Started a scenario with my friend, and we’ve taken a break after the 5th Soviet turn. So far, here is what I’ve found about the variant:
Either I found an exploit that you might need to alter the rules to fix, or I missed something in the rules, but basically I built 10 tanks for Colombia, it joined the Soviet bloc, and then with the Main Battle Tanks tech, I was able to blitz into Central US that turn, with East and West US empty because the US player was putting all of his money into diplomacy influencing.
Except if I wanted to, I could have waited a turn, saved my turn 1 cash, and threw like 40 tanks into Colombia, and with the US being only able to put 12 men each in East and West, could capture Washington DC before the war ever really gets too into it, unless the US constantly keeps 30-50 men garrisons in their territories.
Even beyond the area of capturing territory, neutral nations can essentially become military supercomplexes that allow you to rapidly deploy your entire income, if you should so choose, on the other end of the planet.
So either I missed something, or you should probably put in an abortive rule to prevent such a scenario, like a recently acquired neutral is inactive for at least a turn after it’s fully influenced to one side, or a cap on the amount of units you can give to a neutral per turn.
Also, tanks seem a bit overpowered. Maybe their base cost should be raised? A 2-hit land unit for 5 ipc’s (every country has that tech except for PRC at the start) is ridiculous, especially with the incomes that can happen in this variant. The Soviets start off being able to produce 2-hit 4-4-3 units for 5 ipc’s, and is only a step away from giving them 2 dice. Is there really any reason to build any other unit? Sloped armor should be a higher level tech, or the techs should be moved around so that there are less tank boosts.
Having said that, it’s still a very enjoyable variant and it adds a lot of new thinking to the game that makes it fresher, but without making it a complex, entirely new game.