Axis and Allies: my redesign for the standard Global 1940 map

[Black Elk]

I still wish someone at Renegade or Beamdog would give me that job! lol

Anyhow, figured there might be some interest/crossover here....

I redesigned all the contours to make a World Map projection that I found more appealing than OOB, while still preserving the same territory tile connections and most of the playscale abstractions. That's a tripleA mock up in raster and tuned for that so it'd work there, hence the painted-on colors/palette tint conventions, fonts available etc. That all keys off the oldscool tripleA throwbacks there, but I'm working on a physical version/vector to print at a higher rez, cleaned up for that purpose, face to face. Once the new rig gets here!

My goal is to create a magneto board like Cyanight's but which can stack on top of itself as a tower with pylons at the corners. The idea being rigid panels which can stack vertically in layers on raisers, for storage and display, with the pieces set and ready to go! Rather than a massive vinyl mat or folding cardboard, this would be sectional, so that each panel (say A2 or thereabouts) can be moved separately when set. You know, so you don't need a 6 ft backing, or have to carry the whole table if you just wanted to say, move it from the living room to another room, or to your bookshelf.



That's the idea at any rate. Pet project. But thought I'd show off the digi draft just to to see how I'd do the contours and TT boundaries and such.




Here is it is at 11110px

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

Ps. Meant to stick this in Fan Creation, but since I goofed there, something more for discussion...

In case anyone didn't catch the news, Renegade is adapting the A&A ruleset for the GI Joe brand...!

Renegade Game Studios Unveils G.I. JOE Game Powered by the Axis & Allies Game Engine! - HissTank.com

Renegade Game Studios Unveils Transformers Robo Rally and a G.I. JOE Game Powered by the Axis & Allies Game Engine! “Renegade presents two new games with a fusion of classic gameplay and iconic characters!” San Diego, CA – August 4, 2023 – Renegade Game Studios is thrilled to announce G.I. JOE...

news.hisstank.com

They announced it at Comic Con SD a couple days ago. I think it's a pretty good match. The game map there is supposed to be set on the Arctic, which sounds pretty cool! I also think there is room for a more narrative RP type element in these games, which perhaps this marriage of brands may help to bring out. My other big idea lately is to for an agent type unit. I think it's important that the game feature at least one sculpt that is recognizably a gal. While GI Joe has the Baroness and Jaye, Axis and Allies still lacks this, which is a bit conspicuous, especially these days. Idea would be to make an all purpose Agent unit who can capture that via the shadow war, officer staff, resistance and espionage aspect, which is missing from the A&A game currently. They could also do some stuff in the cover art and within the game manuals for that stuff as well, which would be nice to see. But I'd start by introducing a sculpt to the WW2 1940s era A&A games, cause new sculpts are always fun! To me this would be more interesting than another tank or artillery type, which while great, we've sort of seen all those before. HBG already has custom sculpts for just about everything there in terms of heavy equipment or tech advances and such. I'd rather see some new stuff for the Infantry figures, the actual plastic army men as it were, with elites or commanders or spies. That sort of thing, just cause we haven't seen that done before in an A&A game. Anyhow, look forward to seeing what they cook up there!

 

[Jasper]

Hello Black Elk,

Your image of the global 1940 Axis and Allies game board shows great!
As another Axis and Allies enthousiast, looking for more accuracy I seriously consider to use your map.
However, as I do not own advanced image manipulation software, I am forced to copy paste in paint ;0(, I was wondering if you can change above file with a few minor updates wished by me:

1: remove the (by accident) placed black words at South-East Mexico: UHD WORLD WAR II ROUND 1
2: Split French Indo China in 2. Both areas are worth 1 point and a suggested name for the new nothern part is Tonkin (like Historically happened during WW2).
3: Add a Convoy marker in sea area 91 (Hot spot for mediteranean convoy hunting by U-boats)
4: Place the area name Azores in area 91 upper left Isles. (Was (seriously) planned to be annexed for anti-U-boat warfare by America)
4a: Consider moving the Azores to sea area 90 or 103 (to make anti U-boat plane base more valid)
5: Reduce sea areas 95, so Sicily is bordering to sea areas 95, 96 (and 97 if need be). (to make Landing on Sicily logic and give Fliegerkorps X a good base)
6: Reduce sea area 99, so both Crete and Cyprus are bordering sea areas 99 and 98. (to make Historical occurences more likely)
7: Add the Port icon at the Skaggerak in sea zone 113 and Istanbul in sea zone 99/100 (are also locked sea lanes according to the core rules of A&A)
8: Rename Yakut S.S.R. Into Simply Yakut (is the only S.S.R. name left (most where S.S.R. but name is less attractive to me as the are left out elsewhere)
9: Create a Separate Kuril Islands in Separate Sea zone (with Southern Sachalin combined if need be) (to reflect post war borders after land grab by USSR).
10: Divide Sea Zone 6 into an inner sea zone (sea of Japan) and an outer sea zone (Pacific Ocean) both with convoy marker. (to make Sea of Japan sea traffic more safe.)
11: Add a Convoy marker in sea area 5 (one of the Lend lease routes went via sea area 5).
12: Change colour of Canada areas to Anzac Grey.
13: Put names at the Victory cities.
14: Put names at the new areas underneath Saudi Arabia: Aden Protectorate and Muscat & Oman.
15: Put a name for the Spanish Marocco area (with this and above change all non-isle areas are named).
16: Place the Burma road on the map (and the Siberean Railroad) out of nostalgia.

