G40 - New UK Pacific Nation

You know what? I think I like this idea better than the Halifax rules.
Another idea would be to use the grey ANZAC pieces to represent all the UK Pacific. Then the UK Pacific would be a truly different power. Still use the same rules for which UK controls which territories – UK London controls all territories on the Europe board except for West India and including Western Canada. UK Pacific controls all territories on the Pacific board except for Western Canada and including West India.
So, say for example the “ANZAC” infantry in West India walks over and activates Eastern Persia, it falls under UK London control.

I think this idea has a lot of promise!

In fact I think I would be a lot more willing to accept the division of the British Empire into UK and UK Pacific, if UK Pacific included Anzac. At least then it would make sense.

Regarding the Capital though, I think choosing Calcutta would be a mistake, and I strongly favor Sydney for the capital. Here is my logic… India/Calcutta is already on the normal war path for Japan.  It would be more dynamic from a gameplay standpoint to have the British Empire Pacific capital in Sydney rather than Calcutta, as this would give Japan a greater incentive to invade Australia and would put them more into conflict with USA. Also, in the event that Calcutta falls, The British Empire Pacific would still have a base of operations out of Sydney. Most importantly though, the capital in Sydney would encourage at least some spending in Australia, rather than just totally abandoning it for India, which would be the clear priority if Calcutta was a Major and the Capital and the principle target on the normal Japanese war path (which leads to the center). To keep Sydney relevant to the gameplay, I believe if it should serve as the place where Japan can steal the purse from the British Empire Pacific.

The thing is, if you go Calcutta for the capital, then I can easily imagine this new combined Pacific player making the reasonable calculation that its “just not worth it” investing in Sydney at all, or ever to buy any ships there, instead just dropping the whole pile on India. But if Sydney was the capital, and Sydney controlled the purse, then there would be a strong reason to spend a portion of the money there, to defend the capital (and maybe a reason to buy ships as well, to move those defensive units out, on occasion at least).

Sydney can be a minor complex and a capital.

There is already precedent for this with Italy, since the Italian capital is a Minor complex. Even though they have a Major in N. Italy, it is the Minor that holds the purse.

Likewise the New Pacific Empire power could have their Major in Calcutta, but the capital in Sydney, at the Minor. They would of course still have a huge strategic incentive to spend at Calcutta, but this gives them a reason to do something other than stack India with their increased cash flow.

I like the idea of the player division using the gray scultps. My only concern would be the limited number of roundels that comes in the box. But aesthetically, I do like the gray units. Another question, what to do with those Anzac units in Egypt then? Make them European UK? On general principle, I don’t like movement restrictions by theater, since I think it becomes difficult to justify,  when Japan is allowed to move into Europe, but UK isn’t allowed to move into the Pacific. I don’t think it would be as problematic if the British Empire Pacific was a fully independent player Nation that included Anzac.

Finally Turn order…
The New Pacific power should move on the Anzac turn in the sequence, to help distinguish them as a separate player. This would improve game flow, since it would break up the already long America - China - UK turn, and let Italy go before the British Empire Pacific.

ps. Here is another reason why I think this could work, and another reason to support using the Anzac unit sculpts for this concept…

Right now, in the OOB game, UK and UK Pacific units are not distinguished in the turn order or phase sequence, the only difference is how these units enter play. Once in play however, they are treated exactly the same. In practical terms, this means that UK Europe units can move onto the Pacific side of the board, link up with UK Pacific units, and then proceed to make attacks together at the same time.

The most common example would be launching Mech out of Africa or Persia, to link up with UK Pacific units in India, and then, once joined together in the same place, to make combat movements in unison. Ships are likewise treated the same, the only difference being how they enter play. It doesn’t matter whether a ship was built in S. Africa or Calcutta, once its on the map, all British units are treated the same for the purposes of movement OOB.

Now, unlike the OOB situation, if you take UK Pacific and transform it into a full player Nation (one that includes Anzac) and call it British Empire Pacific, with its own distinct sculpts and its own position in the turn order, I believe that splitting them up by theater to restrict their movement would no longer be necessary to offset the increase in income.

