Idea for a MA terrain

[oboe]

What would you guys think of an MA terrain based on real-world geography (although not to scale)?   Typically a game designer would make sure each side has identical territories, and we see that a lot in MA terrains.  But they can be very abstract looking.  Do you think anyone would appreciate a more real-world looking terrain, where a player could for example, up heavy bombers in England and fly a mission to bomb Berlin?   Or fight for control of North Africa, and mount an invasion of Italy?

I don't know anything about MA terrain design, and even less about making a terrain, but how do you guys think this terrain might play out?   Would it even work?    Its a 9x9 size terrain, so a bit smaller than the typical 10x10 MA terrain. 
 

[popeye]

I think real-world geography can be made to work for an MA terrain, but it presents challenges.  In your example, the Red/Green and Red/Yellow fronts are much more populated than the Yellow/Green front, and the Strats are not equally accessible to both enemies.  (Also, the center frontline fields are too close according the the MA rules. but that is easily changed.)  You can disregard symmetry, but that creates "orphan corners" where one team has limited or unequal access to fights and captures.

I've used Artik's Makeahmap software to convert real-world geography into MA terrains, using Google Earth to find geography that lends itself to base layout symmetry.  (Northco, Crags, Badlands, and Reefs are examples.  Although some modification of the geography was required -- to adjust coastlines and add islands -- they are mainly based on the real world.)

[JimmyD3]

Kong is correct, I also have used MakeAHmap from Artik, an excellent program btw. At this time I think the more pertinent questions is how many MA maps will Hitech allow. As I recall Kong has several maps already submitted and I have 3. I suspect Hitech is just too busy to review them at this time, hopefully the map reviews will move up on his  ToDo list.

[DmonSlyr]

Kong is correct, I also have used MakeAHmap from Artik, an excellent program btw. At this time I think the more pertinent questions is how many MA maps will Hitech allow. As I recall Kong has several maps already submitted and I have 3. I suspect Hitech is just too busy to review them at this time, hopefully the map reviews will move up on his  ToDo list.

I could think of 5 maps right now that need to go which would be very beneficial and replaced with these new maps would probably create a decent uptick in players, especially on the weekends.

Crater, Buzzsaw, BowlMA, Mindnoa, Smpizza. These maps should be replaced with maps that are more suitable to today's players and #s. I find these maps to always have the lowest #s during off hours and can really hurt #s when on for more than 1 day.

[hitech]

The current map list.
0, 'sfma2016'
1, 'riftval'
2, 'fjordma'
3, 'grinder'
4, 'baltic'
5, 'montis'
6, 'mindnao'
7, 'bowlma'
8, 'smpizza'
9, 'buzzsaw'
10, 'craterma'
11, 'oceania'
13, 'ndisles'
14, 'northco'

HiTech

[JimmyD3]

Hitech, is there a limit to the number of maps in rotation?

[Hajo]

What would you guys think of an MA terrain based on real-world geography (although not to scale)?   Typically a game designer would make sure each side has identical territories, and we see that a lot in MA terrains.  But they can be very abstract looking.  Do you think anyone would appreciate a more real-world looking terrain, where a player could for example, up heavy bombers in England and fly a mission to bomb Berlin?   Or fight for control of North Africa, and mount an invasion of Italy?

I don't know anything about MA terrain design, and even less about making a terrain, but how do you guys think this terrain might play out?   Would it even work?    Its a 9x9 size terrain, so a bit smaller than the typical 10x10 MA terrain. 
 
(Image removed from quote.)

Oboe..........I first saw this post this morning.  And after seeing it, I am now at my keyboard by the way at 5:45PM I like the idea very much.  I like the thought.  The terrains for the three countries would be awesome ( the world divided into 3 Teams.  Deserts, Great Lakes Oceans et.al.)  It would be time consuming to make but not impossible.  Major Rivers could be included with Barges resupplying and the occasional Rail Road.  The possibilities that you have brought up for this terrain are endless. 

Well thought Oboe!

Hajo

[hitech]

Hitech, is there a limit to the number of maps in rotation?

No

[Mongoose]

Don't we already have a number of "real world" maps that are used for special events?

[oboe]

Don't we already have a number of "real world" maps that are used for special events?

We do, but these terrains are two-sided vs three-sided.  And tend to cover smaller real-world areas.

The real-world based MA terrains I can think of are Baltic, Mindnao, and Northco.
 

[Bizman]

Back in the day there was talk about real world maps being uneven. That raised a couple of ideas that didn't see daylight, either because there was no good tools or no map-makers.

The first one was to search for areas that could be divided to three balanced "countries" - one of those was the Great Lakes where two wedge shaped areas meet a lense shaped one.

The other idea was to take a real area and copy it around a center point to a three point star so to say. Thus each country would be similar but the fronts wouldn't be mirrored. Think about the Italian or Iberian Peninsulas tripled and rotated like a three leaf clover. All the geographic data is already available so there'd be quite a small amount of work in the transition areas.

[oboe]

Yeah I think a real-world location that is divisible into 3 almost identical areas is very difficult to find.   There will always be differences and variations, my thought was that it might be possible to allow for the differences to exist, as long as one country's shortcomings were made up for by advantages in other areas.   Was trying for rough equivalence, instead of perfect equality.   Don't know if it's possible in a real world setting though.  I was taken by the thought of being able to lift off of real-world locations, and hit real-world targets.   

Here's another real-world location attempt I made, 4 years ago; I got about as far as I did on the ETO terrain:



In this terrain, both the Orange and Green navies are divided between two sea areas, while the Yellow navy is a concentrated force.  The Green navy at least has the ability to shuffle fleets between either sea, while the Orange Navy is at a decided disadvantage.  Also the Caucasus Mountains provide something of a natural barrier between Yellow and Orange, although locations of spawn points could compensate for that.  Still, aircraft would have to fly higher to cross the border between Yellow and Orange than they would between the other two borders.

What I like about this one though, is the Fuel Refinery placed at the actual location of the refineries at Ploesti in Romania.


 

[JimmyD3]

The first one was to search for areas that could be divided to three balanced "countries" - one of those was the Great Lakes where two wedge shaped areas meet a lense shaped one.

 I uploaded a map of this area several months ago, modified for 3 countries, its called 3points. If you have any suggestions or issues, let me know. Was hoping Hitech would put into rotation, or let me know if there were any issues.

[hazmatt]

Question on the original map posting. Why so far north and south and not further east and west to include Germany?

[oboe]

Question on the original map posting. Why so far north and south and not further east and west to include Germany?

If I understand question correctly, the answer is I think the map must be square, so I can't have a longer E-W dimension than the N-S one.   Regarding Germany, it is included.  Unless you mean why not include the whole of Germany in the Yellow shaded country?   Answer to that is I was trying to roughly get same land area in each of the shaded counties.  If I push further East, the area containing England contains too much sea and not enough land.