ModAAR: American Front, a CSA v USA WIP mod

[eightroomofelixir]

ORIGINAL: FOARP
I'm trying to work out how to make "desert mountains". There is no specific terrain-type called that, there is only the bare mountains that I am already using - but these appear green. I can definitely see mountains that appear desert-type in the base game scenarios, but these are the same bare mountain terrain-type. I guess the easiest thing is just to ask Bill in the main forum.

My personal guess is it may related to the climate/weather type - for instance, on the base map, the northern part of Scandinavia is already covered in snow, and they have a unique weather type (Arctic). The border hexes of the depression on the base map are also desert-ish textured, rather than in a green color like the current ones around Death Valley. In any case, Bill will have the answer for us.

[BillRunacre]

Yep, I've answered that in the other thread, it's to do with the Weather Zone setting for the relevant location. It'll make things look even better when that's added here. [:)]

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: BillRunacre

Yep, I've answered that in the other thread, it's to do with the Weather Zone setting for the relevant location. It'll make things look even better when that's added here. [:)]

Cheers Bill! The responsiveness on this forum from the devs is one of the great things about modding this game. I guess I'll do the weather layer after I've finished the map design.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 26 - Baja California

Hi again. This time we're south of the border in the Empire of Mexico (in this timeline the French-installed Mexican monarchy survived into the 20th century, albeit having sold Sonora and Chihuahua to the CSA in 1881,and being in a semi-colonial relationship with the Confederacy). In keeping with historical Mexico, I have designed Baja California to be undeveloped, relatively unpopulated, and lacking infrastructure with no railways and only dirt roads. It has only two towns of note: Cabo San Lucas and La Paz, Baja California. Historically the copper mines at Boleo, set up with French investment, were valuable and so I have also included this - we may imagine that they were set up with CSA backing.

The primary value of Baja California to the Entente will be as a base for submarines to raid the US trade routes with South America, however. If the US wants to take it away from the Entente it may try to drive overland down the peninsula but a line of fortifications is positioned to stop it doing this - so perhaps the Americans may attempt an amphibious outflanking of this line?

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 27 - Sonora

A quick one this time: the state of Sonora, in this timeline sold to the CSA in 1881, is important to the CSA as their naval base on the Pacific, and under Confederate control a metalled road and railway has been built through the state to connect the port of Guaymas to the rest of the CSA. Otherwise the main benefit the Confederates get from it is the copper mines at Cananea.

As always, any comments are welcome.

[eightroomofelixir]

The CSA transcontinental railroad doesn't exist in real life, so it's up to our imagination and design choices.

In IRL 1914, the major rail infrastructure in Sonora is a branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad, goes Tucson-Nogales-Hermosillo-Guaymas. This branch was built between 1879 and 1882, finished just before the TL-191's Second Mexican War, so I assume that it would exist in this timeline.

It seems that CSA transcontinental railroad is first links with Hermosillo, and then turns south to Guaymas. If that is the case, then the USA Army can simply occupy Hermosillo to cut off Guaymas from rest of CSA, rather than advance more into Guaymas. From a gameplay point, the rail connection can move south, say, follows the Yaqui River and end at Cajeme.
There was a small branch line follows the Yaqui River IRL, goes Cajeme-Corral-Tonichi.

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

The CSA transcontinental railroad doesn't exist in real life, so it's up to our imagination and design choices.

In IRL 1914, the major rail infrastructure in Sonora is a branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad, goes Tucson-Nogales-Hermosillo-Guaymas. This branch was built between 1879 and 1882, finished just before the TL-191's Second Mexican War, so I assume that it would exist in this timeline.

It seems that CSA transcontinental railroad is first links with Hermosillo, and then turns south to Guaymas. If that is the case, then the USA Army can simply occupy Hermosillo to cut off Guaymas from rest of CSA, rather than advance more into Guaymas. From a gameplay point, the rail connection can move south, say, follows the Yaqui River and end at Cajeme.
There was a small branch line follows the Yaqui River IRL, goes Cajeme-Corral-Tonichi.

