Howdy folks. I’ve got a series of simple house rules that add a little bit of historicity & complexity to the game’s political situation without requiring new pieces, trackers, loads of exceptions & things to remember, etc. They’re intended to each be a module drop-in addition to a set of rules. I’ve playtested these roughly 3-5 times each & am looking for additional feedback. I make no claims to uniqueness or creativity–these were constructed with LOTS of taking from the community & as such, I’m offering them back to the community.
Here’s the first one: Backup British Capitals (Note: this is intended for use with a joint UK Pacific/ANZAC Economy, here called the Pacific Commonwealth)
What does this do for balance?
Most obviously, it’s a straight benefit to the Allies, making a Sea Lion recovery quicker & making it so a straight Calcutta Crush (if you can pull a traditional one off w/ the joint economy) doesn’t mean the onus is entirely upon the Americans to save the Pacific from falling.
Note that it does make Convoying SZ 106 more lucrative, as you can pull a max of 5 IPCs out of the British economy. In practice, I haven’t seen this have a huge effect, since if you’re playing with Grasshopper’s 3G40 Lend-Lease British NO, you’ll probably kill that sub next turn, after the lend-lease DD & Fg get placed. I’m quite fond of anything that makes the Battle for the Atlantic more likely to drag out, so that’s actually something of a plus in my book.
That said, I tend to find the joint Commonwealth economy can make it a little oppressive in the Pacific for Japan to the point that the US can completely ignore the Pacific for the first 3-4 turns without major repercussions. I like to make this harder to to by making the Indian factory stay a minor, and removing 3 IPCs from the Commonwealth economy by calling NSW, Queensland, and New Zealand each worth only 1 IPC (hence the …or 7 IPCs bit above)… but that’s another house rule.
All in all, I consider this NO worth roughly 3-5 IPCs of an Allied bid, but you won’t really feel the impact unless the Allies are likely to lose anyways. Makes games longer, so don’t use it if you’re not into that. More likely than not, the only major effect is that Germany’s less likely to roll the dice on a 50/50 Sea Lion; doesn’t seem to affect Japan that much since a sketchy India takeover’s unlikely to last anyways.
H hengst referenced this topic on
@hengst Nice I like it when I see people playtest there changes :)
So if India falls the rest of the UK economy goes to ANZAC ? If so I wouldn’t think there’d be a whole lot left but maybe the crush bypasses a lot ?
I would keep Queensland 2 bucks in case you wanna build another minor there.
Good action :+1:
@barnee Pretty close. Not everything–if, say, Shan State somehow got bypassed, or, say, West India is still standing, or if they retook a Money Island, they wouldn’t collect income from that. Only the 10 (or 7) IPCs that form the base ANZAC economy, specifically: W Australia, N Territory, S Australia, Queensland, New S Wales, Victoria, and New Zealand. Just a rump economy to keep poking Japan in the side until it gets overrun or the UK liberates Calcutta via some combination of a Middle Earth strategy & US pressure towards the home islands.
@hengst said in [G40] Hengst's Simple Backup British Capitals:
a joint UK Pacific/ANZAC Economy,
ah I didn’t read closely enough :)