Sure UK Europe could still move units onto the Pacific side of the board to join with the British Empire Pacific, but they wouldn’t be able to attack at the same time now. This is very significant to the gameplay, critical, because although they could still conduct a unified defense, they couldn’t just springboard together into China with joint attacks anymore. They would move their units at different times, albeit still “piggy backing” one another in the turn sequence, but no longer a joint force. In short, they’d have to conduct attacks separately, rather than having their movement restricted by theater.
What do you think?

Finally, again to the Capital question…
If you give the British Empire Pacific a starting income of 27 ipcs plus an additional potential 15 ipcs from National Objectives and then make Calcutta their capital, where do you suppose they will spend all that money? Because, I think they will drop it all into India. Absent some incentive to do otherwise, India is the only choice that makes any strategic since. They have a Major there already, which means if they are able to achieve even one of their NOs, there is a fairly strong chance they can stack 10 infantry a round in Calcutta, or perhaps even 10 mech. The set up situation being what it is, that’s like 30 infantry on India, before Japan can even get in range, which I think will make India very difficult as a target, and at the same time, the only target that matters on the Pacific side of the gameboard.

Now contrast this with a Capital at Sydney. Here the British Empire Pacific player has to strike a balance. If they leave Sydney/Australia too weak, then Japan may well launch the full weight of their forces against it, seize the capital, take the money, and eliminate ability of the British Empire Pacific to produce new units. On the other hand, if they spend too much in the defense of Australia, then they may be leaving India vulnerable. While taking India would not eliminate the ability of the British Empire Pacific to produce units, it would nevertheless be a major strategic blow to the Allies. So I think if you put the capital in Sydney, then you will introduce strategic interest on a part of the board that doesn’t have a whole lot OOB.

USA would have an added incentive to protect Sydney, which could affect Japan’s plans on the DoW, and which might even give the British Empire Pacific and real incentive to make an unprovoked declaration of war against Japan.

In any of the various models which have been proposed above, one point that may need to be considered and/or clarified is whether Canada (if it’s treated as part of the UK) would be subject to a Europe/Pacific split.  In other words, would the Canada-based income and units from the parts of Canada on the Pacific board only be usable on the Pacific side (as is the case with ANZAC), while the Canada-based income and units from the parts of Canada on the Europe board only be usable on the Europe side?  The issue is important because, in Global 1940, most of Canada is part of the the Europe board, so most of that income might in principle be restricted for use on the Europe side.  (Incidentally, keep in mind that Canada is treated differently on the first and second editions of the Pacific map.  The British roundel in Pacific/2 is an error [listed in the official errata] and there is a single Western Canada territory rather than a BC + Yukon split, although the total IPC value is the same.)

I like the idea of keeping Calcutta as the UK Pacific capital and leaving it as a Major IC along with making Sydney a Major Factory able to produce 5 units. Also, using Sydney as a secondary capital, like Ottawa on the Europe board.
I also like Black Elk’s idea of moving UK Pacific to ANZAC’s place in the turn order. Also still like the idea of using ANZAC pieces for UK Pacific. You could still put the 2 ANZAC infantry in Egypt. After all, UK Pacific and ANZAC is still a part of the greater British Commonwealth.

CWO Marc,
Western Canada on the Pacific board is still part of the UK Europe economy. West India on the Europe board is part of the UK Pacific economy. There is no Europe/Pacific split for Canada or India.
The main thing to remember is if UK Pacific units take a territory on the Europe board, the income goes to UK Europe. If UK Europe units take a territory on the Pacific board, the income goes to UK Pacific.

@Young:

So if the UK gray naval ships off India go toward Africa, do they get replaced by UK baige pieces?

No, they stay grey and move on their own turn. This goes with Black Elk’s idea of moving UK Pacific to ANZAC’s place in the turn order. This would make them truly a separate power.
So while UK Pacific units can go to the Europe board, perhaps to back up a UK Europe fleet, they would still not move until their own turn. In this case, you would have the same problems as you do with a combined US/UK fleet. Together on defense they can really back each other up but if they want to move and attack, they have to do so separately.
The main difference here is unlike US/UK, in this case you would have an Axis (Italy) moving in between the UK Europe and UK Pacific turns. So you would have to take that into consideration. What might Italy do if the UK Europe moves it’s ships leaving UK Pacific’s ships momentarily alone.
Of course, in the case of Germany or Japan, it still wouldn’t be a problem.

