Battle of Kursk

by **AeroCorsair** on Tue Oct 23, 2012 1:03 pm

Map Name: Battle of Kursk
Mapmaker(s): AeroCorsair (Myself)
Number of Territories: 50
Special Features: HQ's double territory bonus, all armies in bulges (German or Russian) can be reset to neutral if the gap is "closed" (Such as Kursk being captured, South HQ captured, or Orel captured), victory achieved by either elimination or capture of all enemy HQ's. Artillery can bombard cities and HQ's, but not conquer, meaning players can save allied armies if about to be "sealed off". Russian Guard armies get an autodeploy of +1, but only if HQ is held in that sector, as do the Panzer divisions, +1 with HQ held.
What Makes This Map Worthy of Being Made: The Battle of Kursk was the deciding battle on the Eastern Front, where Germany was either going to win back the momentum, or lose it all, and Russia the same. 7,000 tanks, 2.6 million men, with everything at risk. The outcome was millions of lives lost, but Germany was on the retreat, and Russia had gained the full momentum on the Eastern Front.

Map Image: (Rough draft, as I have to yet figure out how to GIMP it.)

by **koontz1973** on Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:20 pm

AC, we spoke a bit earlier and you said you will use GIMP and Inkscape. Inkscape I have n knowledge of so cannot help you with that. But GIMP I can. Here are a couple of tutorials for you done by our very own natty dread. Both are pretty straight forward and will get you a decent first draft.
viewtopic.php?f=649&t=140723
viewtopic.php?f=649&t=141577
Also, if you look here you will find a wealth of other info by a lot of map makers explaining a lot of different things.
This guy has a lot of video tutorials on youtube and some are stunning. When you do get an image up, I will move you over to the drafting room. What I need from you is to include territory names, basic rules and a bonus structure. All of these have to come from you firstly. This will let everyone know what you intend the map to be like and also it will make life easier for players to comment. Remember to use [BigImg][/BigImg] tags for your maps. Post everything in the first post like you have now. I will keep an eye on this and get you to do anything you have missed. You will need to keep updating your map or face having it binned. The more updates, the more comments you will get as it shows you are working on it. But this is not a quick thing, it will take time.

Now that is some of the boring stuff over with, I can move onto the map.

You drawing shows a lot of promise. I take it is the left for Germans and the right for Russians.

Germans (left) needs to be split up more for more bonus regions.
Russians (right) is very linear and will make for boring games. Mix it up a little.
What special attacks will you have?
Killer neutrals for mine fields
Bombardments for cannons - look at trench warfair in beta now for an idea on how this can work well.
Decaying regions for front line troops - Dustbowl and Rorke's Drift have this to good advantage.
Long range attacks - knights has this and works well for buggering up players thoughts. Might be an idea for machine gun nests.

There really is only you that can limit this but as it is your first map, I suggest to make it nice and easy. Graphically, go and look at Portland or New Jersey to find an easy style. Colours will be bad for this but they are very uncluttered maps. Steer clear of trying to do a cairnswk map this time around.

I know this is a lot, but take it easy, get some knowledge of GIMP before you post a map draft. Worse thing you can do is post rubbish, get told to fix it and not know how. I can and will help, but you need to find out 99% of things on your own.

Hope some of this helps.