Matrix Games Forums

A closer view of the Alaska Penisula.

8th and last in the series. This screen shot shows most of the 2 map segments Rob just completed. There's more to the west.

ORIGINAL: SemperAugustus

Perhaps besides the point but...

Should the Hejaz railway really extend all the way to Medina? The route within Saudi Arabia has been out of use since the 1920s if not 1910s, it wasn't functional in WW2

The southern-most working portion of the railroad should be to the Gulf of Aqaba within the Transjordanian borders.

Well I can only say that you have good points here, and the Wikipedia article says the same as you are :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hejaz_railway
Anyway, we are here speaking of original design decisions made by ADG when designing the original maps and placing the railways, and I won't go against them.
Perhaps they (ADG) decided that the railway could have been made working after all, if really needed by the power who would want to use it, kind of making the Russian railways work for German locomotives during German invasion of Russia.

ORIGINAL: SemperAugustus

Rub al'Khali by the way means Empty Quarter not Arabian Desert

I've corrected this, as well as the spelling.

This said, I had written this : "Arabian Desert (Rub al'Khali)" because I thought that these were 2 ways to call the place, so I had placed it that way (I had found it that way on a map), not because I thought the latter was the translation of the former.

Thanks for the comment !

I once actually put a unit in Petropavlosk. How? I had built a few Russian CP for use in the Caspian Sea, anticipating a hard-charging 1941 'Barb, but the Axis shifted gears and wouldn't be coming to the party until 1942, when they probably won't be able to cut the rail link to Baku any more. So I put the new CP in Vladivostok to build an all-Russian CP line to the USA and needed that port to deploy the final link in the chain. Luckily it was summer time.

I still hope Komsomolsk becomes an 'optional' city as the ones being tested in China. If the Russians lost Vladivostok and Khabarovsk no military units not near the Trans-Siberian railway would ever be in supply, nor could new ones appear there. In real life the Amur River would be the transport link, but without Khabarovsk you couldn't use that either. It is a gift to a Russian player who loses those two cities and I don't think the Allies need any gifts.



...poked around the web to discover it was built in 1932 by the Communist Party Youth "with great loss of life" and eventually (not sure but post-WWII I would imagine) became a shipyard for the Soviet Pacific Fleet, so it probably should be a minor port.

ORIGINAL: trees
I still hope Komsomolsk becomes an 'optional' city as the ones being tested in China. If the Russians lost Vladivostok and Khabarovsk no military units not near the Trans-Siberian railway would ever be in supply, nor could new ones appear there. In real life the Amur River would be the transport link, but without Khabarovsk you couldn't use that either. It is a gift to a Russian player who loses those two cities and I don't think the Allies need any gifts.

Normaly (in WiFFE) Konstantinovsk is in supply from Khabarovsk.
Given the scale change, Konstantinovsk is not in supply from Khabarovsk in MWiF.
So adding Komsomolsk only serves this purpose. Putting Konstantinovsk in supply.
Having no rail from Komsomolsk means that the Russian who would appear in reinforcemen here are going nowhere without an HQ. So obliging the Russian to devote 1 HQ plus 3-4 units there, to hypotheticaly take back Khabarovsk is not a gift for me.
The Japanese can see this coming from a far distance, and have all leisure to rail move units here to strengthen the area.
I think there will be no problems with this extra city.

Anyway, it is easy to delete it, just have to delete its entry in the NAM and TER files.

ORIGINAL: trees

I had built a few Russian CP for use in the Caspian Sea.

I like to start with a CP in the Caspian Sea when playing the World in Flames Scenario.

This is so I can capture Teheran as soon as I can DoW against Persia.

I'm missing Ulan-Ude, on the rail between Chita and Irkutsk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulan-Ude
It would have little game function except as a fallback rail city if Chita is lost, and as such I think it would serve the game well (in the event of a catastrophic soviet loss in the east, at least some hope of a comback would be maintained).

