My idea for game balance

[Young Grasshopper]

Instead of an Allied bid…The Dutch Islands are now part of the United Kingdom Pacific economy to begin the game, so UK Europe and UK Pacific starting incomes are now 28 IPCs each.

Thoughts?..

[CWO Marc]

It basically sounds like a variant of the rule which says that “The United Kingdom and ANZAC […] have an arrangement with the Dutch government in exile […] and may actually take control of [the Dutch territories in the Pacific] (gaining their IPC income) by moving land units into them.”  The only real difference would be that the control is automatic right from the starting setup and that the money all goes to the UK (unless ANZAC is part of your house ruled UK Pacific econonomy, whose details I can’t recall).

[Young Grasshopper]

Is a simple game mechanic that would see the UK take control to help the overall economic balance and get rid of bids. If the whole historic asspect of neutral Dutch not being realisic in this regard, than I understand.

[CWO Marc]

@Young:

If the whole historic asspect of neutral Dutch not being realisic in this regard, than I understand.

Well, since the OOB rules themselves are unrealistic about this whole “special arrangements” thing between UK / ANZAC and the Dutch, and since what you’re proposing is fairly similar to what the OOB rules say, I don’t see any problem in your proposal from that perspective.  In other words, any realism problems lie with the OOB rules themselves, not with your adaptation of them.

That being said, the OOB special arrangements thing strikes me as being one of G40’s “gaming fictions” – a mechanism that was put in for reasons of gaming practicality, but which bends history to the point where things are either oversimplified or flat-out wrong.  G40’s use of pro-Allied, pro-Axis and strict neutrals is another example of that sort of gaming fiction, and so is the “Administered from London” label that treats the Belgian Congo as a British territory (which it wasn’t).  That’s actually a good parallel because, if I understand your proposal correctly, you’d be treating the DEI similarly to the way the Belgian Congo is treated.

Anyway, in terms of what really happened in WWII, the DEI in 1941 were still a Dutch-ruled collection of colonial territories, and Holland as far as I know didn’t have any kind of “friends with benefits” special arrangement with the UK or ANZAC regarding the DEI.  If you’d like some sort of historical justification for treating the DEI as part of the UK/Pacific income (which I think you’re calling the South East Asia Command, or SEAC, as I recall), this wouldn’t pose any problems from December 1941 onward because the Americans, the British, the Dutch and the Australians briefly did team up as a joint command called ABDACOM to try to resist the Japanese.  The problem, however, would be to apply the concept retroactively all the way back to June 1940 because ABDACOM was created in the wake of (rather than in anticipation of) the Japanese attacks in the Asia/Pacific theatre.  I guess the simplest solution would be assume that something similar to ABDACOM (minus the Americans) might have been set up in September 1940, after the Japanese takeover of FIC, in anticipation of a possible Japanese campaign of conquest in the Asia/Pacific theatre.  Sort of a preventative defensive alliance in the Pacific between nations (UK, ANZAC and Holland) which were already allies due to the war in Europe, and perhaps a signal to Japan not to get any bright ideas in the Southwest Pacific.  It’s interesting to wonder if, in real life, Japan would have considered such a move to be a provocation (probably yes) or even an implicit declaration of war (maybe not).

On a lighter note, the only way to make “ABDACOM” pronouncable if you remove the “A” that stands for “American” would be to rearrange the remaining first three letters and call your defensive alliance “BADCOM”, which sounds either intimidating or hilarious depending on your mood.  :)

[The Hessian]

Besides the historical background - well summarized by CWO Marc - my very first thought is that this would trigger a Japanese declaration of war against the ‘evil’ British Empire on J1.
A step I like to postpone when playing Japan to my 2nd or 3rd turn, so I have all my forces in position to capture the south pacific in one single turn.
But anyway an interesting proposal that has to be play-tested.

Do you change the initial set-up for UK-Pac in order to deploy troops on these islands?

In our games we’ve weekend the Japanese by eliminating 3 fighters and give one additional fighter to Italy and two to Germany. (Works very good.)

[General Veers]

Just spitballing here, but what if a Japanese invasion of any Indonesian island -including Borneo since it’s mostly Dutch- triggers a Mongolian style activation of the rest of them for UK Pacific? This would essentially force the Japanese player to invade all of them at once or simply allow the UK a cash bonus if they go J1.

[regularkid]

@General:

Just spitballing here, but what if a Japanese invasion of any Indonesian island -including Borneo since it’s mostly Dutch- triggers a Mongolian style activation of the rest of them for UK Pacific? This would essentially force the Japanese player to invade all of them at once or simply allow the UK a cash bonus if they go J1.

