@Funcioneta:

You could do the same as Japan. They will have more income than USA pretty early

agreed, BUT as Japan I feel I need a navy much more to control my many islands when comparing to the USA.

In any case, going for HB and LRA seem to be the best options so far. I hope to be able to come up with other alternatives in my coming games however as the game otherwise seems too dull with an overpowered US airforce

OK, voting is over, China inf bids won but by a very small margin. I’ll move the discussion over to the League discussion forum and we’ll see what people think there! Join in and we can influence how the game will be played!  :-)

I like a late in the game IC’c in Egypt if things are going well.
The last game I played Germany put up an IC in France and was battled to a halt at the russian fronter. Italy did not renforce Afrika that much so in UK 4 I dumped all the forces that should have gone to France in Afrika, The IC  made it nearly impossoble to take and there were about 12 Inf 4 tanks or so and fighters. By this time the Italian fleet fled the Med and threated India leaving the rest of Afrika to be moped up by a very stong UK force. Then Gremay started to make a Navy so I need the navy back at home so to make a good defnce position I made an IC in India and Egypt in turn 6 when my Landing army got there. I really like an IC in that area so you can get what you cant fit on the trasports into the action in a hurry. Like if you lose a good bit of you fleet you dont need to wait the extra two turns to get new ships for the homeland.

@Subotai:

You still think allies need a $12 (+NOs) (or higher) bid to survive?

Not sure. But a thing is clear to me: 8 or less is not enough. I can try playing against a 12 bid when I have more time (after june, 12th). Of course, whe are talking with unit bids. With cash bids, I guess 20 is the minimal

And with the rules we have for league (deleting starting cash to axis), well:

You can lose 17 IPCs as Japan without any problem Germany can lose 1 IPC (and buy 10 infs) Italy can lose 1 IPC (and buy 3 infs)

So I doubt any bid higher than -20 will do much. I think a proper bid with that system would go near to -30. I’m not sure, but I guess I could dare with -28 and buy only 10 german inf as Germany and nothing more to axis round 1 or even if I feel very confident, -31 and buy only 9 german infs

But the easiest way of solving the things is a official fix from Larry for China’s setup. They made it in AAPacific, so I guess it can happen again

@mojo:

thanks buddy i like it, i’ve been trying to build navy for germany for years.  once in classic i bid 18 bought a AC and put it in the med.  built my fleet up and owned the atlantic.  no units shipped from USA or UK.  it was awesome,  but my buddy built USA in the pacific, russia owned asia,  and  he took japan, so i still lost,  but what a freaking game that was.  i’ll look ya up for a game.

Not a problem, unless you’re flying to Hawaii!  We’re getting a game of Revised & Classic on 05/30/09!

As for the modified sub rules for revised, this is what we used.

Air can only interact with subs when destroyer is present (can be
friendly destroyer if defending, i.e. subs vs. DD, AC with Ftr).

SBR damage limited to value of the territory’s IPC value/turn

normal bid for axis

unit placement change 2 subs from SZ 5 to SZ 8 (this was to offset the fleet in SZ 5 from being destroyed in 1st round.

We played two games with this setup.

First with 6 bid for Axis (2 inf to Libya) Japan took USSR and Germany held.  These changes make it expensive for Allies to shuck shuck.  Germany purchases were 2 subs and all infantry for 3 rounds.

Second game was 12 bid for Axis (2 inf to Libya, 2 inf to Ukr), game could have gone both ways.

Let me know what you think about the modification.  Probably in the wrong forum for this but it’s a continuation of our discussion so I hope it’s ok.

Happy Memorial Day!

/corbeau blanc

Agree with you on Karelia, even though Germany can take it sometimes it’s not too difficult to take it back by Russian counterattack and/or UK invasion. Only once Germany gets heavy inf reinforcement east can they hope to hold it, and if you do a good UK/US invasion combo into Europe there should be tied lots of Germans tied up manning the West wall. In my games, Germany and Italy often seem to end up being inf-heavy hedgehogs, leaving it to Japan to finish Moscow off.

India, on the other hand, isn’t easy to hold at all. This is due to Japanese number of transports and fighters, which will overwhelm you sooner or later. I think ICs in SAF and EGY are a better UK focus, better fighting a delaying action over India and reinforce Russia with aircraft to make it impregneable.

