Thailand as a player? Official HBG color for them?

[empireman]

Making all the little minor nation each a country isnt good. they will each have like 2 ipcs, 3 Units on the board. They should be one country. (Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Finland, and Siam would be their territories)

[knp7765]

Yeah, that’s another problem I see with Axis Minors countries and Allied Minors countries. None of them would be likely to get more than 2-3 IPCs per round. So the only way they could ever buy anything other than infantry is to not buy anything for 2 or 3 rounds. If they wanted to buy a fighter, that would cost them even more rounds. Unless the IPC value of all territories were increased, but then you would have the big boys like Germany and Russia able to buy HUGE amounts of units.

I kind of understand how they play in the game. At least the way most people do it is Axis Minors move along with Germany on the same turn, Example: Romanian forces attack the same time as German forces, etc. What I don’t understand is how you divide up the IPCs of conquered territories. Obviously Germany is going to have the most units in any attack while any Axis Minor nations forces will simply be a little extra support. I would think the territory would be under German control and thus the IPCs would go to Germany. So, how are the Minor nations supposed to increase their economies?
OR, is the whole Axis economy one lump sum and Germany has to allocate a portion to each Minor nation? Like if Germany has 30 IPCs, he doesn’t just buy 5 German tanks, he buys 3 German tanks, 1 Romanian tank and 1 Finnish tank.
Or would the minor nations simply be outlets for Germany’s production? Like if he wanted to deploy all units in Germany, they could be all German units but if he wanted to put a new unit in a Minor country, the unit must be in the Minor Country’s color?
Sorry for all the questions. I’ve never tried HBG’s 1939 game yet (the biggest game I’ve played so far is Global 1940). Therefore, while I just LOVE all the Minor and Neutral units that HBG is putting out, I haven’t really had the chance to use them. All the minor nations rules are confusing to me but I am also very interested if learning them.

[Rhey]

see the minors more as a ‘fun factor’ addition. Give them their basic IPC’s + another amount that the big player, for example Germany that can give to Romania, gives. Every territory conquered will just go to the German IPC count but as the Germans can give them away to the Romanians, it wouldn’t really make a difference. At least that’s how we play it (offcourse we limit the amount of units that can be bought each turn for the minors and we also limit the amount of IPC’s germany can transfer to the minors, it’s silly having Romania take over Russia by itself).

[CWO Marc]

@Rhey:

see the minors more as a ‘fun factor’ addition.

Yes, that’s a good way to see them.  And they can be useful in spin-off games.  A Stalingrad game, for example, could make use of the fact that (if I recall correctly) the front north and south of the city (on the German side of the Volga) was being held by Romanian, Hungarian and Bulgarian forces – the locations where the Russians eventually attacked to start the pincer movement that trapped the Germans who were in the city.

[moralecheck]

I was thinking each minor could build 1 unit per turn, and be subsidized by the major power they are paired with (Germany, Italy [happened with Iraq] or Japan).  If they want a fighter, it can be done in one turn, with the major power covering the rest.  No BB’s, CV’s, CA’s or Strategic bombers for minors.

They must still be built in a factory.  The factory must be in or adjacent to their home country (or Malaya for Thailand if Japan prefers it to Indo China. Finland may build in Novgorod/Leningrad, if the Germans control it). I’m using HBG orange for Thailand.

The limit of 1 per turn came from a game where a major Germany factory was built in Romania.  10 Romanian units per turn was obviously not right.  So we decided that factory could produce 1 unit each for Romaina, and adjacent Hungary and Bulgaria.  The other 7 had to be German. The 1 per turn limit is per nation, not per applicable factory (but if the minor power contains a factory, it must build its units there). The money all comes from the same place, and major powers on both sides of the war provided aid to minor allies so it all works out (it’s also all purely cosmetic anyway and not remotely affecting mechanics, as the units count 100% as German, Italian or Japanese for movement and combat).  In the spirit of the rules though, on most turns the minors should be building 1 inf.  If it becomes a problem, maybe adding a ratio rule is in order.  2/3 of their combat units must be inf?

On the subject of mechanics, the scale of the game does not (IMO) require any rules for keeping Hungarian and Romanian units apart from each other, as found in many smaller scale games.  The only change we contemplated was with Bulgaria.  Bulgaria refused to declare war on the Soviet Union, so we considered not allowing them into Russia unless Russia declares war on Bulgaria.  We haven’t gone with this yet as it is a game of ‘what ifs’, and much of its charm is its simplicity.