and a only if you feel like it:
17: centre all names in their land areas. (I understand the moving to increase readability while units are placed, but centered results in a leaner map.)


Hope you can (partially) do the above and post the updated file here. Of course only if it is not much work for you.

Thank you very much in advance. I would be even more greatful.

 

[Black Elk]

Oh right on! I had forgotten about this thread hehe. I like the suggestions. I still think a G40 riff that has Canada would be cool!

For the image on that one it's sorta jank cause tripleA has some limitations. I basically pawned it off on Billy and told him to have fun doing the labels and unit place, then just kinda spaced out down a BG3 rabbit for a year lol.

The current I think he got it up in the downloaded maps though, so like to change the baseline around and add new tiles or sea zones, or to tweak the unit place or stuff to tool around with mods or HRs. Inside tripleA you can export gameboard image without any units to get something that might be passing for an upscale like to print out maybe, but I've never actually attempted it. I think easiest way would be to grab the baseline image that just shows the border boundaries then enlarge in inkscape or something to get a vector or clean it up. The regular one analogous to G40 is called UHD World War II Global, but should work with the balanced mod or Oztea's Global 42 or anything that can play off the standard map. I dig tripleA despite it's oldschool vibes, just cause it's like the one way short of cardboard and markers to actually make map changes and test em out quickly heheh. Anyhow here's the reg for the last build I had. Probably could use some work like for the labels and the like, I think for the units his goal was just to get the overflows looking alright when they units starting stacking to the ceiling as they tend to do, but I haven't played it in a hot minute.



For a quick skin to redraw the lines and do some switcheroos I did a simple HEX color one too. Can't remember if it got added in or not, but might be simpler for redrafts just cause there's less business in the pattern fill. I think I just used whatever was in GIMP, like the basic marble one that pops up at the top so it'd be easy to remember. Then one that looked sorta more like Revised, like with the dark oceans. I gotta put em all together somewhere, that part of my drive is total chaos lately!

In the tripleA 2.6 pre-release it has map scaling up to 200% built in now. Gives a little bit of fuzz though on the super zoom. I did at like 4 times the height roughly, but I think it's still too tiny to really be print friendly. Has the frostion unit set tinted to national colors by default, at like 125% unit view for graphics at 54 px tall, but it can use also use the normal units at 48px. Anyhow, here's the stripped down look. I just thought it'd be good to have one where it's real easy to change the national colors via the HEX codes. For the ocean colors and the units have to tint those manually, but it can be pretty much whatever color scheme. The neon lights at vegas version is pretty high saturation there, for my own I usually tweak some things. Also got a NOVA looking version where it used the post-it color scheme with that sort of look, which I thought beamdog really executed nicely! I wish there was a way to get dynamic unit scaling going on, you know like with the cool zoom out into silhouette like A&AO style, but I have no clue if it's even possible in something like tripleA. The actual code for that one is like a black box mystery for me lol.





I like the ideas proposed! Next time I take a crack at it I'll try to pull those off. Shouldn't be too hard I don't think. The baseline is the tricky one to get sorted, just trying to make all the black lines at 1px so the program would work right, but once that's sorta in place the minor tweaks I think would be easier to try out different stuff. Good times! Happy rollin'

I'm excited for the new North Africa board and GI Joe A&A crossover, still haven't got mine yet, but looking forward to it! I also like the idea of a gameboard that can sorta harmonize with the post war look as well, just cause that's always a fun concept like where it just keeps going into the 1950s or something. I think Axis and Allies and Aliens would be a winner too, with like UFO's crash landing during the endgame and crazy tech unlocks X files style heheh

 

[Jasper]

Hi Black Elk,

So it is the good old Triple A. I remembered playing it years and years ago. The AI was crap and I still see that a game in Triple A is more like hack and slash than a WW2 simulation. Nevertheless you helped me a lot. I will try to adjust the map in the Triple A map maker section, as far as possible of course. And I then can take a screenshot, print it and use it for a good old fashioned board game of Axis and Allies.

Thanks a lot!

P.S. your wish for female spies has partly been fulfilled. At HBG you can buy a French female resistance sculpt, if you wish.

 

[Black Elk]

Hell yeah! She even has like the full on magazine and everything... Love it!