I think the problem with a 1939 varient is it would have to many special rules and seem almost too automatic for the 1st few turns to be any fun (for me at least).

That being said if you wanted to do it and avoid as many special rules as possible:
1)maybe have a 4th ally listed as “other allies”: It could represent France, Poland, Greece, The Dutch, Belgium, and Norway.  They would probably only get 1 IC in france and you would expect them to fall fairly quick.  If you wanted, you could probably just merge it all with the UK and still only have 1 IC on London.
2)Also, maybe other than a small force in the Phil and maybe a token pacific fleet, have the US wiped clean of any forceson the board
3) Make sure Germany and Russia cant reasonably attack eachother anywhere for 1 or 2 turns (except maybe fin/kar).
4) Make sure the Japanese have enough attacks to be obvious and attack to where they would roughly be by 41 (hong kong, dutch forces, chinese forces for example)

Off the top of my head that is the best I can think of without it becoming a “rules game” like the US can only attack odd number of territories if the Japanese player says “I’m a little teapot” 5 times fast and for three turns the US can lend X amount of dollars to nation X.  All this and Germany gets to attack in a special (but loveable) way for 2 turns.

@Bardoly:

I haven’t usually been building a German IC in my games, except occasionally in Egypt
(which I’m still not sure if it’s good or not), but what would you do on G2 if is is obvious that the Allies are going KJF?  - i.e. Russia stacking Buryatia, moving inf to Chinghai and inf and arm to Persia, UK IC in India, all US air units which can reach to Australia, and US spending all IPCs in a Pacific navy.

In this case, it seems that a German turn 2 IC would almost be a must, but where would the best location be?  It seems that France would be best.

If it was obvious there was a KJF going on I don’t know if I would consider France as my first choice.  I would think Poland, off the top of my head, because I can 1) still consider buying a navy in a KJF strat 2) most importantly it is closer to Russia, which I am guessing I want dead as quickly as possible.  If you think you can kill Russia quicker via a french IC then I would do it.  If Germany happened to own Egypt that would be something to consider as well, it can help w/ Italy, Japan, and pressure the Caucaus.

I find best way to protect Kar is to have 3-4 trannies in SZ 2 at the end of UK1, then if needed drop the entire thing onto Kar.

I’d rather deny G 7 IPC and Russia 5 than let Kar get traded.  Its too much of a pita for Russia to trade it and keep Persia held and Cauc.  I really like it when I get to kill a stack of G armor in the process :)  Its also very tough for G to hit SZ 4 with planes so your DD+AC from turn 1 should be enough defense for your boats as figs must be in Baltic States or within range of your trannies to hit your boats.

Persia is the true center.  When it falls, allies are usually screwed.  If held, Berlin typically falls.

@Adlertag:

@bbrett3:

@Upside-down_Turtle:

Italy has a 6 IPC complex.  If you can hold for 1 round, how is it hard to reinforce?

It’s not reinforcing it I’m worried about, it’s holding it for one turn with Germany adjacent to your north

Germany is adjacent to Italy ?

Are we playing Revised or AA50 ?

ugh, still stuck in the past, disregard that

@Subotai:

It’s an interesting concept. Other alliances would be tempting to play in revised, if not AA50 was released.

We did that in classic, I don’t remember if Germany + Russia worked for a good game, but Germany + US was pretty even, almost like the original teams.

US and Japan in AA50 is much too weak.
Also, NOs can’t be used when changing alliances, b/c the NOs are specifically built around the original alliances, while any territory with an ipc value can be captured, NOs are different.
I’ve already been thinking about other setups in AA50, I haven’t tried any other than the original teams yet, but Germany and Italy + Russia would probably work fine. I don’t think any other teams can work, except if Italy is an enemy of Germany, Germany will then capture Italy rnd1, this will slow down Germany, but Germany will then be stronger from rnd2 than if Italy is on the same team as Germany.
Maybe Germany and US could work in AA50, also original teams could work with the exception of Italy is teamed up with allies.
A team change that is interesting to try out is: Germany owns all of Italy and Italian units, not only to play different setups, but also to determine if it is an advantage for axis to “split” Germany, I think axis are stronger if Germany got the possessions of Italy including the Italian units. I also think if we just removed all of Italy and Germany had to capture Italy and eventually build in the Mediterranean, Germany would be stronger than in the original AA50.

