Had a great game today after trying out this new UK Pacific nation, of course we have some tweaking to do, but our group really accepted it and it should be a major part of our regular gatherings going forward. Of course there will be many strategies to execute as well as counter in regards to this house rule as only so much can be assessed from one play test game. However, there were some obvious structural benefits that became clear immediately.
In a group of 5 players as we had today, this new UK nation allowed the game to flow extremely smooth. No longer was the UK player waiting for Japan and United States to finish their turns before effecting both Europe and Pacific maps with their own turn. Japan and the United States could play while UK Europe and Italy worked through thier own turn sequences. No more separate piles for 2 UK purchases… the UK player was able to focus on one side with one purchase per turn. The UK turns went faster than usual allowing Italy to start their turn sequence more efficiently without waiting for UK battles on the Pacific side to end. I can’t stress enough how fluid or game was and we managed to break a group record for rounds vs. time played with 9 rounds in 11 and a 1/2 hours.
Now like I said some tweaking is needed as there was a lot of discussion about National Objectives, and what ever works for our group may not be what others here agree upon. Therefore I don’t want to get into long discussions about them because I realize as much as it would be great to have a universal set of NOs… it’s just to ambiguous of a subject, my suggestion is to use what works for you and house rule it. In our game today we decided that with the combined income of ANZAC and UK Pacific being spent in Calcutta, and the ability to jump on Islands totaling 8 IPCs… it was best to limit the NOs the UK Pacific received to just 1 achievable NO for fear of a dominate UK force in India.
Today, the UK player used their income for tanks and fighters which allowed them to extend out, but not very much in the end because Japan was so effective building factories and bombing India. Perhaps next time there will be a focus on naval units, and it will be interesting to see if the US goes 100% on one side as there was an equal American presence on both boards today. I highly recommend the ideas in post #1 which allow both ANZAC and UK Pacific to attack and spend as one… I’m excited for our group members who love the new ideas here.