Japan Map

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: christo

ORIGINAL: trees

do they really call them the "Japanese Alps" ?

the end-game in Japan will certainly end quicker now

Apparently it is the "Japan Alps" never the "Japanese Alps". Not quite sure why but I was led to believe it is a considerable blunder to call it the wrong name.

Christo

Where does this come from, that the it is a "considerable blunder" to call it the "Japanese Alps" ?
Wikipedia doesn't talk about "Japan Alps".
If I type "Japan Alps" i'm redirected to "Japanese Alps".

Isn't there some Japanese here that could clear this up ?

I do not want to upset anyone, on the contrary, I would like to make people realize that we have devoted an equal care to all world parts.

[wosung]

I'm no Japanese, but as far I can see, this was a Western label stuck to 3 mountain ranges with different Japanese names.

I don't know if the label is quite common in Japan. But according to the Japanese Wikipedia it does exist: 日本アルプス

This would sound something like "Nihon Arupusu" (with the "u" letter not really pronounced). BTW the first two characters are Kanji (Chinese characters) and the rest are katakana sylables, which are used for foreign sounds and words (e.g. "neurose").

And for "Japan/Japanese Alps": In Japanese language normally there is simply no difference between "Japan" and "Japanese", both is
日本. It depends on its' place in the sentence.

So on the map it could be "Japanese Alps".

Regards

[SemperAugustus]

The Japan Alps were named by William Gowland in 1881 (according to the Japanese sites I can find), who thought that they looked like the Alps. To make a long story short they simply didn't have a name for the full mountain chain before then and the name stuck.

[SemperAugustus]

How do you want the islands then? xxx Shima/ xxx Retto or xxx Island/xxx Islands. I read Japanese and live in Japan, so its no biggie to ask around what is more common.


BTW Should the Korean town names be the Japanese names or the Korean ones? In that case the new Romanization of Korean or the old romanization of Korean?

[wosung]

For the Japanese names, personally I would vote for the more known variants in the West, like Bonin islands, Iwo Jima, Tsushima and so on (even if it's not totally consistent)

For the Korean names I would vote for the old Korean romanization (Pusan...)

Patrice? The others?

[Gendarme]

Wow. Compliments to all for the hard work put in -- the artist, map labeller, etc.

Yes, Japan has gotten bigger and still has the same amount of land units, but with all those mountains and rivers it would not be easy to fight through. That's the first thing that cropped into my mind, anyway.

And again, I put in a call for the option to order paper copies of these maps. regardless of how big they may be. They are too nice to not be used. This is something I would gladly pay extra for in addition to Matrix Wif. Especially since the game is (tentatively) not scheduled to hit the shelves until '08.

Anthony DeChristopher

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Gendarme
Wow. Compliments to all for the hard work put in -- the artist, map labeller, etc.

Yes, Japan has gotten bigger and still has the same amount of land units, but with all those mountains and rivers it would not be easy to fight through. That's the first thing that cropped into my mind, anyway.

And again, I put in a call for the option to order paper copies of these maps. regardless of how big they may be. They are too nice to not be used. This is something I would gladly pay extra for in addition to Matrix Wif. Especially since the game is (tentatively) not scheduled to hit the shelves until '08.

Anthony DeChristopher

Thanks. There have been, and continue to be, many contributors to the map.

A printed map would be difficult because of its size. For example, one half of the WIF FE European map is 32 hexes by 49 hexes or 1568 hexes total. Let's call it 1600. MWIF's map is 195 by 360 = 70,200 hexes. That comes out to roughly 44 of the single page WIF FE maps. It's possible to trim some hexes off the top (but not the bottom) of the MWIF map as being mostly water and ice. That would reduce it to, say, 40 pages. Even if we reduced the scale for each hex to 1/4 size (1/2 the height and 1/2 the width) we still would have 10 pages to print. That would require a lot of surface area. At one time I estimated a 7 foot high cylinder with a 6 foot diameter would work. Who would have any place to put that remains a mystery though.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: SemperAugustus

How do you want the islands then? xxx Shima/ xxx Retto or xxx Island/xxx Islands. I read Japanese and live in Japan, so its no biggie to ask around what is more common.

Yes please, ase around what is the most common.

Also, all over the map, I prefered not to write "Island" when there is only 1 island (example : "Guadalcanal", and not "Guadalcanal Island"), and if there are lots of islands with 1 name that I can use instead of naming one of the islands, I prefer to write "Islands" (example : "Izu Islands").

