Good point Jen, 'cept that the war and the game are different. So let’s work out when the game is set. If you don’t want to sort through the technicalities, just scroll to my conclusion.
Russia has been involved, that started in June 1941, so it’s definately after 1939, but more importantly America has been involved, and everything in Pearl Harbor has been wiped out except subs and carriers. So that was December 1941. Now Algeria is still German, and that was invaded by the US in November 1942, so it had to be before that. Now, Japan invaded the Soloman islands in January 1942, which are Japanese on the gameboard, so it had to be after that. Now the American and Filipino forces didn’t surrended until April 1942. Now, Guadalcanal fell to the Japanese in early July, 1942, and I doubt you could say the Solomans were Japanese held before then. I know that the obvious objection to going past June 1942 is, “well that was after Midway, what was our fleet still doing at Pearl?”, yeah, that’s true, but if you look off the US West Coast, you’ll see ships, suggesting several months of war production following the attack on Pearl Harbor.
So what we’ve established is, before November 1942, after April 1942. Let’s get more technical. Diplomacy. Brazil declared war on Germany in what I remember was mid August. As far as I can think of, those are the only fairly non-subjective events in that timeframe, meaning unless someone else can find a clarification marker (that wont be clouded by say, gameplay considerations, such as military numbers, production numbers, or ambiguous Eastern European/Atlantic territories), the game begins between August and November 1942. So in your game terms, let’s say fall.
Now we’ve got another problem: the war wasn’t that long. If every turn was a season, then the war would be over in like turn 3. (do the math if you want to, I just don’t feel like it). What if each turn was a month? For history minded people you could start R1 in August, and for the game oriented gamers, you could start R1 in July to make it easier. To clarify, I’m an Aussie, I use the wet and dry, so maybe my January - February - March system of spring (and the others following suit) is wrong, adjust for that.
So what about unit bonuses? That’s hard. Seasonally combat would be less influential in say, North Africa and the Pacific, but very influential in Red territories. I’ll leave the bonuses to someone else, just wanted to help out.
Conclusion: The game is set between August and November, 1942.