ModAAR: American Front, a CSA v USA WIP mod

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 30 - Louisiana

We continue our drive along the Gulf Coast with a stop in Cajun Country. I've made large parts of the state of Louisiana swampy to reflect the many bayous of this part of the south. All-in-all any invader is going to be faced with plenty of challenges coming from rough terrain. In terms of productivity, New Orleans is a major centre of commerce for the CSA, and the mines at Sulphur, LA, are among the largest sulphur mines in the world.

As always any suggestions are welcome. Otherwise the next stop is the immense state of Texas.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 31 - Don't Mess With (East) Texas

Hallo again, we've now arrived in the Lone Star State. Particularly that part of Texas which fans of patent litigation (anybody? OK, just me) will be familiar with - the East District of Texas.

The major city of this region is Houston, and its neighbouring port of Galveston. Along the coast towards Louisiana this part of Texas also has the port of Beaumont. Otherwise this part of the state is fairly rural except for the town of Texarkana which Texas share with Arkansas. From what I can see coal mining in East Texas didn't really start until the 1970's (happy to be corrected on this if anyone knows better) so I'm not adding any coal mines here, though I've included reservoirs constructed in the 1950's on the assumption that economic development would have happened more quickly in the south in the event of a CSA victory.

As you can see, things are becoming a little less dense and dry as we move further west, though we're not yet in desert country - that's yet to come.

[eightroomofelixir]

Directly north of Beaumont, there is a big, forested, and swampy area called "Big Thicket" (you can tell from the name that it's heavily forested). The forested area borders Lake Livingston in the west and Sabine River in the east.

Overall the south part of East Texas is pretty swampy, and the north of East Texas is heavily forested (the Piney Woods).

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

Directly north of Beaumont, there is a big, forested, and swampy area called "Big Thicket" (you can tell from the name that it's heavily forested). The forested area borders Lake Livingston in the west and Sabine River in the east.

Overall the south part of East Texas is pretty swampy, and the north of East Texas is heavily forested (the Piney Woods).

Teaches me for trying to rely simply on Satellite view to work out the terrain - will fix.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 32 - The eyes of (South) Texas are upon you

Hi all. I'm slowly grinding my way through Texas, this time I'm in the south of the state.

The major urban centre of this region is San Antonio, with Austin and Corpus Cristi also being significant. The main link to the Mexican rail and road network goes through this part of the state.

I have not added any mines as I could not find any record of major mining operations in this part of the state earlier than the opening of the Uranium mines in the 1950's, though I'm open to correction on this. Texas has a major oil industry but I think this is more towards the west.

Next is the centre and the north of Texas, then we shift to the Great Lakes region.

[eightroomofelixir]

IRL the "mountains" west of San Antonio are not that high/hard to go though, I would say the hill hexes are more adequate. Overall, TX is relatively flat, besides some mountains ranges east of El Paso, and the escarpments of the Llano Estacado.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 33 - Central Texas

Hello again. This time we're in the centre of the Lone Star state where the major city of Dallas, and the neighbouring city of Forth Worth are located. At this time Dallas was still a centre for agriculture and industry but the oil fields that were to really make its name still hadn't been found (the fields of Spindletop and Goose Creek had been tapped and have now been added - you can see them at the bottom of the map here) but Dallas is important for many other reasons - indeed it is one of the four major cities of the Confederacy along with New Orleans, Atlanta, and Richmond. Dallas is also a major logistical centre as the Confederate trans-continental railway connecting the Pacific state of Sonora to the rest of the CSA runs through the city.

I was surprised by how many lakes and reservoirs surround Dallas and Forth Worth, but happy to add them in as I think they will complicate any assault on the city. Growing up watching the TV series Dallas, I had thought of Dallas as essentially being located in the desert!

(apologies again for the low-quality image, the 200kb limit on this forum really isn't enough!)

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 34 - West Texas

Our final visit to Texas has us in the west of the state. In the books this is the area that gets annexed as the US state of Houston but this is all in the future - for our purposes this is a potential invasion route for US forces into the heart of the Confederacy, either from Las Cruces into El Paso, or from Albuquerque along the Canadian River towards Amarillo. For the moment these invasion routes are dirt roads along which it will be difficult to supply an invasion force, but I am planning to have a railhead open up closer to the border via event.

This area does also have a notable mining complex - the Mariscal Mine in the Great Bend area that historically was a major centre for the production of mercury.

In terms of logistics, the CSA's trans-continental link crosses the Rio Grande into the CSA state of Chihuahua at Ojinaga - an important link to cut if the US is to defeat the CSA.

(got to admit I'm getting a bit of map-building fatigue at this point, four months into this build, so I've probably been a bit lazy doing this part of the map - if you see any obvious errors let me know).

[eightroomofelixir]

Thank you for your works and efforts in the past four months. Checking your updates for the map from time to time has become part of my weekly routine now.

