Adding new maps: Which one would be the most useful?

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by _1SMV_Gitano

2) MAP SCALE. Considering heavy bomber operations, either for China/US air forces and the JAAF/JNAF, any 1:1 scale map would be as large as the Solomons map to say least, with lots of rivers and populated areas. Even cutting many large portions of terrain, distances would be huge, e.g. Chungking to Hankow is ~800 km, same Kunming to Hainan Island. Thus reduced map scale would be a prerequisite.

Reduced scale maps of China (possibly including Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong) might work, but such maps always seem "wrong". While I can understand why they exist, I don't like them myself.

I'd prefer a number of smaller 1:1 scale maps. To realistically map Chinese map textures, this might also be necessary. In the 1930s and 40s, China had five basic terrain textures - hills/mountain, forest/scrub, tea plantation, rice paddy and village/city. As I understand it, IL2 currently only allows 3 different terrain textures.

Originally Posted by _1SMV_Gitano

3) LEVEL OF DETAIL. The current library of stock textures and buildings does not allow a good representation of the Chinese landscape. So, unless a team is formed for perform such a task, a likely map of China would have to be rather generic and in any case it should be heavily underpopulated as well to maintain playability. The situation regarding the airfields is I think a bit better.

Some Japanese and Russian objects can be repurposed for a Chinese map, but some would need to be created. In particular, there need to be several versions of Chinese farmhouse/barn, mud-brick walls for walled villages, rice paddy walls (or entire rice paddy enclosures) and new Chinese temples and pagodas. Unique buildings for maps such as Hankow or Hong Kong might also be necessary. Having a Chinese junk as a new ship would also be welcome. New trees unique to China would also be a nice touch.

As for airfields, the USAAF did a good job photographing and mapping China during the war and immediately afterwards, so it shouldn't be too much trouble finding pictures of them, at least for 1943-47.