I must have slept on that pair for sure. Hiding in plain sight ~ the HBG French expansion sets ~ Of course! Makes total sense hehe. I swear I recall Tall Paul floating the idea like a decade ago, but I didn't know they actually made the sculpts! Looks pretty damn cool to me. Good call!

I'm an abiding peacenik IRL, but I also got this megalomaniacal armchair general streak in me (like a late 1970s Bridge too Far angle, maybe technicolor), where I just want to see Rita Hayworth win WW2 and save us all from the Martian endgame, via the power of dance!



Sure, some may say 'You'll never get rich' with sculpts at 99 cents, but I just ordered 5, so high 5 lets go!

Oh no doubt, the tripleAI computer player can be pretty rough. I miss Redrum, cause he had things humming there for a while on that front, but the computer player still doesn't grasp basic stuff like the actual victory conditions, or multi-turn attack/defense stuff that's pretty essential. It's surprisingly pretty decent at the airblitz, but then it falters at sea all the time, so I feel like games vs the computer sorta hinge on just ruining the IJN early or going all ham on the water, or doing some sorta crazy air umbrella with bombers to close down all those lanes.

I'm sorta the same with that feeling on the hack and slash, or like where we sorta know how opener and the likely mid to endgame will tend to look for the standard fair. I haven't played online in a while, but from the snapshots you can sorta catch the vibe for the smaller boards similar to classic, where Japan is like all up in Siberia with a quickness, or else it's a cat and mouse slogfest into the Pacific while the Soviets are just trying to hold on by their finger nails. Or like the battle for Suez and the Eastern front, but where it's Japan vs the Anglo-Americans alternate WW2 dimension heheh. TheDog had a cool idea though to use invisible hidden/secondary capitals that don't have the cash grab thing going like usual, but where the computer will still target and sometimes prioritize those tiles in tripleA. Like if they have VCs say, to use that as a workaround. Otherwise though I think it mostly just does Total Unit Value calculations and bangs from there. He used it for the Global Command Decision 1941 idea, but that game is pretty far from A&A, so it's kinda hard for me to parse honestly. I think the FastAI computer player is better than the HardAI in a lot of instances, cause it will just recklessly advance sometimes to keep things interesting, or just to give the computer like an absurdly large bid or recurring income bonus to overcome it's deficiencies just through sheer weight of numbers hehe. Alas I don't think anyone has worked on the computer player stuff in a long ass time though, like at least a few years now.

No prob! And for sure! Also feel free to go to town with it however you like, I'm not precious at all with those tripleA maps. The current one was just sorta trying to spec out something jumbo for G40 cause Bill kept wishing for it, so I just used the colors he liked most for that one. For my own thing, I tend to like something that I can make feel like Iron Blitz from 1999, just a bit more subdued and maybe using the chunky unit graphics from back in the day. I think I made like a couple dozen riffs for 1940 like 'how bout this then?' but he seemed to really enjoy my first draft with the super loud color palette, so I just went for it lol. Pretty sure I put a couple of the WIPs up at one point though, in that maps and mods section, that had a thicker border with some blur and antialiasing. Might be easier to adjust if using like a 3px or 5px borderline to get rid of some of the chop there like for a dotmap or something that upscales a bit better for cardboard and paper TT glory!

I swear, whenever a new A&A board comes out, I like to dig out my mad science trunk, which is mostly just old boards or stuff I swooped on the cheap cause maybe it had missing pieces or a dent in the box or whatever, cause then I don't care as much if I need to like exacto map panels apart to explore alternative storage solutions lol. I'm precious with Classic and maybe for Revised, but all the newer topo maps I will just shamelessly attack with markers and tape if I have to. For sculpts, I adopted a different method around 10 years ago, where now I keep all units housed in boxes by unit type rather than by nation/color. For me it makes fishing for units much faster and the set up/take down a lot simpler. Visually somewhat frenetic, but practical. Mainly though I just have too much stuff these days, like mostly they live under the bed or the garage, in poster tubes or that huge trunk, so for me tripleA is just sorta expedient. Otherwise I don't know. I think I'd need some sort of basement for a proper war room, but those don't exist where I live, so we make do with the digital thing. Nothing beats the haptics of holding something real in hand though.

These are my favorite reference atlases from highschool... I like to keep em with my junk kit for winding down memory lane heheh.



Anyhow, good stuff! Always fun to randomly catch another A&A player out there in the wild. It's like my fav when that happens!
Have a blast! Rock and roll, and I'll catch ya next round!

Elk

 

[Jasper]

Hi Black Elk,

It took a while, but I recreated your map to my liking. Most wishes are implemented and a few I omitted because on second hand I thought it would be better not to change it. I learned some locations of the more exotic islands as well, along the way. ;0)

Thank you for creating this map. It was a great stepping stone to create my personal tabletop board for A&A from it.