How to Make the Map From Axis & Allies Better

Video Sponsored by Ridge Wallet. Check them out here: ridge.com/emperor
Use Code “EMPEROR” for 10% off your order!
Axis & Allies is a classic tabletop board game, but the map could use some improvement.
➤ Support this channel with my Patreon!: / emperortigerstar

[@ChessedGamon]

Fun fact, in the 1941 version, the US's starting economic points are one short of what they're given on the map, which eats up another hour before we start arguing whether or not to include the missing point.

[@the_air_ocelot]

I had that same argument!

[@christianwilson5956]

it's. correct in the book and incorrect on the map.

[@Liam_Daly]

2 points

[@Liam_Daly]

It's 2 short

[@generalsmite7167]

in the 1942 version second edition there is an extra allied city victory point

[@bificommander7472]

The problem with a Europe to scale is that it's really difficult to have the territories big enough to fit all those varying units in, yet not have Berlin and Moscow be adjacent territories.

[@AlexanderRM1000]

Yeah, without a board that covers literally a full size dining room table, the only perfect way to make a WW2 simulation is in a video game where you can zoom in and out

[@bjornaltenburg2522]

@@AlexanderRM1000 As a hardcore Axis and allies and Global 36 player, having a separate map for Europe or Ja, blowing Europe a ton is a necessary game-play feature.

[@brucelee9346]

yes, unfortunately you have to combine a few Providences into one area I try to get around this by leaving the Providence border lines and group them within a bolder drawn Area lines.

[@d00d22]

@@AlexanderRM1000 there is no perfect way to make a WW2 simulation. Yes video games can do more than board games but that's not what we're talking about here

[@Zakalwe-01]

And how exactly are all those pieces going to fit into Western Europe with your design?

[@kyleclark6997]

I always assumed that the sizes were weird so people could fit the pieces in the regions, but they probably could have done a better job.

[@theinfeno]

Yeah thats what I figured. A&A is a game that heavily suffers from board clutter, so it sort of explains why the map looks the way it does.

[@matthewhecht9257]

I love this game, but I think this new map makes Europe, the funnest part, too small. A suggestion I have is the Conquest of the Empire board.

[@TheSkeletonjelly]

Yeah that west russia is so small

[@writershard5065]

This would work a lot better in an online version of the game where you can zoom in. But honestly, it would be weird to have the whole globe look fine and then europe having a mild case of obesity to accommodate for size.

[@timothymclean]

Does anyone know a projection that makes Europe bigger without making Africa or Asia butt-ugly?

[@MrTreefoz]

I always figured the weird proportions were just a necessity so that some of the smaller territories could actually fit pieces. I'd be a tad concerned for that reason with this board, even if it does look better.

[@bjornaltenburg2522]

I run an Axis and Allies facebook page, and have helped play test games, accurate maps suck to play on. Just blow up what actually matters. Having 90% of the map be dead space is just sorta bad board game design.

[@danielwest6095]

They stretch the map to make geographically small but important areas, like Europe, much bigger, so that you can fit all the pieces you need in the region. No need to be geographically accurate and draw Australia to scale, which is huge but almost never sees much action in the game.

[@bd95382]

The thing is, most of the maps still oversize Australia in terms of practical need anyway anyway

[@superilikeeggsyo]

Ironically, in your attempt to pick a popular version of the game you picked one of the least popular editions of A&A (with people who actually play the game, anyway) to modify lol. Classic and Global 1940 (mash Europe 1940 and Pacific 1940) together are the main two games that people actually play. Global 1940 probably has the closest thing to a historically accurate map (it fixes China being a playable country, accurate colonial holdings, Asia's scrunching, the diplomatic relations of neutral countries like Brazil, etc.), but Europe and Africa are still bloated to unrealistic proportions.

[@SterlingCat03]

They're bloated like that so that you can actually place units on them.

[@superilikeeggsyo]

@@SterlingCat03 I know, but I was trying to address EmperorTigerstar's main gripe with A&A in general (the inaccurate map). Europe is so small geographically compared to the rest of the world that a to-scale world map that still leaves enough room to actually play the game would be an absolute nightmare. That's probably why most WW2-period war games leave irrelevant areas like South America, Sub-Saharan Africa, etc. off the board.