I have been tempted to experiment to see if Italy is advantageous as its own seperate entity.  I am inclined to agree with you that an “uber Germany” is probably preferable for the Axis.  The only reason why I have any doubt though, is the nasty nasty potential for a double hit on Russia (and sometimes even a triple hit).  It really does seem that if Italy has a decent presence in the Russian theater, Russia can only defend against two fronts after about t2 and can no longer leave a 1 man inf defense.  That alone can tip the favour to the Axis.

C-Sub is dead

didn’t you read the obituary?

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There is no group called Caspian_Sub. Please make sure you typed the web address correctly. If you have done so, the group may no longer exist.

@Subotai:

Another fact is that with a global war game which takes 3-9 hours to finish, it can never be even semi-realistic, or else it would be a very boring game which no one would want to play, and then only the balance could be realistic. The other option is to do this in a sophisticated computer game.

I think we should rather complain about the gameplay issues, rather than AA50 being to a-historical.

But there are some exceptions, as some rule changes are both easy and historical, as closing of the Dardanelles, but then all the other straits should have the same rules, as according to history.

I think you may be referring to the scope of the realism of the game.  All the AA games are semi-realistic to begin with as they ‘abstractions’ of the war.

What is complained about though is how so many people seem to go after Europe first as the Allies.  The fact that they did this historically is true.  But when it happens in the game, it’s what is derided.  That’s all I was saying.  We don’t like how the Axis win by a-historically sandwiching Russia but we also don’t like how the Allies historically win by surrounding Germany/Italy.  We live in a funky world of ideas, and possibly not sure which side is up.

What’s strange is that it is considered that the Axis have the advantage in '41 and it takes the Allies working together to win so when we ask, ‘why has the game turned into KGIF?’ it’s possibly because it’s the only way to win, it’s desperation.  KGIF is more viable because of the proximity of the Allied powers to the Euro theater of the game.  If Germany/Italy had the ability to stalemate the Allies on their income alone the game is way out of whack, but generally speaking in my experience, they don’t and have to use their advantage early to win before the Allies get into full swing.

But at what cost?

It really depends on G’s turn 1 buy as well.

@Omega:

I think, although my experience is limited, that no Nation can go in a war on multiple fronts.

Well since USA has no true ‘fronts’ per se, THEY can split their income and fight a two theatre war.  In fact, that is looking to be more and more a requirement.  The problem is deciding which theatre has a greater need for the US war machine.  Often times, the pacific investment looks like it is easier to just ignore (meaning Germany is the ‘easier’ target), but the IJN needs to be forced to keep an eye on her back door.  Those carriers need to be forced to be loaded.

Usually it will knock the UK fleet out of position though, and open it up to Ger air normally, but not always it depends on the situation.

It works, except i like to setup for a push at ukraine instead of a counter-attack at Karelia, let the UK retake Kar, this will give you a huge unit advantage in the south as almost off of G’s units are destroyed in Kar on the UK counter-attack and you will have a stack of 10+ in ukraine waiting to take your 2nd NO.  This is also a fun time to take US/UK figs and land them in ukraine to backup your russians and if G put most of it’s tanks, as it usually will to kill 11 inf, in Kar you dont even have to worry about a can opener from italy and can place 4 more armor in Cauc for the turn 3 hit of Romania and even a fig in Moscow if you desire.  If they don’t take the bait simply move the Kar stack into Belorussia on turn 3 as you move into Ukraine while placing previously stated armor and let the UK drop its 4+ units into Kar.  Then G is really in a pickle.  :-D

I wonder about the bomber and Egypt….if you don’t use the bomber than Germany has poor odds in Egypt.  It seems to me this opens the door for either 1) USA is free to focus on Japan or 2) UK focuses completely on Europe, while USA reinforcements shore up Africa before Italy can build up.  Just in general the Middle/East seems to be a key region for Axis and allowing the Egypt forces to live means United Kingdom has way more optons there.

I can definitely understand using the bomber on the BB or in Karelia instead…  but Egypt seems so critical even if Axis gets owned in Africa 95% of the time.  At least you force the Allies to divert forces there.

Why not just put an Italian flag on Italian East Africa instead of a British one and put no troops on it? The balance of power would remain the same and it would be more accurate historically.