New system. USA starts the game with South America under control

Black_Elk

The beauty of COW’s suggestion is that it only involves changing the ownership of 4 territories, and they’re all in the same localized zone, so easy to adjust. Start adding in too much more, and the set up tweak will lose its essential charm.

There is only one further option I would consider, to tie this stuff together with a nice blue ribbon, and that is…

“Change the starting ownership of Sierra Leone from True Neutral to UK”

The reasons are both historical and gameplay oriented, since the British did have a naval base in Freetown.

The historical justification: since we are back-loading all those South American nations into the 1940 conflict, it makes sense to me to do the same with this W. African territory, which was involved in the conflict from early on. I honestly am not even sure why this territory is designated “true neutral” on the gameboard in the first place? Perhaps it was an error in the original draft that was never corrected?

CWO could probably provide some insights.

Gameplay justification: this way the Allies can build a naval base with access to sz 87, for the African shuck out of E. USA. And to make the new starting possessions in South America more useful with another staging zone. This seems a bit easier to me than changing all the French territory in Africa to UK, since its just the one spot.

That would be 5 total roundels, 4 neutrals to USA and 1 to UK. All in the same basic region of the game map. Easy to manage.

Any thoughts?

CWO Marc

I have no idea why the map designates Sierra Leone as a neutral. It was British-controlled at the time: Freetown (where there was indeed a naval base during WWII) had the status of a British crown colony, while the rets of the country was a British protectorate. So this element of the map is indeed puzzling. Mind you, this is the same map which implies (by land colour and roundel) that Mexico, Central America and the West Indies are all part of the United States…so it’s hardly a model of geopolitical rectitude.

An argument could be made, by the way, that Sierra Leone’s game map neighbor Liberia ought to be a pro-Allied neutral. The US and Liberia were on very close terms during WWII: American troops served there, a lot of servicemen transited through it, and it was an important supplier of rubber at a time when Japan controlled many other sources for this material. In practical terms, however, this change wouldn’t affect very much because Liberia has no IPCs and no standing army.

General Veers

At this rate why not give Mongolia to the Soviets? Maybe those six extra infantry can be the difference in a Moscow defense.

Black_Elk

I like these rules because they don’t require anything to achieve beyond a few roundels and following the information that’s already printed on the map.

Just change the neutral ownership or standing armies in the designated area, and switch to new owner.

Here is a save edit, with the suggested changes…

I included the Sierra Leone correction. For the start date Sierra Leone should definitely belong to UK in 1940.

Having a West Africa space to UK that borders sz 87 provides an interesting possibility that isn’t available OOB, a repeating shuck for USA into Africa!

if UK chooses to build an NB, this could help to accelerate the US involvement on a possible torch or sub-saharan route, that doesn’t just hinge everything on Gibraltar.

The new USA possessions in South America, fits with the theme already present on the OOB map in central America and the Caribbean, that the nations in this hemisphere contribute directly to the US war effort. The 8 extra IPCs bring the USA to a clean 60 ipcs.

Nice and round! I like it a lot :-D

Global 1940 South America to USA.tsvg

Black_Elk

Ps. The Mongolia concept is interesting, historical, and easy enough to do, though I think as COW suggested the USA boost might be enough in and of itself.

I only mentioned Sierra Leone because it always annoyed me how Allies could not build a naval base on sz 87 because of the French ownership. And then every map I’ve seen of WW2 shows that Sierra Leone was under control of the Allies and a belligerent since 1940 at least, but I think as early as 39? So this seems like a map correction that should be encouraged.

Also, not yet mentioned but pretty cool as well… by adjusting starting ownership of Brazil, Venezuela, Chile and Argentina to USA, suddenly South America becomes a much more interesting target area for Axis. The region provides an overland route to the Canal (on account of the OOB geographical inaccuracy that has Venezuela bordering Panama hehe.) But redrawing the OOB map is not a good option for most players, and anyway this will be more fun for the gameplay since Columbia isn’t in the way. This means that the Germans or Italians or even Japanese might be able to land units in Chile or Argentina and make Operation Bolivar pay dividends haha.

Axis troops landed anywhere in South America, could conceivable reach anywhere else in South America by land. Production expansions in this region could provide another way “into the America.” You know for cool invasion USA dreams of the endgame! haha
:-D

I think the inclusion of Brazil as a US territory makes a lot of sense, and is familiar from the older games. The Sierra Leone possibility will activate Brazil for its historical role in the war, with proximity to Africa for support of the British and Americans fighting in that theater.