[@superilikeeggsyo]

@Oliver Zinn this is almost all (danish straits aren't on the map of G40 but are accounted for in the rules iirc, it's been a bit) true but surely (aside from Scotland and North Ireland being one territory, which is dumb) those are just nitpicks compared to how blatantly terrible the maps of classic and 41 are lol. Don't even mention NOs. Those literally just exist because the creator didn't like people playing the game in ways he didn't approve of (I e. Japan spamming land units in mainland Asia and gunning it to Moscow). At that point you might as well complain about the lack of terrain, in which case just play an actual wargame.

[@superilikeeggsyo]

@Oliver Zinn the point of Okinawa/Iwo jima were that air raids could be launched from there to target the main Japanese islands while being able to safely make the round trip. I'm not going to go to bat for the integrity of the NOs, though. I think they're crap and never use them when playing with others. The bit about Yugoslavia/Greece is a fair point but in higher level play of G40 the Balkans are mostly an afterthought as Germany is usually sending 100% of everything into the USSR. You actually might be interested in the Global War series from Historical Board Games. Their games are basically over-glorified (but professionally made) axis and allies fan games that more or less make historical accuracy a main objective (probably to a fault imo)

[@bd95382]

I own several versions of the game and 1940 is absolutely the best. That said, a game that's meant to be played in a reasonable time might use the Anniversary board instead. Fewer territories, more leaps with geography, but still a decent map that won't take as much time.

[@SnapplyPie]

I enjoy your series of "making the map of X better" Really liked your Castlevania video

[@jedgrahek1426]

I played this once in college with 4 other guys, each being one of the 5 powers, we were drinking and smoking and it took all night and was a total blast, one of the most fun nights I can recall honestly. I was Japan, being the resident weaboo, my roommate who was this super blond, blue-eyed German looking guy was Germany, our friend Liam from the east coast was the USA, and I honestly can't remember who was playing England and Russia... maybe Henry's other friends, maybe my friend Jon Cross was there, was a long time ago. Anyway, the initial South Pacific conquest went great, even took India lol, and at a certain point Henry and I realized that if we truly pooled our resources in a pincer against Russia, we were nearly guaranteed the game would be unrecoverable for the Allies. Japan won many glorious victories that night : D I think we stopped playing when I started invading the West Coast lol.

[@CobraWargaming]

I like your finished product. The biggest issue with Axis and allies style games are the amount and size of units being used. most maps are usually scaled atrociously to geographic reality to make space for the big stacks of sculpts being played with on the board. I've made several custom games similar to A&A and resorted to grossly over proportioned continents and nations to make gameplay less tedious

[@samwill7259]

"The best game I never finished" describes basically every board game I ever started.

[@JohnShrader]

I’m sorry, but I feel like you’ve missed an important aspect of maps in general. Usability for the designated purpose. For example, subway maps often completely forgo actual geography in order to show relations of the lines that are most important for most riders. The importance is showing the lines and their connections. In war games, a big factor is space to place units. Many map choices are compromises in order to allow for all the units they want in certain areas, in A&A, that’s namely Europe! So, just like projections are a kind of fiction for the function of displaying a globe on a flat surface, distortions and placement of boarders is usually in the service of gameplay. This is not to say the maps are perfect on that front either, just that you might want to broaden the perspective of purpose. ^^

[@christopherb9667]

Good points. It's a game board, not a map. Nobody complains that a chess board (a game with similar strategic concepts) is played on board with absolutely no geographical context.

[@pizzaboigaming1650]

I didn't know you were another Axis and Allies player, but in hindsight, it makes a lot of sense

[@BrotherAlpha]

My sister knew some people in college who had monthly games of Axis and Allies going back to when they were in high school. So about five years when she knew them. Over those 50+ games played, they never once completely finished a game. More than one, the game ended with someone's nose getting broken.

[@GoErikTheRed]

That’s funny. I had a group of friends on my floor freshman year to play AaA with. We finished the vast majority of our games, and with the exception of the first time, every game we didn’t finish was due to forfeit. I don’t remember tensions ever running high enough for real-world violence to even be considered

[@greywolf7577]

Why not just write down where all the pieces were and start the next month where they left off last time?

