No problem, it seemed a bit relevant given the post. :-)
I agree, you could go on and on about all the little “allies” and “governments”. Certainly of note is how many of them were British colonial possessions taking the opportunity for a nationalistic stance.
Coming from your link regarding neutral rules (or the lack there-of) in 1942 SE… I see your political arguments, but what are the gameplay ramifications in-game?
I’m seeking reasonable neutral country rules that might be adaptable to the 1942 SE experience… because even A&A Classic had neutral army rules (lame as they were)… I don’t consider the “Neutral countries are to be considered like the Himalayas as far as gameplay is concerned” approach of 1941/1942 to be good solutions.
Coming from your link regarding neutral rules (or the lack there-of) in 1942 SE… I see your political arguments, but what are the gameplay ramifications in-game?
I didn’t have any specific ramifications in mind because the map analysis wasn’t designed to propose any house rules. It was merely intended to serve as a general reference source for house rules designers, to be used in whole or in part as they see fit. Originally I designed it just for my own satisfaction, because I was irked by some of the inaccuracies of the G40 map and I wanted to do a detailed inventory of exactly what was right and what was wrong about it. I posted the information here in case it was useful to anyone else.
Thanks for this comprehensive review. Some issues that annoy me on the map are:
@Herr:
Some issues that annoy me on the map are:
Yes, I find those kinds of things annoying too. I understand that from a practical point of view any game map of this type requires the simplification of a geographically complex world, but on the other hand there’s no reason why these simplifications couldn’t be more consistent. In the 1941 map, for example, China is divided into three regions: Coastal China (fair enough), Northwestern China (also fair enough) and Szechwan (which doesn’t fit the pattern of the other two regions). “Southwestern China” would have fit the pattern and would have made geographic sense, but “Szechwan” does neither of those things. In real life, Szechwan corresponds to about one-twentieth of China’s total land area, not one-third.
@Herr:
Thanks for this comprehensive review. Some issues that annoy me on the map are:
- the area marked “United Kingdom” actually consists of England and Wales, while in reality, Scotland and Northern Ireland are also part of the UK
- “France” being used for only one part of that country
- “Russia” as the name of the area around Moscow: this may have been correct in medieval times, but Russia is of course much bigger
- “Holland/Belgium”: Holland is not a country, but two of the 12 (during WWII: 11) provinces of the Netherlands, and doesn’t even border Belgium, so a real “Holland/Belgium” area would look quite odd
Yeah, why not:
Britain, Southern Britain or even England & Wales!
Central France
Central Russia
One little quirk that bugs me sometimes is the unlabeled island of Corsica that is lumped with Sardinia. The island remained a part of Vichy France until an Italian invasion in late 1942. I know the Tyrrhenian Sea (SZ 95) is crowded enough already but Corsica could have been made its own territory that belongs to France. Since there is no complex Vichy political relationship to deal with the island could actually be a useful landing point for a UK assault in the 1st round (for example the Gibraltar fighter can participate without the need for a carrier). It also forces Italy to deal with another thorn before it can expand further south; I wonder if this played a role in abstracting it as a part of Sardinia.
Perhaps they didn’t want the effect on the game that would have.
Excellent list! There were also some parallel conflicts at the time that had small effects on the war, but I feel are in the spirit of this thread.
While the Republic of Ireland was neutral during the war, the IRA collaborated with Germany, and conducted bombing campaigns in 1939, and 1942. I personally HR that Erie is a pro-Axis Neutral with 1 Infantry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-Plan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Campaign_(Irish_Republican_Army)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Kathleen
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Green_(Ireland)
Regarding Persia, and Iraq, both countries experienced Kurdish revolts during the war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hama_Rashid_revolt
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1943_Barzani_revolt
And finally, Ecuador and Peru fought a small border war in 1941-42 that was not a part of WWII, but saw the use of contemporary tactics. I’m currently working on a map for this war that can be used to teach new players the mechanics of A&A.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecuadorian–Peruvian_War
Another one was that Burma had a puppet government set up by Japan and had an army, the Burma National Army, that actually assisted the Japanese limitedly for a time, until they realized that Japan had no real intentions of honoring Burma as an independent nation.
