Splitting the UK into 2 nations

Young Grasshopper

Interesting options. I have a question if I may, what is the purpose of having G.B. divided in the first place per the OOB rules? Is there a reason that G.B. just doesn’t control all of it’s money/units?

Hey SEP,

There are many viable reasons to split the UK territories into different nations…

1. The biggest reason among players willing to try house rules is for improved game balance, the Allies are arguably behind the 8 ball when certain Axis strategies are skillfully deployed. These dominate strategies are difficult to counter without giving the Allies an opportunity to distribute their income differently. Of course it is yet to be determined if this matters when faced with a strong Axis advance, but it gives the players more options as to where they can allocate funds. For example… 27 IPCs for Calcutta will give the UK Pacific a better chance to survive, however, it leaves Sydney deprived of resources.

2. When facing a determined Sealion attack that some groups find near impossible to counter, it helps to have a political exile house rule that will allow the UK to continue collecting an income and place units on various UK ICs on the board even if they don’t have much to spend. The criticism with this house rule is that it devalues the investment required by Germany to land in the first place taking Sealion off the table, or UK players will simply abandon London and spend big bucks off Newfoundland knowing that they won’t go completely without money when they lose their capital.

3. The best reason for splitting up the UK Europe and UK Pacific into their own nations IMO is that it speeds up group play immensely. The UK Europe player can begin their turn even if the US and China are finishing in the Pacific. The oob UK usually stops the flow of turns within groups because it must buy and move on both sides of the map, therefore everyone on the Pacific side must wait for the UK player even if they are focused on the Europe map for a long period of time.

4. As the UK player, it is beneficial to make one pile of purchases and focus on one area at a time, because the dynamics around London are much different than what is happening around Calcutta. Therefore, the UK player must multi task between 2 very different situations leading to longer periods of thought and more mistakes. It also eliminate any confusion associated with the oob UK split income like what money goes where and how units are effected (even though units are not effected by the split income, there is a common cloud of confusion that they are).

5. And finally, it allows for a better distribution of nations among group play. For example: if you have 6 players and none of them wish to play Italy, you could easily find a combination that would satisfy everyone… for many, the idea of playing the UK Pacific / ANZAC / China is still more appealing than playing just Italy.

Witt

Morning YG.
I am very happy with Option 2. However, I would prefer that every UK territory was counted. If India fell and West India, for example, was still held, I think West India’ s two income should go to London next turn.

Narvik

I voted option #8.

This option is loosely based on A&A Europe 1999 edition and Pacific 2001 edition rules. The maps didn’t fit but the rules were far better than the Global 40 ones.

At that time a Factories mobilization capacity was based on the territories IPC value so UK could only mobilize 8 units in UK, and not 10 as currently. The new Major Minor IC rules could upset balance a bit. I figure. IMHO.

So basically Canada, UK and ANZAC are separate nations, but move and fight in a joint Turn. The 1999 and 2001 editions had Convoy centers printed on the map, with Union Jack roundel, and the income from this Convoy Centers could be distributed and shared between Canada, UK and ANZAC at the players wish. Now the Global 40 map don’t have nation specific Convoy Centers, just the generic coast ones, so we need to do a twist. Lets say income from Commonwealth Colonies like India and Africa are to be shared between Canada, UK and ANZAC, at the players wish. All to one or a bit here and there.

The reason I want Canada in the loop, is then we don’t need an alien Political Exile house rule after Germany pulled Sea Lion. UK is captured, the Huns get the loot, but Canada is still alive and kicking, and income from the UK colonies are not disappearing in the void.

To speed up play further, I would suggest an All Western Allied Turn, where UK, Canada, ANZAC, USA, China and France move and fight together in the same Turn. Of course they have separate economies and mobilization. This will upset balance because it ends the can opener possibilities, but on the other hand gives them a strong joint attack, and not the classical three pronged attack where one take the territory and the other two reinforce it and land fighters there too. So an end to gamey play and tricks.

I suggest this fresh turn order

Germany and Italy
Russia
Japan
Western Allies

Black_Elk

I’m kind of with SEP in wondering why the split UK economy was necessary in the first place.
I never heard the argument, beyond that there was some overpowered strategy that resulted from a single UK economy. If that was the case I don’t know why the issue wasn’t addressed using national objectives or a starting unit adjustment, instead of a weird rules change to treat the UK differently than all other nations?