[@derrickthewhite1]

​@@greywolf7577 Axis and Allies games often reach points that aren't officially over, but are kind of satisfying to end at, often with one power from each side either out of the fight or reduced to their capital. You also kind of reach this point where you know what's going to happen, but you would still have a lot of play left to actually finish the game.

[@pietrooliani3251]

It makes sense actually, i don't belive to have ever actually finished a game, you reach a point were when side is out of hope to win but you'll need other 10 turns to actually end the game, usually the loosing side recognise that and the game ends

[@BrotherAlpha]

@@pietrooliani3251 Or early in the game, one player is crippled so badly that they are not longer a factor, but they have to sit there for the next three hours doing practically nothing. Its one of the flaws of many board games.

[@dessertfox5995]

I believe the reason why is because Europe would be too small. Europe is a huge vocal point and that's where most of the action would be so other smaller areas that aren't that big of a deal in the board game get screwed over. Although Europe isn't the best either.

[@XMysticHerox]

Focal point like focus. Vocal is something quite different.

[@brendanwardlow6743]

Board Game fan, so love this. Be great if you could do an overview of both 1940 versions, as those are more detailed and include more countries

[@SnapplyPie]

"I fixed the Aral Sea to its original size" :D

[@worldwidewonders681]

Now lets do it in real life

[@mrmarmellow555]

Totes ‼️❣️ DA AIREL Of ARAL🌊

[@board-qu9iu]

As an axis and allies fan. This is great to see

[@lui9688]

Omg same. I had to beg my dad to play this game with me, and he absolutely hated it but did it anyways for me. I got this board game for Christmas like 8 years ago and it was really expensive, but I absolutely loved it and everything. Wish I had more people to play with me though. It's just sitting in my closet taking up dust now.

[@skymarshal6787]

Same

[@imperialtiger4716]

Damn I love the game also have trouble finding players sadly probably far away

[@derek_davidson]

The creator of Axis & Allies made another global WW2 game. The map is circular. Very unique. See what you can do with that one to make it normal?

[@derek_davidson]

Territory proportions were altered to accommodate the game pieces. Some territories were busier than others, and it wasn't feasible to have so many pieces in those small European sections of the board.

[@jacob999ish]

Thanks for the video. Though I can’t agree. The reason the map is so warped is clear to anyone who has played as many times as I have. Europe just has by far the most action. So the territories are blown up out of scale to ensure you have the space to fit everything on and clearly identify what is happening. Places that don’t see much action such as South America, subsaheran Africa, and middle Asia are condensed. I may agree your map looks prettier and is definitely more accurate, but I wouldn’t want to play on it. It would have too much congestion of stuff in the relatively small Europe and tons of wasted space elsewhere on the board. I did think the video was fun and interesting though 😊

[@KaiserMattTygore927]

I never got to play Axis and Allies, so hearing that the board was larger than every dining room table on Earth combined and multiplied times 10 makes me think that the game probably could've allowed for even more divisions of territory.

[@kategrant2728]

It really can't. Remember, every unit you place takes up physical space on the board. The original map is wonky in large part because it squishes and grows things in proportion to where most games see a concentration of forces, and even then you WILL run out of space in the UK when building up for D-Day, in the caucasus, etc.

[@JohnShrader]

Oh man… if you thin that’s big, the latest versions of Axis and Allies Europe and Axis and Allies Pacific (each with a dinner table sized board) can be combined into an über board. I only got to play that version once and we had to play it on two different tables nearby. ㅠㅠ

[@think4181]

@@JohnShrader I have both those versions, I believe the combined dimensions is 72” wide and either 32” or 36” tall. I’m lucky and my family has a large table, but it still takes up the entire thing.

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

Never considered of changing the map. But we included new technologies like "women work force - we can do it", thermobaric bombs, nuclear bombs, tank upgrades (tiger tanks), assault rifles (including MG42, Vampire night googles aso), baloon bombs, super carriers, slave workers, enhanced radar, better transportation systems, proximity fuses, self propelled artillery and many many more. It is one of my favorite games. We have campaigns which go over months.