All sensible suggestions - I don't want to develop US states like Arizona too much as I figure their development will have been stunted by a US defeat in the civil war, but a railway up to Tucson makes sense. The main idea, though, is that an invasion of Sonora, Chihuahua, Texas should be logistically difficult due to poor infrastructure so there won't be much in the way of links that way. "Historically" the US did launch an invasion of Texas, but it was late in the war - I don't want the west to turn into a massive battlefield.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 28 - Sweet Home Alabama

Hello. This time out we're on the Gulf Coast in the great state of Alabama. Alabama is home to the industrial centre of Birmingham, AL, as well as a major naval base at Mobile. I couldn't find any information about historical mines there so I've not added any, but the state has rivers, swamps, farms, and plantations a plenty!

[eightroomofelixir]

Birmingham is an industrial powerhouse of the south, sometimes nicknamed "The Pittsburgh of the South" for its production of iron and steel. Although founded after the IRL Civil War, in TL-191 it's still a crucial industrial town (per Pinkard's perspective; Bartlett also mentioned that Birmingham has a strong automobile industry, producing all the Manassas cars.)
The city itself has a group of important iron mines nearby, called Sloss Mines, founded by James Sloss. Pinkard's work place, Sloss Foundry, is also founded by him.

Alabama also has several coal fields to support the iron production. The Warrior coal fields, on the Black Warrior River watersheds near Tuscaloosa, is the biggest of them. The Cahaba fields is another important coal field; it has the mining town of Montevallo (not on the map, between Selma and Birmingham), the site of coal mining since early 1800s and supported the CSA industries during Civil War.

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

Birmingham is an industrial powerhouse of the south, sometimes nicknamed "The Pittsburgh of the South" for its production of iron and steel. Although founded after the IRL Civil War, in TL-191 it's still a crucial industrial town (per Pinkard's perspective; Bartlett also mentioned that Birmingham has a strong automobile industry, producing all the Manassas cars.)
The city itself has a group of important iron mines nearby, called Sloss Mines, founded by James Sloss. Pinkard's work place, Sloss Foundry, is also founded by him.

Alabama also has several coal fields to support the iron production. The Warrior coal fields, on the Black Warrior River watersheds near Tuscaloosa, is the biggest of them. The Cahaba fields is another important coal field; it has the mining town of Montevallo (not on the map, between Selma and Birmingham), the site of coal mining since early 1800s and supported the CSA industries during Civil War.

I did consider making Birmingham, AL a major city, but my issue with this is I'm currently treating a 1920 census population of ~500,000 as the cut-off for that, with the exception of Atlanta (which did ultimately peak at just under 500,000 in 1960-70 and which the books are clear was the biggest CSA industrial city). New Orleans will probably be another such exception for similar reasons, as will Dallas possibly. Birmingham, AL had a population of ~178,000 in 1920 and a peak population of ~340,000 in 1960, so I don't think it quite makes the cut even if we assume that a CSA victory would have seen more rapid development of the town. I did also consider adding a suburb to the city, but the largest historical suburb of Birmingham, AL is called "Hoover" and was founded in 1970, so this seems like a non-starter.

The Sloss works is a great point and I'll add this in, as well as the Sloss mines, I think this meets the point of Birmingham being an industrial centre. Depending on the ultimate balance I'll include one (but probably not both) of the other Alabama mines.

In terms of major cities I'm thinking:

Mexico: 1 (Mexico City)
Canada: 1 (Toronto)
USA: 8 (NYC, Philly, Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, San Fran, LA)
CSA: 4 (Richmond, Atlanta, NOLA, Dallas(?))

Which works out at roughly the kind of balance in terms of MPP I'm looking for as well.

[eightroomofelixir]

ORIGINAL: FOARP
In terms of major cities I'm thinking:
Mexico: 1 (Mexico City)
Canada: 1 (Toronto)
USA: 8 (NYC, Philly, Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, San Fran, LA)
CSA: 4 (Richmond, Atlanta, NOLA, Dallas(?))

