World map guide

The map has 28 cities: 10 start under Western control, 10 under Eastern control, and 8 are Independent from the opening bell. Every route between two cities is a fixed spy leg — some are a two-second hop, some are half-a-minute hike across an ocean — and where you can and can't move agents shapes the whole game long before your first mission fires.

West / NATO East / Communist Independent trans-Pacific route (wraps off-map)

West / NATO cities

Washington DC — routes to Ottawa, London, Havana, Los Angeles.
Ottawa — routes to Washington DC, Fairbanks. Only two connections — a genuine bottleneck for anything moving through Canada.
Los Angeles — routes to Washington DC, Mexico City, Fairbanks, and (trans-Pacific) Tokyo.
Fairbanks — routes to Los Angeles, Ottawa, and (trans-Pacific) Yakutsk.
London — routes to Washington DC, Madrid, East Berlin.
Madrid — routes to London, Rome, Accra.
Rome — routes to Madrid, Cairo, East Berlin, Bucharest.
Pretoria — routes to Nairobi, Accra, Rio de Janeiro.
Tokyo — routes to Pyongyang, Jakarta, Sydney, and (trans-Pacific) Los Angeles.
Sydney — routes to Tokyo, Jakarta, and (trans-Pacific) Buenos Aires.

East / Communist cities

Moscow — routes to East Berlin, Arkhangelsk, Omsk, Bucharest.
East Berlin — routes to London, Arkhangelsk, Moscow, Rome.
Bucharest — routes to Omsk, Moscow, Cairo, Rome.
Arkhangelsk — routes to East Berlin, Moscow, Yakutsk.
Omsk — routes to Yakutsk, Bucharest, Moscow, Beijing, New Delhi. Five connections — the best-linked city on the Eastern side.
Yakutsk — routes to Arkhangelsk, Omsk, Beijing, and (trans-Pacific) Fairbanks.
Beijing — routes to New Delhi, Hanoi, Pyongyang, Omsk, Yakutsk. Also five connections.
Havana — routes to Washington DC, Mexico City, Rio de Janeiro, Accra.
Pyongyang — routes to Beijing, Tokyo. Only two connections — the East's equivalent of Ottawa.
Hanoi — routes to Beijing, Jakarta, New Delhi.

Independent cities

None of these start under either side's control, and they're generally the best-connected real estate on the board:

Cairo — routes to Rome, Bucharest, Nairobi, New Delhi, Accra.
New Delhi — routes to Cairo, Nairobi, Jakarta, Beijing, Omsk, Hanoi. Six connections — the single best-connected city on the map.
Accra — routes to Madrid, Nairobi, Cairo, Rio de Janeiro, Pretoria, Havana. Also six connections, and the only Independent city with a direct route into both the Western and Eastern starting blocs.
Nairobi — routes to Accra, Cairo, Pretoria, New Delhi, Jakarta.
Mexico City — routes to Los Angeles, Havana, Buenos Aires.
Jakarta — routes to New Delhi, Hanoi, Tokyo, Sydney, Nairobi.
Rio de Janeiro — routes to Havana, Buenos Aires, Accra, Pretoria.
Buenos Aires — routes to Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, and (trans-Pacific) Sydney.

The three bridges

Only three routes cross open ocean, and they're the only paths between the Americas and the Asia-Pacific side of the map — the dashed lines on the map above:

Los Angeles ↔ Tokyo
Fairbanks ↔ Yakutsk
Sydney ↔ Buenos Aires

Cut off from all three and an agent stuck on the wrong side of the Pacific has to go the long way round through Europe/Africa/Asia instead — worth remembering before you commit a team to a city that only reaches the rest of the map through a single bridge.

Reading the map for strategy

New Delhi and Accra are the two hubs of the board (six routes each) — holding either gives you options almost everywhere. Omsk, Beijing, Cairo, Nairobi, and Jakarta aren't far behind at five routes apiece. At the other end, Ottawa and Pyongyang each have only two connections — easy to cut off, and not worth over-investing in early unless you specifically need what's beyond them.