ModAAR: American Front, a CSA v USA WIP mod

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 8 - Hispaniola and the Lesser Antilles

Hallo all! I've steadily been working on this in dribs and drabs but not much more of the map really feels ready enough to show you. However Hispaniola is now in pretty good shape.

In the books Turtledove let's slip that Haiti has been occupied by the Entente. I'm going to interpret that as meaning that the Dominican Republic, who for more than a century were adversaries of the Haitians, sided with the Entente. The CSA will therefore get an event allowing them to bring the Dominicans into the war on their side for a modest outlay of MPP and the deployment of a division of CSA marines to support the Dominican invasion of Haiti. The USA will also get a corresponding event allowing them to deploy a detachment of US Marines to oppose the invasion.

Hispaniola itself is not that rich, but the gold mines at Pueblo Viejo, the largest in the Americas, will be an asset worth grabbing.

Further to the east is the Danish Virgin Islands. Historically these were bought by the US in 1917, but in the much different history of TL-191 they may serve a different purpose...

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 9 - Florida and the Bahamas

Hi again. Steadily working on this all over the map. Here's another part that's more or less finished. Florida at this time was not historically a centre of industry, and it won't be in this mod either, but there are still some areas worth capturing if the war gets this far south. Similarly the Bahamas are not key to the British war effort but they are a useful base for British subs and light naval forces going out into the Atlantic to do battle with the Yanks and Germans.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 10 - Georgia on my mind

Next up is the great state of Georgia. This is home to one of the Confederacy's major industrial powerhouses - the city of Atlanta - as well as the mining complex at Battle Branch. Atlanta is also a major blocking position for anyone trying to advance through the Appalachians - as the Union found out to their cost at battles like Kennesaw Mountain in our timeline.

For anyone wondering what my general methodology is for building up the map when it's so big, particularly to get cities and other geographical objects in more-or-less the right location, it's as follows:

1) With the coastline finalised, try to locate geographical features (islands, inlets, peninsulas etc.) on the coast, and use this as a "fix" to determine where nearby cities should go.

2) With the cities on the coastline positioned correctly, then try to use their position as a "fix" to find where cities inland should be - ideally find one city that is on the same latitude and another than is on the same longitude, then use their lat/long co-ordinates to determine where the inland city should go. Cities should be labelled as you create them.

3) With the inland cities positioned correctly, lay down rivers. As the rivers flow along valleys this makes positioning hills, mountains, and lakes easier.

4) Connect the cities with roads based on maps that can be found online. The roads generally advance through clearings in the forests, valleys etc. I'm following the rule that cities which are now connected by majors roads should have major roads in-game, but minor roads should be dirt-tracks (this is 1914 after all).

5) Search for maps of railways (e.g., this one) and add them in.

6) Do an online search of city-lists to see if anywhere is missing. Search for important mines in that region and add them in. Sense-check the cities you have - you'll be putting them down on different days and may not be applying the criteria in the same way so check that e.g., you don't end up with Memphis and Atlanta on the same latitude. Try to fill open gaps on the map with little settlements if any existed so that the player has something to fight for in that region.

7) Label geographic features (e.g., prominent peaks, historical battle-sites etc.).

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 11 - The Carolinas

Hi again, a bit more of the map has now been more-or-less filled in. This time we're in the Carolinas. North and South Carolina were not the most populous or the most powerful states in the Confederacy, but they were home to numerous sizeable cities and also large amounts of agriculture. Mining in Gem Hollow near Winston-Salem adds to this economic importance.

Speaking of agriculture, I've decided it might be a good idea in this mod to make plantations their own terrain-type. As such any part of the south with substantial tobacco or cotton growing will highlighted as "plantation", with bocage terrain standing in for this. If it makes the map too busy or slows up advances too much then I'll switch back, but for the moment I think the effect is not too bad, and its good for the player to see variation over the map.

Also, the plantation areas are those most likely to see uprisings in 1915, but more about that later....

BTW - I very much encourage anyone who sees anything they disagree with in these posts to point them out to me. It can only improve what I'm doing here. This map is intended as a general map usable by anyone planning a mod involving North America.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 12 - Virginia Plain

Hello, and now for the biggest state in the Confederacy and its main political centre, the state of Virginia. Despite losing West Virginia in this timeline the same way it was lost in real life, Virginia is still home to the capital city of the CSA (Richmond) and the major naval ports of Newport News and Norfolk, VA. Crimora Mine, historically the largest Manganese mine in North America, was also located in this state.