I love the ideas and agree that capitals should be transferred once London and Calcutta are captured: Ottawa and Sydney.
I believe Pacific UK must follow UK though. Italy cannot be inbetween.

Well with enough HRs or set up changes, anything can be made to work. But for the rule as written above, here is my concern with Calcutta as the capital and the NOs as currently worded…

In the first round the British Empire Pacific starts with 27 ipcs, or I guess 28 if you want to switch W. India and W. Canada around, but its pretty much the same difference.

Lets say just for the sake of interest, that Japan does not DoW in the first round, then on the British Empire’s first turn, the British do the Java play and bring 3 fighters in range from Australia New Zealand, which they can now use on attack the following round, since there is no separate Anzac nation. British take Sumatra. With the NOs as worded, they are way up on income, now approaching 50 IPCs.

Japan cannot let this happen, so you effectively force J1 DoW with these NOs, which is already the likely plan for Japan anyway, but here it becomes even more critical. Now lets assume J1 DoW, with the British Empire losing Kwangtung and probably one of the 4 ipc islands or the New Guinea NO. Now British Empire Pacific is back down to collecting in the Low 30s. If they lose New Guinea and Kwangtung, then all 3 of their NOs are lost. This leaves the British Empire Pacific with little money to spend in Australia, and little reason to do so. I expect they will drop the whole pile in India, and use their extra fighters from Java to start launching attacks out of India, without ever spending a dime on Sydney.

I think if we want to pursue this idea further we may need different NOs for the British Empire Pacific. Right now we have NOs which read “for control of All original territories” and these are just too easy for the enemy to disrupt, and strategically kind of uninteresting since they don’t encourage anything specific to occur. The New Guinea NO is ok, from the standpoint that USA could recover it, but the other two NOs are out as soon as Japan declares war. More specific NOs tied to a single territory (or at most 2 territories together) would be better. For example +5 for control of Malaya, or +5 for control of Queensland, or something similar. This would encourage Japan/British Empire Pacific to fight over specific areas (areas further outside their normal comfort zone), and at least discourage them from abandoning Australia or Singapore to the Japanese indefinitely. You could do the back up capital idea and it would probably work on balance, provided you had stronger NOs to ground the fighting somewhere other than just India itself, which will already be a huge magnet anyway.

One advantage of using UK sculpts is that you have more total units and roundels to work with, but it does seem rather unfortunate to have an entire Anzac unit set that gets no use. I think I still like the idea of making them Gray with a separate turn. Otherwise you have to come up with a set up change for Egypt, since the OOB rules would no longer work there (with the 2 Anzacs becoming British) or perhaps that makes no difference to your balance aims. But the two combined would seem to be rather challenging on Axis, since Cairo and India would both be that much harder to crack.

Go gray, I say, with a separate turn, and you won’t have to make as many set up changes. Or if the idea is to make a lot of set up changes, then tweak away and fix the whole game. No half measures. If you’re going to go for it, go all the way. I feel like Halifax was set aside prematurely, because it didn’t go far enough in the set up changes. Having already made a bunch of set up alterations, it didn’t carry them through to the logical next step of a complete redesign of the whole board haha. ;) The best Mod is either very few changes to keep it as close to OOB as possible, or just open pandoras box already, and lets make a full scenario that really does balance well for both sides, while still being fun to play for each individual power.  :-D

Right now, Italy is the power that no one wants to play in all my games even moreso than UK, since they just get raided and raided and raided. Which is why I thought it might be nice to give them a break, and have British Empire Pacific move on Anzac’s turn in the sequence. Italy gets hosed all the time now. Alas, OOB convoy rules, they just don’t do a whole lot for me hehehe. On the whole I like this idea a lot. I feel that the British Empire Pacific would make more sense, than a lone Anzac and separate UK Pacific, which feel weirdly out of place in Global 1940.2, even if they might be interesting in Pacific 1940. Better to join Anzac and UK Pacific, one less nation to worry about. Takes it from 9 players down to 8, same as Halifax, just in a different way.

Just real quick, since my phone is about to run out of batteries hehe… about the DoW.

