I took a gander at HBG’s global 1914 map today. And I realized something.
The 1914 map actually accommodates more potential players than A&A G1940, 2nd ed. At present, G1940 includes nine powers, two of which are “full” minors that usually do not survive the first round of play: US, China, UK, ANZAC, Soviet Russia, and France. They are arrayed against Germany, Italy, and Japan. Some players add a UK FEC as another, major power.
On the 1914 map, all of these powers are viable, plus at least two more: Austria Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. You also get a more robust China. Further, I think it would be possible to add the Portuguese Empire, giving them Brazil, along with Argentina. Given that France will presumably stick around a few more turns, you can then add the BeneLux, with its colonies in Africa and the DEI.
You can, of course, by adding HBG pieces, play from '14 through '45.
Has anybody ever tried this?
I took a gander at HBG’s global 1914 map today. […] You can, of course, by adding HBG pieces, play from '14 through '45.
The idea of using the HBG 1914 map to play from 1914 to 1945 is interesting, but it would raise a couple of related problems. The first problem is that it would be a little strange to fight a Second World War in which some of the participants are defunct jurisdictions like Imperial Russia, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary. The second problem is that one would have to decide what “1914 to 1945” means. Does it mean (as it did historically) two distinct world wars separated by a twenty-year interwar period? If so, the potential difficulty is that the end result of the First World War phase of the game might not produce the same outcome as the historical one which led to WWII as we know it. Or does it mean a single conflict 30 years in length, with no interwar period at all? If so, the rules would have to ensure that the war does in fact last 30 years, and we’d also be dealing with a scenario that would deviate very substantially from history.
I think the idea is to begin at WW1 and see what happens if you just keep playing on a global scale.
Gameplay would be driven by specific objectives. Each nation would be seeking to complete mutually exclusive conquests. While political rules might create opportunities for lulls in the combat, it would remain a war game.
Players would progress along a large technology tree, ultimately ending up with the same technology used in a game of Global 1940.
It goes like this. Have a war for a few years, play Acquire for a few decades, then have another war. The time of course is relative and scale down for the game. Each game should take just over a month.