This is also where one of the most dense parts of the map in terms of cities and resources starts, as Virginia borders Washington, D.C. (no longer the de facto capital of the USA in this timeline), and Maryland with the major city of Baltimore, beyond which is the de facto capital of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. In the books this is one of the most fought-over parts of North America, and as such I'm making sure that there are plenty of physical barriers, towns, fortifications, rivers etc. to slow down any advance. Essentially, since the two capitals of the main combatants in this scenario are located so close together (Richmond and Philadelphia are only about 210 miles apart as the crow flies, compare this to the roughly 550 miles that separate Paris and Berlin) there has to be a lot of stuff to slow down the players otherwise this scenario is going to be over very quickly.

[eightroomofelixir]

Virginia looks realistically dense, definitely like the full-of-towns-and-fortifications design here.

Some small things (again; I think I am a little bit picky about these details):
- Didn't the town of Roanoke still named "Big Lick" in the novels, and it's also described as a major railroad junction as well as an iron mining center? (The Pocahontas Coalfield is also near Roanoke.)
- There are probably some fortifications north of DC: Featherston mentioned that there are fortifications on the heights outside Washington DC, protect the city and its hinterlands from a southern invasion.
- Later in the book, Baltimore remained in Northern hands and became a strong bulge in the frontline; according to Featherston, the Confederate army were unable to cut off rail connection into Baltimore the whole time. The Union army were even able to launch a major attack from the city (although failed). I assume that Baltimore and the rail connections behind it are also fortified as well; the Yankees won't let the biggest city between DC and Philly undefended anyway.

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

Virginia looks realistically dense, definitely like the full-of-towns-and-fortifications design here.

Some small things (again; I think I am a little bit picky about these details):

Not at all. The pickier you are, the better for this mod!

- Didn't the town of Roanoke still named "Big Lick" in the novels, and it's also described as a major railroad junction as well as an iron mining center? (The Pocahontas Coalfield is also near Roanoke.)

Ach! *slaps head* I'd looked for Big Lick on the map and, not having seen it, just assumed it must be a small village or something. I hadn't realised that it'd changed its name! I'll change it in the next draft.

Additionally, I'd been under the impression that the Pocahontas field was all in WV, but part of it is in Virginia so I'll probably put three mines in total - one in Virginia and two in West Virginia - lots of stuff to fight over!

- There are probably some fortifications north of DC: Featherston mentioned that there are fortifications on the heights outside Washington DC, protect the city and its hinterlands from a southern invasion.

I'll try to revise Maryland a bit when I do it, but in simplified terms the Susquehanna south of Harrisburg is a major defence-line for the USA. The idea is that the CSA should advance to Harrisburg to outflank the defences at Alexandria and Newark, DE

- Later in the book, Baltimore remained in Northern hands and became a strong bulge in the frontline; according to Featherston, the Confederate army were unable to cut off rail connection into Baltimore the whole time. The Union army were even able to launch a major attack from the city (although failed). I assume that Baltimore and the rail connections behind it are also fortified as well; the Yankees won't let the biggest city between DC and Philly undefended anyway.

This is really hard to deal with on this scale - it just doesn't make sense in WW1-style warfare for the CSA to advance to Harrisburg leaving Baltimore in USA hands. I mean maybe I could move Baltimore east one hex so it's easier to go around it but I'm not sure this will look good - I'll give it a try to see how it looks.

Ultimately, though, I doubt the player's going to leave it in USA hands whatever I do with it, and if I make it hard to capture the CSA will never advance to Harrisburg. I think I'll put a US infantry division in there to defend it.

Anyway, many thanks for the feedback, it's very helpful.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 13 - "Almost heaven, West Virginia"

Another state down, and this time my first inland one - West Virginia. Is the TL-191 timeline West Virginia also split away from Virginia when it seceded from the union, and as such is a border state.

Whilst not exactly an industrial power-house, West Virginia, as was helpfully pointed out above, is home to a major coalfield, albeit one right on the border with the CSA. It is also the launching-off point of one of the USA's opening offensives of the war, directed towards cutting across the Roanoke valley (a major transport route for the CSA) and advancing towards Richmond from the west.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 14 - Pennsylvania

Time for another look at the slowly developing map for this CSA v. USA WW1 Turtledove mod. The next bit that is more-or-less finished is the US state of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is home to two of the Union's industrial powerhouse - Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, with Philly also doubling as the capital of the USA. Philadelphia is protected to the west by a line of fortifications along the Susquehanna, but if the Confederate player is willing to advance a bit further to the north, they may attempt to outflank this line by breaking through at Harrisburg.

