donagel said:
I am just conjecturing here, but as I recall, the Japaneese advance into India was made possible by the building of new roads. Were their existing "major roads". If not, does that muck up your idea?
Nah, that wouldn't work in the game unless somehow you could unblock a province connection through event. And even if you could do that, it might be taking things a little far.
If there were roads, or the real possibility of building roads within a campaign, then there should be a connection there. What I'm proposing is making it impossible to cut across a rocky, roadless desert when it would be much more realistic to instead move one province over - following a well-establish road - and then attacking that second province from there.
Gormadoc said:
Iam a bit curios about which maps you use as reference. Is it historical maps from that time period or ... ?
Is it possible to get hold of the maps, would perhaps give us an better understanding of why the specific changes are made. Also easier to come with constructive critic/suggestion.
Sofar it all looks very well thought out.
I'm using a collection of atlases from the 1950s-2000, as well as whatever online maps and regional descriptions I can find. I also made a couple of last-minute corrections to the Burma map based on reviewing the Japanese advance there; it seems they were able to cross a couple of connections I had blocked off, but at least the British were as surprised as I at that fact. I'm mostly looking at areas that are out-of-the-way and rugged and seeing where the roads go and how they get there. If, for example, there are no visible roads in the 2000 map, I think it's pretty safe to say that there were no roads in 1940.
For the more habitable or flat areas, like the Central China plains, Eastern Thailand, or northern Kazakhstan, I allowed a lot more leeway as far as the path the roads take. What I'm proposing is making backwoods and deserts more restricting, and to force the player to advance along more historical routes rather than cutting across mountain, jungle, and desert alike, as if he were doing nothing more challenging than cutting across the Ukraine. Broad, sweeping fronts in northern Burma or Tibet just seem a little wrong to me.
HistoryMan said:
I'm rather wary of effectively "eliminating" provinces completely by cutting them off absolutely. Perhaps one way to make some of these places very inaccessible (but still theoretically reachable) is to make the connection "Sea" instead (via province 0, say) - this should slow down any crossing even further, plus it makes any attacks across that boundary rather weaker (since they become Amphibious Assaults).
Even if you only make 1 border of some of those provinces like this, I think it might be sensible to not cut off most places completely.
But the idea looks sound so far, in general terms. Be a bit of a slog testing it to see how it performs, mind you !
Tim
I can understand your concerns about eliminating provinces, as I'm aware of the dangers of going too far with these mods, but from what I can see, making provinces connectable to only one other sounds extremely dangerous, and not that practical. All it would do is serve to get some units trapped if they're defeated in that one bordering province and retreat in the wrong direction. Logically, there would be no sense in retreating to the one isolated province, which would be out of supply and allow no movement whatsoever, but as long as there's a connection, I'd expect them to do that.
The provinces I have cut off are all way, way out of the way or easily circumnavigable, have no significant roads that I can see, and/or ease travel in locations where I feel they shouldn't. With the exception of western Kazakhstan, I don't see how blocking off any of these provinces would adversely affect gameplay. Northern Afghanistan and far northern Burma are not exactly crossroads easily passed, and that desert in northern Iran (Dasht-e Kavir) is even today barely settled and riddled with salt marshes. I imagine that any invasion or supply route would run well around that area.
