COMMAND 35: Mason-Dixon Variant

MASON-DIXON VARIANTS

By: Hale E. Cullom, III [email protected]

17.0 Scenario 1917: Monroe's Legacy.

17.6 Giving A War And Everybody Comes: The Sequoyah Alliance. (Optional).

In the early 1900's, as the continental rivalry between C.S. and U.S. intensified, many Sequoyan political thinkers began to advocate abandoning Sequoyah's traditional neutrality, and bargaining for an alliance with either C.S. or U.S., as seemed most advantageous. Consequently, as war loomed over the North American continent in early 1917, Sequoyans were treated to the novel experience of both C.S. and U.S. lobbying for Sequoyan help. During the weeks leading up to war both sides sent high-powered diplomatic delegations to the Sequoyah capital at Oklahoma City, offering the Sequoyans vast sums of money as well as economic and military aid; as well as huge chunks of the other side's territory when victory was won. However, in the last weeks of peace, neither the C.S. Joint General Staff, nor the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, could be quite certain which way Sequoyah would jump -- if at all.

To simulate this uncertainty, do the following: Make up two counters reading "Sequoyah allies with C.S"; two saying "Sequoyah allies with U.S." and two saying "Sequoyah remains neutral." Place the markers in an opaque container, and, after all forces, including the Sequoyah Army, are deployed, either player draws one counter and shows it to his opponent. At the indicated player's option, Sequoyah either joins the side indicated immediately, or remains neutral.

If, for any reason, the player obtaining a Sequoyan alliance by this means chooses to have Sequoyah remain neutral -- Sequoyah may not join that side for the rest of the game, unless invaded by the other player, even if optional rule 17.7 is being employed. (Presumably, Sequoyah would be unable and unwilling to participate in the conflict without significant economic and military aid, and the decision to have Sequoyah remain neutral represents a determination by the government in question to disavow the agreement with Sequoyah reached by the diplomats).

17.7 Better Late Than Never. (Optional).

"The hand that held the dagger has struck it into the back of its neighbor."
							
		Franklin D. Roosevelt
		10 June 1940, referring
		to the Italian entry into
		World War II

This rule may be used if Sequoyah stays neutral as per optional rule 17.6.

If, at the end of any game month, either the U.S. or the C.S. has five more victory points than the other side, and Sequoyah is still neutral, then at this time, the side with the VP advantage takes the two counters produced in 17.6 indicating Sequoyah entry on its side, as well as the two "Sequoyah remains neutral" counters, and places them in an opaque container. The player with the VP advantage draws one counter, and shows it to his opponent. Sequoyah either joins the side with the VP advantage, or remains neutral.

Once Sequoyah has joined one side or the other, this rule is no longer used, whatever the relative VP totals are. Each side has one opportunity, per game, to gain Sequoyan intervention in this manner.

17.8 Guerre a Outrance. (Optional).

"We'll fight them till hell freezes over, and then we'll fight on the ice !"

Disregard the victory conditions in 17.3. The war continues until the end of a month in which one economy (or economy and Foreign Trade, in the C.S. case), is reduced to zero. The decisive victor is the player with the most VP's at that time. If both economies are reduced to zero at the end of the same month, the game is a draw. Of course, "victory" at such price will be hard to distinguish from defeat.

Notes On Optional Rules

The Sequoyah Options. The possibility of Sequoyah joining the war forces both the C.S. and U.S. to leave some sort of "neutrality watch" along the Sequoyah border, or else watch the Indians either have a hoedown in Texas, or play Genghis Khan in Kansas. In the standard game, Sequoyah neutrality is often of advantage to both sides -- shielding the plains from the Confederates, and Texas from the Yankees. In the 1917 scenario, Sequoyah intervention can be worth a few yucks at somebody's expense -- inasmuch as all the Sequoyan forces are Cavalry (6 MPs), and most of the available C.S. and U.S. forces are infantry (3 MPs). Watch out for the 5 VP intervention too -- you may have to come up with extra forces to police the plains just when you can least afford them. The Sequoyah optional rules can also be adapted to fit the 1940 scenario. The option to allow Sequoyah to remain neutral, despite a player's drawing an intervention counter, represents the government in question's analysis that the deal secured by the diplomats is not worth the expense, or that it conflicts with other political or military options. (Historical analogies might be the U.K.'s treatment of the Ottoman Empire in 1914, or what might have resulted in World War II had Nazi Germany made any kind of analysis of the downside of having Mussolini's Italy as an ally).

Guerre a Outrance. This rule allows either or both sides to be as irrational as the combatants in our world's World War I (particularly the Germans and Russians) -- producing extreme social and economic dislocation in pursuit of an ultimately chimerical "victory."