Allied Declaration of War against Comintern

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17

    I’m feeling a bit dumb for asking this, but I haven’t had a chance to play V3 yet (this virus can’t go away soon enough), and something is just dawning on me.

    V3 changed the rules for when the Allies can declare war on the Comintern. I think it was a good change, but certainly can change potential strategies. I’m talking about the ability to declare war any time after the USSR takes a territory that doesn’t border USSR home land territory.

    I understand that this isn’t something that is necessarily going to happen the moment the USSR takes something to activate this rule. That wouldn’t benefit the Allies much in a lot of games if it happens too early. But this is possible now, which begs my maybe dumb question(s).

    There might be other instances, but these two pop in my head immediately.

    1. The Spanish Civil War. Say the Repbulicans win the Spanish Civil War. If at some point they become aligned to the USSR, does that automatically mean the Allies can declare war on the Comintern, since Spain doesn’t border USSR home country?

    2. If using the Turkey at War Expansion. If the USSR ends up controlling Turkey, and then later aligning them, does that automatically give the Allies the ability to declare war on the Comintern?

    I suppose the Turkey at war example is somewhat avoidable. If I’m remembering properly, the controlling player doesn’t necessarily have to align Turkey at any point in the game, and can choose to keep them as just a controlled Minor power. This wouldn’t trigger the Allied ability to declare war (unless the rule is for USSR/Comintern control, and not alignment, but I don’t believe that to be the case). But that might affect a Comintern player using this expansion from attempting to control/align Turkey, no? There’s obvously upside to taking control of Turkey, but some players might not find a benefit in simply controlling Turkey without the ability to align and use the full might of USSR resources?

    All just thoughts, any input is great!


  • I never played v1 or v2, so I cannot compare with the older rules, but for the USA and Great Britain, the conditions for declaring war to the Comintern are in the National Reference Sheets :

    "Yes, under any one of the following circumstances: The USA (or G-B) is at Wartime income and
    • Germany or Japan has surrendered
    • USSR Currently Possesses an original Allied land zone.
    • USSR has Attacked a neutral minor power not Adjacent to Soviet Home Country.
    • USSR declares war on an Allied nation

    In your Spanish Civil War example, the USSR did not attack Spain.

    In your Turkey at War example, Turkey is Adjacent to Soviet Home Country (via Transcaucasia).


  • @Noneshallpass good point on the rule being attacked and not just possessing!

    Spain would make sense then, as that is it’s own separate conflict within first.

    Your Turkey example wouldn’t work in the sense of Anatolia and Istanbul not bordering the USSR, even though Kars does. But that’s all a moot point since this wouldn’t be an attack on a Neutral or minor Turkey, as they would have been influenced to join.

    Thanks for pointing that out, I completely overlooked the word attacked!


  • Maybe I’m reading this wrong, but the rule mentions both “land zone” (second bullet) and “neutral minor power not Adjacent to Soviet Home Country” (third bullet). These are two different things.

    Turkey is adjacent to Soviet Home Country, even if all of its land zones are not.

    Therefore an attack on Turkey (even in Anatolia or Istanbul) is an attack against a minor power that is Adjacent to Soviet Home Country.

    The same logic would apply to Poland or Finland.

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17

    Interesting again. That also might have been my misreading. For some reason I thought I read somewhere that the rule was attacking a territory, not nation. But the USA and Great Britain sheets don’t say that, they support your claim.

    Thanks again for pointing out, these are definitely minor differences in wording, but make a big difference in game play! Maybe my 5 month old has me misreading things too much :)

  • '18 '17 '16

    A Minor Power is not the same as a Territory. A Minor Power is a nation that may have one or more territories.
    A Territory is a single land zone that doesn’t give any indication of ownership.

    As NSP points out, it says a Minor Power not adjacent to Russia that Russia has declared war on. In both of your examples, Russia didn’t declare war on anyone.

    As far as declaring war though, Russia could declare war on Turkey and attack the territories not adjacent to them because one of Turkey’s territories is adjacent. Same goes for Iran.

  • 2023 '22 '21 '20 '19 '18 '17

    Thanks again GHG! I know the difference between a territory and a minor nation :)

    I must have misread that rule somewhere to read territory when that wasn’t the case!

    And again, I definitely overlooked the word Attacked in the reference sheets!

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