I imagine the situation was something like this…
First the decision was made to create 2 separate games, one Europe and one Pacific, since these would be easier to sell for more total money than a single Global game would. This is pretty annoying, and reminds me of when they split the final season of a TV show in 2 so they can make more money on DVD sales, but whatever.

Then once the decision was made to sell two theater games instead of a single Global game, Anzac was included as distinct from UK to create novelty for the Pacific board (analogous to Italy on the Europe map.)

Both maps were probably balanced individually first as stand alone things, and then combined.
All the issues in the Global game likely come from that development decision. It would have been easier to start with a combined game and then break it apart rather than vice versa.

For my part, my preference would be for a single UK Economy, and then change the income bonuses for all nations to make it work on balance. Instead of messing with the core rules (like capitals, or unit mobilization, income tracking etc) since they’re all more complicated than they need to be.

CWO Marc

Thus is just speculation on my part, but it’s possible that the UK income split in the game reflects a couple of interrelated factors.

First, there’s the question of geography. If you look at the Global 1940 map and compare the territorial holdings of the two Allied powers who are full player nations in both Europe 1940 and Pacific 1940 – the US and the UK – you’ll notice that only the UK (which for game income purposes includes Canada) has substantial holdings on both game maps. The US, by contrast, only holds a few small territories outside the US proper – and note that some of the “US” territories on the map are (in whole or in part) not US territories at all (Mexico being the most flagrant example). This would explain why the UK’s economy is considered more “global” in scale than that of the US…though by itself this doesn’t explain why that global economy is split in G40.

YG and Black Elk have suggested various theories that relate to game play; these theories make good sense and they may, in fact, be the actual explanation(s). An additional reason, however, may be related to the ancestors of Europe 1940 and Pacific 1940: the original A&A Europe and A&A Pacific games. In the Europe game, the setup charts refer to the UK player as Great Britain. In the Pacific game, however, the setup charts refer to the “UK” player not as Great Britain but rather as as two separate entities labeled “India” and “Australia”. This is frankly a little bizarre because this nomenclature, and the corresponding coloured zones on the map, implies that places like Malaya and Hong Kong are part of India. At any rate, I wonder if the G40 split is a holdover from the fact that in A&A Europe and A&A Pacific (which, admittedly, were not designed to be combined) the UK player has different identities.

Note that the old “India and Australia” pairing from A&A Pacific no longer fully applies in G40: Australia has been spun off and combined with New Zealand to form a separate player power, ANZAC, so technically all that the G40 UK player still controls from the old A&A Pacific gane is the “India” component (including the other British Southeast Asian territories, now properly identified as British rather than Indian). Perhaps this also explains why Britain’s “regional capital” in the Pacific half of the G40 board is an Indian city, Calcutta.

Young Grasshopper

I’ve always thought that the need for a split when playing Global was for game play reasons. Our group does not enjoy it when the UK player is making 2 separate purchases for 2 separate capitals within the same game turn. It takes the UK player forever, and it delays others from conducting their turn which helps speed up game rounds. Two soutions presented themselves, combine the 2 economies, or divide into 2 nations… combining the economies had problems that I’m not gonna go into, but dividing the UK presented solutions. I’m asking because I’m interested in editing my custom map and wether or not I should put Union Jack roundels on just the UK Pacific nations, or on all ANZAC nations as well.

Black_Elk

I went with option 3, Halifax style hehe :-D

But I agree with you YG. If the purpose for separating the Economies was principally for gameplay reasons (or as CWO Marc suggested, perhaps a holdover from the earlier theater games) then I’d have just gone all the way, and made them totally separate nations.

To my way of thinking, its always better to have the rules that govern the game be universal (working the same way for all nations). I just think its just better for ease of use. Having the rules work differently for UK, or for China, seems problematic, when you could just as easily change their gameplay patterns to something more desirable, by tweaking objective awards, or the number of units nations possess at the outset. OOB Global does this already, at least to certain extent, with Russia, adding in more units to make the Global game viable. I’d have just done something similar for UK, nerfing them or strengthening one of the Axis powers to compensate for the cash influx from UK Pacific. If the issuesis gameplay pacing or balance of forces, (and not historical realism say) then I’d always rather have this worked out with the income and unit distribution, than by altering the rules for just one nation.

