The First Marnon War : afterthoughts

Having just seen Gowan's query about the size of the map, I thought I would reply with a posting, rather than  specifically to his comment.

The map board of Marnon Island (for the Wizard's Quest game).
Overall, 4 map spaces: 8 castles, and 36 territories divided equally among 6 regions.
Ruberia claims the regions of the Golden Dunes, Whispery Meadow  and the Misty Forest.,
and strongholds #1 through #4 - the western half of the island.

The Marnon map is straight out of the game Wizard's Quest, which, by the way, is a lot of fun in itself, and has the potential for some interesting wargames into the bargain.  The board is probably about 30"x20" (75cm x 50cm) though quite possibly less.  Not a large board at all: call it roughly the size of 6 pages of A4 lined up in portrait format (short side at the top) in 2 rows of 3.  At that there was a reasonable margin of ocean surrounding it featuring dragons and game information.

The map itself comprises 8 castles or strongholds, plus 6 regions each comprising 6 territories. In total, then, there are 44 map spaces, not counting the inland Sea of Marnon, which troops may not land on, but may (in certain circumstances) cross.  The 8 castles I thought of as colonial towns.  They were numbered 1 to 8, which provided my with the names of each settlement.  The other regions and the territories within each, besides being named, were all numbered 1 to 6, designed for the random placement of non-player characters in the original game.  A roll of a pair of dice determined which region, and which territory within it.

A strong Ruberian squadron encounters off Dragonhead
an even more powerful Azurian force.
Fortunately it was a time of peace;
 after the exchange of salutes, both continued on their way.

I gave Ruberia settlements 1-4 and Regions 1-3 as providing the most likely-looking border between the two.  This did leave Settlement #4 (Fourborough) in an awkward salient, and of the four, three were border towns (only Doubleton was back from the border.  The Azurians had only two border towns, though #5, Cinqueville, was the only link between the north and south west of the Sea of Marnon.  You can see why a canny Ruberian strategist might have made that place a point of aim, or than the Azurians would make sure it contained a powerful garrison.and was heavily fortified.  At that, Azuria was favoured with both towns being fortified, and as I have only 3 'fortified' tokens, the Ruberians were less fortunately placed.  Still, Monoton held out comfortably enough with only its walls...

Both sides had 2 Sea Ports (#1 and #2 in Ruberian territory; #6 and #8 in Azurian {the other two Azurian towns are on the shores of the Sea of Marnon}).  The First Marnon War did include some naval action that I didn't include in the final narrative as not being particularly meaningful.  Just to make things interesting I had both side roll 1xD6, which determined how many units went into this or that sea port.  Ruberia ended up with 4 ships in Monoton, on the North Coast; and just two in the south; Azuria got 5 in the south, and just the one on the East Coast town of Huitville (#8).

I'm considering using 4 ocean map spaces - north, east south and west coasts, plus the sea ports for naval forces.  To be meaningful  somehow the naval operation have to influence what happens on land e.g. Blockading ports (or elimination of the enemy squadron) might affect adversely the availability of reinforcements from the mother country.  That both sides have a sea port on the South Coast indicates I might have to think further about the implications.  One possibility is to use the creases and folds of the map to define 6 areas of coastal waters: NW, N, E; SW, S, SE.