Map size - then and now

[Chaingun]

I could stand perhaps 25-50% more provinces on the existing area of map, if this would lead to something meaningful.

PE has a strong point regarding huge number of provinces not adding to playability however. I cannot honestly say I prefer HoI3 to HoI2, and some of that reason is the extreme number of provinces and units.

In CK there were lots of situations with log notes like (approximately) "County of Somewhere has joined the war on you" without having any clue where Somewhere is. Adding provinces will increase the frequency of this kind of situation.

As a side note the search function was annoying to use because it presumes perfect spelling including diacritics, so it could be very difficult indeed to locate the opponent in many a non-sensible war.

 

[Chaingun]

I would oppose of the border in Nothern Europe. It atleast should be raised so that it gives Sweden a land connection to Finland otherwise Russia would have a lot easier to take it first than what happened in history. I'm not really fearing that they use that map as even the game makers will notice the nothern part to be too small and the land connection is a must. Also that area was fought over by Sweden and Russia in the games time period many times and it would be odd that it would be left out. In CK I you rarely saw Sweden to go for Finland as they had to always do it by sea.

I would say in this case gameplay > realism

As you note, in a realism perspective, they never walked their armies across through northern Sweden in those days... Finland and central Sweden were in a sense closer than northern Sweden and central Sweden, because of how fast sea transport was compared to transport on land through the wilderness.

IMO properly simulating cheap naval transport costs for short distances like 2-3 seazones (as opposed to the opposite problem of an emirate sieging Scotland) would solve such a problem. Presuming it is made sure AI realizes this.

So my only complaint about his map with regards Sweden/Finland is that some coastal and thus easily accessible areas of Finland are excluded.

Disclaimer: This discussion is purely theoretical as I doubt Pdox will make big changes to the map area at this stage.