[@comrade-princesscelestia4907]

im sorry, MG42 as an assault rifle? o.o

[@yesyesyesyes1600]

@@comrade-princesscelestia4907 STG44 - STurmGewehr44 MG42 - MaschinenGewehr - machine gun With our tech - we just call it "MG42" - Infantry gets access to assault rifles, MG42s, night vision devices (Vampir - Zielgerät 1229) and better combined arms capability. Infantry has then an attack value of 2 on its own. In combination with artillery PLUS tanks an attack value of 3 The tech can not be explored before 1942. (In our games 1 round of play is 3 months, we start as early as 1939) It is a real game changer, mainly if the techs "motorized" and "self propelled artillery" are set in motion and the whole army may "blitz". Our focus is on telling a (hi)story, rather than balanced gaming. Thanks for asking

[@PakBallandSami]

ok i have to agree at first glance the maps don't look so bad but the more you look at them the more worst it gets i really found this weird

[@zacharyclark3693]

Have you heard of the board game, War Room? It was designed by Larry Harris, the creator of Axis and Allies. War Room is basically Axis and Allies 3.0. One of the many differences is that it features a round map for its board. You should check it out, and see if you like it better than the traditional A&A maps.

[@cwaldrip]

Need to make accommodations for pieces for several zones… part of the consideration in the original game I’m sure.

[@_Xerota_]

My friend and I started a 1v1 match on the weekend just gone, we went for 9 and a half hours and left it set up on his table, I'm going over again this weekend and we're gonna resume the game.

[@addymant]

Love what you did, though I did want to ask. You are aware that the landmasses being the "wrong" shape is a stylistic choice, right? Also, the borders are wayyy too thin if you're using a colored border to denote cannot-cross

[@oskarsupranee8211]

actually thailand wasn't a puppet of japan rather a forced ally

[@avocado6753]

The advantage of some of the continents sizing and location is because of the fact that in Europe, there is a lot more going on in this game whereas continents like Africa and South America do not need to be as large as there are in real life. For that reason, they shrunk those continents to make Europe bigger. They also edited the Pacific and parts of Asia for that same reason. (I will agree that the maps don’t always look that good, I’m just explaining the logic as a person who has probably put 200+ hours into those games)

[@avocado6753]

If you look at how small the UK is, you can see that there is no way to fit many plastic game pieces there, especially when you also need to surround the island with a lot of navy.

[@flying0possum]

@@avocado6753 yeah even on Europe/Global 1940 I have to put everything in England on a seperate tray. I also like grouping naval positions on coasters. There are so many accessories and house rules G40 is the best

[@karsentube13yt]

Siam was a Japanese ally, not a puppet

[@Nootathotep]

potato potato

[@dominict.8720]

As a geography and history buff myself, I appreciate the effort put into this to make the map accurate, however the reason why the proportions of regions are so off is to make it more balanced and cleaner of a game

[@Voldertron]

Loved this! Recently started playing this with my dad again after 10 years of not touching the game. The map definitely needs a makeover and this looks really good!

[@mariasirona1622]

Mongolia and Tuva were not neutral, they full on helped the USSR...

[@SimCityEA1989]

EmperorTigerstar: "Although a name drop would be nice" Axis and Allies: "HAHAHAHAHA...... Wait, you serious?"

[@jilkoller1128]

I don't care if anniversery is out of print, It's my favorite.

[@jamesmartin4518]

I made an oversized A&A map a few years back. Had it printed on a 6' x 3' banner with grommets on the corners to hold it in place. Turned out pretty good. I also included an area for upgrades from one of the computer versions. You can pretty much fit all of your miniatures in the proper territory this way. Only cost about $80 to print, but about 20 hours of Photoshop time. Definitely worth it though.

[@evilemperorzurg9615]

One of my favorite games of AA was when I was playing Axis against my dad. I put a Japanese fleet in the Solomon Islands and he believed I was going for Australia. I was actually going for California. When I took it I dumped all my points into building tanks in North America and basically knocked the US out allowing Germany to focus entirely on the Soviet Union.

[@leone.6190]

Lol, what a Timing. Just saw the rise one. :D Nice job, again. 👍

[@tenchimuyo69]

There's also Triplea if you want a cool digitized version with high mod potential. Anyone can fix any map they want.

[@Kruppt808]

Remember playing dogs of war back in the day, you could pick the teams. The Russia Germany vs everyone was pretty fun.

