The map in Twilight Struggle is not a paper map. It is made of cardboard. If you want to see a real paper map, check out Paths of Glory or For The People.

So in a sense the map is already deluxe by GMT standards. I doubt its going to get any better.

That's bad news!

Pedro,

This won't help you now, but it will in the future, especially if you're planning on buying more wargames.

Buy a poster frame and put the map in it.

It both protects your map, and flattens it for ease of use.

Does that work for cardboard maps like Twilight Struggle? I can see it is useful for paper maps, but I'm not sure about cardboard.

Yes, the map really sucks. Also, it´s almost impossible to make it stay flat. They should put a warning on the cover: "This game is not playable by itself! Plexiglas pane required!"

Boy, did I laugh when I read on their website, that they would be doing "deluxe" maps for other games, that are like the one in Twilight Struggle.

This was the first game I bought from a "true" wargame publisher - and to think that this map is comparatively good...
Come on people, mounting boards can´t be that expensive! If I am willing to shell out € 50,- for a game I´d also pay € 60,-!
OTOH, they would propably get lynched by the hardcore wargamers who love their plexigals pane...

Ditto to all the comments above.

I just have a big piece of plexiglass that I drop over the top of whatever game I am playing. Works fine for the cardboard map in TS.

The plexiglass was a bit pricey but I have used it a guhjillion times so my price per play is probably in the pennies by now....

We also have a rule.... no drinks at the table!

I've ripped the plexiglass off a posterframe and use it for all of my wargames now, and I'm perfectly happy with it.
The 'deluxe' maps as used in Europe Engulfed, Twilight Struggle and C&C:Ancients look great underneath the plexiglass. No complaints here.

I have to laugh...

Anyway, ahem.



Ask them. Making 500,000 mounted maps for various games may not cost much, but making 2000 to 5000 mounted maps (which is probably the number of war games of a type produced) is very expensive.

And remember when you buy a wargame you aren't paying for someone to come up with a mechanic and slap a theme around it. You are paying the designer (rather poorly I might add) to put in hundreds to thousands of hours of research beyond creating mechanics and wrapping a theme around them. Wargames are NOT done like Memoir '44 or C&C Ancients, they have detailed historical information embedded into them. This takes time, research and many times a lot of money up front on the designers part.

Wargames (and thus games coming from a company that is 99% war games) are not created nor produced as other games.

Who doesn't have 5 or 7 pieces of plexiglass lying around? Oh right, people that don't play wargames.

I appreciate the Deluxe maps from GMT. They don't rip, the printing stays nicer longer, etc.

Yeah, the guys are right. That map is already deluxe (cardboard)! Wargames maps are usually in paper; if you're thinking of getting into venturing further afield in wargames and haven't seen a paper map yet, you're in for a big disappointment.

Just go buy a piece of plexiglass ("Acrílico") in the nearest AKI, Leroy-Merlin, something like that. They usually have it in sheets of 1m x 1m (the cost for the less thick sheets is either 5 or 10 Euros, can't remember it), and they cut it for free; ask them to cut a piece with 90cm x 60cm, which should fit nicely in your table and cover pretty much any wargame map out there.

The glass flattens any map (which is the main purpose; it's a bitch moving counters and stacks across a map that looks like a mountain range of folds), protects it from damage/dirtness, and makes any paper map look like a thousand bucks (much better than any mounted board, really!). Can't recommend it enough!

It is a good map--very thick cardboard. This "hate" of paper maps on the geek is just insane. They aren't that bad at all. In some ways, I prefer them even.

The TS map lays flat if you kind of bend it backwards a bit at the seems. I had absolutely no trouble with it - without using plexiglass or anything.

Same here, I have never had a problem with the TS board. A gentle "backfold" of each of the folds has always left it laying perfectly flat for me. I do sympathize with the desire for a more durable board, however.