I believe if Japan doesn’t DoW, then UK has the option to make an unprovoked declaration of war on Japan, which would award 45 ipcs total (assuming Java and Sumatra.) Is that correct? Or 46 if they take Dutch New Guinea instead of Java.  I think anyway. Which means they’d almost always DoW, one side or the other? I’ll look when I get home…

OK back now…

Oh wait no, you are totally correct, I misread your second NO. I thought it was the same as the Anzac NO for New Guinea.  But I see now it says “all original Dutch territories.” OK so that seems a bit more manageable, from the perspective of India not going too monster. But in that case, is the NO really achievable for the British?

I get the idea that OOB, many nations have impossible NOs. But I think that’s a bad thing generally. NOs that can’t be achieved just take up space in the rulebook haha. If they can be achieved, then they serve as gameplay drivers for both sides. One side wants to achieve it and tries, the other wants to deny it, so it prompts both sides to act. This is the essence of a contested NO. But if the NO is impossible, then both sides simply ignore it, and it does nothing for the gameplay. In such cases the NO should be scrapped, since players shouldn’t have to memorize stuff that doesn’t come into play. I understand the OOB model, 1 safe NO, 1 contested NO, 1 impossible NO. I just don’t really think it’s the best model. Better to have just have the contested NOs to focus the gameplay in historical directions. A safe NO is fine, but should only be given if the nation really needs additional income to function on balance. Impossible NOs are pretty irrelevant though, I’d rather see contested NOs in their place, and NOs that encourage people to do historical things, that they wouldn’t do otherwise, without an NO incentive.

I wouldn’t want to derail the adoption of this idea by providing a bunch of alternative variants at this point. I’d rather see one strong mod that has better chances of adoption. If that uses UK units and Calcutta for the capital then that’s certainly workable. We just need solid NOs to keep Sydney from being too irrelevant.  I really prefer focused NOs to the ones with more sprawling conditions. If they NO says “all territories a, b, c, x, y, z” I just think they are less likely to drive the gameplay, since they are so easy for the enemy to shut down.

Let’s take the Dutch islands NO proposed vs the original Anzac NO for New Guinea (the one I mistook above).

With the original Anzac NO there is a reason for Japan to invade Dutch New Guinea. Under the new draft there is little reason to do this, since Japan can disrupt the NO just as well from Java or Borneo etc. places where they already want to be. From the UK perspective,  the additional requirement (for Allies to control all Dutch territory) makes going for a place like Dutch New Guinea even less likely, so they probably give up on the NO altogether, as too impossible to invest in achieving.

I’d be sad to see the grey Anzacs go, but the reality is that there just aren’t enough Anzac roundels in the Box, and too few units to fully support an expansionist British Pacific. Whereas there are a bunch of normal beige UK units.

Haha that’d be funny, just ditch Italy altogether and make them German. Though I’d rather rewrite the convoy rules, than eliminate Italy, since then it’d be 8 Allies vs 2 Axis and kind of ridiculous hehe. But I get where you’re coming from. It’s frustrating to play a nation that is broke all the time and can’t contribute to the war effort.

ps. ok so lets take another look at the UK Pacific and Anzac NOs from the OOB game, if they were all taken together it might read something like

5  if the British Pacific control both Kwangtung and Malaya, and is at war with Japan.

5  if Allies control Malaya, and all of the original Anzac territories, and is at war with Japan.

5 if the Allies (not including Dutch) control all of Dutch New Guinea, New Guinea, New Britain, and the Solomon Islands, and is at war with Japan.

The first two are fairly weak, and both dependent on control of Malaya, with an added condition tacked on that is very hard to maintain. They are unlikely to be achieved unless Japan is losing badly. These are what we might call endgame resolution NOs, because they award money that can only be consistently achieved once the player is already winning. Japan can shut down both fairly easily at the outset, almost as soon as they are at war, all they have to do to deny the Allies 10 ipcs is take Malaya.

Why not simplify this NO and just say British Empire Pacific gets +5 if they control Malaya?