Pittsburgh also serves as an important transportation hub for the railways running from east to west within the United States, and particularly the lines running from New York through Philadelphia across the Allegheny mountains go through there. If the Confederate player wishes, they can try to take Pittsburgh, but they may well find themselves tied down in street-to-street fighting if they do....

[eightroomofelixir]

Some possible points about cities and terrains:

Pittsburgh and Wheeling IRL are completely surrounded by mountains. Both cities are on the Allegheny Plateau, this huge mountainous area extended westward till just east of Columbus, with New Castle and Erie at it's foothills. The difficult terrains very much contributed to Featherston's failure to push into Pittsburgh.

Similar situation could be also applied to the Altoona, Williamsport, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton. The Blue Mountain Ridge next to the Harrisburg is also an obstacle for troop movement, rising from Harrisburg's 322' to more than 1200' within a mile. Also, there is a small mountain range and a gap between Gettysburg and Camp Hill.
(I understand that 1200' isn't too high for a mountain, but I always found that the "Hill" hexes in game are not that much a terrain burden than "mountain" hexes. My personal thought is to make the Appalachia region as a larger version of the Carpathian Mountains in the WWI map. Or to replicate your Virginia part of the Appalachia and Shenandoah Valley in Mid-Pennsylvania, as their terrain are much similar.)

For Philadelphia - I don't know. Delaware River is pretty wide, and didn't have a bridge across till 1926; although as we have discussed before, it's very hard to represent "a wide river with container ship capacity" in this game. Maybe the hex south of the Philly can be a port? (Philadelphia, as well as Camden, NJ just opposite to it, was a major shipyard during WWI.)
I am also unsure about west Philly, west of Schuylkill River. West Philly played a big role in Timeline-191's WWII, but in WWI not as that much. Adding Schuylkill River on the map would increase the defense ability of Philadelphia though. Richmond has Pamunkey River on the map for defense, Philadelphia could use some Schuylkill River, too.

I would also suggest adding Bethlehem, PA, because of the famous Bethlehem Steel and their plants. Both Bethlehem and Trenton are important industrial center at that time. Pittsburgh also have huge coalfields and irons mines outside the town at that time.
Overall, I was thinking a more hilly, a more industrial-powerhouse-ish Pennsylvania. Sorry for these very specific pickings - I once lived in NJ and visited Philly constantly, they feel familiar to me.

[FOARP]

@eightroomofelixir - Many thanks for your feedback. Basically all points seems reasonable, and indeed you've pointed out some things I had basically forgotten/overlooked and am kicking myself over. Probably the only point I'm not going to fix right now is the bridge over the Delaware because if it was built in 1926 in real life then, if Philadelphia was de facto capital in TL-191, it's more likely to have been bridged sooner.

It's great to have feedback from someone who knows the area on the ground - I have only ever flown over it on a business trip to Denver and New York back in 2012.

Taking your points in turn:

1) I've added many more mountain and hill hexes. the only parts I'm going to keep flat are the long valleys, to encourage driving through the mountains along them.

2) I've added a port in attached to West Philly.

3) As I said, if the Delaware was bridged in 1926 in real life then it's not bad to have it bridged in 1914 in a scenario where Philadelphia was even more important.

4) West Philly has been added, as has the Schuylkill River, adding in an additional line of defence east of the Susquehanna.

5) I originally hadn't put Bethlehem in because Allentown was already included, but there is no harm in adding it so I've done that. I think I can designate it as an industrial centre to give it some extra value. What I'm looking at in terms of MPP is 300-400 per turn for the CSA, 100-150 for the UK/Canada/minor Entente, ~100 for Mexico, and 700-900 for the USA.

6) Really kicking myself for forgetting to put the Pittsburgh mines in! I've put three mines in which should be sufficient.

Additionally:

7) Really surprised at myself for not including Punxsutawney in the first draft. I'm wondering if I could do some kind of weather event based on what Phil predicts?

8) And if I'm including Punxsutawney then I'll have an extra rough road over the Alleghenies via Franklin and State College (a town I'd originally thought wasn't a town).

9) Realised I'd forgotten to put the Allegheny River in properly, so I did that as well.

Please feel free to nit-pick anything you see in the below screen-shot.

[eightroomofelixir]

@FOARP - Really, really appreciate the time and effort to put in for the feedback. I can image It's a very long and detailed process to do all these changes while having a whole picture. And the results are definitely feasible; I agree with the bridge over the Delaware, and love the touch to put the Punxsutawney on the map. I really expect pushing towards/defending Philadelphia in the future.

So, some new feedback, if you don't mind to have a look/change:

1) About the waterways - maybe the Delaware Bay can be bigger, and the South Jersey can be smaller (narrower).