[@westerncorsair]

The map in Axis & Allies 1942 Second Edition is the most accurate I've found. U.S. is not lined up, but otherwise pretty realistic.

[@starcobra2575]

Ive been waiting for this video soooo long, glad to see its finally out.

[@scottyb9367]

I just finished up redrawing the axis and allies avalon hill 2004 version. I added Italy and China to the game and painted pieces/territories. China has no industrial complex but can place the amount of infantry equal to half the amount of territories they have rounded up. Anyways there's a few more rules with them but let's get to what I changed. I added 3 more territories in China, Burma, split Anglo egypt into 2, added Finland, morrocco and split Easter Eurpope into 2, South being Poland and North being the Baltic states. I also added NW Europe on western Europe territory and split australia into 2. I added Honolulu and stalingrad as victory cities. I can show you all if you would like reply and I can send you a video of the map. We currently have a game paused right bow after three turns but you will defintly be able to notice changes.

[@skedarblegarble]

Actually, I'm working on a map for myself for Axis and Allies! Awesome that you talked about it.

[@Hand-in-Shot_Productions]

I have not played the game, but I have heard of the inaccuracies of the map. Thanks for modifying it!

[@wartable]

Reinventing the wheel…lots of A&A maps out there

[@Telyzan]

I too was not a fan of the original game map ( I still own one of the 1st versions of the game) so I went out to a local store that sold wall maps of the entire world and bought the biggest one that they had. Then with a sharpie, drew as close to the starting borders that the original game map had. I then did things like breaking up Russia into more zones/sectors, dividing up the capture points. That way (for example) instead of capturing the zone on the game map in central Russia and looking like you then controlled over 1/3 of the country, you had to capture multiple sectors in the country to control as much territory.

[@legendgames128]

Do make sure there is enough space for pieces to fit!

[@darthparallax5207]

I'd love to see you do another take on Axis and Allies map fixes Next time, show us the Anniversary Edition. This map makes room to display France, Italy, China, and ANZAC distinctly. Second, please add Dutch Orange as a color to give appropriate territories to the Netherlands as the most interesting and strategically relevant minor power due to Indonesian oil reserves Finland, Bulgaria, and Thailand were each closely involved with the two major alliances but played smaller strategic and economic roles in the war than the powers involved including the Anniversary Edition and the Dutch, so it would probably keep the map clear and looking like a board game to stop with the addition of the Netherlands. On Historical Board Gaming's website you can see the designs for maps based on 1936. Perhaps you would finally include Poland for a little added suspense.

[@Copyright_Infringement]

Wow, a game I grew up playing! Thanks for bringing it attention

[@daniellestandford3747]

That was fun to watch. I love your point of view. But you might want to rethink the spaces on it. It make Russian territory way to easy to move through. Remember the space lay out also determines how troops and ships move. Making Russia only 6 spaces will make moving across Russian territory super fast.

[@dustinelias7840]

I LOVE THIS GAME! I have the 1942 one

[@thatguy828]

The reason the maps look so stroke inducing is to try and conserve space and to actually have room for the pieces. I would say they could have done better though.

[@docpossum2460]

I know it's a sponsorship and you have to say that, but whoever wrote that has not idea how often leather wallets get put through the laundry.

[@BuceGar]

We finished all our games, which typically ended with Russia falling to Germany or Japan. I always played Japan, and my best friend always played Germany, we won every game I can remember, mainly because the Allies were always terrible at working together. As far as improving the map and the game overall, Pact of Steel is the best version of Axis and Allies I've ever played. It adds Italy as a third Axis power, fixes all of the map issues, and every power had enough starting materiel to have more than one opening which vastly increased the diversity in play. It's still available on TripleA.

