In WWIV 6.2 (no connection to Madagascar)
Australia went for DIE
3 times out of 9 games
Australia went for REU
1 time out of 9 games
(fair enough there is another SC in 6.2 KRG that was gone for 5 times out of 9 games)

in WWIV orig
Australia went for DIE
4 times out of 49
Australia went for REU
13 times out of 49
Australia went for MAD
1 time out of 49

In the WWIV Sealanes games:
Australia has gone for REU 1 out of 2 games and has ignored DIE and MAD so far.

You do not want to split CIO in half and make Australia further away from Africa. Conflict should be encouraged rather than discouraged. When designing a map of any kind, sea lanes or not, conflict is key. We want maximum conflict in as many areas as possible. Insulating Australia is not a wise decision.

And reasons for reducing the number of lanes have been given, too many make for increasingly difficult defense as has also been pointed out. Defense may very well have been too easy to establish in the standard game, sea lanes were introduced as a way to lessen that defense. Great! But it seems this idea went too far in some areas. That's not to say the sea lanes are a failure, far from it, I can see how they can help in many ways in many areas, but more is not always better and defense is not a bad word in this game, to ignore defense and yes, even stalemate lines is a bad idea as well! Stalemate lines should not be simple to set up but they should not be nearly impossible either, with 4 sea lanes per Ocean space, we have taken that step too far. If (as some argue) they work just fine, then why not add another 3 or 4 sea lanes to spaces, make some Ocean spaces contain 10 lanes!? Obviously we get to a point where we have too many, 4 seems to be that point and it is playing out rather poorly in the first game in the Indian Ocean. To the "casual observer" it looks pretty intense and fun, yet it is not working too well for those involved and has even caused the game to shift to a too heavy fleet game at that and as such is affecting all aspects of the game in odd ways. (for example, alliances are much tighter now because they are forced to be so, Land wars are less intense than they used to be as well, everyone is too focused on the oceans as things now stand) Reign it in a tad. Yes, apply the lanes evenly throughout, this means adding lanes in some areas but it also requires dropping them back in others as well for a much more well balanced approach.

a bit more clarification on Hirnsaege and my disagreement, we are actually more aligned than I made it sound. We do not want to split the CIO because of the reasons I had mentioned. It would tend to insulate Australia and make Africa's Indian Ocean front more secure. It would decrease conflict, etc.
HOWEVER, he is correct about Indonesian area fleets should not be able to affect things vs Africa. By keeping the current wide ocean space but reducing the lanes to say 3, we make this Indonesian assistance still possible but much less likely for two reasons. One is simple math, fewer spaces make it less likely but also, the fewer spaces make it so taking the more critical space makes using it on the closer home front all the more likely as well. Or if it helps that player push into the African area conflict, that's cool as well! In fact, the whole "critical space" is important, if we have too many spaces, the critical areas are a whole lot less-so and that sure seems to be the case as we now have it with 4 lanes. Conflict is good, and critical spaces actually increase conflict not the other way around, let's not devalue things so much as we are doing by adding far too many sea lanes.

I like the split of central Indian ocean!

It may sound nice, but tactically it's a bad idea! If you split it, you insulate Australia from Africa, Oz has fewer options. Africa has an easier time of assured centers, the two are less likely to contest the Indian Ocean and Africa can now concentrate in another direction while even Australia with less options is forced to exapnd in another direction... fewer options and a predetermined course, all terrible game dynamics to incorporate!.

I think the first rev was split (I need to check old files on a decrepit computer) but I say "I think" because it was one of the earliest changes made, it was so obvious that the two continents needed to be closer. Trust me, splitting the two is not just a bad idea, it's a stupid idea!

Why would you wish to reduce conflict?

I just looked at the drawing idea and it's not as bad as i first thought, it still allows Oz to go for reunion. However, while not as bad, it still limits things, lessens conflict and reduces Oz/India/Kenya interaction as well. Plus the drawing gave the western half of the split three lanes, I would add three to the eastern split as well. If you added the Kerguleon Islands as has been added to the most recent WW4 rev, that could possibly work as you now have two centers to draw Australia's attention, otherwise this is a slam dunk for Africa and as a result is a poor idea.