Dividing UK into two nations seems workable as well, ifor those who prefer the expanded Anzac/UK Pacific concept :)

SEP

Disclaimer: I’m not an expert on the 1940 Global game. I’m in the middle of my first G40 game and thoroughly enjoying it (despite my son about to go Sea lion on me). :-)

Having said that, I voted for option#4. I quite like the idea of G.B. Pacific and ANZAC merging into one entity and using the Union Jack roundels (which I just purchased last night as a matter of fact (along with other items from HBG). I see this as a completely viable HR. The OOB stays the same, simply convert everything to ANZAC grey. I additionally like this since I can also use the German grey pieces from classic to fill in the gaps.

Balance won’t be upset from the perspective of starting OOB. It will be a bit different from the perspective of ANZAC being able to move as a coordinated force rather than separate entitles. It will make a difference, perhaps not a major one. It will give Japan more reason to be concerned though and may alter some of their opening strategies. For example, they’ll be facing one navy (that moves as one) rather than two separate navies that move separately. And ANZAC would be able to really concentrate on specifics with almost three times the starting income (whether it be building a navy or fortifying India and pushing eastward. And I could see a lot more contention for the south Pacific islands between Japan and ANZAC.

It may be necessary to either modify Japan up a bit or ANZAC down a bit in terms of OOB to compensate. Perhaps part of Japan’s fleet starts in closer proximity to some of the ANZAC fleet for an early strike? Just thinking out loud. The ‘new’ ANZAC would start out with 1 battleship, 2 cruisers, 2 destroyers and 2 transports. Not equal to Japan by a long shot, but if Japan ignores them on J1 then ANZAC could easily add a carrier or a combination of cruisers, destroyers and subs such that it would be expensive on Japan in later turns to whack them and thereby opening them up to the U.S. who should be in the process of a build up of their own.

It would be interesting to try this out to see if it works.

Argothair

Part of the weirdness of UK accounting in Global 1940 is that the historical flexibility of the UK economy was halfway between “London is the capital, if it falls you’re screwed” and “whatever; we can fight equally well using any of our colonies as a base of operations.”

Like, if the Axis had sacked Capetown, Sydney, Singapore, and Cairo, then the UK’s colonial empire would have ceased to generate any income at all for London, even if Calcutta and wide swaths of the African interior and Western Australia were still under British control. On the other hand, if the Axis had sacked Calcutta alone, with no other conquests, then the UK would have found some other regional capital, and everything would have hummed along with minimal disruption. Basically, the British Empire was in a position to absorb some shock, but too much shock would have brought it down.

I’m really not sure how to model this in terms of A&A gameplay. Losing an IC seems like too light of a penalty for losing a regional capital, but losing your income for an entire half of the board seems too heavy. One option would be to say that each time an Axis power captures Ottawa, Capetown, Cairo, Sydney, Singapore, or Calcutta, then it gets to loot 15 IPCs from the British treasury, or 25 IPCs for capturing London, but British income/production are otherwise unaffected. I like the UK Europe / UK Pacific divide as as way of speeding up the game, and with the new, more generous capital-sack rules, you don’t run into problems where London is Axis-occupied and so West India is somehow incapable of being administered at all even though Calcutta and Cairo are holding just fine.

The NOs as written already incentivize Britain to try to maintain the territorial integrity of regions like Australia, and you could tweak the NOs even further in that direction if you wanted to. Similarly, the 3 unit/turn cap on minor ICs help incentivize Britain to spread its purchases out across the globe, although with naval units, that cap is less important.

General 6 Stars

I voted 5. I wanted to vote for 1,2,4,and 5. I like them all. I do have 1,2,4 and 5 in 39 games
already. This still would be good for G40.
London falls, Ottawa the new UK capital, And Calcutta the capital for Union Jack.

CWO Marc

Here’s an interesting item which YG might want to consider as he contemplates alternate ways of splitting the UK economy. According to this BBC article (published today) about the 1.3 million Indian soldiers who served in the First World War…

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33317368

…Britain raised men and money from India in exchange for a promise to deliver progressive self-rule to India at the end of the war (a promise which Indian nationalists understood to mean that India would receive Dominion status). Britain in fact broke its promise once the fighting was over – but let’s imagine for a moment that it has stayed true to its word and that, in the 1931 Statute of Westminster, it had declared India to be a self-governing Dominion on an equal footing with Canada, Newfoundland, Eire, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. This could make an interesting Commonwealth Dominion power block in Global 1940 – essentially a variation on YG’s UK Option #3 (“You like the idea of a commonwealth nation separate from the UK turn sequence. All Canadian and ANZAC territories combine to form a Commonweath national income separate from the UK who’s income has now been reduced.”)