[@pizzaboigaming1650]

Do you play Anniversary Edition or 1940, cause they have Italy too. Also, how does the Axis always win, they've won one Game in my experience, because the allies have so much more IPC's

[@BuceGar]

@@pizzaboigaming1650 The Allies can do little to stop Japan's economic expansion in the Pacific without a REALLY lucky USA roll at Pearl Harbor, and even then, it takes the US a long time to threaten Japan in any meaningful way. Japan, on its first turn, should immediately build a factory in one of the 3 IPC mainland territories it controls, and then start shucking troops over with any available transports. The factory should always build tanks or artillery and when supplemented with infantry from Japan, this creates huge problems for the Allies who have no production facilities anywhere on the backside of Asia to assist Russia. As you know, typical Allies strategy is to completely abandon the Pacific and start shucking troops into North Africa from the USA. When they do that Japan should use it's fleet under India and continually threaten Africa and assist Germany defensively with it's fighters where needed. If you are the Japanese player, you are on the clock, and Germany is depending on you to win the war by applying as much pressure as possible on Russia. Germany's job is to stay alive as long as possible while threatening Russia on the east for as long as possible. Playing on TripleA is where I still play occasionally, and I'll check out the two editions you mentioned.

[@randomguy2023]

My Brother has Axis and Allies but he never plays it because he had no one to play with.

[@kidz4p509]

Not even you?

[@matthewhecht9257]

I sometimes play it by myself to see this weird alternate history. I have played some games where I am sure The British Empire never fell, and Britain would be the only superpower.

[@randomguy2023]

@ KID Z4P when I was too little to get the mechanics

[@jlav9594]

This game is awesome. Probably the best wargame in existence. Not too complicated yet layered with depth. I find the map isn't that bad if you use the markers for your units. Worst case with a massive army on one territory, you can use one marker and keep the territory units on the side of the board out of the way.

[@mj6866]

I love A&A. I have played all the way to the end on many occasions.

[@NotKnafo]

urals should worth at least one point of production imo

[@godfreycarmichael]

Get the Siredblood map. It is glorious.

[@yakitatefreak]

I like the board idea, but RISK already has a better and improved map in an electronic version of the game. I haven't played Axis & Allies online yet, but I think that I'll give it a shot.

[@animehero343]

1914 axis and allies is scary looking too, hope you have a good couple of days

[@nepdep1945]

You've got 2 of the world-conquering games, now time for the third. Do one on Diplomacy please!

[@mrmask3942]

I love this game.

[@StarWarrior91]

My favorite board game. One that I’ve played but also never finished. Great work here. The 1941 board is pretty atrocious for sure. I love the 1940 boards because the scale on those is so epic

[@ryankramer2703]

The reason Europe is as big as it is is because of pieces. Try cramming a ton of pieces into one tiny map space and it’s very hard. I play GW-1936 which is axis and allies on steroids and it is very hard to fit troops into spaces

[@EdbertWeisly]

Make the next video in the series another Axis vs Allies board game map from a different board, it's fun to just enjoy watching your videos (I don't play Axis vs Allies in General)

[@MikeStJacques]

Axis & Allies Online is the practical way to play a "full game."

[@nono_Hoi4]

mongolia: is neutral Mongolia who sent like 1 cavalry division to japan: I participated

[@elizabethlestrad5282]

How to make it better? Step 1:. Make Africa proportionately accurate. You win. Game, set, and match.

[@definatedilemna4720]

I really like the 1998 Axis & Allies PC Game map, plus the 1999 Axis & Allies: Iron Blitz expansion pack. Granted, it is software, so they don't have to worry about it spreading out on a table, but it still had great portions for the continents and looked great. I don't like that the newer PC Game "Axis & Allies Online" uses a very bad map.

[@ThePacificWarChannel]

Ah my favorite board game of all time, so true how wonky the maps look. The online community TripleA has made a few hundred versions of AnA, some look quite good!

[@sebastianreyes7774]

Can you do the risk Europe map next?

[@rsnobal]

kinda curious as to where you get the map. may I ask where?

[@brucelee9346]

If your going to have a World Map you really need at least a 4 foot N/S tall map. I saw at a Games Convention someone used an enlarged map 6 feet tall

[@Thought_Processing_]

