Neutral Blocks Discussion - Delta+1

Maybe it’d be useful to establish what people don’t like about the original neutral rules, in order to get a good view on what could and should be changed (or put into blocks)

NEUTRAL BLOCKS

Blocks I propose;
SAmerica-all neutral territories in Samerica minus Brazil.  
Middle East-Turkey, Arabia, and Afghanistan
Iberia and colonies- Portugal, Spain and all african colonies including Liberia(US) and Sierra Leone(UK)
Switzerland-no penalty other than fighting the troops there.  Why would anyone ever attack here?
Mongolia-tied to Jap/Rus peace

USA-has to pay 3 ipcs to invade a neutral.

That leaves us with Sweden, who I think should be a special case.  I don’t think Sweden was all too keen about Russia invading them, they did send supplies to Finland during the Winter war.  I propose that the Swedish Iron Ore be tied directly to Sweden.  If Sweden is neutral than Germany collects the 5 ipcs.(more than the 3 its worth) if Russia takes Norway and Finland, Sweden turns German like Mongolia, replace those units with German.  This will hopefully give incentive for UK or US to take Norway and stop the spread of Communism.

We could add that if Allies hold Norway and Russia holds Finland than Germany loses the NO.

To reiterate this proposal comes with a change to the swedish Iron Ore NO to have it based on Sweden.
US pays 3 ipcs to invade neutrals
neutral blocks
Switzerland, Sweden and Mongolia have special rules.
Add 1 inf to Liberia

I would like to address the consequences of this change, in fact we should probably do that for every topic.

Special forces brought up the fact that splitting the neutral blocks is an advantage to the Allies, due to Samerica being a US responsibility.  I think theres a few ways we can approach this.

One could be that if a territory is attacked, the other countries in the block join the other side immediately.  No ‘pro axis’ status for countries the Axis could never reach.  This would allow Germany to perhaps delay the US in Samerica, or force the Allies to hit Angola and Mozambique when they take on Iberia.  I also am leaning towards another unit in West Africa, perhaps Liberia?

Another option is to take Switzerland and Afghanistan out of the mix and instead have them join the war.  If US attacks any neutral, switzerland joins Germany.  If Axis attack any neutral, Afghanistan joins UK.

I also feel that if the allies are hitting neutrals then they are wasting time.  especially if we have those neutrals immediately join the other side.  US would have to be careful in Samerica then.

Neutral Blocks reply 5.

An attack by any Axis power upon any territory within a Neutral Block will result in all territories within that Block becoming pro-allies.  An attack by any Allied power upon any territory within a Neutral Block will result in all territories within that Block becoming pro-axis.  The four Neutral Blocks are:

South America (VEN, COL, ECU, PER, BOL, PAR, CHI, ARG, URG)
Europe & Colonies (SWE, SWI, SPA, POR, ANG, MOZ, RDO, PRG, SIE, LIB)
Islamic (TURK, SAUD, AFG)
Mongolia (OLG, DZA, TSA, CMO, ULA, BUY)

In addition:

If any allied power attacks any true neutral territory in the South America Block, all currently true neutral territories in the Europe & Colonies Block become pro-axis neutral.

If any axis power attacks any true neutral territory in the Islamic Block, all currently true neutral territories in the Europe & Colonies block become pro-allies neutral.

If any allied power attacks any territory in the Europe & Colonies Block (whether axis controlled, pro-axis, pro-allies, or true neutral), all currently true neutral territories in the Islamic Block become pro-axis neutral.

so everybody keep your hands off the neutrals.

I meant in this thread (sorry ambiguous), since I assume I can’t submit more than one option.

Thanks.  I would still consider my newer idea a variant, but one that makes more historical and gameplay sense.

South America did join the Allied powers when the liberation of continental Europe got going.

How Spain and Portugal would have reacted to the fall of Moscow is far more speculative (maybe someone with better historical credentials than me could speak to that).

edit: I removed the conditions about France and Moscow to help streamline the rules

The point of tying all of the neutrals together is to discourage attacking any of them.  If you break them up into blocks, it will be exploited badly.

If neutrals are to be broken into separate blocks then their force pools should increase as the game moves along.  Don’t you think Spain or Turkey would increase the size of their armies if a threat grows on their border?  The rest of the world is mobilizing HUGE armies, the neutrals should increase then as well.

First a word on Iberian feelings towards a successful Barbarossa.  In reality Spain was demoralized from their civil war, and more interested in rebuilding their industry and infrastructure than troops, however that means their troops were seasoned and probably would have fared better than other Axis allies.  The real reason I see for Franco to stay out of the war was that Spain was an easy target for Germany coming from the north and an alliance with Germany would mean the loss of Spain’s final overseas possessions, considering that for the past few hundred years France and UK had been snipping colonies from other powers.

Not sure how that political situation would play out in this game.  Also Portugal would have been force to side with Spain or be invaded.  Same problem with them of losing all their colonies if they joined the axis….and if they stayed neutral they make bank in trading luxury goods.

For gameplay’s sake perhaps adding in an ipc cost for US DOW’s on neutrals might do the trick?

@M7574:

The point of tying all of the neutrals together is to discourage attacking any of them.  If you break them up into blocks, it will be exploited badly.

If neutrals are to be broken into separate blocks then their force pools should increase as the game moves along.  Don’t you think Spain or Turkey would increase the size of their armies if a threat grows on their border?  The rest of the world is mobilizing HUGE armies, the neutrals should increase then as well.

I agree that their force pools should be increased, however I am leery of adding too many troops, I would rather prefer naval unit additions if it can be wrangled.  That is because the inf numbers are printed on the board and I would like to keep that information up to date.  I do however think adding an inf to Liberia might work within my proposal.

@JimmyHat:

For gameplay’s sake perhaps adding in an ipc cost for US DOW’s on neutrals might do the trick?

I quite like this idea to go with a strait-up neutral block system.  You could even call it the propaganda cost.

I am going to amend my idea slightly, adding in the US ipc cost of invading neutrals.

I also think it might be a good idea to have 2 or 3 options which people can playtest and report back on.  That is unless we get a consensus.

Should it be  considered that some strict neutrals could be pro axis or pro allies but have been left out, example, I have seen suggestions that Argentina should have been pro Axis. I dunno, if we are changing rules why not look into this.

That is certainly possible, you should flesh it out a bit and enter it as an idea.  That way when we start the voting people can vote on it.

Switzerland should be the only strict neutral that cannot be invaded. At all. Ever.