For about a year now, I’ve been mulling over some ideas for a streamlined ruleset for factories, victory cities, capitals, and economies. My goal is to make the rules simpler, faster, and easier to remember without taking away from the realism and tactical challenges offered by the Global 1940 map. Anyway, I was bored at work this morning, and I think my ideas finally crystallized into something worth sharing. Please let me know what you think!
ALL FACTORIES ARE VICTORY CITIES, AND VICE VERSA
To avoid having to keep track of two separate lists of critical targets, I want to treat all territories with factories in them as victory cities, and I want to put a factory in each victory city. People naturally pay attention to factory cities, because that’s where the stream of enemy units is originating from. Instead of being forced to split your attention between factory cities and victory cities, you should be able to win the game if you capture and shut down enough of your opponents’ factories.
Starting Allied Victory Cities (14):
Kiev, Leningrad, Moscow, Stalingrad, Omsk (Novosibirsk)
London, Ottawa, Calcutta, Sydney
New York, Chicago, San Francisco
Paris
Chongqing (Szechwan)
Starting Axis Victory Cities (6):
Berlin (Eastern Germany), Frankfurt (Western Germany), Prague (Greater Southern Germany)
Tokyo, Harbin (Manchuria)
Rome
The Axis need to capture a net of 6 victory cities to win, so they’re looking to get up to a total of 12 victory cities. That would often mean capturing Paris, Chongqing, Kiev, Leningrad, Stalingrad, and either Calcutta or Sydney, but there is some flexibility if the Axis want to go all-out against either Britain or Russia.
The Allies need to capture a net of 2 victory cities to win, so they’re looking to get up to a total of 16 victory cities. That could mean capturing Tokyo and Harbin while liberating France, or it could mean capturing Frankfurt and Rome while holding the line against Japan, or it could mean completely wiping out the European Axis while only losing a couple of victory cities to Japan, e.g., down Chongqing and down Sydney.
BUILD FACILITIES, NOT FACTORIES
Because factories are victory cities, they cannot be constructed, upgraded, or destroyed. Instead, players can build training camps, naval bases, and air bases as needed to try to provide better geographic coverage.
| Building | Cost | Produces | Special Abilities |
| Major Factory | N/A | Up to 10 units | Is a Victory City |
| Training Camp | 5 IPCs | Up to 3 infantry | None |
| Naval Base | 8 IPCs | Up to 3 ships | +1 ship range, repairs capital ships |
| Air Base | 10 IPCs | Up to 3 planes | +1 airplane range, scramble fighters |
Facilities stack with each other to add additional production opportunities. For example, if you have both a training camp and a naval base in Southern France, then you could build up to 3 infantry and 3 submarines there on the same turn. However, no territory, no matter what facilities it has, can ever spend more than 40 IPCs on producing new units in the same turn. Even if you have a factory, a naval base, an air base, and a training camp all on the same territory, you still can’t spend more than 40 IPCs there. If your nation is earning more than 40 IPCs per turn, then you have either save the income or spread your spending across more than one territory.
THERE ARE NO CAPITALS; INSTEAD YOU CAN LOOT ALL FACTORIES
This system doesn’t use or require capitals. There is no such thing as capitals in this ruleset. Instead, anytime you capture a factory, that factory automatically goes up to max damage (20 damage tokens), and you can steal up to 10 IPCs from the factory’s former owner. If the owner doesn’t have a full 10 IPCs, then you simply steal whatever they do have in their treasury. For example, if China only has 4 IPCs left when Japan conquers Chongqing, then Japan would steal 4 IPCs from China. On the other hand, when Germany conquers Paris, they would only steal 10 IPCs from Paris – not the full 17 IPCs that would typically be in France’s treasury.
Because there are no capitals, conquering the cities that are traditionally thought of as capitals doesn’t cripple the nation’s economy quite as badly. For example, if Germany conquers London, that’s quite bad for Britain – it means that Germany gets to steal 10 IPCs, plus collect England’s 8 IPCs, plus inflict max damage on London’s factory, plus Germany gains a victory city and is closer to victory, plus Britain may finds it harder to produce enough units in the Atlantic theater to fight back effectively. So there are plenty of reasons to try to capture the cities that are traditionally thought of as capitals. But in this ruleset, capturing those cities doesn’t completely prevent their former owners from collecting income, constructing buildings, or recruiting new units. For example,. after Germany takes Paris, Paris will still have 7 IPCs in its treasury, and it can use those IPCs to immediately build a training camp in, e.g., Algeria or French Equatorial Africa. Then, on turn 2, France would be able to recruit some infantry in its training camp.
If you conquer a city with airbases, naval bases, and/or training camps, then all of those facilities receive 5 damage at the moment you capture them. If this pushes them over the 8 damage maximum, then the facilities are destroyed.
ADJUSTMENTS TO BOMBING RULES
Both tactical bombers and strategic bombers may target any type of building for bombing damage. As per the usual rules, tactical bombers deal 1d6 damage, and strategic bombers deal 1d6+2 damage. A training camp, naval base, or air base is fully functional as long as it has 3 or less damage. A training camp, naval base, or air base is deactivated if it has between 4 and 7 damage. A training camp, naval base, or air base that accumulates 8 damage is immediately destroyed. It can be rebuilt for its full price on its owner’s turn if the owner has the cash and wishes to do so. A rebuilt facility starts off at full health.
Factories behave as normal – they lose one unit of production capacity for each damage up to 10 damage, and then after that they can accumulate ‘surplus’ damage up to 20 damage. Factories cannot be destroyed. If you inflict more than 20 damage on the same factory, it just gets 20 damage and stays there until its owner pays for repairs.
UNIFIED BRITISH ECONOMY
All British territories, including the UK, Canada, ANZAC, India, Singapore, Hong Kong, and South Africa, participate as part of the same unified nation and economy on the same turn. There is no more division between UK-Europe and UK-Pacific. Because no territory can produce more than 40 IPCs of units in the same turn, Britain cannot simply dump its entire economy into Calcutta or Sydney. Britain can choose to focus its efforts into the Pacific if it desires, but that is an appropriate option that should be allowed. If Britain directs all of its efforts to the Pacific theater, then Germany and Italy will rapidly get very large at Britain’s expense, reducing Britain’s total budget and making it hard or impossible for Britain to keep on cranking out units in the Pacific.
STARTING LOCATIONS FOR TRAINING CAMPS
There are no minor factories in this ruleset. This is just one possible suggestion for where the training camps might go at the start of the game. Players are free to build more, for 5 IPCs each, in any territory generating at least 1 income. There might need to be other changes to setup to make these rules work well. Naval bases and airbases would probably be placed mostly in the same starting positions as regular Global 1940.
Scotland
Southern France
Northern Italy
Finland
South Africa
New Zealand
Buryatia
Korea