For Western Texas, there are some possible visual improvements:

1. The mountain ridge southeast of El Paso are relatively high (Davis Mountains, peak at ≈8300 feet), probably deserves some mountain hexes.
2. For Llano Estacado, a dry and flat plateau, I think you can repeat what you did around Pecos - grassland hexes only follows rivers and cities, rest of them are desert hexes. Lubbock (and Amarillo) is inside a river valley but surrounded by semi-barren lands. You can also mark "Llano Estacado" on the map near Lubbock since is a famous geographical feature.
(The towns on Llano Estacado have a huge cotton industry IRL, and nearly turned the whole plateau into a huge cotton farm, but around 1914 the cotton industry there was still relatively small.)

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

Thank you for your works and efforts in the past four months. Checking your updates for the map from time to time has become part of my weekly routine now.

For Western Texas, there are some possible visual improvements:

1. The mountain ridge southeast of El Paso are relatively high (Davis Mountains, peak at ≈8300 feet), probably deserves some mountain hexes.
2. For Llano Estacado, a dry and flat plateau, I think you can repeat what you did around Pecos - grassland hexes only follows rivers and cities, rest of them are desert hexes. Lubbock (and Amarillo) is inside a river valley but surrounded by semi-barren lands. You can also mark "Llano Estacado" on the map near Lubbock since is a famous geographical feature.
(The towns on Llano Estacado have a huge cotton industry IRL, and nearly turned the whole plateau into a huge cotton farm, but around 1914 the cotton industry there was still relatively small.)

Thanks for the support. From my point of view it's great having someone giving these maps a once-over to see whether I've made any glaringly obvious mistakes, and even just knowing that I'm not the only one who wants to see this-here mod get made.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 35 - Southern Ontario

Hi again. With the Gulf Coast now more-or-less done I'm now going to fill in the Great Lakes region, starting with southern Ontario, right in the middle of the region.

Most of largest mines in OT are concentrated in Northern Ontario around Sudbury, so I have not included any mines here, however the major city of Toronto, with its suburbs of Mississauga and Oshawa is an important industrial centre for the Dominion of Canada. As such an important area of Canada, one that borders directly on the US states of New York and Michigan, the area is heavily protected by fortifications that the Americans will have a very hard time breaking through. Southern Ontario is also home to two of the Dominion's "Great Lakes Battleships" (here modelled as armoured cruisers).

As normal any and all comments on this are welcome.

[eightroomofelixir]

As usual, on Southern Ontario:

1. London has a rail line connects Brantford and eventually Hamilton.

2. The Grand Truck Railway between Toronto and Sarnia goes as Toronto-Guelph-Kitchener-Stratford-Sarnia, parallel to the London-Hamilton railway. Stratford is an important railway junction in S. Ontario, the town also has rail connections to both London and Goderich; however the town itself is very small.

3. I checked many maps of the Grand Truck Railway from 1900s-1923, and didn't find any major railway goes from Guelph to the north. Around WWI only Toronto had a railway connection to Barrie, and goes further north into Northern/Western Ontario (North Bay).
Moreover, although Barrie currently is a much bigger city than the neighboring Orillia, around 1914 Orillia was relatively larger than Barrie, and was an important commercial center then.

4. Speaking of Kitchener, the town IRL was named Berlin before 1916, and only changed its name after Earl Kitchener was killed. The anti-German sentiment during WWI in Canada would also exist in TL-191, but as of 1914 the city should still bear the name of "Berlin."
Or you can use the name "Berlin-Waterloo" as the two towns are closely related.

5. Both Hamilton and Windsor are major Canadian Great Lakes port IRL, although I'm not sure if you can fit a port to these cities.

[FOARP]

Cheers eightroomofelixir, updated map per your comments below:

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 36 - Northeastern Ontario

Hi All. Back once again in Canada's most important province, Ontario. Ontario truly is immense - by itself as large as France and Spain combined, or put another way roughly four times the size of Michigan - so with the main population centre of southern Ontario out of the way I'm going to paint with a broad brush.

Zoom in on any area in northern Ontario and chances are you'll see a lot of lakes. Rather than draw all of these lakes in (which in this system would take a lot of work) I've opted for covering wide areas of northern Ontario with marsh land as this is essentially equivalent.

Northern Ontario isn't a total wasteland though - the silver mines at Cobalt, Ontario are a valuable economic asset, and the major transport link of the Canadian Pacific railway crosses this part of the province.

As normal, all comments welcome and apologies for the low-quality image.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 37 - Northwestern Ontario

In the second part of today's update, we visit the north west of Ontario. Pretty much the same considerations apply as with north eastern Ontario, with the additional concern that this is a border area.

Since the books do not mention an invasion of this corner of Ontario, I am going to assume that there are no major links to the US through this territory - Winnipeg will have a dirt-road to the US but that will be it. I'm counting on a combination of no infrastructure, rough terrain, and fortifications to make invasions difficult through this part of Ontario.

[Alikchi2]

All looks good, thank you for your work. Looking forward to Great Lakes battleships!

