USA Pacific and Europe

&%&$^%)%&^#$)&%&%&%%R^&^^)&%$&^(!!! I personally don’t like it b/c it’s unrealistic and b/c the U.S. can just go between the two boards anyways. I mean maybe if you want unrealistic and make a rule against going between boards it might be ok but…

Well I don’t know what an eonomy is…  :roll:

One of the keys to an Allied win is the ability of the US player to succesfully allocate resources to each theater and stop the Axis on both sides from getting victory cities. “Killing off Japan or Germany first” isn’t really a viable strategy because the other Axis can run rampant and secure the necessary number of cities easily if the US is uninvolved. Therefore, because balanced US spending is already “built in” (if the Allies want to win that is), I don’t think this is really necessary to add as a rule. However, if you can come up with something clever and fun, I’m all ears  :-D

That is an interesting idea, but I think historically the US had a Germany/Europe first attitude.

How would you split the NO?

@The:

I personally don’t like it b/c it’s unrealistic and b/c the U.S. can just go between the two boards anyways.

I think Knight got a point.

Also the IC limits US to build a max of 10 units at any coast. Of course the Central US factory skew the balance and allow for a 20 units placement into the Atlantic. Now if you house-rule out the Central IC, then US is limited to 10 units in any coast. I think that will balance it.

@Pvt.Ryan:

What if US had two eonomys? It would be more WWII like. Not for a real game but for a house rule (in which case IL needs to move this post). It would make it more fair for the Axis rather than the US killing off Japan or Germany first.

I’m not sure I understand the idea.  Do you mean giving the U.S. one pool of income that it could only spend on the war in the Pacific and one pool of income that it could only spend on the war in Europe?  In other words treating the U.S., from an economic point of view, as if it was two separate countries?

The US is supposed to be able to distribute it’s income equally or rush one side depending on the board.  I think from a design standpoint the US is supposed to act as a clock.  If as the Axis you can’t win before the US begins churning out units at you, you haven’t played it well enough.  That is what happened historically.

Actually the US focused more on Germany than Japan, historically. This was because of Churchill and Stalin! Germany posed more of a threat to them than Japan!

@Pvt.Ryan:

Yes but most military activity was in the Pacific until 1943 I  believe. I can count the major operations on the fingers. N. Africa, Italy, and Normandy. There were many more in Japan. Still this isn’t the point of the topic.

The U.S. did have an overall “Germany first” strategy…but at the same time, the U.S. was able to devote some of its resources and activities to the fight against Japan all through the war (and especially in the early stages) because doing so did not significantly impair its overall strategy.  The main naval assets which the U.S. had at its disposal after Pearl Harbor – carriers, cruisers and submarines – were of no immediate use against Germany (a land power), but were quite usable against Japan (a naval power).

But to get back to the point of this thread, the fact that the U.S. had to fight two separate wars doesn’t imply that the U.S. had two separate economies, one devoted to each war.  It didn’t.  The closest that you could come to using this concept in the game, while still maintaining a degree of realism, would be to introduce some sort of customized political rule or restriction or variable which would preserve the concept of the U.S. having a unified economy, but which would reflect the high-level competition for those resources that existed between the two theatres and between the different military services (and between branches of each individual service).  There were many cases of people on the same side wanting to be given priority in the allocation of resources (at the expense of their rivals).  Nimitz vs. MacArthur in the Pacific would be one example.  Another would be the fight for priority over long-range bombers in Europe between the guys who wanted to flatten Germany with them and the guys who felt that it was more important to use them to offer air cover to North Atlantic convoys.

@Pvt.Ryan:

So in short for CWO (ha your articles are kinda long) we need to have a limit on troop numbers not how much is spent on them.

Not quite.  Your initial idea was to treat the U.S. total income pool as two separate pools – one usable only for the Pacific and one usable only for Europe, as if the U.S. were two separate countries.  My suggestion is that you create some kind of political rule that will control how much income (from its single pool) the U.S. is allowed to spend in each theatre.  This could vary from game to game, or from turn to turn within each game.  The political factor would reflect the high-level lobbying by European and Pacific commanders over the question of how much money their particular theatre should be getting.  Think of the total U.S. income pool as a blanket that’s too small for a bed: it’s a single blanket, and the European and Pacific commanders are each trying to pull as much of it as possible to their side of the bed.

I would not advocate for it since part of the challenge of the US is to be able to prioritize and manage both thwarted.  The alpha 2 split board does a good kob as is, in my opinion.  The difference between this and UK/India is that they are a world apart with separate populations…

Bah!  I would rather see part of the US’s income go to a Lend-Lease “special” every round, where the other Allied players could use as they see fit in their home countries.  Imagine 10 IPCs worth of material that could be built in the UK or USSR every round after war dec (limited to land units, not sure how many US fighters were given away during WWII).  That would help balance the game immensely. (I know, the Axis would not enjoy losing their edge they’ve got now with Alpha +.2).

Still, it seems in most games the US is spending heavily in the Pacific (like 70-100% most turns), while barely spending enough to keep some transports loaded in the Atlantic.  The Japs are way overpowered still with their insane plane armada and +10 peace NO, and US buy’s reflect that, especially at the beginning of the game, where everything is shoveled into the Pacific as fast as it can go.  It would be nice to see some sort of % economy build in the European theater each turn, even if it was Lend-Lease units built in other countries.

So, the only way to force the US to commit to the other theater is to provoke them, either with a combined German/Italian fleet at Gibraltar or a successful Operation Sealion, or with a Pearl Harbor landing.  If you don’t threaten those theaters then don’t complain that the game is unbalanced when the US plops all 82 IPCs on one side of the board!

@Pvt.Ryan:

I think CWO that your right. We need to put a limit on number units in a system perhaps? It will not be simple though.

Well, the details of how you implement the idea in the game are up to you.  All I’m trying to do is provide some kind of historical justification for your basic concept (restricting how much money the U.S. can spend in each theatre).