G40 - New UK Pacific Nation

Sounds awesome!

Also, YG, what do you think about this off the wall idea…

New Rule:

Liberated Capitals do not restore ownership of other originally controlled territories.

Right now the liberation rules create a weird disincentive, which encourages players not too liberate an ally capital, for fear of losing the income you’ve gained with your primary nation during the interim period. The game shouldn’t support this behavior. Instead if you liberate a capital, only the capital territory should return to the original owners control. The rest of the territory can stay under the control of the ally occupying army that just liberated you. This is how it worked in the real war anyway, and it would be better for the gamplay.

Under the rule above, if your land was occupied directly by your ally during the time when your capital was lost, it is considered “under you ally’s military control” for the duration of the war. Any additional territory outside the Capital, is considered nominally liberated, but for gameplay purposes, liberating your ally’s Capital only effects the liberation of the capital territory itself and no others.

Ex. if the Americans control Normandy, and then liberated Paris, only France itself is returned immediately to French control, not Normandy or any other originally french territory, that is currently occupied by their allies. These territories are considered part of the overall war effort, and to be returned only after the War is fully won. Or until the liberated power is prepared to re-occupy, by simple declaration. This leaves the option to the Liberator/Liberated, about when to restore other territories beyond the Capital, based on the needs of the War.

I have been thinking a lot about the proposal you made elsewhere to have “China” rules apply to any vanquished nation (e.g. after their capital falls.) It occurred to me, in order to make the rules consistent, and to avoid having special rules exclusively for China, what if we just said that China’s capital is occupied Kiangsu?
Kiangsu =VC Shanghai and Wartime capital Nanking.

So under this logic, the reason why China has separate rules, different from all other nations, is because they begin play with an occupied capital. They’re not a special case, they just work the way all players do when their capital is lost. As part of a tweak to support this rule, you could include a free minor factory in Kiangsu if China manages to liberate this territory. Similar to the way USA can upgrade their Minors to Majors for free, just something that happens. Or you could do this as part of an overall restricted factory scheme, where the factory unit is removed from the purchase roster, but more minor factories are included at the outset. Either way would work. Production tweaking is an idea I know we’ve kicked around before. For the liberated unit roster though, you could still keep the roster restricted to infantry and artillery, or maybe add in the fighter to the roster at this point, just for kicks, and a reason to get the capital back!
:-D

It is entirely possible to do something similar for the Dutch. Although Holland lacks a VC, one could still say that the Dutch National capital is here. I always find it strange how no matter what happens in G40, Holland can never be liberated. What would be ideal is if we could somehow create a set of rules, that was consistent for these three powers, the Chinese, the Dutch, and the French. Right now they all play according to their own rules. France behaves like a normal nation, but is designed to die on G1. China, well we all know how that works, and then the Dutch who have their own specialized rules and exceptions. Wouldn’t it be cool to design a scenario where all 3 of these nations, and everyone else, behaved according to the same master set of rules?

I think you could do this, by first saying that China and the Dutch are just normal powers, that have occupied capitals at the start of play. Whatever rules apply to them, the same rules should apply to a power like France, once Paris is occupied by Germany. Basically something consistent for all the player nations, and the one non-player nation =Dutch.
Just something to think on. I’d love to hear your thoughts. I believe it could be done, all that is required is perhaps the idea that the Chinese capital is Kiangsu, and the Dutch capital is Holland. And then in the case of liberation, they get a free minor at their capital at which to place their infantry and artillery according to the normal mechanics. The minor is mainly for show and prestige and to make sure all players can work the same way. You could still keep the unit roster restricted to infantry and artillery, using Chinese inf scultps and american or lime green brits to stand in for the Dutch if they are liberated. If you want to include the fighter in the liberated unit roster, that would be cool, there are plenty of lime green spitfires out there, or other air sculpts from previous boards. Seems like kind of a sham, that the Dutch are on the board with territories, and were liberated in the War. They had a cool resistance same as France, and they cheered and kissed the allies in the streets as liberators too. Why not give them this small nod, and allow Holland to serve as a mini victory territory.

You could call such rules “Market Garden” since it handles rules for Liberation and Capital loss, but also gives a nod to the Dutch/Holland thing. After a capital falls, we could make empty territory (no defending units) behave something like the Dutch territoires do OOB, after a capital falls. Making them easier to activate, in the case of Russian land after Moscow falls, or French land after Paris falls, or Italian land after Rome falls, or, you get the idea. But I think it might be fun for a Pacific themed scenario too.