This would mean that both Japan and British Empire Pacific would contest this territory directly. It wouldn’t be off the table just because Kwangtung is under Japanese control (very likely) or because the Japanese managed to take a single Anzac territory (fairly simple). If you want to drive fighting over Malaya, then just put the focus on the single territory, and not saddle it with a bunch of extra requirements that make the focus territory irrelevant. Malaya +5 is simple, and such an NO has the benefit of also being relatively easy to remember. Here we’ve taken 2 unlikely NOs and replaced them with 1 NO that is much more likely to be contested.

Now lets look at the final OOB NO. How about something more straightforward, like +5 for control of New Zealand. Since this is one of the more remote territories which Japan might take, and which in the war, it was a major strategic objective for the Allies to keep this supply route open. I mean that’s why Solomons and all the rest were so significant after all, right? So why not just be more direct, and boost the territory with a NO bonus, to give both sides a reason to fight over it.

Or what if, instead of saying you need control of “such and such” you simplified it and made it more universal?

Like +1 ipc for every pair of valueless islands that Allies control in the Pacific, or maybe +1 ipc for every 3 valueless islands controlled in the Pacific, (once at war with Japan of course). This would put about a dozen ipcs up for grabs and activate all the islands where conflict never occurs, making them relevant to the gameplay. Instead of NOs for Japan and America,  what if we used the NOs for the British Empire Pacific to encourage fighting over all these valueless islands? This makes a kind of sense historically, since Japan wanted to cut off the British Pacific and seperate them from their American Allies. The NO could reflect this in a general way, to provide interest for the gameplay.

Just musing on ideas. I just think, if you’re going to go through the effort of removing a nation from the game, and bringing the British Empire Pacific into being, then why not take the same opportunity to make the Pacific NOs as interesting to the gameplay as possible. Not something that is so challenging to achieve, as to be practically irrelevant, but something that really puts the gameplay onto the islands. Because that is what everyone wants, and which the Pacific fails to deliver on most A&A boards.

Otherwise I just don’t even see the point of having NOs in A&A, if they only become a factor in exceptionally rare instances, then they might as well not even exist. We should instead try to make them critical to the balance of power on the gameboard. Something that can swing back and forth. Don’t you think? I mean, since we have the opportunity here with this overhaul of the British Pacific.

@Black_Elk:

Why not simplify this NO and just say British Empire Pacific gets +5 if they control Malaya?

This would mean that both Japan and British Empire Pacific would contest this territory directly. It wouldn’t be off the table just because Kwangtung is under Japanese control (very likely) or because the Japanese managed to take a single Anzac territory (fairly simple). If you want to drive fighting over Malaya, then just put the focus on the single territory, and not saddle it with a bunch of extra requirements that make the focus territory irrelevant. Malaya +5 is simple, and such an NO has the benefit of also being relatively easy to remember. Here we’ve taken 2 unlikely NOs and replaced them with 1 NO that is much more likely to be contested.

Now lets look at the final OOB NO. How about something more straightforward, like +5 for control of New Zealand. Since this is one of the more remote territories which Japan might take, and which in the war, it was a major strategic objective for the Allies to keep this supply route open. I mean that’s why Solomons and all the rest were so significant after all, right? So why not just be more direct, and boost the territory with a NO bonus, to give both sides a reason to fight over it.

Or what if, instead of saying you need control of “such and such” you simplified it and made it more universal?

Like +1 ipc for every pair of valueless islands that Allies control in the Pacific, or maybe +1 ipc for every 3 valueless islands controlled in the Pacific, (once at war with Japan of course). This would put about a dozen ipcs up for grabs and activate all the islands where conflict never occurs, making them relevant to the gameplay. Instead of NOs for Japan and America,  what if we used the NOs for the British Empire Pacific to encourage fighting over all these valueless islands? This makes a kind of sense historically, since Japan wanted to cut off the British Pacific and seperate them from their American Allies. The NO could reflect this in a general way, to provide interest for the gameplay.

I really find these NOs much better.
Such NO " Like +1 ipc for every pair of valueless islands that Allies control in the Pacific" should be even simplified to “1 ipc for every valueless islands that Allies control in the Pacific”.
This will make IJN in the mood to take those Islands. This will better reenact their WWII strategy.
However Japan will need some IPCs to make it valable strat.
Maybe revised the Outer perimeter defense to 4 islands out of 5?

Now we’re cookin’  :-D

I dig it! Going to slate a game for this weekend