map.  They look great.  I should probably apologize for posting the map and then just disappearing.  I’ve been without internet for while.    Anyways, unless you really don’t want to, I’d love it if you kept working on the map.  You’re more on top of getting outside input than I ever was, and frankly I have a feeling I’d be too busy to do it right.  All I ask is that when you’re done, post the .psp files with everything in layers still.  That would be awsome.  After looking at your updated map, I do have a few issues, though…

A. Having Germany start so close to Moscow might create some game play issues.  Namely I think it might cut down on a lot of the possible dynamics on the eastern front.  Unless the starting setup is done extremely well, games might often play out with Germany buying all tanks every turn to send right towards Moscow, and with Russia buying all men every turn to defend Moscow.  Also, by starting Germany so far forward, you pretty much force the German player to always commit to going after Russia first.  Granted, this is how games normally go either way, but it would be nice if the German player would at least have the option of going defensive on the eastern front and then trying an Operation Sealion or a big push through Africa and the Middle East.

Remeber, in the new rules I posted with my map originally, the new turn order is…
1. Germany
2. Russia
3. Japan
4. United Kingdom
5. Italy
6. USA
Having Germany go first, while already all the way in Western Russia might really restrict the starting setup.  I would suggest putting Baltic States, Western Russia, Eastern Ukraine, and Crimea back under Russian control at the start of the game, and then have Germany’s starting setup put them in a position to take those four territories on the first turn of the game, if they decide to.

B. Italian Territory.  In the turn order above, you’ll see that United Kingdom gets to move before Italy.  This means, that you could give Italy a little more territory at the start, such as Abyssinia or Italian Somaliland, and then just make sure that the UK starts in a position to take these on its first turn and bring the map back closer to historical alignment.  Granted, Japan goes before both UK and Italy, and its generally assumed that Japan’s first turn signifies December of 1941, however from a gameplay standpoint, Japan’s first move has pretty much zero impact on what’s going on in Africa, so I don’t think it would necessarily be bad to fudge things there just a little bit for the sake of gameplay.

C. China and new infantry.  I saw that someone earlier in this thread posted the rules from Axis & Allies: Pacific on how China gets new infantry each turn.  When I made this map, I never intended for it to be played with those rules.  I compensated for them by just giving China a larger number of men in their starting set up.  I think you should still put the Chinese capital symbol in Chungking, however you should probably make two different starting setups so that players can play both with and without the AA:P rule.  Also, the AA:P rule will probably need to be modified slightly, even if it is used.  In regular AA:P, China only starts with control of two territories with an IPC value.  In my map they start in control of 9 such territories.  If you followed the AA:P rules with no modification, I think that would be far too many new infantry for China to get each turn.  I think a simpler route would be to just give China more starting men scattered through out all their territories.  The men in the west would then take a few turns to get to the Japanese front, which would probably work out the same as having a few new men pop in at Chungking each turn.

D. Burma Road, Trans-Siberian Railway, Trans-Continental Railroad.  I saw there was some debate about weather to keep these or not.  Personally I would suggest putting them back in.  Without the Trans-Siberian Railway, it would take the Russian player 7 long turns to send new infantry or artillery to a possible Japanese front.  By the same token, a Japanese player who’s trying to make a push against Russia would have to take 7+ turns to get infantry or artillery to Moscow.  Without the Railway, I have a feeling most games are going to end up playing out in two seperate theaters, with Japan and Germany not ever working together on a more tactical level.  With the railway there, players have the option of not following history, if they desire to.  The Burma Road is probably the least necessary of the three, however my goal with it was to give the UK player a way to reinforce China in a somewhat timely fashion.  As for the Trans-Continental Railroad, without it, it would take US infantry 4 whole turns to move between Western United States and Washington.  That seemed like too long of time to me.  With the railroad the US player can shuffle troops between both coasts in only two turns, which is how it is in normal revised AA.

E. Northwest Territores.  I would suggest moving this text more over to the right so that it clearly touches the land mass north of Quebec.  This would make it more clear that this land mass is supposed to be part of the Northwest Territories.  (Assuming that’s what you intended.)

F. The long, thing island north of Japan.  I have no idea what the island is supposed to be called, but since you added to many other small islands, you might as well put a name on it.  The other option would be to clarify that its part of the main Japanese islands, and thus Japan touches that sea zone.  If it is supposed to be part of the main Japanese islands, then I would move the border line south of it more to the north, so that it passes through the middile of the small, thin island.  This would make things more clear.

G. We should probably clarify weather or not two two sea zones on the left and right of the Philippines touch or not.

H. I saw you got rid of the Battleship image in the Atlantic to make room for the Azores and Bermuda.  You might as well get rid of the destroyer and bomber images in the other two oceans, too.  I know some people don’t like stuff like that on their game board anyways, and with only two images left, I don’t think they add much anymore.

Anyways, that’s all I can think of right now.  Keep up the great work.  Once you get it down I’ll have to print out a new copy to replace my old map.