Well, if you add Rabaul and Harbin to the 26 VCs for 1942.2 from Black Elk’s latest photo, that gets you to 28 VCs. You could add Freetown (French West Africa) and Kiev to get up to 30 VCs. That leaves you with a slight asymmetry; there are 15 VCs in each theater, but in ETO they’re split 6/9, and in PTO they’re split 7/8.
To fix that asymmetry, which I think is a big deal for getting players to quickly and easily understand these rules well enough to want to use them, I’d say get rid Truk on the 30 VC version of 1942.2, and add in Yaktusk, so the Russian East is worth fighting for. The Caroline Islands aren’t quite as far away from the main action in 1942.2 as they are in G40, and with victory cities in Singapore, New Guinea, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand, I’m pretty sure we’ll see a South Pacific campaign in most games. Similarly, with VCs in San Francisco, W. Canada, Alaska, and Yakutsk, you’re pretty likely to get a North Pacific campaign, too! You might not see a Central Pacific campaign without Truk as a victory city, but I’m OK with that – I respectfully disagree with Nimitz on the wisdom of going to the Central Pacific at all, anyway.
I also think Ottawa has to go from the Top 30 list, politics be damned – Ottawa just makes it too hard to come up with an interesting set of ETO Axis victory conditions. The Allies start off leading each theater 9 VCs to 6 VCs. If you set the theater victory goal at 10 VCs, then the Allies can take a cheap shot at Oslo or New Guinea and win on turn 1. If you set the theater victory goal at 11 VCs, then the Axis have to pick up 5 out of 9 Allied VCs…but of those 9 VCs, three of them are capitals, and one is perfectly safe in 99%+ of games (Ottawa), so there are only 5 VCs left. There’s no strategic choices left; the Germans have to hold every single one of their starting VCs and take all of Leningrad, Stalingrad, Cairo, Capetown, and Freetown to win in ETO without taking Moscow. That doesn’t seem fun and it doesn’t seem doable.
The problem is that there are not a lot of great options on the ETO side of 1942.2 for replacing Ottawa. Rio is just as far away as Ottawa; the sea zones are just weird on this map. A 3-move transport might help, or it might not. The best I can come up with is to swap out Ottawa for Archangel – it could be interesting to see the Russians fight to keep the Germans out of Archangel. The British can liberate Archangel with a fleet in the White Sea, but it’s not easy or convenient. And the Archangel-Astrakhan line was one of the Germans’ original war goals.
So, with those slight tweaks, the new Top 30 list for 1942.2 would be:
Germany (6):
Paris, Rome, Berlin, Oslo, Warsaw, Kiev
Allied ETO (9):
USA - Washington
UK - London, Freetown, Cairo, Capetown
USSR - Leningrad, Archangel, Moscow, Stalingrad
Japan (6):
Tokyo, Harbin, Shanghai, Singapore, Manila, Rabaul
Allied PTO (9):
USA - Chongqing, Honolulu, Anchorage, San Francisco
UK - Calcutta, Sydney, Wellington, Victoria
USSR - Yakutsk
Victory Conditions
You win if your team has 11+ VCs in either theater, or 20+ VCs globally. Check for Axis victory at the end of the American turn, and check for Allied victory at the end of the Japanese turn.
