Resolved: Great Lakes Region

[NoPunIn10Did]

WitA Feedback Needed: Great Lakes Region

One aspect of WitA that I've never been entirely satisfied with is the adjacency layout of the Great Lakes region.

Current Layout

Current Great Lakes Layout, Zoomed In

great lakes current zoomed in.PNG (29.07 KiB) Viewed 1738 times

In order to visually diagram all the adjacency in the current layout, maps have distorted the sizes and shapes of the Great Lakes and omitted parts of the land (like the upper peninsula of Michigan).

Additionally, while many of the canal / river connections are anachronistic, there is one that has never existed. There has never been a canal connecting the Mississippi River to Lake Superior (connecting to WGL along the border of Min & Chi above).

What I'd like to do

Alteration 1: West/East Great Lakes Division
First, in order to have enough space for a unit to sit there, I'd like to make Lake Huron part of the Eastern Great Lakes instead of the Western Great Lakes. Lake Ontario & Lake Erie I will make a tad bigger than they currently appear, and I will connect them with Lake Huron to form a single body of water, shaped a little like a kite with a tail. This alteration would include one adjacency change; WGL and EGL would become adjacent.

Alteration 2: Toronto & Erie Canal
In the old map, Toronto and New York State (what I've relabeled Erie Canal) are not adjacent. In reality, this is completely incorrect. In fact, Lake Erie & Lake Ontario are connected via the Erie Canal. While the final map drawing may end up showing them slightly disconnected (as I plan to make the lakes visually larger than they are in actuality), I'd like to draw an arrow between the two regions and make them fully adjacent (comparable to the connection between London and Calais in Hundred).

Alteration 3: Montreal & EGL
In the old map, Montreal is adjacent to the Eastern Great Lakes. Should this remain the case? Or should fleets in Montreal have to pass through either Erie Canal or Toronto first in order to get to EGL?

Alteration 4: Michigan, Wisconsin, Chicago, & Iowa / Minnesota
Do we want to leave this adjacency network as-is? What if we severed Wisconsin from the "Chicago" region and took out a bite of Iowa Territory (Min in the old map)? The new Wisconsin would look a bit like the borders of the Wisconsin Territory, seen below.

This could then either become its own province or merge with Michigan.

[Custer]

I like It!

The SHIV

[Nanook]

Marking for now, thoughts later.

[NoPunIn10Did]

At the moment, I’m pretty sure I’m doing both 1 & 2.
3 is a maybe.

4 I’m less sure of now that I’ve started drawing rivers. I’m worried that my plans for Wisconsin will end up making the region more confusing instead of less.

[Custer]

I like option 4. As well as 1+2.

The SHIV

[NoPunIn10Did]

The latest draft of the map now includes rivers, canals, and boilerplate.

This shows Alterations 1-3. A minor change to the border between Montreal & Toronto could be used to undo Alteration 3. I suspect that might be needed, if only to bring Montreal a little closer to Chicago (for a fleet built in the first Winter to contend for it).

[NoPunIn10Did]

This is what it would look like to have all four alterations made.

[NoPunIn10Did]

Another option with the Wisconsin alteration would be to terminate the navigable part of the Mississippi river at the point where it joins the Illinois-Michigan canal (Chicago).

That would make Iowa Territory into an inland space, and it would mean no split coastline for Wisconsin.

[Nanook]

I think Toronto being adjacent to Erie Canal makes visual/aesthetic sense, but it also introduces more tension between USA and Britain. Not sure if that’s a good thing, it’s already kinda hard for them to work together. Because if Montreal and Toronto are both adjacent, that makes it really tough for USA and Britain to ally I think, because then it’s a situation where Britain has a really tempting attack on USA, and USA probably usually feels like they have to move preemptively year 1...I don’t think it’s necessarily in either of their best interests to fight, but it certainly makes it harder not to.

So even though it’s offputting from a “wait, that land touches in RL!” POV, I think for game balance keeping it as is probably works better.

[Nanook]

Oh, and I think I like Wisconsin.