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 38 - Ohio

Hello again. The next area I'm working on in the Great Lakes area is the US state of Ohio. This is strategically important from the US as it represents a narrow waist across which the US may be divided by an invasion either by the CSA invading from the south, or the Canadians invading from the north, and is crossed by numerous logistical routes.

It is also home to the major industrial city of Cleveland. I was actually surprised just how big a city Cleveland was historically at this time - more than 900,000 residents making it the fifth largest city by population in the US and in the top 20 world-wide. Can you think of a major US movie set in Cleveland? A popular song about it? Yet it was in the top ten US cities in terms of population until the 1970's! Asides from the names of the sports teams (the Browns and the Indians?) I basically know nothing about the place and I normally think of myself as not terribly badly educated. It's hard to think of any other modern city that became so large, and then lost half its population, without leaving a major cultural mark. Anyway I had no choice but to make this a major city, albeit without the suburbs I have added to other such major cities.

The mining industry is also represented here by the coal mines at Powhatan point on the West Virginia border. This was also the site of a major mining disaster in 1944.

In terms of terrain my research indicated it to be fairly rugged in the east but flatter in the west. In the books it is described as good terrain for blitzkrieg so I have tried to make it not too rough but please feel free to give feedback on this.

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: Alikchi2

All looks good, thank you for your work. Looking forward to Great Lakes battleships!

Thanks for the support!

As an update on progress in the map-build, here's how things are looking -

Mexican states: 32/32 done (I haven't shown you all of these)
Carribean on-map countries & territories: 14/14 done
US states: 27/50 done
Canadian on-map provinces & territories: 6/10

So there's still four Canadian provinces and 23 US states left to go, and I'm doing roughly 2 of them a week. My hope is that the US mid-west can be done fairly quickly as once you get away from the great lakes it becomes pretty sparsely populated. So long as it works out like that I think the maps should be more or less done by late August.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 39 - Michigan

Hello again, this time we are in the northern US state of Michigan. Michigan is home to the major city of Detroit - whilst I'm a bit sceptical that a major city would have developed right on the border with Canada if US-Canadian relations were unfriendly, nothing in the books indicates that Detroit wasn't a major city in Turtledove's Southern Victory timeline and so it will be here.

As none of the major US-Canada bridges connecting Michigan to Canada had yet been built (the first was completed in 1929) no such road/rail links are included here.

Whilst the lower Michigan peninsula has a numerous large urban centres, the main mining centre of Michigan that I've included here is Iron Mountain, on the Michigan-Wisconsin border on the Upper Michigan peninsula. Upper Michigan is otherwise sparsely populated and mostly important due to the crossable border with Canada at Ste. Sault Marie.

A discovery I made whilst making this part of the map - in the editor you can click and drag with road/rail to draw road and rail hexes, previous to this I'd been selecting the individual components myself! This will definitely speed things up - I feel pretty dumb for not noticing this earlier and/or checking the manual to see if it was possible!

As usual, all criticism and comments welcome. Next stops: Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin.

[Bufo]

Hi again! Great to see the addition of Michigan. I live in the UP so I had one or two things to suggest about the area.

1. Since the mid 1850s, Marquette had acted as a major shipping center in Northern Michigan and may warrant the inclusion of some minor port.

2. The area between Munising and Newberry (today regarded as the Seney Stretch) is mostly cedar swamp.

3. In the first half of the 20th century the UP was a key supplier of both copper and iron for the US war efforts (both WWI and WWII). Here is a small snippet from an article by the National Parks Service:
"The journal was right. By 1914, copper had become an essential component of every weapon, vehicle, and piece of equipment used on the battlefield. Its ability to conduct electricity, withstand water, and transmit heat made it ideal for many different applications, as did its malleability and durability. Engineers used copper to improve weapons and develop machines that were far more deadly than those used in previous conflicts, including armored tanks and airplanes. Submarines had increased capacity and range; rifles and machine guns were more accurate than ever before.

At the time, Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula was one of the most important copper mining regions in the United States.2 Although it was no longer the country’s leading producer—that distinction shifted to Montana and Arizona mines in the 1880s—Keweenaw copper was highly prized because it was nearly pure, elemental copper, which gave it exceptional conductive qualities. Actively mined over thousands of years by early American Indians, industrial-scale operations began in 1845, and the Keweenaw quickly became the most important copper mining district in the world. Many different companies operated along the mineral range, but they were led by two giants: the Quincy Mining Company (1846), and the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company (merged 1871). Their innovative and unique mining history is commemorated at Keweenaw National Historical Park."

I do not know what this would do for balancing but the presence of Iron Mountain alone doesn't quite capture this spirit IMO.

4. The UP has a strange shape that is difficult to capture in these sort of editors. That being said, the Keweenaw Peninsula (the area right above Houghton) could be extended a bit more. The peninsula itself is actually an island (Copper Island) parted from the main by a river which Houghton is built to the south of (the Keweenaw Waterway was dredged in the 1860s to make Houghton a more important port/reduce travel time through the lake).

5. Is Isle Royale on the map? It is a major feature of Lake Superior. It may very well have been in a different screenshot that I missed, just wondering as I see other smaller islands.