Hey Tom, I love the posts where you whine about personal attacks that never occured in the same paragraph that you make personal attacks, and then proceed to cite examples proving that it is you afflicted with the very insults that you throw. That's classy and entertaining.
I did read what was said. Nobody asked for eight lanes. I saw you made an arbitrary comment that the present sealanes needed to be reduced, stating zero examples as to why. No one asked for eight lanes, but you suggested so because you cannot conduct an honest discussion on this based on any real game specifics. So in that vein in order to counter your baseless request for a reduction of lanes, we now should need to ask to boost the lanes so that a compromise can be found to keep the lanes at four, which oh by the way actually works. Yes, you brought up eight lanes, Tom. From your post on December 31: "If what [he] says above is true, then why not add more? Why stop at 4 spaces and instead add another 4?" The last time I checked 4+4 was 8, but I'm not good at common core math. In any case I did not ask for eight lanes. I specifically said that the four as designed was working just right. You equated this with your typical hyperbole and misrepresentation as me asking for eight lanes. You were asked repeatedly to demonstrate why four lanes as is does not work, and you cannot do this. It does work, and it is working now.
When prompted for the Nth time to cite an example you pointed to the present test game's action in the Indian Ocean (without a single reason why what was there was bad). All other feedback on this has been positive. The Indian Ocean, which is far from a leaking sieve, is still extremely defensible, just as the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans are. We've seen varied approaches to the oceans as well, with peaceful behavior, all out attacks, and determined defenses. All of the actions are very interesting, and have altered the typical continental bunker style play of this map. The recent retreat by Egypt form Wst CIO to Est CIO demonstrates the heavily complex attack and defense concepts that exist for nations at sea. Looking at the concentrated attacks, tenacious defenses, and wild retreats in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, the sealanes have done everything that they set out to do.
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Opening the Arctic Ocean would be an improvement. That impassable space alone is a huge contributor to the clustered map. I'm surprised but relieved not to hear the realistic argument coming into use here. The game variant is set in 100 years, and if all the global warming freaks are to be believe the global temperature will rise, say what, another 1 degree Fahrenheit? Surely that will melt the oceans, right Greenpeacers? And if not we can just assume that naval technology has sorted out icebreaking sufficiently to allowed of battleships and carriers to pass throw the seas. In any case, it's a great addition for map playability.
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I am ambivalent on the Great Lakes. Ideally I'd like to sea it fixed to allow for this, but to do so properly would require a significant map redraw, and would take some hard work and study to assure that the present balance between area powers is kept in place. What I really like about the idea is Illinois now has increased options and negotiation points during the initial build phase. A fleet build in Chicago might be see as dangerous by both the USA and Quebec, but nobody knows to which one. It also allows for a differing dynamic between Illinois and Texas, California, and Canada. Is it really needed? I don't have enough play with these nations to say that it is. I think the concept is a great one, but it's made complicated with the present nation roster. If this game were a chaos game, it would be really cool to see all that naval action across the Great Lakes.
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I remain concerned about the land lanes being adjacent to coastal territories. My fear is that this will only serve to return us to the continental gridlock that we had before adding the sealanes. The problems with WW4 as a SC based victory map began when players realized that the continents could be very easily protected from all the oceans because of the imbalance of coastal adjacencies from seas spaces. A lanelane space adjacent to a coastal space now provide for an additional two inland defensive support positions that cannot be broken from the sea spaces, which effectively removes all unclogging benefits of the sealanes, other than to provide for interesting sea battles.
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I agree with the above (Anon) comment that island space sealanes should be candidates for reduction. They should probably not include more than two sealanes. I would go so far as to suggest removing all sealanes from island chain spaces, but I feel the further game testing will provide better direction on that.
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Finally, I'd really like to see 2-3 more test games on the present sealanes map to help cement some of these discussions and gather some better player feedback from multiple experiences. Following that I would say that in watching the two test games underway, it's my feeling that the 2 day and 3 day turns are too slow for test game, especially the 3 day phase game. Too much time between turns equates to too much lost focus and too many NMRs. While it's good to judge how the diplomacy between nations is affected, it's also good to get some raw tactical options explored. The second game is a 3 day phase gunboat game, which is just a bad combination set up. Also for test games like this, it would be nice if players would ready up retreats, and builds to speed them along.
Maybe we can try a few non-rated, no points bet games at a fast pace to get some real exploration on map features?
1936 Variant: Tournament Invitation
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