The issue: Right now, Japan's first turn move to the Sea of Japan makes for uninteresting and unbalanced play because USSR has to guess which supply they will attack, with only a one in three chance of success. We've drawn out a few options to potentially deal with the issue.
Option 1: Add Australia as a NATO home supply center (with a starting fleet), make Japan neutral. This would make the NATO possess a home supply that is more like what USSR has with Cuba, and also make the the Indian Ocean, which is a little used territory in the current iteration of Cold War, more important. Possible issues: map becomes awkwardly stretched.
Option 2: Split Japan into three separate territories, with Tokyo remaining as the NATO supply center, but no longer bordering the sea of Japan. This would possibly provide NATO with more options in the Pacific and the west coast of America, where it usually has an army pointlessly stay for the entire game. Possible Issues: It adds even more small territories to the map, Japan slightly larger than real life.
Links To Maps:
Original Map with Starting Units:
http://s21.postimg.org/csi0diu8n/sample_Map.png
Option 1: http://s23.postimg.org/ot8jz0usr/Aus_Cold_War.png
Option 2: http://s27.postimg.org/p2nwjs41v/image.png
Poll: http://goo.gl/U6SxIs
(Note: the final map will look a lot better than the rough drafts we have provided for the options)
We would appreciate your feedback on this, our focus is on balance so please think about some possible starting moves etc. You can vote for your choice in the poll. Please comment here on your opinions as well, we will take these into account when making our final decision. Thank you again, Firehawk and Safari.