This city list looks quite convincing. By "major cities" do you mean a city with a more than 10 supply level/Primary Supply status?
Dallas did have a population bigger than Houston in 1900-1920s, Houston's development was a bit later, began around WWI.

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

ORIGINAL: FOARP
In terms of major cities I'm thinking:
Mexico: 1 (Mexico City)
Canada: 1 (Toronto)
USA: 8 (NYC, Philly, Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, San Fran, LA)
CSA: 4 (Richmond, Atlanta, NOLA, Dallas(?))

This city list looks quite convincing. By "major cities" do you mean a city with a more than 10 supply level/Primary Supply status?
Dallas did have a population bigger than Houston in 1900-1920s, Houston's development was a bit later, began around WWI.

Yup, basically the highest-level city the game has that's not a capital.

[FOARP]

Creating the Map part 29 - Mississippi Burning

Hello again. Once again we're in the Deep South, but this time we're visiting the state of Mississippi.

Historically Mississippi lacked much in the way of industry and I don't think that's likely to have been very different in this timeline, so I have not created any actual city-level urban hexes - even the state capital of Jackson only had a historical population of roughly 21,000 people in 1910-20, so even if you assume it had double the population in TL-191 it still wouldn't make the cut for city-hex (very, very roughly 100,000 people). Nor were there much in the way of mines in Mississippi historically so I have not included these either.

What does make Mississippi important is it is home to important logistical links between the eastern and western CSA across the Mississippi river. I have only been able to find examples of one bridge that was constructed historically across the lower Mississippi before 1895 - the Frisco Bridge which was built in the city of Memphis Tennessee in 1892. I think we can safely assume that in this timeline all of the other bridges over the lower Mississippi built historically by 1941 would have been built much earlier, so this means that the wide Mississippi is also bridged in this scenario at Greenville, Vicksburg, Natchez, Baton Rouge, and just outside New Orleans.

Some scenarios (I'm thinking particularly of BNC's US Civil War scenario) make the Mississippi navigable by naval warship along all or part of its length. This probably makes sense for a scenario based in the 1860s when warship were relatively shallow-draft, but as far as I have been able to confirm the Mississippi river is not navigable by modern ocean-going ships much further north than Baton Rouge - so I am not going to make the Mississippi navigable to warships because it would be ahistorical to get dreadnoughts showing up at Paducah, KY. I'll admit it would be good to make it hard or even impossible to cross the Mississippi uncrossable along a lot of its length but doing so would require giving over a lot of the map to wide ocean hexes deep in land.

Please feel free to comment on these design choices or anything else that comes to mind.

[eightroomofelixir]

As usual, some thoughts on Mississippi (the state):

1. Corinth, Mississippi served as a important a junction of the Mobile & Ohio and Memphis & Charleston railroads. It was nicknamed "Crossroads of the Confederacy" and witnessed two major battles in IRL Civil War. The problem with Corinth is that, much like Harpers Ferry, it's strategically important, but the town itself is really, really small. I think you can draw the railways (Chattanooga-Corinth-Memphis, and Corinth-Meridian-Mobile), and replace Tishomingo with Corinth - the two towns are very close, and Corinth is much larger and more important compare to Tishomingo (Tishomingo's population never exceed 500).

2. New Orleans can have some fortress facing the Gulf as naval defense.

3. Vicksburg was crucial during IRL Civil War as the Gibraltar of the Mississippi. However, in 1876, the Mississippi River had a major flood and changed its route, bypassing the Vicksburg. The city lost its strategic position on the river and fell into stagnation for a time. You can see that Vicksburg is at a small inlet/Yazoo River of Mississippi, rather than on its main course, on Google Maps. As far as I can tell, not even an independent South can prevent a major natural disaster; the in-game unnavigable nature of Mississippi also reduced the strategic importance of the town. I would suggest that change Vicksburg into a normal small city, and if lower Mississippi River needs a fortress, puts it at the Arkansas Post; or at least make it a smaller fortified town.