For Japan, I understood that "Shima" meant "Island", and that "Retto" meant "Islands" or "Group of Islands".
I wondered whether I could remove the "shima" part of the name or not, because of Tsushima for example. So I left it most of the time (Mukoshima, Chichishima, etc...) as I found it on most maps.
For the "Retto", I liked to have the Japanese home islands using Japanese names like Retto. I should have wrote "Izu Retto" in this regards too, but I overlooked that one.
Now, if everyone prefers to get rid of it and put "Islands", I'm OK too. We would have "Chichishima Islands" instead of "Chichishima Retto".

BTW Should the Korean town names be the Japanese names or the Korean ones? In that case the new Romanization of Korean or the old romanization of Korean?

I prefer to use Seoul, Pusan, Wonsan, Pyongyang.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: wosung

For the Japanese names, personally I would vote for the more known variants in the West, like Bonin islands, Iwo Jima, Tsushima and so on (even if it's not totally consistent)

For the Korean names I would vote for the old Korean romanization (Pusan...)

Patrice? The others?

Yes, that would be my opinion as well.

For the Volcano Islands, I prefer "Volcano Islands" instead of "Kazan Retto".
Same for the Bonin Islands, I prefer "Bonin Islands" instead of "Ogasawara Islands".

For the names of the Islands within those chains, I like to have them displayed, as some are famous.
Iwo Jima is the most famous, and I prefer it in 2 words.
I also like
- Chichi-jima Islands,
- Haha-jima Islands,
- Muko-jima Islands.
I'm ok to get rif of the "shima" here. I don't know really if there should be a "-" of nothing, or a blank space between the first part of the name and the "jima".

For the Volcano Islands, if I understood correctly, you advise me to put
- Kita-Iwo -> Kitaiwojima
- Iwo Jima -> Iwojima. I do not like it very much without the blank space.
- Minami Iwo ->Minamiiwojima

[wosung]

I would also go for the blank spaces, like "Iwo Jima". And would leave away the "-".

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: wosung

I would also go for the blank spaces, like "Iwo Jima". And would leave away the "-".

Opinions ?
It looks like that tonight.

[Incy]

The border between Sea of Japan and Japanese coast seems strange around Tsugaru Starit.
Wouldn't it be better to have the sea border run between Ominato and Hakodate?

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

The northern portion of Japan, plus Vladivostok.

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: Incy

The border between Sea of Japan and Japanese coast seems strange around Tsugaru Starit.
Wouldn't it be better to have the sea border run between Ominato and Hakodate?

That would give Hakodate direct access to both sea areas. Currently, it only has access to the Sea of Japan.

[trees]

ORIGINAL: Gendarme

Yes, Japan has gotten bigger and still has the same amount of land units, but with all those mountains and rivers it would not be easy to fight through. That's the first thing that cropped into my mind, anyway.

And again, I put in a call for the option to order paper copies of these maps. regardless of how big they may be. They are too nice to not be used. This is something I would gladly pay extra for in addition to Matrix Wif. Especially since the game is (tentatively) not scheduled to hit the shelves until '08.

Anthony DeChristopher

It will be a more interesting fight than the best of the US Marine units throwing O-Chits at a double-fort Tokyo hex, that's for sure.

I too would kick in some $$ for paper versions of parts of the world. I think I will always enjoy WiF with the colorful cardboard counters, and have actually already tried paper WiF with euro-scale maps of China via printing screenshots of the CWiF map. There would be little demand for parts of the world, like South America and large stretches of ocean, but I would pay for a paper version of the new China and Japan and the NEI, and I would use those with my faithful set of now somewhat worn cardboard counters. (The German army seems to show wear the most, hmmm). Printing the whole thing would probably not generate very many orders, but certain parts of the world would sell and the original American mini-map and Pacific-scale map could still be used to cover the more spacious places. We already use the America in Flames maps just for convenience of moving the US counters and the Battle of the Atlantic.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

ORIGINAL: Incy

The border between Sea of Japan and Japanese coast seems strange around Tsugaru Starit.
Wouldn't it be better to have the sea border run between Ominato and Hakodate?

That would give Hakodate direct access to both sea areas. Currently, it only has access to the Sea of Japan.

And this would be right, because WiF FE has it that way.
I'll make the change.

[SemperAugustus]

Please don't split the name when not strictly necessary:
The Iwo Jima islands its unavoidable because of the name recognication factor, but otherwise please write:
- Chichijima
- Mokujima
- Hahajima

Writing Moku Jima is like wiring O Minato, Hako Date, Fuku Oka no one writes Japanese like that normally and it is not pronounced like that either.