Very cool idea.

[CWO Marc]

@The:

my very first thought is that this would trigger a Japanese declaration of war against the ‘evil’ British Empire on J1.

Good point.  In a way, YG’s proposal creates a kind of causality loop.  The proposal is based on the premise that the OOB rules are unbalanced in favour of the Axis, and it tries to fix the problem things by giving the IPC-rich DEI to the UK right from the start.  From the UK’s point of view, this simply amounts to rebalancing.  From Japan’s point of view, however, this is such a serious alteration of the game’s income allocation that it probably forces Japan to do something about it right away.  So rather than an adjustment measure that allows the whole game to be played on a rebalanced basis, it may in fact be a measure which compels Japan to take immediate countermeasures, and thus something which invariably provokes a Japanese declaration of war right at the start of the game.

[Young Grasshopper]

Thanks for the comments everyone, and I always enjoy CWOs history posts  :-)

Yes the idea was to give the Allies an infux of cash to avoid the need for a bid and without changing the OOB setup. Other than Japan being forced into specific strategy options, the only other problem is that we would ideally prefer the money to go to America.

Another idea would be to make all Pacific islands worth 1 IPC each, so Japan, USA, and the UK Pacific would get a small increase with more chances of future money to the Allies when they take Caroline islands and the French Herbies, it may even promote Island hoping. The only problem I see with this is… the income increase would come every round for territories with very little risk of being taken… it might be to much $ for the Allies over the long run.

[CWO Marc]

@Young:

Yes the idea was to give the Allies an infux of cash to avoid the need for a bid and without changing the OOB setup. Other than Japan being forced into specific strategy options, the only other problem is that we would ideally prefer the money to go to America.

Here’s a thought about how to perhaps provide UK/Pacific with more cash without changing the national affiliation status of the DEI (and therefore without forcing Japan to invade the DEI right at the start of the game).

India was a very important part of the British Empire’s economy, and it contributed over 2,500,000 troops to the British war effort, yet its two map territories – West India and India – add up to just 5 IPCs.  This seems rather paltry compared to the three DEI islands with IPC values (Sumatra, Java and Celebes), which add up to 11 IPCs – more than twice the value of the combined Indian map territories.  So what about the idea of reflecting the economic and military importance of India by doubling its two IPC values, so they’ll add up to 10 rather than 5?  This would also solve the problem YG raised about making sure the extra money stays with the UK rather than going to the US.

[Young Grasshopper]

Acually what I meant was, it would be more ideal to have the US start with more money… but if we were open to changing territory values of the map like you suggested, ya… there would be a ton of options.

[The Hessian]

No change of territory value is needed to give UK-Pac +5 IPCs.

If you like to increase Indias worth for the British, just give UK-Pac an extra National Objective worth 5IPCs for the possession of the two Indian territories like the one for UK-Eur:

• 5 IPCs if the United Kingdom controls India and West-India. Theme:
  “The jewel in the crown” - the empire’s most valuable possession.

[baron Münchhausen]

@Young:

Acually what I meant was, it would be more ideal to have the US start with more money… but if we were open to changing territory values of the map like you suggested, ya… there would be a ton of options.

What about adding this USA NO?

When United States Is Not at War with Japan: 10 IPCs if Japan is not at war with the United States, has not attacked French Indo-China, and has not made an unprovoked declaration of war against United Kingdom/ANZAC.
Theme: Strategic resource trade with Japan.

[regularkid]

The most recent version of our G40 Balance Mod includes the following two national objectives for USA in the Pacific:

USA
. . . .
*5 PUs if USA is at war and controls Midway, Wake Island, Guam.
*5 PUs if USA is at war and Allies control Marshall Islands, Caroline Islands, Paulau Island, Marianas.

Encourages the island hopping, as well as an early game invasion of at least one of the airbase islands by Japan.

[Young Grasshopper]

All great suggestions, I guess the theme is to gradually give the USA equal to the average bid over the course of the game… maybe give the USA the war bonds tech for free when at war.

[Aymes]

I really like the idea of 1 IPC per valueless allied pacific island. I am going to propose that to the group I play with, because we are always looking for a way to balance the game, but at the same time try to keep it as close to OOB as possible.

What we have been doing for several games, and it is working well, is this:

Play “cry uncle” - so no Victory City win condition for Axis.
Germany not allowed to build factories in original German controlled territories.
USA can do whatever they want in the European theater only, right away in turn one.