4. In terms of an unnavigable Mississippi, I wonder how to make the crossing of Mississippi harder in-game; crossing a river hex is much easier than crossing a sea hex. If I remember correctly, in WaW, the Yangtze River and Yellow River in China are very hard to cross, as the rivers are flanked by mountains and marshes, which will take lots of action points. Would it be possible to adjust Mississippi in this way, flanking it with hard-to-cross terrain features?
(Forest, marsh, hill, bush, and bocage all take 1 action point; lake and jungle take 2 points.)

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

As usual, some thoughts on Mississippi (the state):

1. Corinth, Mississippi served as a important a junction of the Mobile & Ohio and Memphis & Charleston railroads. It was nicknamed "Crossroads of the Confederacy" and witnessed two major battles in IRL Civil War. The problem with Corinth is that, much like Harpers Ferry, it's strategically important, but the town itself is really, really small. I think you can draw the railways (Chattanooga-Corinth-Memphis, and Corinth-Meridian-Mobile), and replace Tishomingo with Corinth - the two towns are very close, and Corinth is much larger and more important compare to Tishomingo (Tishomingo's population never exceed 500).

2. New Orleans can have some fortress facing the Gulf as naval defense.

3. Vicksburg was crucial during IRL Civil War as the Gibraltar of the Mississippi. However, in 1876, the Mississippi River had a major flood and changed its route, bypassing the Vicksburg. The city lost its strategic position on the river and fell into stagnation for a time. You can see that Vicksburg is at a small inlet/Yazoo River of Mississippi, rather than on its main course, on Google Maps. As far as I can tell, not even an independent South can prevent a major natural disaster; the in-game unnavigable nature of Mississippi also reduced the strategic importance of the town. I would suggest that change Vicksburg into a normal small city, and if lower Mississippi River needs a fortress, puts it at the Arkansas Post; or at least make it a smaller fortified town.

4. In terms of an unnavigable Mississippi, I wonder how to make the crossing of Mississippi harder in-game; crossing a river hex is much easier than crossing a sea hex. If I remember correctly, in WaW, the Yangtze River and Yellow River in China are very hard to cross, as the rivers are flanked by mountains and marshes, which will take lots of action points. Would it be possible to adjust Mississippi in this way, flanking it with hard-to-cross terrain features?
(Forest, marsh, hill, bush, and bocage all take 1 action point; lake and jungle take 2 points.)

1. Cards on the table: I have a bad habit of putting in stuff that I've heard songs about, and "Tishomingo Blues" is a song I've heard (I also read the book by the same title). You're right, Corinth is probably a better choice. One thing that's weird from a European perspective is seeing places in the US that have become depopulated or not grown at all since the 19th Century, which seems to have happened to a lot of eastern towns, in Europe people tend to be more tied down to specific locations and less mobile, so you rarely see actual depopulation.

2. Done.

3. Hadn't known about the flood, will think about changing it to a town - mostly I just had it as a fortified town because I'd heard of the battle there.

4. Yeah, I wish there was a river-level one-up from "Major River" that was even harder to cross, but applying Bocage/Marsh terrain along and besides the lower Mississippi will have to do for now.

ETA: one of the things I really love about this particular map-build is learning all the geography and history of North America whilst doing it. I spend half my time just with wiki and Google Earth open trying to see whether town X existed in 1914 and what it was called.

[Bufo]

Hey chief, just made a profile here to tell you that this mod looks amazing. Big fan of the idea presented in the books of NA trench warfare.

That being said I wanted to inquire on if the Confederates would receive their own true emblem. Seems like the other notable factions get snappy roundels/icons while they just get the flag. I had an example I wanted to post but sadly my account is too new

I'll be very excited to see what Michigan is looking like in this mod, the proximity to Canada might give my home state some trouble...

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: Bufo

Hey chief, just made a profile here to tell you that this mod looks amazing. Big fan of the idea presented in the books of NA trench warfare.

That being said I wanted to inquire on if the Confederates would receive their own true emblem. Seems like the other notable factions get snappy roundels/icons while they just get the flag. I had an example I wanted to post but sadly my account is too new

I'll be very excited to see what Michigan is looking like in this mod, the proximity to Canada might give my home state some trouble...