Okay so my critiques, whilst I do prefer looking at this map in terms of its shape I think the distribution of territories will have a negative effect on gameplay and I also think having the Sahara and Himalayas be regions like the neutral regions is better as it makes it easier to tell movement at a glance. On to regional specifics, US china I think should be split vertically into an east and west, Eastern europe should probably be split between Balkans, Baltics and Eastern Europe (being Poland and Romania), southern Europe should be just Italy, Norway-Finland should be two different regions, North Africa should either be split into two (Morocco and Algiers) or three (and Tunis), Gibraltar should not have a land border with North Africa, Middle east should be split in two, Palestine (entire Mediterranean coast) and Persia, Central Asia should be split in two Caucasian in the west and central Asia in the east, Siberia should have its Pacific coast line be a new region or be a part of the soviet far east. Have Malaya/east indies be two separate regions, split Canada into three (east, central, west) and finally Have the USA be split into four: The Pacific coast (all the continental states on the pacific coast), the east coast (all states from the Canadian boarder down the Atlantic coast stop at Florida border), the south (all the states on the gulf of Mexico) and the Midwest (all the other states with no sea border). Also place all separate Island chain region in their own sea region.

[@asongofhistoryandfantasy2784]

Hi, did you ever look at the War room map? It's made by the lead axis and allies designer Larry Harris and is a spiritual successor to it. It has a beautiful circular map projection. I think it could be worth for you to make a video literally just talking about that map and the pros and cons of the projection. At least just look it up online, for it really is a piece of art :)

[@gregcampwriter]

This game occupied many an hour of my college years--good memories.

[@jefferynelson]

using your phone to take a picture of the board is a solution to keeping a game going if you can't complete the game in one session

[@cernel5799]

Firstly, let me point out I enjoyed this attempt, and I can imagine it took you several hours without counting the much longer time to acquire your extant knowledge, so I have a great deal of admiration for that. As several persons have already pointed out, you probably have (by now) understood why the original is so distorted and, conversely, why your - let's say geographically correct (relatively to the projection used, which I assume is equirectangular) - version is very bad at being a better Axis&Allies map. Nevertheless, I'll point out the rather obvious fact that, in your version, territories like "U.K.", "Western Europe", "Ukraine" and "W.Russia" are very small compared to many other territories like "Siberia" and "Brazil". Those and other small territories are the ones on which, during the game, you want to put many units of different types, which requires one thing: space! If one would take your map and print it at dimensions big enough to have space for making it minimally playable in Europe, the map would be so enormous that nobody (not even the man with the longest arms in the world) would be able to reach near the centre of the map to position any units but by jumping on the map itself, and you would need an enormous table virtually nobody likely has. Conversely, "Siberia" and "Brazil" would be so ridiculously huge to have hundreds of times the space for what you need, which is just wasteful of (again) precious board space, which is so important in board-games (differently from video-games). Moreover, your main (or at least most explained) change makes no sense to me, either. On this regard, you said (at 8:09) "Since I insisted Malay and Burma should accurately be kept within British control (to make sure the same territories touch each other), that's why I added the red border between Burma and China: it was the only way to keep the accuracy. Malaya is also attached to the territory of West Indies [Of course you meant to say East Indies.] for this reason." Thus, practically, you arbitrarily added an impassable zone in between of Burma and China to avoid India and China to touch each other because in the original they did not. I get that you chose not to take the obvious choice of splitting your "India" into the two historically correct territories of "India" and "Burma" because this would have been too big of a change from the original game, but let's analyse what you have gained and lost from your solution. What you have gained is that you can see the British and not the Japanese in posses of Burma in 1941. What you have lost is that, firstly, you cannot have anything going from Burma to South China, whereas cutting that link was the main reason the Japanese took Burma, and, secondly, the Japanese can either take both Burma and India (at once!) or take neither of them, whereas what they actually did was taking Burma but not India. I've little doubt that anticipating of a few months the Japanese conquest of Burma is less of a historical blunder than never to allow the Japanese to take Burma (as they did shortly after they joined the war, which is round 1 in this game) unless they take all India too (which they never did), so your changes make the situation there much worse already without even taking into account that there is no realistic reason to have a fire-wall between Burma and South China (which is where the Burma Road was). What makes it even worse is that all this nonsense could have been simply avoided if you picked an other version than 1941! The three Classic versions, the Revised version and the Spring 1942 version all start in 1942, so there is no problem about all Indo-China being a single Japanese territory. 1942 Second Edition, Anniversary and Global all have both a Burma and at least an other Indo-Chinese territory for what there is east of Burma (Global has four!). Long story short, what I think you should have better done after spotting this Burma-Japanese-in-1941 problem is that you should have simply ditched 1941 and gone using ANY one of the other Axis&Allies versions, instead of adopting this weird "solution" of giving Burma to India as a single pre-1937 Indian Empire territory (which makes impossible to have the Japanese taking Burma but not India as they did) and erecting an impassable wall between Burma and South China (which makes no sense). Moreover, with your changes in Indo-China, one can move by land between your "Indochina" and "East Indies" (because Malaya is part of "East Indies" and is adjacent to "Indochina"), so, in the moment you added a land connection there (if you haven't simply forgotten to make the border between your "Indochina" and "East Indies/Malaya" red-coloured), this makes me understand even less why you went to the extent to create an absurd impassable to avoid adding a connection in the "Burma to South-China" case. Finally, you also made naming worse... "Indochina" COMPRISES Burma. The territory you have is only the eastern part of Indo-China, so you can rather use the correct name from the 1942 Second Edition (namely, "French Indochina Thailand").

