Lets Talk Neutrals!

@LuckyDay:

…thank you…

cute

@Imperious:

I printed out the AARHE and played with your diplomacy rules for the neutrals, and it worked okay.

Just okay???  Its supposed to work perfectly. What would you have it differently?

just wondering.

My group played with the AARHE map/including Italy (but without most of the rule changes, because most of the group wanted simplicity).  The concensus was that adding Italy was cool and putting the neutral armies out on the board added to the fun factor, but after a few (4-6, I don’t remember exactly.) games, and America always getting Spain and puting an IC there, several of the players got tired of losing as the Axis, and just stopped playing until AA50 came out.  Since AA50 came out, we haven’t played a single game of AARHE.

I was happy with the AARHE diplomacy rules.  My statement was a reflection of my group’s concensus, and should not be construed as criticism at all.

If I were to change anything at all, I guess I would try to make it slightly easier for the Axis-leaning nations to become Axis and the Allied-leaning nations to become Allies, or at least, forbid the Axis-leaning nations to ever join the Allies unless attacked by the Axis and vice a versa.  We had too many games where all of the Allied diplomacy rolls went to sway Spain, and Spain usually joined the Allies by or before rounds 5-6.

Yah it should just be immposibel for nations that lean torwards one side to join the other
What political conditions in the real world would hae lead to spain joining the allies or even allowing them to build up troops and invade europe from there.

@Bardoly:

and America always getting Spain and puting an IC there,

what about if ‘neutrals’ were not allowed as IC build locations.  Then the Allies would have to think more about backing up a diplomatic success with troops, lest the Axis swoop in and snag it away?

@LuckyDay:

what about if ‘neutrals’ were not allowed as IC build locations.  Then the Allies would have to think more about backing up a diplomatic success with troops, lest the Axis swoop in and snag it away?

do you think it should cost something to declare war on a neutral?
otherwise the Axis can swoop in and snag Spain whether it is with the allies or not.

I dont really like this converting neutrals that are pro-axis to the allies. I dont see what it has to do with World War 2, especially when the game starts in 1941.

@Imperious:

I say neutrals can build a factory with its own income, but it can only produce its own units as long as its your ally, unless you conquer it.

How would that work?  Spain has to save 4 IPCs per turn until it can build?

if neutrals are building infantry and such, then we go back to who gets to decide that?  if they are neutral they we can’t say the other side, because both sides are the other side.  if we give neutrals a standing army, and a military growth chart that sets how they grow each round or so, but deciding what Spain or Saudi Arabia could build is gonna be a big argument in game by the two sides and really isn’t going to be worth playing with, unless we made all the neutrals a standing 7th player and let them work together the whole game, but that’s so far from history…

–if we give neutrals a standing army, then to declare war I would think shouldn’t need to cost anything, as they have to fight enemy troops and there is a cost to that. 
–if we don’t give them a standing army, then yes, there should be a cost to declaring war, whether in dice, or that they have to move the number of units equal to the value of the territory in, or that the other side gets to roll equal number of dice to the value of the territory, then divide in half, round up to take the economic toll.  in some way should be a cost, beyond the classic 3IPC cost.
–if it is just diplomatic, then the cost of the dice work for that.