We do not play with a secondary capital for the UK. It does sound like a good idea, and would probably be historically accurate if London had actually fallen to the Germans. We had discussed it some time back but I think we all decided that, as far as the game itself is concerned, it would be unfair to allow one country to have a secondary capital and no others.
When you think about it though, Russia and the US could both conceivably have secondary capitals. While it may be a stretch to think that Russia would move it’s seat of government to Stalingrad or Leningrad (assuming either of those were still in Russian hands) if Moscow fell, it’s not totally impossible. As for the US, it’s entirely believable that if the East Coast were invaded that the President would move the government out to San Francisco. In fact, I read a book called “Clash Of Eagles” which took place in an alternate reality where Germany had invaded and occupied the American Northeast as far south as Washington DC. The US government did move out west, to Palm Springs.
As for the Axis countries, none of them really have a possible secondary capital. I couldn’t imagine the Germans moving to Warsaw or the Japanese moving to Shanghai if Berlin or Tokyo fell. Italy only has Rome so they would be totally out of luck.
We did play one game where we tried something a bit different. Since there are two UK economies (London and Calcutta) we thought why not let one benefit if the other fell. For London, there wouldn’t be much change if Calcutta fell other than perhaps the 2 IPCs from West India for maybe 1 round because usually when Japan takes Calcutta, they already have all the other UK India possessions. However, if London falls (which they did) Calcutta benefits quite handily. With a Major IC and all of the money coming in from UK’s African and Canadian territories, the war in the Pacific changed drastically and Japan really hurt from it. Actually, it wasn’t very good for Italy either because the South Africa IC kept pumping out units and Italy just couldn’t make any headway.
Also, one big Axis benefit that usually occurs from London falling, at least in our games, is that Italy is finally able to start making gains in Africa and the Middle East and start making decent money. If the UK could keep purchasing units then Italy would probably stagnate and never get ahead. Plus, I think that when any of us play Germany, we just love the idea of crushing England once and for all. So, they just get the one capital like everyone else.
On a similar note, have any of you thought of playing Canada as a separate power? We have tinkered with that idea, but it seems like that would make a very weak Allied power (7 IPCs per turn) and would also weaken UK London too much by cutting their income down to 21 IPCs. 28 IPCs is small enough when you consider Germany is around 40-42 once they take France and the Axis Neutrals. Then you add another 12 or so for Italy and the UK has a lot to face off against, at least until Russia and the US are in the war.
On the other hand, I suppose you could boost both economies with new NOs of some sort. Maybe add 2 or 3 new NOs per country, one each that the Axis simply could not touch and the rest that the Axis could possibly meddle with, depending on the circumstances.