Thanks for logging in to give your feedback. My plan is Louisiana next, then Texas, and then to the Great Lakes region including, of course, Michigan. I'm hoping to have the map finished before the end of August, but don't hold me to it!

I've gone with the CSA battle-flag for the roundel. Whilst this is a controversial emblem given its links to racism, I trust that people will see here that it is being used in a (alternate-)historical context and not to promote any particular idea. I did consider using the CSA national flag (AKA "the Stars and Bars") instead, but there were a number of different versions of this, and the historical way they dealt with the increasing number of CSA states in these flags was simply to add more stars into a ring, which I'm not sure would have worked for a CSA with 15 states. There was never any historical CSA roundel created.

[eightroomofelixir]

ORIGINAL: FOARP
I've gone with the CSA battle-flag for the roundel. Whilst this is a controversial emblem given its links to racism, I trust that people will see here that it is being used in a (alternate-)historical context and not to promote any particular idea. I did consider using the CSA national flag (AKA "the Stars and Bars") instead, but there were a number of different versions of this, and the historical way they dealt with the increasing number of CSA states in these flags was simply to add more stars into a ring, which I'm not sure would have worked for a CSA with 15 states. There was never any historical CSA roundel created.

The cover arts of the novels basically used CSA battle-flag to represent CSA, especially after Freedom Party rose to power; they used Southern Cross as the party symbol. However, on the cover of The Victorious Opposition, the Southern Cross has more than 13 stars: the two lower legs of the Cross have 4 stars each, making the total number of stars 15. The novels also refer the 1914-1917 CSA national flag as the "Stars and Bars" and a "sixteen-star banner" (counting Sequoya as a state).
So it seems that the TL-191's CSA still continued the practice of adding more stars into the ring of the Stars and Bars, and did have a 16-star Stars and Bars as the national flag. Moreover, the War of Secession in TL-191 ended in Fall 1862, before the IRL replacement of Stars and Bars introduced in Summer 1863.

[FOARP]

ORIGINAL: eightroomofelixir

ORIGINAL: FOARP
I've gone with the CSA battle-flag for the roundel. Whilst this is a controversial emblem given its links to racism, I trust that people will see here that it is being used in a (alternate-)historical context and not to promote any particular idea. I did consider using the CSA national flag (AKA "the Stars and Bars") instead, but there were a number of different versions of this, and the historical way they dealt with the increasing number of CSA states in these flags was simply to add more stars into a ring, which I'm not sure would have worked for a CSA with 15 states. There was never any historical CSA roundel created.

The cover arts of the novels basically used CSA battle-flag to represent CSA, especially after Freedom Party rose to power; they used Southern Cross as the party symbol. However, on the cover of The Victorious Opposition, the Southern Cross has more than 13 stars: the two lower legs of the Cross have 4 stars each, making the total number of stars 15. The novels also refer the 1914-1917 CSA national flag as the "Stars and Bars" and a "sixteen-star banner" (counting Sequoya as a state).
So it seems that the TL-191's CSA still continued the practice of adding more stars into the ring of the Stars and Bars, and did have a 16-star Stars and Bars as the national flag. Moreover, the War of Secession in TL-191 ended in Fall 1862, before the IRL replacement of Stars and Bars introduced in Summer 1863.

There's also the very small image-sizes of flags used in-game to contend with. The roundels are about 12x12 pixels, for example, so it is very difficult to include a meaningful Stars-and-Bars. Meanwhile the Confederate Battle Flag, being essentially a St. Andrew's Cross or Saltire, is much easier to portray in-game. I need to be convinced on this.

[eightroomofelixir]

ORIGINAL: FOARP
There's also the very small image-sizes of flags used in-game to contend with. The roundels are about 12x12 pixels, for example, so it is very difficult to include a meaningful Stars-and-Bars. Meanwhile the Confederate Battle Flag, being essentially a St. Andrew's Cross or Saltire, is much easier to portray in-game. I need to be convinced on this.

Certainly. A cross is more visible on a small pixel roundel.