New way to unfroze the USA? Bug? Exploit?

[Wise01]

In a play by e-mail game we are in the year 1942 and the JApanese managed to take Northern Persia walking through Russia.
They have not attacked inland China or any of the frozen US territories.
English troops took N.Persia next turn (still 1942) and USA unfroze.
Sounds strange for me.
Maybe another exploit to early unfroze the USA?

[JanSorensen]

It sounds like the same one. If a UK (not CW) unit can attack any Japanese held territory then the US will unfreeze.

[Wise01]

Aah, this way it goes.
Ergo at JApanese player you have to remember this and not take territory besides English territory.
But thats not the way to unfreeze USA supposed by the developers i guess.
Please fix this in the next patch!

[JanSorensen]

I asked the developers. The answer was that they intend to keep this in the game but to make the Afgan-Khazakstan border cost 2 MP. That way the Japanese can still take Irkutsk without unreasonable risk but they can only move deeper into Russia risking a US unfreeze.

While this may not be terribly logical it does seem to work very well when it comes to balancing the game from the Russian point of view. It was just too easy and too common to sandwich Russia into nothing - and probably rather unrealistic for the Japanese to march clear across Siberia in such short time. That does not include the reluctance of the Japanese to attack the Russian after the beating Zkukov had administered to them a couple of years earlier either. So, all in all I think the effect is reasonable even if the specifics are bogus.