A footnote about Pax Britannica

[neonvincent]

I went off on a tangent in An update on Puerto Rican statehood for Piña Colada Day 2021.

[T]he former guy dislikes Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans enough that he reportedly wanted to swap the island commonwealth for Greenland.*
...
*This reminds me of a stunt I pulled in a games of Pax Britannica 30-35 years ago when I played the United Kingdom/Great Britain. I called it "Aristotle is not a Belgian." When Belgium, a minor power that runs by automatic rules, made a move that resulted in a Casus Belli, I would call for a Congress of Europe and propose a deal that would give Belgium the U.K's possessions in Newfoundland and Guiana (if I could convince the French player, France's possession in Guiana as well) along with a codominion in whichever territory Belgium had established a protectorate or possession, usually the Congo. That would get get rid of two low-value colonies for the U.K. and one for France, freeing those counters to be deployed in more high-value territories, and use up all of Belgium's counters for protectorates and possessions, eliminating it as a obstacle to the players who had plans for Africa.

What TFG is alleged to have proposed would not have been possible in Pax Britannica and would have been a stupid deal even if it were. First, Denmark was not one of the minor powers in the game (Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal were) and Greenland was not one of the available territories, so there would be nothing to swap for. Even if it had, I expect Greenland would have had an economic value of 1 or 2, while Puerto Rico, which is in the game, has a value of 5. This would have been a bad economic deal. Then again, if he actually did want to do this, it would have been for irrational reasons. That doesn't surprise me.