Oddities in the board layout?

[sgiove]

Ok, first off let me admit that I'm being a bit picky about this topic. My opinions in no way prevent me from enjoying the game and I likely only have these thoughts because I'm working on a 3D version of the gameboard. I'll point out in advance that my board will be larger than the standard LNOE board, with 3 inch standard squares and 6 inch center sqaures to give more freedom to build to scale and allow easy view and access of the miniatures that enter buildings.

Again, I'm not really trying to be too serious with this post. Most of my thoughts are tongue in cheek. I just mention them because they have become small issues that I've encountered when modeling the board in a 3D fashion.

1. Why are there no roads on the board (or sidewalks/pavement for that matter). Does everyone in the town just walk through grass all day? Grass right up to the highschool? Grass outside the hospital and bank? No parking lots? We have an "Escape in the Truck" scenario and a gas station, but it appears that the citizens must all have 4-wheel drive vehicles because they just pull up to town buildings on a grass surface.

Granted, I do realize that adding roads, parking lots, etc. would be hard to do on a modular style board, but I've thought it through and it's not actually impossible.

2. Why do the main doors of a respected instituation like the Bank, open only one space across from a junkyard?!? It's almost like if you want to do business at the bank you must go down a seedy alley (unless you always enter and exit from the rear entrance.)

3. Something's not right when your small town church has a larger layout than the Police Station, the Plant, or the Factory. So is your local diner. I guess a small town Police Station could indeed be smaller than a church, but the town Factory and Plant only taking up 3 spaces, when buildings like a bank, diner, church, antique shop, gas station, and gun shop each take up 4? Seems weird.

4. The Gas Station/Junkyard confuses me the most. Ok, I can understand why there is an entrance/exit from the Gas Station that leads into the junkyard. It does confuse me though why no doors are located in front of the gas pumps. So, workers at the Gas Station either need to be constantly peeking around from the garage or from the junkyard to see if they have customers waiting to be fueled? Furthermore, why are there TWO entrances for the garage? Has anyone seen a garage with a lift that had an entrance on either side of the garage? When I model the gas station, I'll probably move things around a bit. I'll keep all the walls and entrances as is because I don't want to change the flow and integrity of the game, but I think the area that is currently the service area (with the lift) will become a car wash (at least that makes sense to have an entrance/exit on either side of that portion of the building) and move the service area to the space leading out to the junkyard. I'll probably reposition the gas pumps as well so they're not "hidden" from view from those inside the building.

5. The hangar. Ok, this one puzzles me. For one, the graphics alone are confusing. There's no way that the plane inside of that hangar would be able to exit either of those doors (I know, I know, this is just a graphical representation.) But why do the only exits point toward the center of town?!? So, when the plane leaves the hangar and needs to take off, does the center of town become its runway? Also, where are these planes landing before they come to the hangar?!? I think when I model this one, the two doors will just be smaller entryways for foot traffic and I'll make a large, closed, garage-type door at the back of the hangar just as a representation of where the plane can exit (out the backside of the building into an imaginary part of the town that is away from the town square).

6. Who plants a cornfield that comes almost right up against the side of a barn? (I admit, this one is a very small annoyance and is only brought up due to the difficulty of placing cornstalks into the same space as a large opening to the barn.)

7. The layout of the diner seems odd. In most diners, the sitting area would be along the two walls closest to the door (so that people from the outside can easily see inside and so the customers have windows along the wall to look outside of.) Not to say the people along the back wall wouldn't have this same luxury, but I find it odd that the back door leading out to the trash area isn't connected to the kitchen. In most eating establishments, the kitchen is away from the entrance. From a modeling point of view, it would have been so much nicer to place seating and windows along the front door wall. Instead I need to have a solid wall with no windows as the "front" wall, to hide the kitchen denizens from view to the outside. Actually, I guess I could model the inside differently as long as the integrity of the layout stay the same.

Again, take it with a grain of salt. I'm sure most people don't even care about these thoughts. I just thought they were fun to point out.

Does anyone else have other thoughts that confuse them about the board layout if this indeed were a real town?