On the one hand, since Philadelphia was a major shipbuilding center (three Iowa-class BBs were built in there later), and the in-game naval units occupies an entire hex, the current Delaware Bay maybe too small to house a fleet (currently it looks like a fjord.)

Also, with Newport News and Norfolk effectively control the Virginia Capes, I image the in-game Chesapeake Bay will be dominated by the Confederate Fleet, therefore Delaware Bay will become more important for the Union Player as a major naval harbor in the East Coast besides NYC and Boston.

I don't know if the Delaware Bay still looks right if, say, expanding one hex eastward from southeast Wilmington, and moving Vineland-Altantic City one hex northeast.
(Maybe we can also fit the Philly port into the hex south of Philly by this way, as IRL the Philadelphia Naval Yards are in the directly south of Central City Philadelphia.)

On the other hand, South Jersey is largely "barren" till this day. Most of it belongs to the Pinelands, covered by acidic soils and pine forests, to the point which local people reported that they encountered "devils" in the woods till 1930s. It would be unfavorable to conduct large scale military movements here, and I think it is practical to shrink this region to give some space to Philadelphia.


2) About Pittsburgh - you have mentioned you put the Allegheny River properly, so I looked at Pittsburgh more closely, and realized that we might all have overlooked a problem there.

Pittsburgh is at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. And the downtown, or the oldtown part of Pittsburgh, much like Philadelphia, was actually on a "peninsula" bounded by Allegheny and Monongahela, known as "Golden Triangle" colloquially. This would presumably puts the Pittsburgh at a hex north of Monongahela River and south of Allegheny River (which also added a line of defense of the city from a southern invasion). Currently on the map, Pittsburgh is at the west of Monongahela River and south of Ohio River.

This would also change some of rail placement. Wheeling-Pittsburgh crosses the Monongahela south of the city, Pittsburgh-New Castle crosses the Allegheny north of the city, and Altoona-Pittsburgh is at the south of the Allegheny. For rails into Ohio, Pittsburgh-Cleveland is at the north of the Ohio River; the Pittsburgh-Columbus-Cincinnati stays the same, south of the Ohio river.


Anyway, that will be it. Looking forward to the NYC area!

[FOARP]

@eightroomofelixir - thanks again for the feedback. It's great having another set of eyes looking for stuff I've overlooked or gotten wrong.

1) I think NYC and Boston should be sufficient, with other bases in New England, to cover this, but if it isn't I'm happy to look at it again. I'm somewhat loath to reopen the coastline issue as it took so long to get more-or-less right.

2) Now I'm really performing a face-palm right here. Yeah, I have no idea how I got that one wrong. This website even has a bunch of great period maps I could have looked at.

But it's easily put right - here's what the "city of bridges" looks like now:

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 15 - New York State, the state so great they named it once...

Hello again. This time we're focusing on the great state of New York, home to New York city which was the second largest city in the world in 1914 and one of only two cities in the world with a population greater than four million people. As such NYC sprawls over multiple city hexes and is home to a major port and naval base.

New York state is also home to some other large cities (Buffalo and Rochester most prominently) and a major mining complex (the Benson mines) not far from the Canadian border. Speaking of the Canadian border, whilst Ontario is not yet filled out, there are some pretty fearsome fortifications to overcome if the US army is to ever break into Ontario already put in.

The next episode will be New England, though of course I'll be revising any problems that anyone spots in the mean time.

[Taxman66]

Did you skip Maryland?

[eightroomofelixir]

The mountainous New York state as well as separation of NYC (Manhattan) and Brooklyn are both nice touches.

As usual, there are several possible suggestions:



For NYC region:

1) Newark is actually a bit southern than Manhattan, around the same latitude as Brooklyn.
- Maybe move Newark one hex south, and change the original hex to a swamp, to represent the New Jersey Meadowlands (a huge, heavily polluted swamp north of IRL Newark).

2) Judging from the coastline, the 5-supply small city south of NYC is Staten Island+Upper New York Bay. IRL the major ports activities of NYC all happened in the New York Harbor, including Upper Bay and nearby Newark Bay, between Staten Island, Newark and Manhattan. On the other hand, the west end of the Long Island Sound doesn't have large port installations IRL.
- Maybe change this hex to a major 10/12 supply level port, to represent the New York Harbor.

3) One of the biggest USA naval shipyard, the Brooklyn Navy Yard, as the name suggest, is at Brooklyn.
- Maybe add another major port attached to Brooklyn besides the New York Harbor one.

