This is the forum.

I am planning to remove two borders:

1) between England and Denmark, and
2) between Scandinavia and Germany

in the Europe(14) map. This should make it easier to enclose

A) England(3pop, 3 borders) and/or
B) Denmark(1pop, 2borders) and/or
C) Scandinavia(2pop, 3borders),

providing and additional "easily enclosable area" besides the (rather unblannced) SouthWest and SouthEast corners.

I would *not* make this an option (would seem quite redundant).

Opinions? Comments? Death threats?

neko wrote:


If looking for balance, it makes sense. However, the main balance issue of European maps is that they have corners and don't allow for flanking manoeuvres to befall on well dug armies on those corners.

The bridge between Germany and Scandinavia is very short, and I really don't see how a removal could be justified. As for the Den-UK, its removal would be sensible, as Norway is actually closer to the British mainland and the islands have no bridge to Germany.

About the death threats, I cannot make up one original enough to submit, apart from promising you the usual slow and painful death and terrifying laughs that self-respecting villains _must_ bring to any opponent.

Since we are talking borders & territories, I have a few opinions and doubts about the world map (45 territories).

1) Why is there a bridge between Siberia and Canada? While this is a useable route for missiles and airplanes, I hardly think it can be used by armies crossing the ice pack.

2) Since there is a South Africa - Argentina link and a Chile - NZ link, what about adding some sort of Pacific Islands territories linked to Japan, the Philippines and the USA?

3) Europe is divided into plenty of small territories, the same could be done with the USA... Or at least it could be split into West Coast and East Coast, or even East, South, North West and South West. The same could be done with Canada. This way wars in America could be as interesting as wars in Europe.

Next time you ask for opinions, think twice about it .

--
Calsir

Calsir wrote:


Do you think it would be better to have more borders, instead of less??



AoW is not anywhere close to a simulation anyway. The purpose is to make the map more balanced: in most of the games I am in, the winner is whoever gets Gibraltar.



To de-emphasise the continents and allow for more varied enclosing possibilities.



We added those connections to avoid the "corner syndrome" of the Europe map. Otherwise, in standard (non-fill-the-map) games, players starting in opposite corners would not interact.

We were thinking to add a "Polynesia" or "Hawaii" territory a few years ago, but Marcuza came up with the current map. I think it could be a nice idea though.



We tried to keep the current "main" (whatever that means) states intact. We had to break up Alaska, Siberia and Kamchatka to make the map look better and more playable.



Your opinions are appreciated. I think what we need most is an "average" map, though. Something with about 25-30 territories.

On the world map: How about a connection between New Guinea and either Mexico or Peru?

That doesn't seem to unresonable and would make Australia less of a "super-territory".

Sabelkatten wrote:


Instead or in addition to the NZ-Chile one?

neko wrote:


In addition to. What makes it so good is that you can get 8 pop out of an area controlled by just two territories.

Sabelkatten wrote:


In addition to. What makes it so good is that you can get 8 pop out of an area controlled by just two territories.

neko wrote:


That is true, but overall I find it less imbalanced with respect to the Latin corner in Europe(14). My impression is that South America is a bit overconnected so far, though: you cannot enclose anything there, unless you get something from a neighbouring continent. So I would oppose the New Guinea-Peru connection.

What about Australia-Madagascar? It would make more geographical sense, and remove the other easy catch.

Maybe a NG - Chile connection? I agree that S.Am. is pretty useless by itself, as it is nothing more than a salient.



Well, that 3500 nm (Nautical Miles). It's quite a long way to stage an invasion, with very little in between to make it justifiable... An India-Madagascar connection is "only" 2400 nm, which still is a long time for even a fast fleet. All these distances were computed with Google Earth distance tool, that calculates the length of the orthodromic (geodesic) between two points.

Maybe. But what about adding a strip of north African territories (Lybia and Egypt) to allow a flanking manoeuvre?



That is the same argument we see on youplay about blue max and WS&IM... It is some sort of simulation, otherwise we could just use graph maps where territories are replaced by nodes and borders by links.



What about a bridge between russia and Greenland? Of course, it would make greenland a wonderful base to launch attacks on europe and asia, but it would also be an awful salient to defend.




That would make an extra connection between north america and asia, not necessarily bad. But with the USA in this condition it would render N.A. even more useless as it is now (by itself, of course...)



I thought that, apart from some exceptions, every territory had a comparable amount of manpower/industrial capacity (yeah, my views are influenced by the Hearts of Iron series ). I hardly see Madagascar or New Guinea to put up a unit production comparable to that of USA or any European country.




For that, either you build a map of the eastern united states, going west until you fill your 30 states requirements , or you split the european nations on the 14 territories map in smaller geographical units. A map of Asia in medieval times could be another option.

Sorry for the long reply.

Let us focus on the shortcomings of the current maps. Meaning: what are the features that make the current maps unbalanced. So far, the World map is more or less ok, except for Oceania (too strong) and South America (too weak). The Australia-Madagascar connection may be longer in practice, but it seems shorter on the map



This sounds like an excellent idea, also because every other possiblity sounds more or less cliché. If you can come up with a sketch, even a very rough one, we can create an additional map. Please, something between 25 and 30 territories. We reserve the right to make small changes to the map, of course

Calsir wrote:

This would be pretty close to the region of the American Civil War. There were 33-35 states at the time and several of them could be left out due to being too far west (California, Oregon, and maybe Texas and Kansas) or merged into their larger neighbors (Delaware, Rhode Island, and maybe New Hampshire and Vermont merged with each other).

Virginia should probably have West Virginia split off (as happened during the war), and to avoid too much geographic isolation in the west, Oklahoma Territory (and maybe Nebraska Territory, too) should be added if Texas and Kansas are kept.

BlckKnght wrote:


I like this idea. You can use the lakes to connect New York to Wisconsin. If you don't use Texas you can use the Mississippi river to connect Louisiana to Missouri. Gulf of Mexico to connect Louisiana to Florida. North Atlantic connects Boston to Delaware. South Atlantic connects Florida to Virginia.

Zarby wrote:


Support! gogogo!

i.

neko wrote:


*BUMP*

I might implement these changes overnight during the week-end. Beware! It will affect all current games!

neko wrote:


The map has been created as an additional "Europe 2" map. The old one has been retired.