On the Manchurian side, I don't know how we missed Qiqihar in the previous discussion. Yes, it will change game balance somewhat, but it was militarily important historically, and was founded in 1691. It probably had the required size you'd expect for a mWif city? (I didn't find any 1940 population numbers, but current population is 900 000. That might not tell the wholde story, nearby Daqing has more than 2 million people today, but was founded as late as 1959).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qiqihar

I'd also consider one of Yichun/Hegang/Jiamusi/Shuangyashan for inclusion. These are a cluster of 100 000+ cities halfway between Harbin and Kabarovsk.
Thay are outside the rail system but would allow some operations by manchurian territorials. Probably way to small for inclusion, but it would be fun with a few more cities in this area. 10-20 hexes between each city just isn't fun, and there ARE people living in this part of the world. As long as no production is added, a few more cities which glorious capture can be written about in Pravda just can't be bad...

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets

This set of screen shots shows the rest of Russia - well almost all of the rest. There is still some more hexes yet farther north.

From Balkal to Vladivostok by rail. You can take the northern (TranSiberian) or southern (TransMachurian) route. Chita is important.

ORIGINAL: Froonp


Normaly (in WiFFE) Konstantinovsk is in supply from Khabarovsk.
Given the scale change, Konstantinovsk is not in supply from Khabarovsk in MWiF.
So adding Komsomolsk only serves this purpose. Putting Konstantinovsk in supply.
Having no rail from Komsomolsk means that the Russian who would appear in reinforcemen here are going nowhere without an HQ. So obliging the Russian to devote 1 HQ plus 3-4 units there, to hypotheticaly take back Khabarovsk is not a gift for me.
The Japanese can see this coming from a far distance, and have all leisure to rail move units here to strengthen the area.
I think there will be no problems with this extra city.

Anyway, it is easy to delete it, just have to delete its entry in the NAM and TER files.

I would delete it but I don't think I should have to. As you know I disagree with the premise that things must stay the same from WiFFE, sorry to keep flogging a dead horse but I'm gonna flail the whip a few more times here. The Russians would need an HQ to take advantage of Komsomolsk as far as taking back Khabarovsk. But more insidious is just the threat it poses to the Japanese rear, the Russians could just plop down a cheap Cavalry unit or an unlimited MWiF division and run it around out of supply, or back it with an ATR and the 1944 Super-Combined impulses and easily cut Japanese supply behind whatever point they are holding on the Trans-Siberian railway. Or the Russians could get Timoshenko killed in Europe during the winter, re-build him and commit him to the theater in the summer. Once the Russian front narrows from East Prussia to Bucharest they have units to spare too. In some scenarios (42 Barb+Siberia, '40 Siberia) the Russians could probably commit a token force (Cavlary or MWiF division) to hold Komsomolsk for their come-back in Siberia, in other scenarios (41 Barb+Siberia) maybe not. But for the Japanese to secure this fake threat they would have to commit an HQ on an advance axis to nowhere really. The Japanese have enough trouble already defending against the USN and the unrealistic Chinese Army at the same time; the land-only Red Army only adds to that. With the bigger map and more room for attacker manuever their troubles worsen. So though they could see a Russian advance from Komsolmolsk coming, IJN imperatives could keep them from reacting to it in time. Really the Japanese have no hope of defending any Siberian gains with in-supply forces on this map against Russian cavalry anyway, but forcing the Russians to work from a base of their own Trans-Siberian rail-head would help at least some. But giving the Russians a pretty unrealistic reinforcement/supply base in the middle of the wilderness just to keep the Russian navy unrealistically fighting after the loss of Vladivostok is just another pebble of unreality in the game. In real life the Russians could possibly use the Amur River to supply Russian naval units after losing Vladivostok, but not in WiF, and the logistic hurdles needed to do that could be best represented by requiring the use of an HQ unit, so I think Komsomolsk should be an iced-in minor port and not a city.

As for changes from WiFFE scale, they are many and inevitable, and generally damaging to the Japanese. I think the chips should fall where they must. A couple places they fall on in the Manchurian area is that the Russian resource between Khabarovsk and Blagovychensk is no longer in supply if Khabarovsk falls and that is a more important hex than a rarely used iced-in minor port. A much bigger change is that Japan can no longer attack Blagovychensk without using an HQ. Can Japan have that capability back? Why not?