4) Separating NYC and Brooklyn is a nice touch. However I am not sure about having a land&sea hex between NYC and Brooklyn; this looks like Brooklyn is situated deeply inside the Long Island. I understand that, at the current map design, you need a sea hex to access the port in the Long Island Sound, as the Long Island Sound is being soft-blocked by the port of New Haven.
- Then If having two major ports at the south of NYC and Brooklyn (as the suggestions above), you can move Brooklyn one hex west, next to NYC.

5) Related to 4) above - the port of New Haven is currently at a awkward position, as it soft-blocked the Long Island Sound. IRL the Long Island Sound near New Haven is actually the widest section of the Sound. The shape of Long Island Sound is narrow in the west but broad in the east, rather than having a straight coastline. Moreover, the city of New London, the location of a primary submarine base, is at the eastern end of the Long Island Sound; the sea hexes of the Long Island Sound should also leave space for a port attached to New London.
- Maybe the eastern part of the Long Island can move one hex southward, to leave more space to the Long Island Sound. I also noticed that the Long Island Sound in the current WWI map is more than 1 hex wide (it's a 1-2-1-2 wide shape).
- In addition, there are some forts at the east end of Long Island to protect the Sound as well as New London naval base. Although I am not sure how to represent a naval fort on the map - a fortification with a coastal gun unit?

6) Maybe add West Point between Yonkers and Poughkeepsie, as a fortified town on the Hudson River, in case someone try to cut the supply line north of NYC.


For non-NYC region:

7) Maybe some changes of the coastline can apply to the Lake Ontario in the future (say, in the Ontario episode of the map making), a straight coastline is bit weird.

8) IRL Plattsburgh have fortifications and barracks built in the aftermath of War of 1812, later abandoned in the late 19th century as there were no further US-Canada conflicts. In TL-191, the USA and Canada confrontation continues, this town would probably turned into a major US Army installation at USA-Canada border at 1914.

9) Kingston, ON actually didn't have a land connection/crossing with USA; this part of the St. Lawrence River is still pretty wide (the narrow parts are from Ogdensburg to Montreal). The only crossing on the St. Lawrence River between Niagara River and Montreal before WWI was New York and Ottawa Railway's bridge at Cornwall, ON (today's Three Nations Crossing). This railway connects New York state directly with Ottawa, a crucial piece of infrastructure. Maybe the land connection between USA-Canada can be moved at Cornwall.

[eightroomofelixir]

An interesting side note: After some brief research, it seems like before IRL WWI the bridges crossing the St. Lawrence River were quite rare. Most bridges were at Montreal (the Quebec Bridge hadn't completed till 1917).
Outside Quebec, there was only one bridge connecting US and Canada on the St. Lawrence River at this point: the New York and Ottawa Railway's crossing at Cornwall, Ontario.
Basically, around IRL 1914, all land transportation across the St. Lawrence River would either use river ferries, go through Montreal, or Cornwall; choices were very limited. Don't know how this will affect map-making.

[FOARP]

@eightroomofelixir -

1) Done.

2) I hate to lose Staten Island, but there's no way of squeezing in a port there without deleting the city.

3) An oversight, now corrected, thanks.

4) I think I designed this bit of coastline before I realised that you could have land hexes with straight in between them, and you can't put cities on land-and-sea hexes, anyway, done.

5) Took a lot of re-designing (which is painful in this system) but done.

6) Done, as well as Newburgh

7) I had to fiddle with the Ontario coastline to get Rochester at the right latitude/longitude which is where that bit was created.

8) Done.

9) Will keep this in mind when I get around to designing Ontario.

See what it looks like here:

[eightroomofelixir]

Again, thank you for your hard work. I can tell that the changes around the Long Island took a lot of time and effort to make them look right. Looking forward to New England.

[eightroomofelixir]

I noticed a thing a while before, it somehow bugged me, and I finally checked the map editor today.

I hate to say it, but, it seems like all the city hexes you have put on the map - judging by their visuals - are city hexes actually used to represent Asian cities in the WaW map. The ones with orange-rooftops are used for low latitude Indian and South East Asian cities, while those with grey-rooftops are for mid-high latitude Chinese and Japanese cities.

US cities in both WaW and WWI maps share the same visual as the European cities. They look more three-dimensional than the Asian cities, and their big cities have more large, square-looking buildings (probably indicating rowhouses).

Overall the US-European city hexes are all stone-and-brick-looking, more stand out; and the Asian cities are more wood-and-terracotta-looking, more flat.

Is this a suggestion...I don't know. I can image that replace every city hex will be sincerely painful.