Russian Neutrality

Never mind, saw the answer on the next page.

@Herr:

Politicians need more time than soldiers. The friendly neutral is expecting a formal delegation to pay a visit, not someone in a tank dashing by and waving “Hi! You’re with us now!”

But I agree that in the game, it’s a bit odd.

Yeah that’s basically it!
Allies stop and wave and Axis, well they…march.  :-)

Fun aside, I agree with you, it is a bit odd.

I did read somewhere a post or repost where Larry agreed with adding the Rus bomber to the G40 starting set after the 2nd edition was released. He was just concerned how the rest of the world would know about the bomber. Could anybody confirm this and/or post a link?
Thanks.

#houserules

Here is a simple steamroller plan for Japan to go all-in against USSR before USA enters the war:

J1 invade Amur with EVERYTHING available (activates Mongolians in alpha 3 but that’s ok), build major IC in Korea.

Spend everything on tanks (J2) and mech infantry (J3 and J4) built in Korea.  Spend on Pacific needs J5 onward (perhaps hunker down in Japan & Korea and wait for European win)

Move the whole horde 1 space westward each turn, with tanks and mech infantry moving 2 spaces per turn to catch up.  Bring bombers.  If USSR infantry are retreating, chase them.  If they stop, kill them.

The 4 waves (infantry/artillery, tanks, mechs, mechs) will catch up at Novosibersk on J6

Moscow falls J8.

With some simple house rules attacking the true neutrals does not need to be insane.

In our group we are remove 1 inf in each of the mongolian territories and in angola and mozambique. This makes attacking an European true neutral less devastating for the asian land war and makes it less severe for the Italians. Its also more true to history which is a bonus.

We are also thinking of making Argentina as a pro-axis minor. This would be partly to make south america a possible theatre of operations and also to reduce the extreme impact on the american economy and manpower from attacking a true neutral. Not very true to history but we just regard that as a potential bonus.

Thanks for the clarification.  Makes sense now

@Pelanderfunk:

The Soviets get a 5 IPC bonus for being at war. In all of the global games I’ve played so far, the Soviet player has simply “declared war” on Japan on R1, regardless of whether or not they had plans to attack.

Is there any reason that the Soviets wouldn’t declare war on Japan as soon as they can? Is there any reason that being “at war” is a requirement of this NO if the Soviets can always be at war?

This has been addressed in the FAQ thread.  The Soviets have to be at war with either Germany or Italy in order to receive the 5 IPC bonus.  Of course, it would have been nice for the rulebook to say this directly.