EDIT:
This might seem terribly ignorant, but what is the modern name for Konstantinovsk? I can't find anything on this place... There is one in Rostov Oblast on the Don river, but that is on the other side of Russia.

There are several ports in the area most of the founded in the 1940s, Vanino (1944) and Sovetskaya Gavan (1941) seem to be the major ones... There is a town called Konstantinovsk founded in 1853, but anyone know the current name? It was still called Konstantinovsk in the end of 1910s- beginning of 1920s.

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: trees
I still hope Komsomolsk becomes an 'optional' city as the ones being tested in China. If the Russians lost Vladivostok and Khabarovsk no military units not near the Trans-Siberian railway would ever be in supply, nor could new ones appear there. In real life the Amur River would be the transport link, but without Khabarovsk you couldn't use that either. It is a gift to a Russian player who loses those two cities and I don't think the Allies need any gifts.

Normaly (in WiFFE) Konstantinovsk is in supply from Khabarovsk.
Given the scale change, Konstantinovsk is not in supply from Khabarovsk in MWiF.
So adding Komsomolsk only serves this purpose. Putting Konstantinovsk in supply.
Having no rail from Komsomolsk means that the Russian who would appear in reinforcemen here are going nowhere without an HQ. So obliging the Russian to devote 1 HQ plus 3-4 units there, to hypotheticaly take back Khabarovsk is not a gift for me.
The Japanese can see this coming from a far distance, and have all leisure to rail move units here to strengthen the area.
I think there will be no problems with this extra city.

Anyway, it is easy to delete it, just have to delete its entry in the NAM and TER files.

I remember this discussion and adding Komsomolsk was necessary to keep Konstantinovsk in supply. This is
important because the Russia fleet intended to use Konstantinovsk as a backup port in case Vladivostok was
lost to the Japanese. So it was a military important port.

Komsomolsk is the biggest city in the area that is near enough to provide support to Konstantinovsk.

I checked some information about the population of Komsomolsk. This data was not available in English so
I had to read it in Russian. Here is the link:

http://www.transsib.ru/city-dvost.htm

Data for Komsomolsk:
Íàñåëåíèå: 71 òûñ. (1939); 177 òûñ. (1959); 315,3 òûñ. (1989); 297,6 òûñ. (1998
This means: population 71.000 (1939), 177.000 (1959), 315.000 (1989), 297.000 (1998)

It was not a very big city in 1939, but almost as big as the 100.000 limit we use in most of the world.
So we haven't added a tiny town just to make the supply for Konstantinovsk.

Some info about Komsomolsk: During the 20th Century, the city developed into a regional centre for
industries such as metallurgy, machinery, oil refining and shipbuilding. The aircraft construction
company Sukhoi has significant works based in the city.

Komsomolsk-on-Amur was founded in 1932 as an industrial base for the Soviet defense industry.
Its largest plants produced aircraft and ocean-going vessels. With its population of 294,500
people, it is the third largest city in the Russian Far East (RFE) after Vladivostok and Khabarovsk.
The city economy is based on manufacturing, which accounts for 74 percent of the total output and
38 percent of employment.

So it's evident this city was built for military purposes. It's the 3rd largest Russian city in the Russian
Far East. I don't agree with Trees argument that adding Komsomolsk would make it too difficult
for Japan to maintain the conquest in Russia. For Komsomolsk to have any important effect to
the possible Russo-Japanese war then Vladivostok and Khabarovsk should have fallen to the
Japanese. If Japan has such big forces that they can overrun these cities they can certainly
take Komsomolsk too.

Russia is very difficult to conquer so I don't see how Japan can even hope to win such a war. I
can only see Japan make some limited gains like the Russian resources in the Far East and
capture the port and factory in Vladivostok. That's enough to keep the Russians at bay for
quite some time.

If Japan wanted to make a major assault on Russia I believe they would suffer the same problems
as Germany, i. e. too much territory to conquer and the "darn" Russians seem to pop-up with
new armies everywhere.