Sorry for getting off topic, I guess I just should have said “I use HBG orange for Thailand”  :-D

[DrLarsen]

@moralecheck:

I was thinking each minor could build 1 unit per turn, and be subsidized by the major power they are paired with (Germany, Italy [happened with Iraq] or Japan).  If they want a fighter, it can be done in one turn, with the major power covering the rest.  No BB’s, CV’s, CA’s or Strategic bombers for minors.

They must still be built in a factory.  The factory must be in or adjacent to their home country (or Malaya for Thailand if Japan prefers it to Indo China).  I’m using HBG orange for Thailand.

The limit of 1 per turn came from a game where a major Germany factory was built in Romania.  10 Romanian units per turn was obviously not right.  So we decided that factory could produce 1 unit each for Romaina, and adjacent Hungary and Bulgaria.  The other 7 had to be German. The 1 per turn limit is per nation, not per applicable factory (but if the minor power contains a factory, it must build its units there). The money all comes from the same place, and major powers on both sides of the war provided aid to minor allies so it all works out (it’s also all purely cosmetic anyway and not remotely affecting mechanics, as the units count 100% as German, Italian or Japanese for movement and combat).  In the spirit of the rules though, on most turns the minors should be building 1 inf.  If it becomes a problem, maybe adding a ratio rule is in order.  2/3 of their combat units must be inf?

On the subject of mechanics, the scale of the game does not (IMO) require any rules for keeping Hungarian and Romanian units apart from each other, as found in many smaller scale games.  The only change we contemplated was with Bulgaria.  Bulgaria refused to declare war on the Soviet Union, so we considered not allowing them into Russia unless Russia declares war on Bulgaria.  We haven’t gone with this yet as it is a game of ‘what ifs’, and much of its charm is its simplicity.

Sorry for gettig off topic, I guess I just should have said "I use HBG orange for Thailand"  :-D

Not at all, by all means, I’m glad you went into detail.  That’s helpful stuff.  For those who are primarily interested in things like game balance (especially the tournament players out there) I can see how the use of minors probably complicates things too much.  My main goal, however, is semi-educational: I use games as a fun way to teach students about history, and I’m building an AA variant for a tournament for my students this summer.  I still don’t know how many there are going to be who are interested in our “1st Annual WW2 Camp,” but if the # is significantly more than 5, I’m thinking about finding a way to add minors into the game… so all this is very helpful.

[knp7765]

Hey moralecheck,
Thanks for explaining that to me. So basically all the money is controlled by Germany, they just purchase a minor unit for each minor nation and the rest are German units, even if they deploy at a factory in one of the minor countries. That makes sense. Also, I understand what you mean about making a ratio of infantry to other units. It would be kind of silly if, say, Hungary got a new fighter every turn and no infantry. So this is basically something to add some color to the board.

Hey DrLarsen,
Thank you for allowing us to hijack your thread to discuss this.

[Variable]

This is directly from the GW39 rulebook which you can download here ( http://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/79208/global-war-1939-rules )for the rest of the rules. Basically, each minor has it’s own fixed income to spend, plus it provides IPCs back to Germany.

• Minor Axis powers have a fixed income that they begin collecting on the turn they are activated by Germany.
• Minor Axis powers are limited to producing a maximum of 3 units per turn in their original territories. They may begin building on the round following activation.
• Germany is allowed to build a minor or major industrial complex on any Minor Axis territory that meets the requirements (2 Production value for a minor IC, 3 Production value for a major IC).
• Minor Axis powers build, attack, and move at the same time as Germany.
• All Production generated from territories captured by Minor Axis forces go to Germany.
• If a Minor Axis capitol is captured all of its Production Certificates are plundered by the capturing power.
• Minor Axis countries can be represented with German units as an optional rule.

[DrLarsen]

@knp7765:

Hey DrLarsen,
Thank you for allowing us to hijack your thread to discuss this.

Not at all, K! Helpful and interesting stuff all…  The primarily educational focus that I have means I’m quite interested in looking into all reasonable ways to get more “players” into the game.

[moralecheck]

I was refering to fitting them into G40. � I need to pick up G39 from HBG.

Forgot to add that that during setup, the German units in Hungary and Romania should be switched to minors.

The controlling axis players may purchase only their own units in the purchase phase, if they wish.  They can decide in the Place New Units Phase which ones the minors will get.

As an afterthought, Hungary and Romania were larger contributers.  Maybe they can build 2 units per turn as long as at least one is an infantry.

And for the rule lawyers:  If the minor is building in a factory outside its home territory, their home territory must have been friendly at the start of the player turn. � I.e. , no building Bulgarian units in Romania if Bulgaria is held by the allies. Bessarabia and Vyborg do not count as home territories of Romania and Finland for this rule.

Thanks for the kind words guys.  :-)