Basically once the capital is liberated, all nations should play according to the same normal, OOB rules, with the exception of that new one mentioned above.

If a capital is occupied, all nations (and territories they control) should play according to the same consistent set of New rules.

That’s my proposal anyway. I think it would work for the British Pacific Empire theme, since at some point this scenario like all others will deal with the liberation aspect of the game. Here is an idea that might play, say India falls. Instead of a “back up” capital, just have the game play the way I suggested. After the capital is dead, Anzac can be liberated by USA, they occupy the land the same way they would dutch territory OOB. And you could do the same thing on the Europe side of the board, allowing UK to occupy French territory in Africa, just as if it was dutch (ie territory owned by a vanquished player.) And you could do the same with China, Russia or America or the British could occupy China for themselves or for the Chinese at the liberators discretion. Have all these territories behave the same way when the capital has fallen.

If you like, units already present in a territory of a vanquished nation, could  be activated by an ally, and could join the ally force, the same way friendly neutrals join their armies to the occupying force. Or they could just be disbanded, with territory ownership going to the ally power that just moved in. This would allow for a real Dunkirk type play, as Britain could activate French units left behind after the initial fall of France, or at least activate the land for themselves. (No incentive for players to Metagame and leave France unoccupied, just so other Allies can’t take it, as sometimes happnes now with an exploit of the current rules.) In general France would be a much more interesting power to play under such rules, since they could mobilize infantry the same way China does. For Axis this will be a disadvantage granted, but Axis already have the acknowledged advantage OOB anyway, so this might just be a balance, definitely no allied bid. Or even if Axis need a leg up under such rules, you can always come back to that afterwards. First though, make fun rules for all nations under all conditions, whether capital is lost or restored.

And then if the capital of this nation is liberated, and the nation itself is restored to normal play, you let the Liberating player choose when to return other specific territories based on the needs of total Victory in the greatest war in human history.

Also, I dig the NOs you proposed. Hope your game is glorious tomorrow :-D

Sounds killer man, I’m going to repost that last idea in a separate thread so as not to distract too much from the main aims of this one. Since I think it works for standard G40 too. But I think I might try it using the British Pacific Empire set up, since this set up intrigues me a lot.

Have a great game tomorrow :-D

Black Elk,
I am curious about your liberation idea. So if Paris is taken by Germany, and Italy takes Morocco, then the US takes Morocco from Italy, then Paris is liberated, the US keeps control of Morocco, right? This only happens to French territories that were taken by Axis powers then retaken by Allied powers, correct? In other words, If the US lands in Morocco while Paris is captured but Morocco was never taken by Axis, in that case Morocco is still French, right?

An idea popped into my head concerning French territories in Africa as well as Syria and FIC. Most of the French forces in these territories became Vichy once Paris fell. The French in Morocco and Algeria did resist the Allied landings in Operation Torch, even if most of it was token resistance. The British had to fight hard against the French in Syria because they were afraid of the Luftwaffe using Syria for air bases. In FIC, the Vichy French allowed Japan to pretty much move in and take over.
So I was thinking of this idea. What if all French territories outside of the 3 main territories in Europe became Pro-Axis Neutrals after Paris falls? If an Axis power moves into one of these territories (for example: Italy moves from Libya to Tunisia), the French infantry there becomes Italian and Italy gains control of that territory. The Allies would have to fight those French units to take those territories.
Now, the 2 French infantry and 1 French fighter in England would still work for the Allies. Perhaps they could turn into British units like YG suggested. Either way, they stick with the Allies.
I’m not sure about the French naval units. I’m thinking they would also stick with the Allies. Only the land territories and whatever units are on them change to Pro-Axis neutrals (except for England). Or you could end up making the naval units into “Strict” neutral units but I’m not sure what that would really end up accomplishing. Then you would just have a few ship pieces on the board that don’t do anything. I think it would just be better to leave the French ships sticking with the Allies. Unless you want the Axis to get a few more ships.

Glad you guys had a fun game YG.

What impact did the special Russian infantry rule have?

This sounds really encouraging! Can’t wait to check it out in a FtF game.

Oh also to Knp, I dig that idea, not least because it might offset some of the allied advantages to the system I proposed. I migrated the discussion to a new thread (a few posts down in this forum) to keep the focus here on the British Pacific Empire idea. But I actually dig that proposal a lot, and I think it would be cool as a way to represent Vichy in the game.