[@ihistory8861]

Please do more of these types of videos.

[@nicolobeccalossi6035]

Mainly because there are too many units in specific area of the maps and if u make everything to scale, Africa would be empty and Europe would be too crowded

[@RoNPlayer]

You should check out the map of History of the World (Board Game) at some point. The game has some similarities to Risk, but fixes most of the problems, and adds fun Civilizations. The map is... highly distorted for stylization. You might have an interesting time with that one.

[@Albert_RIP]

I wonder how this would change the pacific since so many islands now share sea zones

[@TheQballChannel]

The sizes are such that places where many units will be (Europe, Russia, Africa) are larger than the places few units will go (South America)

[@sandal_thong8631]

The original Axis & Allies is kind of played-out. It's either a slow push to gang-up on Soviets or a Japanese attempt to get an economic victory. If Russia is taken by the Axis and Germany isn't immediately taken, then the game's essentially over. The key is to make huge stacks of infantry that defend at a 2. Once we figured this out, our 5-turn or 5-hour games were a thing of the past. I played Axis & Allies Europe a few times and figured out it's a big push against Soviet Union, too before U.S. can get involved. Axis & Allies Pacific was a nightmare as nothing happened for many turns the first and only time I played (after waiting for missing pieces from the company). We wrote down our information but never went back. There was another version of Axis and Allies I played once with the impassible areas and capital objectives like India. I think we had a time limit for a tournament; I don't even remember. The problem with the games I played is that they use 6-sided dice. If they went to 12-sided like Samurai Swords/Shogun, you'd double all the values and it would be possible to reduce the defense of infantry from 4 to 3 (1.5 on a 6-sided which is not possible). I think an expert in the original was consulted before they put out a new version, but they didn't take his ideas. He got mad after that and took down his website. I almost never play 5-hour games anymore.

[@didelphidae5228]

It's nice, but it would be unplayable because of the accurate proportions. That's why the original looks the way it does for the most part.

[@GreekGamerTW]

Portions of the map which are usually busier are made larger to accommodate the pieces and clumsy fingers trying to move them. That's basic board game map design.

[@adventuregamingkh]

"Thailand was a Japanese puppet" I wouldn't say so.

[@5Penkets]

As a A&A fanatic who spent ~300€ on 1914 and other games i am very offended that the worst version was taken. Should’ve done 1940global

[@LillyP-xs5qe]

I only know that game from the video game adaptation (the 2004 RTS one) I played tons as a kid, one of the few strategy games I had

[@nordez534]

I only really grew up playing axis and Allie’s d-day which I think had a decent map but it was also focused on a very small area and those were actually fairly short games

[@JimBob_Joe77]

My friends and I used to play this game for DAYS... 8-14 hours a day. ALL DAY. And still it went on... Like if you did the same...

[@northstarstatepolitics1652]

I think the reason the map is so squished is because people don't have large enough tables to fit the board on without a serious overhang on either end.

[@Ma_ksi]

6:42 Thailand was a Japanese puppet? You sure?

[@JBallsMcLongcock]

if youve never played it, dont talk about the map. its a board game, not a navigation tool.

[@deadend85]

Axis and Allie’s global is lit

[@EdbertWeisly]

YES

[@majorearl12]

EmperorTigerstar, try looking over the Axis and Allies 1914 map, see if you can improve that one lol