Another drastic change I intend to do is to lower Japan value from 10 to 6 IPCs.
This might compensate for the numerous increase in IPCs :
Japan: Japan TT (6) -4, Gilbert Island (1), Malaya (2?), Hainan (1), Marianas and Guam (2) = +2 IPCs
UK: Vancouver Island (1)
US: Johnston Island (1)
Accordingly, this might reduce Japan production capacity. So, IC would need to be built in Mainland Asia.
And, if Japan TT is surrounded, it will not be able to mass produce units.
In that case, a Fortress Japan will not be possible and the game will end more rapidly.
@Argothair:
That would solve the don’t-get-looted exploit, and having the penalty be more “immediate” might help motivate players to take the penalty more seriously. Neuroscience says that people care more about small, immediate penalties than they do about large, distant penalties.
I still say a financial penalty of any kind is the wrong tool to keep russia and japan away from each other. If I wanted to try to keep russia and japan off of each other’s backs, I would severely limit Japan’s unit caps relative to its total income. For example, in 1942.2, Japan has $30 of starting income, and 8 unit slots to build each turn. After a few turns, when Japan has built a factory, that often rises to something like $40 of income with 10 build slots. Either way, you’re roughly in the $4 per unit range, which means that you have the option to build plenty of infantry and artillery as Japan.
In real life, Japan’s manpower was tapped out – by spring 1943, after the Japanese Army bogged down in China, Burma, and New Guinea, Japan had almost no able-bodied soldiers left to draft. They had enough industry to continue building more planes, tanks, ships, etc., which acted as force multipliers, but they if they needed to field another army of 200,000 infantry, they simply had no way to do that.
I think this is a major reason why Japan chose not to invade Russia in the 1940s! Invading northern Asia would have required another army of 200,000 infantry that Japan simply didn’t have. You can’t invade a vast land mass with nothing but tanks; at some point you also need boots on the ground.
So, suppose you reduce the value of the Japanese home territory from $8 to $5, and suppose you reduce the value of Manchuria from $3 to $2. You can increase the value of some of the islands from $0 to $1 so that Japan’s total income stays the same. Now Japan is collecting $30 income with only 5 build slots, and later in the game they’ll collect $40 income with $7 build slots – closer to $6 per unit. At $6 per unit, you want to build a lot of ships and tanks and planes to multiply your firepower. You might build one or two infantry each round, but you’ll be chronically short of infantry, so invading the (low-value) territories of Siberia will naturally be much less attractive. You won’t have to bribe the Japanese to leave the Russians alone – they’ll do it anyway, because that’s their natural incentive from that starting position.
Meanwhile, concentrate the bulk of the starting Russian infantry closer to Yakut and Evenki, rather than in the Soviet Far East and Buryatia. The Russians will then cheerfully and gratefully migrate any surplus infantry westward to Moscow and Archangel – they certainly will not go picking a fight with the Japanese.
Another, altogether different option is to trigger some American lend-lease if and when Japan invades Moscow. If Japan breaks the non-aggression pact first, then America can make a one time cash transfer of up to $16 from the US treasury to the Russian treasury. That at least simulates real diplomacy – the Western Allies are pissed that Japan is making a surprise attack against their alliance partner, so they send the partner some extra cash by way of retaliation.