trees trees
Posts: 125
Joined: 6/6/2006 From: Manistee, MI Status: offline
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please don't forget 'wifzen' when working on the maps. Looking at the geologic map in French, it appears that Tiflis/Tbilisi was placed where it was in WiF because it sits in a valley carrying a river and a rail line. So it could be taken from either direction from within the valley, and has to be placed in a 'clear' hex (note just where the city-dot is placed in that hex). The other alternative, placing it a bit more west or south, would put it in a mountain hex, but clearly any defense of the city shouldn't be doubled. If you want to hold the place you have to come down out of the hills where you would much rather place your forces. so what I'm getting at it is, perhaps the game should be called World in Flex. The unit scale is flexible, no one knows what a 'build point' really is, and the map has to be like this in places. The whole valley from Batum to Tiflis may not be as wide as a WiF hex, but you have to have a line of clear hexes to represent it. but note doing this for the Tiflis<>Baku valley wipes out the possibility of representing the coastal plain along the west shore of the Caspian, which you could probably advance along without attacking mountains. and please don't add any cities, anywhere. they are the most powerful hexes in the game. population in a hex is not the issue, the functions of a city in WiF is. Yerevan may have had a population similar to, I don't know, Metz (complete random guess), during WWII, but that doesn't mean they would have the same impact on military operations. In WiF Persia will never be quite the walk-over it was historically for the Allies. It is an obscure part of WWII. Despite no great love for the Russians or the British, the two powers walked in against 120,000 men (probably not all mobilized) in the Persian military which didn't fight. ("There was little fighting and few casualties." reads the only reference I have.) I'm not really sure why. Perhaps because it was a joint Anglo-Soviet operation; if only one power had tried it the Persians may have resisted, so I think WiF does okay here. Historically, in WiF it would go like this: J/A '41 CW DoW Persia (only -3 US Entry, much better), Persia aligns to Germany, Russians walk next to Teheran and roll a '20' (the Persians could've reacted differently, no one knew ahead of time). In your average game though things can be much different if Tojo takes an interest. On this new map Russia can still get a simple relatively low-risk attack with Siberians, Cavalry, and bombers. In my National Geographic atlas of the world it looks like you can approach Teheran without crossing mountain ranges, so putting it in a clear hex seems OK, though I vaguely recall descriptions of it sitting in a valley surrounded by hills. (I don't think Russian strength depends on taking Persia though). But if the Japanese are already in East Africa, they might make it to Teheran ahead of the Russians, unless some Paratroopers go in too. I think you may be on to something with the idea of shifting the map a little bit on the north-south axis. i.e. if you could pull the hexagonal overlay down to the south a little bit. This would help make Basra a non-coastal hex, for example. I don't know what you can do with Google Earth or similar programs, but if there was any way to look at a sattelite photo of this region _at the same scale_ as euro WiF, and then drop a hex-grid overlay on top, I'm sure mapping would be much easier. In the meantime, keep up the good work.
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