Map of Europe (edition) 20kms/hex

[steelwarrior]

Any news on the map - looks sooo great!

[Elessar2]

I got a bit burned out working on my Pacific map for more than a year, but I'll get back onto this one this upcoming week. I just hope I can work around certain map editor features and limitations, tho the issues involved aren't anywhere near as bad as they are for the more naval-oriented WitP scenario.

[Elessar2]

Back on the case-simply could not bear to open it and see it half-finished. Decided to put Russia on the back burner (since the lack of coastlines as helpful landmarks will make it very difficult to get the cities and terrain in the right spots until I can upgrade my machine). Basically decided to start with the hardest country, Finland, and more or less go counter-clockwise around the map, eventually finishing in Iran.

[Elessar2]

I am using every resource at my disposal to make this as accurate as I can: Google Maps primarily (the Terrain button shows hills and mountains quite clearly), but did find a resource which shows terrain types (on Google it is virtually impossible to ID marsh hexes unless you zoom in all the way), and others for major rivers and railroads. Issue there of course is changes after 80 years, which mainly affects paved vs. unpaved roads (I found out the other day that modern Sweden's roads are only 31% paved, which shocked me).

There will be a lot more use of tiles which vanilla made little or no use of; mainly forested hills, and also should have a lot more farms, which gives the map pizzazz I've found). Having done my homework when I did the coastines last year is making the terrain fills pretty painless as far as distortions are concerned.

[OldCrowBalthazor]

This is quite impressive Elessar.

[Elessar2]

Iceland: I'm not sure if I'll keep it w/ the green color (a temperate weather zone), or switch the weather zone to Arctic, which alas will virtually eliminate ALL contrast between terrain elements. Note there is no Lava tile that I could use for the central wasteland.

Norway next. If I can get through that one without losing my mind (Finland and Sweden about fried me), then Western Europe will be a total piece of cake.

[Taxman66]

Could you use the Qattara depression tiles?

Not that, that area is likely to see any action (ever).

[BillRunacre]

Norway next. If I can get through that one without losing my mind (Finland and Sweden about fried me), then Western Europe will be a total piece of cake.

In my opinion, if you can get through designing Finland, you can get through designing just about anything!

[Klydon]

Extremely nice work!

One observation: While I know it would be a tight fit on the map, currently Keflavik is not on the map. Why is this important? That was where the main military base was located at in WW2 and where planes would fly out over the Atlantic and the Island military HQ where they would also work on U-Boat tracking, etc. Keflavik also played a big role in Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising.

I saw a lot of the WW2 era buildings when I was stationed there in the early 80's. I also saw the old airfield they used as well. My time spent there was among the fondest memories I have of my military service and it was my first actual duty station after training/schools.

While Keflavik also has a harbor, I don't believe it was used for military purposes and convoys headed to Russia would refuel in whale bay.

[Elessar2]

Ah, on that peninsula near Reykjavik. I already had a road leading out there if the Allied player wanted to plop down a maritime bomber there. Easy peasy to put a Settlement there. I am relying on Google Maps for city/town placement, leaving gaps of c. 3-7 hexes between.

[The Land]

This looks truly amazing!

[Elessar2]

Thanks.

[Elessar2]

[OldCrowBalthazor]

Nice. Keep em coming. Still drooling over Finland

[Elessar2]

[The Land]

Wow, impressive stuff!

Can I offer a few comments on Great Britain. It is really good and the details are great, but I can spot a few more things.

- On the whole I think the urbanisation is a slightly too dense, even though England was one of the most urbanised places on the planet. I would suggest the deletion of; Crawley, Bath, Newquay (town rather than port), Milton Keynes (anachronistic, didn't exist in ww2), Thetford, Hunstanton, Worcester, Mansfield, Hexham - it'll look a bit less crowded with towns then, particularly in the less-densely-built-up areas.
- Ipswich should not have a port, but Yarmouth should. (Felixstowe near Ipswich is a very large port present day, but didn't exist in ww2)
- Rail lines should run Luton-Peterborough, Croydon-Basingstoke (NB spelling) and the rail London-Bristol should connect via without going through Swindon (should make a triangle in the hexes S and SW of Swindon)
- The hex SE of Brighton should be Hills reflecting the South Downs. The hex SE of Hastings should be Marsh reflecting the Romney Marsh. Both of these were real tactical problems to deal with in the event of Operation Sealion so I would love for them to be features.
- In Scotland there should be a road connection along the N side of Loch Ness, so there is a road Inverness-Fort William without going via Newtonmore.

EDIT: I would probably also consider moving Southampton town to the SE, adjacent to the port, and then perhaps deleting Basingstoke entirely. Southampton should be closer to Portsmouth than to Bournemouth.

[Elessar2]

Feedback mucho appreciated-note the resources for how things were 80 years ago can be hard to find. I've gone back and forth on city density: put too many in and it does get cluttered, but often some populated locales would indeed be adjacent to each other. I also have to keep supply concerns in the forefront so that there aren't yawning gaps between locales. Note that I am using quite a few of the smallest ones (Settlements) whose defensive value isn't much better than that of open areas.

In any event I did delete some of the towns (some I felt were necessary in otherwise empty areas or to serve as junctions), moved Southampton SE, swapped the ports, added the terrain features (when a hex is half of something and half of something else I typically was essentially flipping a coin), redid the rails and roads.

When I upload France later this week (just finished the rivers tonight) I'll make it all zoomed in to display the detail to good effect. Another issue is how many rivers to place. I typically have zoomed in Google Maps until it still doesn't show up, then placed an end segment-note the real critical ones for movement and defense are the major rivers.

[The Land]

Feedback mucho appreciated-note the resources for how things were 80 years ago can be hard to find.

Yeah I completely get it, I've done enough map work to know the challenges...

I can give you some more thoughts on where UK industry ought to be if that helps - mines and so on.

[Elessar2]

By all means.

[Elessar2]

I've decided that too many towns is better than too few, tho I'll try not to go too crazy (I can always delete them later). The issue is that in vanilla the relative sparsity of towns and cities often dictates where attacks will take place, given how vital they are for supply; attack where there are no towns and your offensive is eventually guaranteed to run out of steam. My hope here is that more targets means more options for where attacks/pincers can go. Plus read on...

NEXT UP: The Low Countries & Switzerland, followed quickly by Germany. Once that is done I will make a mini-scenario for testing purposes. Decided on D-Day so that amphibs can get a workout. I'll also will be lowering buyback costs for shattered units to 40% from 60%, to favor encirclements vs. head-to-head slugfests. Along with hefty movement allowances for mechanized and motorized units this should more favor blitzkrieg tactics.