Narvik

Backstabbing Brits, cant trust them

Young Grasshopper

After play testing the heck out of Halifax rules and splitting the UK into a commonwealth, I personally found that it really hurt the Allies. It basically guaranteed that UK money would be spent away (territorially) from the fighting. Instead of money going into London or Calcutta, money was being forced to the outside ICs in Canada, South Africa, and Sydney. The suggestion to add India to this Commonwealth would put London in even more of a difficult position and will have very few purchasing options. I had the idea to combine India with all ANZAC territories making a large UK Pacific nation, and I feel there is still a lot of value in that option, but I have come to prefer the simplicity of just detaching the India capital from the London capital and placing this new UK Pacific nation between Italy and ANZAC in the order of play. I’m glad to see this option has pulled into a 3 way tie for 2nd, even though it requires adding a whole new set of sculpts.

CWO Marc

@Young:

After play testing the heck out of Halifax rules and splitting the UK into a commonwealth, I personally found that it really hurt the Allies. It basically guaranteed that UK money would be spent away (territorially) from the fighting. Instead of money going into London or Calcutta, money was being forced to the outside ICs in Canada, South America, and Sydney. The suggestion to add India to this Commonwealth would put London in even more of a difficult position and will have very few purchasing options. I had the idea to combine India with all ANZAC territories making a large UK Pacific nation, and I feel there is still a lot of value in that option, but I have come to prefer the simplicity of just detaching the India capital from the London capital and placing this new UK Pacific nation between Italy and ANZAC in the order of play. I’m glad to see this option has pulled into a 3 way tie for 2nd, even though it requires adding a whole new set of sculpts. ï¿½

Fair enough. As a theoretical exercise, I’ve just looked into what this split-off “UK Pacific Nation” could plausibly be called because in reality, of course, the British Empire never consisted of two separate “nations” between which the western and eastern halves of the world were divided. I think your best bet would be use the A&A Global 1940 precedent of ANZAC (which strictly speaking refers to a two-nation military force rather than to a nation) and to identifiy the split-off Pacific half of the UK economy as SEAC, which stands for South East Asia Command. It’s not a perfect match, but it’s what overlaps best with what you have in mind. The key points of resemblance are that it was British-led, that it was headquartered in British Ceylon, and that it covered a large geographic area (Burma, India, Thailand, French Indochina, British Malaya, Singapore, Ceylon and the Dutch East Indies) which included most of the UK territories on the Pacific 1940 map. As an added bonus, its flag was basically the Union Jack (the roundel you want to use), with a slight modification in the centre. There are a few elements which don’t fit very well – the fact that it was only set up in 1943, the fact that it also included non-British forces, and the fact that a few British territories on the G40 map are outside its scope – but on the whole it comes close to matching your concept while still being more historically accurate than the concept of a UK Pacific Nation (for which some sort of name would have to be found, since “UK Pacific Nation” is a little vague).

Young Grasshopper

SEAC…

That’s perfect, thanks CWO Marc.

CWO Marc

@Young:

SEAC…

That’s perfect, thanks CWO Marc.

Here are some graphics of the SEAC flag, in case they’re useful for your Cliffside Bunker laminated reference cards:

http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/gb_mtbtn.html
http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/g/gb^sacsea.gif
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_South_East_Asia_Command.svg

Young Grasshopper

Those are really good, but I think we will just stick with the simple union jack flag (like on the HBG roundels).

SEP

We have a G40 game kicking off at noon today. We’re going to implement option #4 above (U.K Pacific and ANZAC combine into one power, India is the major IC and we’ll use ANZAC grey (because it is very close to A&A Classic German grey so I have a plethora of pieces).

I’ll report back how it went for us.

BTW, why does G.B. Pacific start at 17IPC? I only count 16 IPC worth of territory. What am I missing?

Witt

In Global, you swap West India (2), not on Pacific map, for Western Canada (1IPC), which is.
UK Europe drops one IPC from 29 to 28.
It makes more sense to keep India together and Canada ( part of Europe) together.

SEP

Thank you sir, that clears that up :-)

So far the game is going smoothly wit SEAC in place. This may become a standard HR for us.

Splitting the UK into 2 nations

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