Also remember that MWIF is NOT the same as WIFFE. With a European scale everywhere the
game is definitely different. We have accepted the need for extra cities many other places so
I don't think adding Komsomolsk too would add much problems for the Japanese player. I see
the scenario that Trees wrote about, i. e. Russians popping up in Komsomolsk to cut the
Japanese supply. But a good Japanese player should be able to screen Russian armies
coming from there and keep his rail supply. We don't know exactly what would have happened
if the Japanese launched a major assault on Russia, but I don't believe the Russian threat in
the far east would be over if Vladivostok and Khabarovsk had fallen to the Japanese. There
are enough cities elsewhere to form new armies. Komsomolsk even produced lots of aircraft.

Has Trees thought about the alternative? I. e. not adding Komsomolsk and thus not giving supply
to Konstantinovsk? What would the Russian Far East fleet do if Vladivostok is lost? We know that
the Russians had plans to use Konstantinovsk as their backup far east port. I think it's important
keep that option possible for Russia so they have a chance to fight back if they got unlucky and
lost Vladivostok.

The last coastal hexes for Mother Russia. Not likely to see much action.

I think there is suppose to be some oil on that northern slope.

3rd and last in the series. The farthest north port in this area. For our Christmas show we had a quartet singing "There's no place like Nome for the holidays".

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
I think there is suppose to be some oil on that northern slope.

It was found out after the war.
I did some research to find out where the oil depected here is coming from :

************************************************
From http://kodiakisland.net/timeline.html :

1890 First oil claims are staked in Cook Inlet.

1902 First oil production in Alaska.

1957 Atlantic Richfield discovers oil at Swanson River on the Kenai Peninsula, beginning Alaska's modern oil era. The Swanson River field on the Kenai Peninsula was the first commercial production site for oil and gas in Alaska's modern oil era. During the next ten years, additional oil fields are discovered offshore in nearby Cook Inlet and production platforms are installed to bring production on-line for the Middle Ground shoal field, the Granite Point field, the MacArthur River field and the Trading Bay field. By 1968, the Cook Inlet is producing nearly 200,000 barrels per day, and the income generated by oil production in Alaska is contributing more than 20% of the state government's total revenues.

1958 Congress passes Alaska Statehood Act conveying ownership of 104 million acres.

1959 Alaska is admitted to the Union as the 49th state, and William A. Egan becomes Alaska's first governor. Sitka pulp mill opens. State revenues: $25.4 million. British Petroleum begins to explore for oil on Alaska's North Slope.

1960 Amoco finds offshore oil in Cook Inlet.
************************************************

I said nothing for the moment, but I'll check if this oil is an EXTRA oil from the WiF game, or if it is an existing USA oil that has been relocated here.
I think I'll advocate getting rid of it, if it is an extra oil, as my research do not show that it was a source of oil during WWII.

Opinions ?

ORIGINAL: Froonp

ORIGINAL: Shannon V. OKeets
I think there is suppose to be some oil on that northern slope.

It was found out after the war.
I did some research to find out where the oil depected here is coming from :

************************************************
From http://kodiakisland.net/timeline.html :

1890 First oil claims are staked in Cook Inlet.

1902 First oil production in Alaska.

1957 Atlantic Richfield discovers oil at Swanson River on the Kenai Peninsula, beginning Alaska's modern oil era. The Swanson River field on the Kenai Peninsula was the first commercial production site for oil and gas in Alaska's modern oil era. During the next ten years, additional oil fields are discovered offshore in nearby Cook Inlet and production platforms are installed to bring production on-line for the Middle Ground shoal field, the Granite Point field, the MacArthur River field and the Trading Bay field. By 1968, the Cook Inlet is producing nearly 200,000 barrels per day, and the income generated by oil production in Alaska is contributing more than 20% of the state government's total revenues.

1958 Congress passes Alaska Statehood Act conveying ownership of 104 million acres.

1959 Alaska is admitted to the Union as the 49th state, and William A. Egan becomes Alaska's first governor. Sitka pulp mill opens. State revenues: $25.4 million. British Petroleum begins to explore for oil on Alaska's North Slope.

1960 Amoco finds offshore oil in Cook Inlet.
************************************************

I said nothing for the moment, but I'll check if this oil is an EXTRA oil from the WiF game, or if it is an existing USA oil that has been relocated here.
I think I'll advocate getting rid of it, if it is an extra oil, as my research do not show that it was a source of oil during WWII.

