@Karl7:
Last night, I parked a UK DD among the Japanese transport fleet and declared war with Anzac.
This scenario is perfectly legal, given it occurred like this:
- UK is not at war with Japan
- UK noncombat moved a destroyer into a seazone containing Japanese transports (or placed a newly built destroyer there). This is legal, because of
@rulebook:
Movement: A power’s ships don’t block the naval movements of other powers with which it’s not at war, and vice versa.
They can occupy the same sea zones.
- So this seazone is not becoming hostile.
- On ANZAC’s turn, ANZAC declares war on Japan. This is legal, because of
@rulebook:
ANZAC may declare war on Japan at the beginning of the Combat Move phase of any of its turns, resulting in a state of
war between Japan and both ANZAC and the United Kingdom.
- This brings UK into war with Japan and as a result the above seazone becomes hostile at that moment.
This is a common strategy to prevent Japan from loading its transports on Japan’s next move.
If ANZAC would not declare war on Japan this way, Japan on its next turn would be allowed to declare war on UK and load its transports, because of
@rulebook:
During your Combat Move phase in which you entered into a state of war, your transports that are already in sea zones that have just become hostile may be loaded
in those sea zones (but not in other hostile seazones).
Because of ANZAC’s DOW on Japan the seazone is hostile when it comes to Japan’s turn. So Japan may not load the transports then.
