I’m Canadian and I turned 12 when Canada celebrated our centennial (Canada is now 143 years old); Lester Pearson was our Prime Minister, Lyndon Johnson was in the White House and man hadn’t landed on the moon yet. I just needed to establish that, and as a teacher in my other life, I’m happy to see young people get involved in a wonderful game. On topic, I’m quite happy with the recognition, I think I was one of the first to suggest it would be just a recognition thing.
As far as people getting confused with the Canadian roundel and not treating it as British for income totals, just put a British roundel over top. It’s not a huge issue. I do the reverse. I’ve made my own Canadian roundels ( roughly by hand of course being an old guy) and I place those on top of the British roundels where there are any in Canada. I use a different coloured unit or mark British units as Canadians. Other than that they are British units. When I play solataire I give Canadian and, by the way, Australian and South African infantry an attack of 2, based on the fact that the Commonwealth forces from these countries were volunteers and had higher morale. (Advanced Squad Leader gives CW troops higher morale as well.) I also give this 2 attack to German SS and American and Japanese marines.
In following this thread I do have a concern about recognizing one country by putting down another as has happened. Canadians can be proud of what our soldiers and civilians did, but so can the citizens of Australia, India and wherever else. Given that, putting too many different roundels on the board could get confusing.
As for Canada, or Finland or the Balkan states being a separate power, I think it would be a mistake and complicate the game far too much. In fact, I would rather see only three power groups: Soviet Union, Axis and Allies. I think all the Allies should play at the same time except the Soviet Union and all the Axis play at the same time. The US and British forces should move and attack as one, as they really did in Europe, based on the scale of this game. The same with Germany and Italy. The only separation would be national income levels for the major countries (Japan, USSR, Italy, USA, UK) and placement of units in their own country. This placement would include placement of minor forces in Canada, Finland, the Balkans and all other minor countries aligned with a major country. However, this would be a fundamental change in the game and is not likely to happen.
As for recognition to Canada, I suggest to my fellow Canadians, appreciate it. I registered with this forum after reading it for some time, because of the “Canadian” topics and that it seemed to generate a lot of interest. I’ll stay because of my interest in the game. Besides BD makes me laugh. What does that say about me?