Opinions ?

Sorry, I was talking about oil on the north slope in real life, not as part of the game.

Actually, I proposed an alternative. In fact Komsomolsk should be a port. You could then easily use an HQ to put it in supply, and the pitiful remnants of a Russian Sub Force that could still fight after the loss of their only true base, machine shops and stores of spare parts, torpedoes and diesel fuel could continue whacking Japanese tankers off Japan. No, Japan can't conquer Russia. Japan has one of the more hopeless positions of a major power in WiF and this new map will expose their flanks more than ever before. Because of the reinforcement rules in WiF, placing cities on the map is very important; cities with such fragile transportation links to their country's industrial base just aren't realistic. Japan's army is small and adding an extra Russian base in the Far East is a bonus for the Russians that they don't need. It would take Japan an extra turn of campaigning with a scarce HQ in the most difficult weather zone on the map (after probably already using the summer turns to even make it to Khabarovsk) just to prevent Russian reinforcements from beaming down from the Federation Starship "Moskva" in their rear areas. Both sides should simply have to deal with the map changes; Japan loses supply status along the northern Manchurian border, further complicating a potential campaign against Siberia. But with additional cities in undeveloped Russia and China, allowing 20th Century war machines to draw their sustenance from areas still otherwise relying on animal power and carts is rather disingenuous and it is a change aiding the Allies most every time. Of all the places in the world, Siberia is perhaps the one where military forces in their 'Home' Country should be out of supply if very far from their rail link the quickest. Definitely faster than say parts of of the French province west of the Central Massif in a rain impulse. Komsomolsk doesn't even meet the 100,000 inhabitant cut; a far stronger case could be made for adding Viipuri to the map in Finland. K. could be used to re-load torpedoes in Submarines for example, but absolutely not without a rail and Amur river connection back to European Russia or Vladivostok itself. The entire theater depends on the Trans-Siberian and South Manchurian Railway links, and all military activity would revolve around those.

Anyhow I've registered my opinion on this very small matter more than enough. A Russo-Japan war is frequently a tar baby that both sides can end up regretting, but it is something a lot of WiF players like to explore. I would like to explore it in the most realistic way possible within the game's design. The maps are a beautiful result of a lot of hard work that we all appreciate. Being able to comment on a game under design is an amazing thing in and of itself that is also greatly appreciated. I just feel that every pebble on the scales of game-balance does matter.

At least Ulan-Ude should be added I think...

The major cities (using 1939 population data) during this period in the Soviet Far East would be (following the Chinese border i.e. Primorsky, Khabarovsk, Amur, Chita, Buriatia, Irkutsk):
Vladivostok (100k+)
Voroshilov (70k+) (i.e. the town currently called Ussurisk/Ussuriysk), north of Vladivostok
Khabarovsk (100k+)
Komsomolsk-na-Amure (70k+)
Chita (100k+)
Ulan-Ude (100k+)
Irkutsk (100k+)

Other "major" towns
Blagoveshchensk (on the Amur) was about 60k
Cheremkhovo NW of Irkutsk (about 66k)

Minor Towns (in other areas of far east)
Yakutsk (53k)
Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (35k)

ORIGINAL: trees

Actually, I proposed an alternative. In fact Komsomolsk should be a port.

You can't make Komsomolsk a port because it's an INLAND city. I agree with Froonp's idea of trying to keep supply the same as on the WIFFE map. That's why some cities are added in the areas with formerly Asian scaled maps.

The 100k+ city limit is not an absolute.

For example: Blagoveshchensk (on the Amur) was about 60k

This city is already on the map and it's smaller than Komsomolsk was in 1939.

Actually Komsomolsk became a shipbuilding yard for the Soviet Union for submarines and freighters. The Amur is 3km wide there. That is good to know about Blagovyeschensk, thank you both.

There do need to be cities on the map, I agree with the ones there currently. There didn't used to be any at all. But some changes are inevitable with the change in scale and it is impossible to keep everything functioning exactly the same. The increased distance from Harbin makes Blagovyeschensk safer without the commitment of a Japanese HQ, the Russians should face the same logistic requirements in one of the most undeveloped areas of the map and now I'm repeating myself again, oops.