Commonwealth forces

@Flashman:

The Commies (USSR & CCP)

Speaking of Commies, Mongolia (a neutral in the game) also fits the bill.  The Mongolian People’s Republic was established in 1924 with the help of the Soviet Union, with which it remained a close ally (or of which it remained a client state, depending on how you look at it) in the following decades.  I think it fought alongside the Russians during the USSR’s border conflicts with Japan in 1938 and 1939, and it participated in the Russian invasion of Manchuria in August 1945.

@Flashman:

Am I the only one who doesn’t care for this continual subdivision of the powers?

I’d prefer the opposite - distill all nations into 4 power groups:

The (European) Axis
The (Western Allies) Allies & China
The Commies (USSR & CCP)
The Empire of Japan

American, French and British Empire incomes would be separate, but they would all move together. By all means allow infantry placement in India, but nothing else. Canada and Australia can have limited placement including other units.

When you say move together, does that also include combat moves and attacks? That would create a real possibility of a D-Day invasion. I’ve always thought that Allies should be able to move each other’s units if they begin the turn in the same territory. Like if the US had units in England and enough transports, or even British transports in the same sea zone as American naval units, they could take some British units with them in an invasion. Or they could even wait for the UK turn and the UK could move US units with them.
Of course, that would also apply to German and Italian units in the same territory.
As for taking control of the attacked territory, I would say it would go to whomever’s turn it was. Like if Germany attacked and brought along some Italian units and won the battle, the new territory would be controlled by Germany. Perhaps an exclusion to this would be if there were no more of the moving country’s units left but just it’s ally’s units. For example: Italy has a bunch of infantry in Slovakia/Hungary along with a bunch of German tanks. They attack Eastern Poland with Italian infantry and German tanks. They end up taking losses on the cheap infantry and saving the more expensive tanks so they end up with all German units in E. Poland. So, even though it was Italy’s battle, Germany gets that territory. However, if there is at least 1 Italian unit left, then it belongs to Italy with Germany supporting them.

I too would rather see countries grouped together rather than more subdivision

Keep the incomes seperate like UK does now but all the moves are made as a single power

Yes, each of the 4 Blocks moves and attacks with all units at once. As for control of tt, perhaps in future WWII versions will borrow the rule from 1914 that you always have to have one infantry to make an attack, and leave one as a last unit after all other units types have been eliminated.

Alliances between blocks should be strictly limited, for example the “Soviet Block” would not permit Western Allied units on its territory or vice versa; the Axis and Japan would be similarly restricted. There have to be some benefits to being allies however, such as sharing sea zones, and being permitted to fly over an ally’s tt - but not land there.

Moreover, some scenarios would not begin with historical alliances in place, for example a pre-1941 scenario would not have the Axis and the USSR at war.

Include an “open” scenario allowing each of the 4 players to make alliances as they see fit; certainly the Reds and Japanese would have a pact - each cannot attack the other until their respective main enemy has been defeated.

It would make sense for each block’s pieces to all be similar in colour, so dark green for US & light green for British Empire, maybe a green-brown for France, turquoise for Chinese?

Germany in dark grey, Italy in light grey.

far too complicated as always :P

most of your rules would do more to hinder the game than enhance it lol

I find myself agreeing with Uncrustable very often, it seems….

House rules are awesome as long as you play with somebody who agrees with you…

Most of us can only get games of A&A online, so we learn that we really need to stick with the un-customized game whether we like it or not, because that’s what everybody plays…

Alas and alack

I think ANZ and India are OP, esp. having 3 aircraft at start, each…

My personal opinion is India should have a minor IC to start with, and Japan should have a few less airplanes.  Also, ANZ should have 1 or 2 planes max, not 3.  The aircraft reduction program from OOB didn’t go far enough, IMO…  That’s my 2 cents on this issue

Making India a minor gives Japan an easy victory in the pacific?

@Gamerman01:

I think ANZ and India are OP, esp. having 3 aircraft at start, each…

I think Japan is OP, esp. having 21 aircraft at start…

@Uncrustable:

Making India a minor gives Japan an easy victory in the pacific?

I said reduce Japanese aircraft to compensate

I don’t often build more than 3 units on India anyway
I don’t like the major because it seems so unrealistic, that’s all

I do agree with the realism part

I’m actually trying to SIMPLIFY the game by reducing the number of powers to four.

Often, simplified rules are the most complex to explain, especially to dick heads.