Japan set up a few puppet states in Asia (known as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere) including Manchukuo and Burma, as well as the Philippines, Malaya, Inner Mongolia, and “Free India”, which never held any Indian soil.
Excellent list! There were also some parallel conflicts at the time that had small effects on the war, but I feel are in the spirit of this thread. […] Japan set up a few puppet states in Asia (known as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere) including Manchukuo and Burma, as well as the Philippines, Malaya, Inner Mongolia, and “Free India”, which never held any Indian soil.
Yes, WWII –- and also the years just before it and just after it – was a period which saw many secondary wars and related conflicts. And during WWII, there were large numbers of “bit players” on each side, including a whole bunch of obscure micro-regimes, opposition movements and puppet entities on the Axis side, some of which essentially existed only on paper; one example would be the “Commission gouvernementale de Sigmaringen”, a short-lived Vichy holdover that most people have never even heard of. I’d be inclined to disregard most or all of these micro-entities for A&A gaming purposes, given that even the Global 1940 OOB rules ignore or oversimplify the roles played by much more well-established powers (such as Canada) who made major military contributions over the whole course of the war.
One tricky category are the countries which were genuinely involved in major fighting during WWII, but only for a brief amount of time. Many of these were on the Allied side, such as Poland and Holland and Belgium and France in the first year of the war, and Greece and Yugoslavia in 1941. Iraq is an example on the Axis side. In all cases, they were knocked out in about a month. With the exception of the odd case of France, which actually is a player nation in the OOB rules and actually was a major military and colonial power when the war broke out, I think that most of these intermediate-to-minor nations are ill-suited to being house-ruled as full-scale player powers in Global 1940. I’d likewise discount Allied nations which were in the war only in a marginal role, or entered very late, or both; as I recall, for example, the only Latin American nations which send forces into actual combat were Mexico and Brazil, and even then their contributions were fairly modest.
By contrast, intermediate nations which made a substantial war effort over many years would be potentially suitable candidates for being given a larger role – possibly by being treated as multi-country collective entities, like ANZAC. An example would be to treat Slovakia-Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria as a European Axis Minors block, perhaps with Finland thrown in as well.
I just want to say this is great article for people like me who doesn’t know enough about the WW2 fact besides playing the game for fun…
This is an excellent summary that provides the community with a clear overview of how A&A deviates from the political realities of WWII, and it also serves as an inspiration for various house rules. But I’m afraid that I need to address my pet peeve once more:
@CWO:
… such as Poland and Holland and Belgium and France in the first year of the war …
Holland is not a country and it was not a country during World War II, nor was it a country at any point during its long history. It once was a county, later it became a province, and now it’s two provinces of a country the proper (short) name of which has been “the Netherlands” since as far back as the late 16th century. I have to concede though that the Dutch make little effort to propagate this bit of knowledge as they themselves use “Holland” as a pars pro toto all too often, especially abroad.
@Herr:
Holland is not a country and it was not a country during World War II, nor was it a country at any point during its long history. It once was a county, later it became a province, and now it’s two provinces of a country the proper (short) name of which has been “the Netherlands” since as far back as the late 16th century. I have to concede though that the Dutch make little effort to propagate this bit of knowledge as they themselves use “Holland” as a pars pro toto all too often, especially abroad.
Yes, this is fair point, but also keep in mind that I was simply quoting the name that’s on the Global 1940 game map, not endorsing its accuracy. The map has all sorts of nomenclature oddities or even downright errors; my favourite eye-roller is the Siberian which is correctly called Tunguska (famous as the site of a meteoroid airburst in 1908) but which on the map is called “Timguska”, which sounds like a Russian franchise of the Tim Hortons coffeeship chain.
Risk taught us when we were young that Irkutsk and Yakutsk are like the North and South Dakota of Soviet Russia. Have you not visited the region of Kamchatka before–by traveling on a bold line via Alaska? We all know that bold lines can support gigantic armies.