Re Second screenshot -> It should be Sado, otherwise for consistency you'd need Tsushimashima

I don't know how much info you find interesting but, to bore you:
1. Major islands in Japan in general do not include island (Shima/Jima) in their proper names, i.e. Sado, Tsushima (this one is a bit tricky but the characters are Tsushi Ma not Tsu Shima)
2. Smaller islands include the character "island" in general, but this is a part of their proper names
3. Retto means island chain/archipelago, not islands, there is as pointed out earlier no plural in general Japanese (there are exceptions of course)

[Shannon V. OKeets]

ORIGINAL: SemperAugustus

Please don't split the name when not strictly necessary:
The Iwo Jima islands its unavoidable because of the name recognication factor, but otherwise please write:
- Chichijima
- Mokujima
- Hahajima

Writing Moku Jima is like wiring O Minato, Hako Date, Fuku Oka no one writes Japanese like that normally and it is not pronounced like that either.

Re Second screenshot -> It should be Sado, otherwise for consistency you'd need Tsushimashima

I don't know how much info you find interesting but, to bore you:
1. Major islands in Japan in general do not include island (Shima/Jima) in their proper names, i.e. Sado, Tsushima (this one is a bit tricky but the characters are Tsushi Ma not Tsu Shima)
2. Smaller islands include the character "island" in general, but this is a part of their proper names
3. Retto means island chain/archipelago, not islands, there is as pointed out earlier no plural in general Japanese (there are exceptions of course)

In general, the word Island (and River) are being omitted from the map. And that's pretty much world-wide.

[Froonp]

ORIGINAL: SemperAugustus

Please don't split the name when not strictly necessary:
The Iwo Jima islands its unavoidable because of the name recognication factor, but otherwise please write:
- Chichijima
- Mokujima
- Hahajima

Writing Moku Jima is like wiring O Minato, Hako Date, Fuku Oka no one writes Japanese like that normally and it is not pronounced like that either.

Re Second screenshot -> It should be Sado, otherwise for consistency you'd need Tsushimashima

I don't know how much info you find interesting but, to bore you:
1. Major islands in Japan in general do not include island (Shima/Jima) in their proper names, i.e. Sado, Tsushima (this one is a bit tricky but the characters are Tsushi Ma not Tsu Shima)
2. Smaller islands include the character "island" in general, but this is a part of their proper names
3. Retto means island chain/archipelago, not islands, there is as pointed out earlier no plural in general Japanese (there are exceptions of course)

Thanks for these useful comments SemperAugustus.
Especially about the "Moku Jima is like wiring O Minato" piece and the "It should be Sado, otherwise for consistency you'd need Tsushimashima" piece.
I'll do the changes.

[amwild]

ORIGINAL: trees

It will be a more interesting fight than the best of the US Marine units throwing O-Chits at a double-fort Tokyo hex, that's for sure.

I too would kick in some $$ for paper versions of parts of the world. I think I will always enjoy WiF with the colorful cardboard counters, and have actually already tried paper WiF with euro-scale maps of China via printing screenshots of the CWiF map. There would be little demand for parts of the world, like South America and large stretches of ocean, but I would pay for a paper version of the new China and Japan and the NEI, and I would use those with my faithful set of now somewhat worn cardboard counters. (The German army seems to show wear the most, hmmm). Printing the whole thing would probably not generate very many orders, but certain parts of the world would sell and the original American mini-map and Pacific-scale map could still be used to cover the more spacious places. We already use the America in Flames maps just for convenience of moving the US counters and the Battle of the Atlantic.

If Steve gives us the ability to print the entire map - with the options of printing some of it and printing or not printing the various layers - then someone with a large format printer could well print the entire map. I could produce quite nice A3 printouts of portions of the map myself given this feature...

I can guess at what Steve would say though: "Not in product 1..."

[Gendarme]

True, but if there is enough demand for the option to print sections of map, and if it's not too much trouble for the developers to do, then why not? Like I've said, that is something I'd throw down extra $$ for. Or even $$$.

Especially since we must still use the paper Wif for our fix until MatrixWif is ready. I'll still get Matrix Wif when it finally comes out. Shoot, I'd pre-order it if I could get those maps.

Table space is no concern for me. Maybe sections of the Atlantic and Pacific can be left out as on the current paper Wif maps. But otherwise, bring it on.

Some players are blowing up and wall-mounting their maps. We have ways...

But I know this is all daydreaming, and I won't take up any more space other than to say again, the work being done on Matrix Wif looks outstanding so far, and is only making us more eager to play it.

Anthony DeChristopher