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(TFT) world on a "standard" (?) table...

What follows is somewhat disjointed notes as is my ilk.
Why make it easy for anyone to read the rant?
I can't even "outline" myself; why expect anyone else too?
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/?page_id=518
I draw hexes on quarter inch graph paper and call the resulting figure a "square-hex". 1 square-hex is 1 inch in length from north to south and is one and a quarter inch from the vertices running east to west. I also draw the page geomorphically resulting in a total 8" x 10" area represented in 80 hexes total. 
This construction has several advantages.
2 of these pages equal 1 Squad Leader half-board in total hexes (4 pages = 1 full-board of 10 hexes by 32 hexes) so one page equals one quarter Squad Leader board in hexes. Also, because these are not geometrically "perfect" hexes their actual area in quarter inch squares works out to 16 total units. 

In Squad Leader scale;
1 SL-hex is given in #5 Movement as a distance of 40 meters.
1 linear mile is roughly 40 SL-hexes long which is 4 half-boards n/s or 2 and a quarter half-boards e/w. There are 80 hexes per page, 160 hexes per half-board, or 320 per full-board. 1 SL-hex is about 1600 square meters in area making each quarter inch square 100 square meters or 10 by 10 meters in dimension. For visual reference 1 football field is roughly 4 SL-hexes in area area with an acre equating to roughly 2.5 SL-hexes.. 1 square mile is about 1600 SL-hexes, or 40 pages, or 10 half-boards, or 5 full-boards in area. 

In real-world scale;
1 half-board is roughly 8" n/s by 11" e/w.
5 full-boards are 40" n/s by 22" e/w.
10 full-boards are 40" n/s by 44" e/w and would practically require a table top of more than 4 feet by 4 feet for a lay out representing around 2 square miles. The "page" format fails here with a measure of 50" n/s by 64" e/w to approximate the same map configuration requiring a table of around four and a half by five and a half feet in area. When "sizing" a dinning room table a distance of 3 feet is considered a minimum between the rooms walls and the table edge to allow reasonable movement with at least 2 feet between settings and a table width exceeding 3.5 feet making guests stand to pass across the table. 
My 4 foot wide circular table expands to 4 by 6 with one extra leaf.
I'd argue that a gamer needs at least as much space as any other guest at the table. I want my gaming tools to be as available as possible (i.e. no funny dice, etc.) so I adapt to the "frame" of the cheapest commonly available materials I can assume practically for a player to have to invest in "play" so I sweat such issues. 

To get to a "Strategic" scale;
A conceptual space of about 250,000 square miles is sufficient to encompass Europe's largest countries. 
5 full-boards cover 16,000 square-hexes.
16,000 square-hexes * 16 square miles (1 square mile per quarter inch square) apiece total an area of 256,000 square miles. Paris proper is a little over 30 square miles in area (approximately 9 miles east to west and 6 miles north to south) and would require over 150 full-boards to lay out in Squad Leader. Using what I call the Section-Township-Range (STR)-hex scale Paris is roughly 2 full hexes. I then use Civilization concepts to map city "production" to "squares" and have an interesting map area for strategy that is able to be laid out on the same table size as a (elongated) square mile on the Squad Leader scale. Some of the best air ranges exceeded 1000 miles or over 6 boards n/s at STR-hex scale so air stuff has to jack up a bit further to become what I'm calling "strategic".
If each scale-level is a doubling of the previous distance then 16 miles becomes 1 mile in 4 divisions which is roughly 1600 m sts, which is 40 SL-hexes linearly.
A Roman Legion moved roughly 10 miles a day on average while a Cavalry unit made about 40 miles per day over favorable terrain. Modern tanks operate at about 25 mph over level terrain and over 40 mph on roads at top performance but due to the mechanical strain this places on the vehicle and the logistical strain on fuel delivery and tank maintenance, these must be considered "burst" speeds that invite mechanical failure of engine and transmission systems. Blitzkrieg operations in France during WWII averaged between 3 to 4 mph over roads. Mechanized and motorized Infantry and combined arms units were designed to keep up with the tanks. 

Car Wars
Midsized auto ~150 hp (~100 hp per ton)
High performance sports car ~600 hp (~400 hp per ton)
Formula One race car ~1000 hp (~2000 hp per ton)
Main battle tank ~1500 hp (~25 hp per ton)
Locomotive ~2500 hp (~10 hp per ton)
Conestoga Wagons were drawn by 4 to 8 horses and transported loads up to 7 metric tons. They averaged 15 miles a day (usually over dirt roads). 

