I printed out the WWIV map and juxtaposed a real life Cold War set of alliances and realised while the WWIV map territorial expanse is great (whether we go with sealanes or not), the big issue is SC count.
WWIV map SC positioning overwhelmingly aids the US/West. That's because to achieve global balance in a mutli-polar world requires SCs pretty much everywhere. I'll look at keeping most territories as they are, but will need to reduce SC count in a number of places to both better reflect the relative position of real-life 1980's power politics, but to also aim for a relative overall balance in gameplay (and hopefully in most theatres.) Some areas need severe tweaking as they don't reflect real life Communist strength based on SCs (eg Berlin, Afghanistan and North Korean SCs aren't on the map as an SC, the overall strength of the Warsaw Pact isn't reflected in SC positioning, ditto Indo-China.)
I do expect a fair number of test games and variant iterations may be needed to get the right mix.
As an FYI, at this stage I see standing armies existing in a neutral China (technically communist but in the 80's there was a clear Sino-Soviet split), trying to work out whether other neutrals get standing armies or too bad, so sad. Also interested in whether true neutral countries eg Switzerland, Austria, Sweden, Finland are impassable or can be invaded. For your info for gameplay in a true WW3 Cold War scenario I think they'd be fair game. Finally as discussed in the podcast with Kaner I'm thinking while Western positioning may start higher, both the west and the communists would start with more units than initial SC count to allow for revolutionaries/freedom fighters trying to topple the incumbant governments in game year 1 (think the Contras vs Sandanistas in Nicaragua, and the western sponsored Mujahideen in Afghanistan.) At a technical level this would mean come the end of year 1 build phase destroying units for both sides (eg like how Imperium and Mongolian Empure starts with more units before a die-back.)
Diplomacy: Is Germany Too Weak?
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