I didn’t want to bite off more than I could chew, but I’d make a gameplay case for Liberia to be Pro-Allies too! Because it is the only territory on sz 83. This could give the territory some minor significance as a potential Naval Base location. These nations were all Allies before the curtain fell, so it seems weird to have them as true Neutrals. To me true neutral indicates neutrality for the duration of the war. If we’re going to have the Pro-side concept, might as well extend it to all the territories that make sense.

I’m just a fan of giving Sierra Leone to UK outright, because it seems like an error/oversight of the OOB map, and because I like the idea of that sz 101 to sz 87 shuck. E. USA to W. Africa and back, NB to NB!

I think it would really help the USA to get out early and be more involved in Africa. ;)

On the whole I really like this South America idea. I think it looks fun, and feels simple to implement. No rules changes or anything too complicated, just a few roundels, a handful of infantry, and 60 ipcs for USA to start.

I’m partial to these American regions of the G40 map in tripleA, since I’m pretty sure it’s the only area of the map to use my v3 baseline as a guide. Though the borders where redrafted to match the OOB boundaries, the continent of South America itself and the West Indies and the Eastern coastline of North America follow the v3/Domination draft I made originally. It even has Roanoke! lol I had big plans for that one in a 16th century mod. But it disappeared without a trace! All except for a few pixels preserved in the G40 baseline for tripleA hahaha.

Another image, just kicking around some ideas. These routes might not be optimal for USA, but at least they’re on the table now…

CWO Marc

@Black_Elk:

These nations were all Allies before the curtain fell, so it seems weird to have them as true Neutrals. To me true neutral indicates neutrality for the duration of the war. If we’re going to have the Pro-side concept, might as well extend it to all the territories that make sense.

I’m finding this thread very interesting because I’m currently working on a little research project that’s looking at WWII’s minor participants (and non-participants). I already have a general sense of the extent to which the various nations of the world were involved (or not) in the war, but I want to get a more detailed grasp of the subject because what I’m hoping to do, as a second step, is work out whether those degrees of involvement could (and/or should) be modeled into Global 1940 without doing any radical changes to the rules. I might ultimately want to apply those ideas to my customized G40/1 table (which I created to represent more accurately the international situation that existed prior to the outbreak of WWII), but as a first step I’ll try to apply them to the OOB game map to see whether the map can be made to work better without too much tinkering.

I’m still just at the early stage of this project, so all I have at this point are just some rough lines of thought, but once I have ideas or conclusions which are more concrete I’ll run them past the forum. Black Elk’s comment above, however, relates with one of the groups into which I’ve found that some countries are falling: countries which stayed nominally neutral for most of the war, then jumped onto the Allied bandwagon at the last minute so that they could be counted among the victorious Allied powers when Germany surrendered. In my opinion, those countries probably shouldn’t count as real Allied powers because their actions strike me as pretty self-serving: wait on the sidelines until you’re sure one side is going to win, then join that side late in the game when it’s safe to do so because you won’t need to commit any military or financial resources to a war that’s already as good as won.

The Hessian

CWO Marc: An interesting Project! Here are some publications that might help you with your research:

Fodor, Denis J.: The neutrals. Alexandria 1982.
-Hauner, Milan: India in axis strategy - Germany, Japan, and Indian nationalists in the Second World War. Stuttgart 1981.
Leitz, Christian: Sympathy for the devil - neutral Europe and Nazi Germany in World War II. New York 2001.
Wylie, Neville (Ed.): European neutrals and non-belligerents during the Second World War. Cambridge 2002.

CWO Marc

@The:

Here are some publications that might help you with your research:

Thanks, these look like useful sources. Much appreciated.

The Hessian

You’re welcome!

Black_Elk

Just to say again, that I like this solution for G40.

In the tripleA edit mode it only take a few moments.

Just enable edit mode
edit the “territory ownership” of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and Chile to USA
click the neutral infantry and remove them, then “add units.” The default is American, since you already changed ownership.
then “Change PUs” of America from 52 to 60 ipcs.

Easy. It’s also fun to watch how the AI tries to make use of the new loot and the new units haha
:-D

New system. USA starts the game with South America under control

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