USA Massive Map

[thenoahw]

[IDEA] USA Massive Map

Newest version in post 55

I got bored today and came across this thread:
http://www.majorcommand.com/forums/threads/3538-Classic-Massive-Massive/page2
and decided I would take a swing at something mentioned in the replies; a consolidated-county map of the 48 states. 47 actually because Rhode Island is just so dang small and if kinda got annexed by Connecticut. Anyways. I got a little carried away. And yes I know, this is a VERY busy map. last I counted there were around 190 territories and each region holds around 23 territories.
My thinking would be that you throw in some geographic boundaries like rivers and mountians to break things up some. And as far as commands, I imagined a small bonus for states by themselves (usually between 1 and 3 with the outlier being Texas with 12 territories within, so that would need to be closer to 5 for Texas.) and then a much more impressive bonus for the Region. I imagine not much in the ways of bells and whistles unless the territories with cities like New York, San Francisco, Seattle, St Louis, etc. were auto-deployed a few troops each turn if the state was held.
Just an idea I used to pass the time while stuck in the house today. Any thoughts?

 

[Geoffrey]

I really like the idea of a map as big as the 4th one, though I'd love to see some other places around the world being done-North America and the USA map has already done the states at least!

I really like the idea or region bonuses inside of state bonuses, if that's what you meant! Hopefully we can one day see this map in 'rotation'!

Just a question, is there even larger bonuses for places like new england/the west/dixieland?

 

[thenoahw]

Well the fourth was really to just show where I came up with the seemingly random territories within the states.
I was intending the 2nd map to be the actual playing map, the one with the troop indicators. The others were just there to show how it "evolved" in my mind, more or less.
I was imagining the county clusters as the base territories, the states as the next level (for which you would get a command bonus) and then you would have the similarly colored groups of States which together the player would get a bonus; for each individual State *and* a Region bonus. And I also played with the idea of having a yet larger command bonus for the West, Central, and East as shown on the following map. That largest command may be a little much. I dont know.
So going off of that, you could potentially get a few reinforcements per state. Then about half a dozen for the region so you would get 6 for that and then 2 for each of the say, 5 states within so thats 16 armies right there. Plus I was thinking you could get the "time-zone" bonus for an extra 15-25 armies each.
You could be getting nearly 50 armies per turn. AND THAT'S BEFORE CARDS! Those could be some large armies on the board!

 

[patsfan44]

Try thinking on how you are splitting the states up. As for Tennessee we have three grand divisions. East, West, and Middle. As for California you could split it as the six California's.

You pretty much need to find a logical way of splitting up each state.

 

[Shepherd]

AHH, NO! Most of us Californians HATE the six Californias! It's just a politically motivated scam to create four more Red states, one of which would have an economy based entirely on meth production.

 

[thenoahw]

Well dang Shepherd! A little hostile there.
Anyway, I had looked into splitting up each state by established regions but firstly, this was just for fun and I didn't want to spend time on that right away. I wanted input first. And secondly, I did think that going by state regions would cut down on the territory count. I wanted this to be a truly massive map so I went random. All the same, I can try in the next few days to make one like that so we can all look at it.
But patsfan, I would like to know what you think of the rest of the idea; the graduated command bonuses and geographical dividers. Thanks for the feedback, all of you.

 

[thenoahw]

And some of the divisions were also random because I wanted to make sure that the territories were big enough for a troop indicator which still ended up being a problem in the East

 

[PITMAN212]

cool map

 

[Shepherd]

Well dang Shepherd! A little hostile there.

Sorry, I should have smileyed that post. Let's try again...
The Six Californias initiative makes most of us want to uke:. What are these people are :smokin:?
:laugh:

Beyond that, I applaud the idea of having another massive map here. The keys to making this work will be placement of the impassables (rivers & mountains), and being very careful not to make the northeast the best place to start. We've got a wide-open country with only one corner to hide in - the northwest, southwest, and middle America are hard to defend.

 

[patsfan44]

Meth production works for East Tennessee... jk. But yeah to make this map work we need to work out the impassables first. We might need to add sea regions so the northeast doesn't just become a corner to easily defend as shep said.

 

[thenoahw]

Thanks. I'll look into that. Im about half way through the established state region map that patsfan44 suggested so he should be happy soon. And please, any more advice or critisism or compliments are welcome

 

[thenoahw]

Soooooooooo

Ok, I want to hear more on what patsfan said about "sea regions" around the Northeast and any other tips on geographical barriers and other impassibles. i would love to see this map come to life.
But in other news, I did make that map based on established regions on a state level. Ended up with 184 regions averaging out to be 23 territories per region.

 

[patsfan44]

Impassables are going to be a pain let me ponder on this. Also I will show you what I meant by sea regions.

 

[Cagey]

Not really a fan on single land mass maps - IMO they don't work without lots of impassable barriers. Currently two of your 'commands' - the central blue and orange - have 17 borders. I know the US has the Rockies and other ranges, deserts, lakes and assorted geography, but once you start adding those they'll take up screen-space which will squeeze those little regions even smaller. There's also a scale problem not sure if there's a site limit for map size - currently I think Classic Massive is the biggest at 1000 px across, this is 1235 - how are you planning to name each of those tiny regions in a font size that is readable?

 

[patsfan44]

I don't believe the max pixel size for a map is 1000 pixels across. Not sure but I don't think that is the limit.

 

[thenoahw]

I do believe that the max is 1000 pixels or so. Which I knew would present problems as would the naming like Cagey said.
Still though, I knew the large conjoined landmass and large borders would pose a special challenge (impassibles included). The idea was that the players would be forced to take a long time to play, focusing on the easy to control states at first and build up to the next jump where they could get a break and more reinforcements.
I wanted to make and to see a really hard map to play and I think that if the map makers could pull this one off it would be a lot of fun. We just have to get past and find ways around all the issues and obstacles.

 

[Cagey]

Sorry my post was so negative, but that's how good maps are developed I think - you attack whatever problems you can see until you can't see any. It can be a bit painful for the originator. I'd like to have a new massive map to play and this does show promise.

 

[thenoahw]

Hey, I'm not upset at all; negative input is still input and that what I want. I want to see the problems with my idea or else I can (we can) never try and fix them. If that happens then no one will ever see this map outside of it's little thread here in the forums. If everyone decided they wanted to trash on this thread I can guarantee that eventually I will come up with something that satisfies everyone and myself.

 

[patsfan44]

Can you start to explain how the states are split up. Start giving some possible territory names for each state so I have a better understanding how you split them up.

Also the sea zones were just like north Atlantic seaboard, South Atlantic Seaboard, and Gulf Coast, to alleviate the northeast from being easily held.

 

[thenoahw]

To divide them up I just searched on Google for "regions of _____ map" and decided which one looked usable for the map I was making.
Usually it ended up being geographical regions but I can't very well put "Cascades" and "Red Wood Forests" on a map that small. So the new plan was to use the two-character state initials combined with the relative direction of the area. Such as the territory in Eastern Massachusetts would be named "E MA". This would guarantee no repeats and if you know your state initials, or can get a good idea about what each one is, then it's pretty straightforward as well as compact. I imagine if you expected to play with the territory titles on then it would get even more crowded looking but I know on most, if not all, that's only an option.
Like I said, most states are divided by county lines along geographical borders but the names likely won't reflect that. I will try and get the labeled map up soon but here is the state and region break-up