G40 Strategic Advantages - Delta

@Young:

Does anyone like this idea?

Yes, and I like that fact that it offers Italy an advantage, but it differs from the other proposals in two respects: it’s a multi-country option rather than a single-country option, and it doesn’t offer a single-round paired choice.  If we group the other proposals by country, we get this table:

United States
R3: War Bonds or Uncle Sam
R6: Super Fortresses or Essex Class Carriers

United Kingdom
R4: Radar or Commonwealth Aid

Soviet Union
R9: Tank Production or Mobile Industry

Germany
R2: Enigma or Blitzkrieg
R7 Jet Fighters or V-Rockets

Japan
R5: Dug-in Defenders or Tokyo Express
R8: Banzai Attack or Kaiten Torpedos

I guess the way to integrate the new proposal (R1-Paratroopers vs R10-Long Range Aircraft) would be to insert it as follows:

• Adding a category for Italy, so that you’ll have six countries

• Pairing R1-Paratroopers with something else (applicable to any country) in R1, to create a R1 choice

• Pairing R10-Long Range Aircraft with something else (applicable to any country) in R10, to create a R10 choice

• Giving all six countries the R1 pairing and the R10 pairing

On a related point, maybe ANZAC could be added to the list, so that seven countries would be eligible for SAs.  I can see why there wouldn’t be much point in giving France or China national advantages, since both countries are in an odd position, but ANZAC could plausibly have national advantages on the same level as Italy if they’re sufficiently general in nature (like paratroopers and long-range aircraft) to be applicable to most countries.

To extend the concept further: should Italy and ANZAC have any nation-specific SAs?  This idea would need development, but to get things started:

• Perhaps an ANZAC SA could be the Coastwatchers, which provided valuable intelligence and which rescued downed pilots.

• Perhaps the Italian SA could be the Pact of Steel, which could be used to allow Italy to share in the use of a SA developed by Germany in a previous round.  (For fun, if a player has both editions of Global 1940, these enhancements could be signalled by replacing some of the Italian-pattern 2nd edition brown sculpts with the German (or in some cases Japanese) 1st edition brown sculpts.)

And as a last idea: notwithstanding what I said about France’s and China’s odd positions, might it be interesting to give each of them some small SA at some point?  Several countries are being given three SA pairings, others two, and others one (as a reflection of their capabilities in general), so perhaps France and China could each get a single pairing or even one single non-paired SA.  For China, it could be some sort of infantry number boost to reflect cooperation against the Japanese by the Nationalists and the Communists, perhaps paired (if desired) with some sort of numerical increase to the Flying Tiger unit to reflect fighter reinforcements flown in across the Himalayas.  For France it could be the mid-war defection of some Vichy units to Free France (such as when the battleship Richelieu joined the Allies in 1943), perhaps paired (if desired) with sabotage operations against the Germans in France by the FFI (Forces Francaises de l’Interieur).

Just a suggestion YG. You could restrict Super fortresses to the Pacific Theater since Around the Clock Bombing is already restricted to London if you wanted to keep that SA.

@Young:

I really liked one of your suggestions right away, check out post #1 to see how I used your idea… the other stuff I’m still thinking about.  Thanks a lot for your contribution.

Looks good – including the colour-coding for the country names.  :-)  Glad the input was useful.

I’ve realized, by the way, that my Vichy unit defection idea won’t work, since the Global 1940 game disregards the Vichy situation.  The FFI idea remains valid, however, since Global 1940 still makes use of the concept of an occupied France.

@Young:

@toblerone77:

Just a suggestion YG. You could restrict Super fortresses to the Pacific Theater since Around the Clock Bombing is already restricted to London if you wanted to keep that SA.

Thanks for the suggestion Tob, but that’s tough to accept historically after watching “Memphis Belle” like 10 times  :|

There’s also the awkward problem that round-the-clock bombing is actually an Anglo-American advantage rather than an American one, since the 8th Air Force only provided half of the round-the-clock bombing work, the other half being provided by the RAF.  This in principle would require both the US and UK players to choose a RTCB advantage for the SA to become operational.

I have a couple of questions/suggestions about two of the advantages listed so far:

“R3 United States – Uncle Sam: America now receives 4 free infantry units every round during the place new units phase (2 in Eastern United States, and 2 in Western United States).”

I assume that this is meant to represent the vast amount of volunteer enlistment that was triggered by Pearl Harbor (and perhaps, in later rounds, as the initial burst of enthusiam began to flatten, the compensating expansion of conscription – for instance when the draft age was lowered from 21 to 18).  This is fine, but it seems to me that the phrase “Uncle Sam” is a little vague in conveying this concept.  Would the rallying cry “Remember Pearl Harbor!” perhaps work better?

“R9 Soviet Union – Mobile Industry: All operational Russian factories may now move 1 space during their non-combat movement phase. Factories that have moved during the non-combat phase may still produce units during the place new units phase of the same turn.”

I initially thought this referred to the relocation of Soviet industry from the western part of the country to its eastern regions (like the Urals) in 1941, but then I noticed that this is a Round 9 advantage, which seems awfully late in the war.  Also, I’m not sure if this option to move is only operational once, or whether it’s reusable; in the latter case, “mobile industry” would mean “self-propelled factories” (a problematic concept) rather than “relocated factories” (which is easier to grasp).  So I’m not sure what to make of this one.

Can you reprint all the new ideas in the same form as the first post? It’s hard to keep track of all the changes…

Okay, thanks, I see now what the the “Uncle Sam” title refers to.  If the title had been “Uncle Sam Wants You” (a common shorthand for the famous poster that shows a picture of a pointing Uncle Sam above the words “I want YOU for the U.S. Army”) I would immediately have thought of the poster and understood the recruitment concept.  So instead of the original “Uncle Sam” title and the new “Recruitment Campaign” title (which I think works nicely, by the way), one option for splitting the difference would be to use the title “Uncle Sam Wants You” (which would work equally well in my opinion).

Thanks also for the information about the Russian factories.  As you say, a rule devised by Larry carries inherent weight (even if it’s a bit perplexing in terms of its historical parallels), so that’s as good a reason as any to use the concept.

@Young:

do you think that you might play these advantages in a future game?

I might – they sound both practicable and interesting.  I’m currently not gaming, however, because I’m dealing with some fairly serious stuff in real life that will be taking up a lot of my attention for an undetermined amount of time.  So I’ll have to limit myself to just commenting on your strategic advantages project from the sidelines without giving them an actual try myself.

@Young:

@toblerone77:

Just a suggestion YG. You could restrict Super fortresses to the Pacific Theater since Around the Clock Bombing is already restricted to London if you wanted to keep that SA.

Thanks for the suggestion Tob, but that’s tough to accept historically after watching “Memphis Belle” like 10 times  :|

Well if we base it on that, the Memphis Belle was a Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress” used mostly in Europe. The Boeing B-29 “Super Fortress” was used exclusively in the Pacific.

LOL I’m just giving you a hard time YG.

Maybe another suggestion YG. I hope I’m not being a pain. Is maybe title “Dug-in Defenders” as “Code of Bushido”

Another idea YG.

I know you’ve made printed cards before. If you printed these out and color-coded them, you could allow the cards to be shuffled but still pulled in order of rounds.

So if for instance you and your group decided to change things up from a more strategic method of choice to one of chance, you could simply shuffle, then sort by color, and then have the players draw their card. I don’t know how much luck your group likes, but I see this as maybe something fun after you have played through a few games where players can choose their SAs.