What is gained splitting CIO? What is the driving reason for this in terms of game mechanics? CIO has never been an issue in the past of clogging the map up. It's always been a very exciting, dynamic ocean space because it has numerous adjacencies, and influence That's a good thing. All Diplomacy games need these spaces. This call seems to be based in a personal visual preference as opposed to any game-specific reason. Austria is neither unduly victimized or advantaged by CIO as it is. There are many areas of the map that need tinkering with. this is just not one of them. Splitting the space into two zones with reduced numbers or sealanes does not open the map up. It rather shuts it down, and further insulates Africa from sea based attacks. The whole reason for looking at sealanes in the first place was to open the map up from the continental stalemate lines.

What is gained by reducing the number of sea lanes? Right now we have one half of one test game to examine the effects of sealanes on the WW4 map. What I see is a lot of heavy action on the seas, mainly so because the seas must be controlled to protect the continents. In that respect the experiment has been a huge success. The continents are still defensible, but they are not impossible to attack as they were previously. That is because of the added adjacencies to coastal spaces. Reducing the number of sealanes will tilt the map back to the previous state of continental dependency. In my observations the sealanes concept has given appropriate credence to the strategy significance of the oceans, and the difficulty in attempting to dominate them. Even as some nations press the attacks at sea, we've seen creative use of the retreat maneuver by Egypt and Illinois to mitigate the offensive opportunities offered by the sealanes.

Now having said that I do not particularly like the sealanes added to the island chains. I think that the map should leave them as individual spaces, which emphasizes their importance as supply centers and as pivotal strategic points in the oceans. I have not seen enough from the test game in play to judge definitively, but what I have seen around AZO, DIE, and HI looks like we would be better off without sealanes on the island chains.

The sealanes concept is about providing additional adjacencies to continental coastal spaces to balance the map out. The original design never anticipated 15+ year games, and did not account for this. When we started playing the map with SC driven victory conditions the continental stalemate lines/rings evolved. SO far the test game sealanes have shown that they go a long way towards opening up the map without overreaching in their scope. With a few new ideas like opening up the Arctic Ocean, creating some additional/smaller sealane spaces along the coasts, and looking at similar land lanes in key spaces, this map could truly function as a 50% SC +1 Diplomacy game offering all nations realistic opportunities of expansion. I would strongly recommend starting out small with Landlanes, as in adding only three or less in the first trial. The map itself is very well balanced between the 35 nations, and works well except in a few places such as the deep interior of Asia, and Europe. North America and Africa are a little too clustered, but South America is very dynamic. Converting the Himalayas and Switzerland spaces from impassible zones might even be a better starting point on land lanes.

http://i.imgur.com/K9G4BIr.png

One MAJOR change is the adoption of the 6.2 redesign of southern Africa. Regarding CIO: I've included the changes here for the sake of a visual representation of the changes suggested.

http://i.imgur.com/K9G4BIr.png

___________
Changlog:

VERSION 1.4

Africa altered to be similar to 6.2
CIO split into 2 OZs

__________

VERSION 1.3

Regions added:
NOV

Sealanes added:
Baltic Sea OZ added
WRC
CRC
ERC

Sealanes Altered:
Sealane of DIE changed
Changed SthMSA to connect with BLH
1 SL remove from Falklands

Land regions Altered:
Altered NWT back to it's original *coastal* access
Canal Network around the greatlakes

__________

VERSION 1.2

SeaLanes added:
Sea of Japan
WCB

SeaLanes altered:
Nth. GUB now connects ACA
The axis of Nth & Sth GOP has been altered to connect MED & ECU

LandLanes added:
Urals
Badlands
Llanos
Chapadas

Miscillaneous:
Drew Bosphorus
Drew Suez Canal
Drew Panama Canal
Altered shape of Est. Sahara to be more geographically analogous
Arrows for land bridges added

__________

VERSION 1.1

SeaLanes added:
Hudson Bay
EastCoast USA
Gulf of Mexico
Bay of Biscay
North Sea
Western Medd.
Central Medd.
Eastern Medd.
Caspian Sea
OKH
South China Sea
Java Trench
Timor Sea
Barrents Sea

SeaLanes altered:
Split Nth. ARA into 2 lanes, changed connection from GAD to SOB
Changed Nth.CIO to connect with JVT
Change Nth BOB to connect with Rangoon

Sea regions altered:
BOB (as noted above)
PEG moved to connect BLC not KAR

LandLanes added:
Far north
Rockies
Deep South
West Sahara
East Sahara
Alps
Baltic States
Arabia
Siberia
Karukum Desert
Himalayas
Steppe

Land Regions Altered:
Volga now has a canal

____

http://i.imgur.com/K9G4BIr.png

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