Here was a real project. The finished item was 32 inches by 80 inches. They are not really skewed as pictured. This happened when the two pictures were stitched. Small areas on the map in red were included in the blow up boxes on the border. There were 107. A few were left blank in each area in case something interesting presented itself. Production boxes were also included in the border. They form a track as items can take from one to several turns to be produced. Terrain which affects combat include mountains and rivers. The Sahara Desert forms two impassable areas. The map scale was altered to reflect strategic significance. Africa and the Americas are much bigger than pictured but their sideshow qualities relegated them to less prominence. Crossing arrows point towards strait which can be crossed without Naval assistance. The islands in the oceans and seas serve as anchors for the strategic areas.
I was particularily happy with the way in which the Pacific turned out. The lines connecting the sea areas give me the impression of waves radiating out from Japan across the entire ocean.
I liked the Med and Near East but Europe was somewhat less satisfying.
The entirety of China proper has been given a red border. The Nationalist Chinese (NC) are under American control, the Communist (CC), Soviet. The CC use Soviet pieces and start in Sinkiang, the NC American pieces and occupy the rest of non-Japanese China. These forces are hostile to one another. Sinkiang was chosen as it borders the USSR. All of China proper must be unified by one of these forces before they can venture out of China proper.
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The Battle Board has been segregated from Air(on top) , Land (right)
and Sea(left).
The boxes on the left are the combat boxes. From bottom to middle they are the Ship areas with the Land on the right. The Land boxes are graduated to simulate amphibious landings and river crossings. The land units would first advance from the sea to the shore (no offensive fire) and then advance into the area effectively behind a river (defensive fire affects before return fire) and finally in the third and subsequent round normally. The Armor and Infantry units are segregated. Combat would be borrowed from Fortress America where units could fire at targets according to priority;
The top one is for Air combat. The Air Combat section has three sections. The two stacked ones are high altitude and low altitude. Fighters would need to be in the low box to attack land or sea units. The one to the left is the dive box. The are graduated to show how much movement the air unit has remaining. The units with the most movement remaing would fire first. All are mirrored above for the other player(s). The inspiration for the sea combat, if it can be called such, was the optional task force rules from Victory In The Pacific from Avalon Hill. |