Wagon Trains averaged 12 to 16 miles a day.
Two-wheeled loaded carts pulled by two horses could travel at 5 miles per hour if the horses were switched with fresh ones once or twice each day. If the same horses were used all day every day, the wagon could travel at 4 miles per hour.
A lone traveler on foot carrying very little can walk at about 3 or 4 miles per hour. How long he can keep it up depends on his endurance. A marathon runner can do 8 miles per hour but likely couldn't keep that up day after day.
A very fit person trained for travelling over mountain trails or through the desert can, with a heavy pack (containing food and supplies), at best do about 20 miles in one day. Without a pack, he can make about 30 miles if he hikes fast all day. An experienced hiker not trying for a record does about 2 to 3 miles per hour.
A messenger pigeon can travel 30 miles per hour normally and 60 miles per hour in a burst.
Foot soldiers averaged a pace of 3 miles per hour. The soldiers could do this carrying fairly heavy loads (their equipment and some rations). Rain and muddy roads could cut this travel rate in half (to about 1.5 miles per hour). Forced marches usually meant marching longer (which left the soldiers exhausted at the end) rather than faster.
An army has to take time each day to break camp, load tents and such into wagons, and then set up camp at the end of the march--all of which cuts into how far they can travel in a day. The larger the army, the slower it moved. The Romans, who built temporary forts every night, often travelled only 10 to 12 miles a day even when travelling along their stone roads. Smaller armies that made less-fortified camps might be able to do 16 to 22 miles a day, but that was considered a hard pace.
The cavalry could travel faster, but they generally kept to the pace of the foot soldiers or were sent ahead to the next camp site since they had to graze their horses on good grass for about 5 hours every day. The Roman cavalry, when on its own, could do 40 miles a day.
A less-organized army might average 8 miles per day for the infantry and 12 miles per day for the cavalry.
An average horse bearing an average rider with minimal equipment along a road or good, fairly flat trail can travel 3 to 4 miles per hour at a walk, 8 to 10 miles per hour at a trot, 10 to 17 miles per hour at a canter, and up to 30 miles per hour at a gallop. A horse can not keep up a canter or gallop for more than a few miles, though. Exceptional thoroughbreds can go over 40 miles per hour for a mile. Quarter horses can reach up to 50 miles per hour for a quarter of a mile. Rough terrain would slow all these rates.
How far a horse and rider could travel in a day depends on the time of year, weather, terrain, condition of the roads, load carried (rider and equipment), and condition of the horse. A fit riding horse ridden by a fantasy warrior might cover 50 to 60 miles in a day, but 30 miles would be more average. A fantasy farm boy riding an old plow horse would go even slower than that.
An endurance horse bearing a light rider with very minimal equipment can travel 100 miles in a day on a trail over rough terrain. The horse would need several short breaks (15 to 30 minutes) to rest during the ride and couldn't repeat the performance the next day. The horse mainly travels at a trot, with some walking (up hills) and some cantering (on flat areas). Keep in mind that these horses are highly fit horses specially trained for these distances. They are well-fed, healthy, and have plenty of water available. Take away any of these factors, and the horse can't travel as far.
The Pony Express was made up of smaller horses and ponies who carried 165 pounds (including rider, mail, and supplies/equipment). Ponies were changed for fresh ones every 10 to 15 miles, and riders were changed for fresh ones every 75-100 miles. The horses traveled at about 10 miles per hour, and the mail was moved an average of 250 miles in a 24-hour day. The trail was mostly one of dirt.
Riding camels can travel over 100 miles in a day. Racing camels travel an average of 20 miles per hour during 6-miles races. A camel can travel 60 miles a day across the desert carrying up to 400 pounds. Camels can carry as much as 600 pounds if loaded properly. 

Also a cut/paste from an NPR thing;
On October 3, 1955, the Mickey Mouse Club debuted on television. As we all now know, the show quickly became a cultural icon, one of those phenomena that helped define an era. What is less remembered but equally, if not more, important, is that another transformative cultural event happened that day: The Mattel toy company began advertising a gun called the "Thunder Burp." 

I know - who's ever heard of the Thunder Burp?

