[Brainstorming] "East & West" Cold War scenario for Europe 1940

For those unfamiliar, “East & West” is a cold war A&A-style derivative/variant/expansion from 2000, by Imp Games (which seems to borrow heavily from Xeno Game’s “World at War”)

I’ve started up a discussion thread for E&W in case anyone is interested in checking that out.

One of the topics that @tacojohn brought up in the thread was the possibility of updating E&W to one (or possibly more) of the modern maps/rulesets; I began keying in on the Europe 1940 map in particular, in large part because China is treated as a neutral power in “classic E&W” – I felt like there wasn’t much sense in including the Pacific half of Global 1940.

I’ve decided I’ll just share my initial thoughts (after a couple weeks of tinkering) and see if anybody would like to take the ball and run with it.

Active Nations:

USSR: 45 IPCs
Would include all starting USSR territories, plus the following:
Germany, Poland, Slovakia Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Albania

Western Europe (WE) : 23 IPCs

• Portugal, Portuguese Guinea, Angola, Mozambique
• Holland Belgium, Suriname, Belgian Congo
• Greenland, Iceland, Denmark, Norway
• Northern Italy, Southern Italy, Sicily, Sardinia
• Turkey, Greece, Crete

So in E&W, a bit ahistorically (as the game is set in 1948) Greece and Turkey are part of WE, despite not joining NATO until 1952. For now I’m lumping them in here, but my other preference would be to have them as strict neutrals – more on that later.

Also in E&W, Greenland and Iceland are treated as US territories; since both are worth 0 IPCs on the Europe 1940 map, the only real important distinction is whether they are hostile or friendly, so I wanted to include them under WE instead.

UK: 31 IPCs
gains the following territories:
Italian Somaliland, Tobruk, Libya, Western Germany

• UK loses Trans-Jordan, Egypt, Alexandria to the Arab League
• UK loses Iceland to WE

US: 38 IPCs
gains the following territories:
Greater Southern Germany

• US loses Southeast Mexico to the OAS
• US loses Greenland to WE

Neutral Powers:

France (pro-NATO) : 16 IPCs

• France loses Syria to the Arab League

What I’m proposing for France would be sort of a hybrid rule between the activation rules for pro-neutrals, and a house rule I proposed for China, in E&W.

Essentially how this works is that France would contribute income to WE, based on the IPC value of French territories containing NATO troops (WE, UK, or US) at the end of Western Europe’s turn. If France is attacked by the USSR, all French units and territories would convert to WE ownership.

The reason for doing this is primarily to keep France as part of NATO, without making WE so huge economically that they don’t need any help. Also, by weakening NATO a little bit in this way, I’m hoping to avoid needing to use the E&W rule whereby USSR gets infantry for 2 IPCs instead of 3 IPCs.

Organization of American States (OAS) : 9 IPCs
(Essentially, all of the neutral South American countries except Suriname, plus Southeast Mexico)
If the OAS is attacked by the USSR, all OAS units and territories would convert to US ownership.

Arab League: 8 IPCs
(Alexandria, Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia)
If the Arab League is attacked by the USSR, all Arab units and territories would convert to UK ownership.

…
So, in addition to possibly including a diplomacy mechanism similar to classic E&W, I was wanting to incorporate one of the house rules I had suggested for E&W and apply it to this scenario:

All remaining neutrals are considered “strict neutrals”
However:

1. The USSR may attack any neutral at any time.
2. If the USSR attacks a strict neutral, rather than having ALL strict neutrals side with NATO (as in classic Europe 1940) instead NATO gets to shift either the OAS or Arab League one step on the diplomacy scale.

Now, if Greece and Turkey are kept as strict neutrals, rather than being part of WE, this rule could potentially have large consequences if/when the USSR chooses to attack them.

I was thinking instead of the classic E&W diplomacy scale, it’d make more sense to have it like -8/-6/-4/-2/0/+2/+4/+6/+8

Strict Neutrals:
Probably a good “hard and fast” rule would be that if attacked by the USSR, strict neutrals in Europe would join WE, while strict neutrals in Africa or the middle east would join UK; Rio De Oro would be considered part of Spain, for these purposes. If Turkey is neutral…? I’d probably consider them part of the middle east.

• Europe: Eire, Spain / Rio De Oro, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland
• Africa: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ethiopia
• Middle East: Northwest Persia, Persia, Eastern Persia, Afghanistan

What this all means:

Starting Income:
USSR: 45
NATO: 92

Maximum potential income, including neutrals:
USSR (plus Arab League, OAS*, and all strict neutrals) : 71
WE (plus France, and all strict neutrals in Europe) : 46
UK (plus Arab League, and all strict neutrals in Africa + Middle East) : 42
US (plus OAS*) : 46

*Assumes OAS income is capped at 8 rather than 9