Well, no one.
The reason the advertisement is significant is because it marked the first time that any toy company had attempted to peddle merchandise on television outside of the Christmas season. Until 1955, ad budgets at toy companies were minuscule, so the only time they could afford to hawk their wares on TV was during Christmas. But then came Mattel and the Thunder Burp, which, according to Howard Chudacoff, a cultural historian at Brown University, was a kind of historical watershed. Almost overnight, children's play became focused, as never before, on things - the toys themselves.
"It's interesting to me that when we talk about play today, the first thing that comes to mind are toys," says Chudacoff. "Whereas when I would think of play in the 19th century, I would think of activity rather than an object."
Chudacoff's recently published history of child's play argues that for most of human history what children did when they played was roam in packs large or small, more or less unsupervised, and engage in freewheeling imaginative play. They were pirates and princesses, aristocrats and action heroes. Basically, says Chudacoff, they spent most of their time doing what looked like nothing much at all.
"They improvised play, whether it was in the outdoors. or whether it was on a street corner or somebody's back yard," Chudacoff says. "They improvised their own play; they regulated their play; they made up their own rules."
But during the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff argues, play changed radically. Instead of spending their time in autonomous shifting make-believe, children were supplied with ever more specific toys for play and predetermined scripts. Essentially, instead of playing pirate with a tree branch they played Star Wars with a toy light saber. Chudacoff calls this the commercialization and co-optation of child's play - a trend which begins to shrink the size of children's imaginative space.
But commercialization isn't the only reason imagination comes under siege. In the second half of the 20th century, Chudacoff says, parents became increasingly concerned about safety, and were driven to create play environments that were secure and could not be penetrated by threats of the outside world. Karate classes, gymnastics, summer camps - these create safe environments for children, Chudacoff says. And they also do something more: for middle-class parents increasingly worried about achievement, they offer to enrich a child's mind. 

Change in Play, Change in Kids
Clearly the way that children spend their time has changed. Here's the issue: A growing number of psychologists believe that these changes in what children do has also changed kids' cognitive and emotional development.
It turns out that all that time spent playing make-believe actually helped children develop a critical cognitive skill called executive function. Executive function has a number of different elements, but a central one is the ability to self-regulate. Kids with good self-regulation are able to control their emotions and behavior, resist impulses, and exert self-control and discipline.
We know that children's capacity for self-regulation has diminished. A recent study replicated a study of self-regulation first done in the late 1940s, in which psychological researchers asked kids ages 3, 5 and 7 to do a number of exercises. One of those exercises included standing perfectly still without moving. The 3-year-olds couldn't stand still at all, the 5-year-olds could do it for about three minutes, and the 7-year-olds could stand pretty much as long as the researchers asked. In 2001, researchers repeated this experiment. But, psychologist Elena Bodrova at Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning says, the results were very different.
"Today's 5-year-olds were acting at the level of 3-year-olds 60 years ago, and today's 7-year-olds were barely approaching the level of a 5-year-old 60 years ago," Bodrova explains. "So the results were very sad."
Sad because self-regulation is incredibly important. Poor executive function is associated with high dropout rates, drug use and crime. In fact, good executive function is a better predictor of success in school than a child's IQ. Children who are able to manage their feelings and pay attention are better able to learn. As executive function researcher Laura Berk explains, "Self-regulation predicts effective development in virtually every domain." 

The Importance of Self-Regulation
According to Berk, one reason make-believe is such a powerful tool for building self-discipline is because during make-believe, children engage in what's called private speech: They talk to themselves about what they are going to do and how they are going to do it.
"In fact, if we compare preschoolers' activities and the amount of private speech that occurs across them, we find that this self-regulating language is highest during make-believe play," Berk says. "And this type of self-regulating language. has been shown in many studies to be predictive of executive functions."
And it's not just children who use private speech to control themselves. If we look at adult use of private speech, Berk says, "we're often using it to surmount obstacles, to master cognitive and social skills, and to manage our emotions."
Unfortunately, the more structured the play, the more children's private speech declines. Essentially, because children's play is so focused on lessons and leagues, and because kids' toys increasingly inhibit imaginative play, kids aren't getting a chance to practice policing themselves. When they have that opportunity, says Berk, the results are clear: Self-regulation improves.
"One index that researchers, including myself, have used. is the extent to which a child, for example, cleans up independently after a free-choice period in preschool," Berk says. "We find that children who are most effective at complex make-believe play take on that responsibility with. greater willingness, and even will assist others in doing so without teacher prompting."
Despite the evidence of the benefits of imaginative play, however, even in the context of preschool young children's play is in decline. According to Yale psychological researcher Dorothy Singer, teachers and school administrators just don't see the value.
"Because of the testing, and the emphasis now that you have to really pass these tests, teachers are starting earlier and earlier to drill the kids in their basic fundamentals. Play is viewed as unnecessary, a waste of time," Singer says. "I have so many articles that have documented the shortening of free play for children, where the teachers in these schools are using the time for cognitive skills."
It seems that in the rush to give children every advantage - to protect them, to stimulate them, to enrich them - our culture has unwittingly compromised one of the activities that helped children most. All that wasted time was not such a waste after all. 
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