The win/loss record of each player in the rankings should be able to be viewed

It’s now solved. https://steamcommunity.com/app/898920/discussions/0/2971771480485343030/

If you are doing a KGF strategy, dealing with Japan isn’t the top priority. You’re just trying to slow them down and distract them. With the UK in India, don’t let Japan stack Burma. When they go in with land forces, hit them back. Have artillery in India.

I buy 1 of 3 options with the UK in round 1.

Carrier, Transport, 2 infantry, 1 artillery. Carrier, Destroyer, 3 infantry. 2 Fighters, 2 artillery, 1 infantry.

Option 1 is if there’s minimal threat to the UK fleet. Germany builds a med carrier for example, loses fighters or moves them east. 3 or fewer planes in range.

Option 2 is if there are 4 planes in range. I’m not risking a transport.

Option 3 is if there are 5 or more planes/subs that can hit Britain. Build fighters in round 1. If they move away you can build a fleet in round 2. If they add more planes like building bombers, then wait until round 3 for the US fleet to arrive before building a navy. If Germany’s building that many planes, their army will be thin.

Basically I’m saying don’t focus all your attention with the UK on Japan. UK needs to be hitting Germany. It’s closer and easier to hit. The goal of the British in Asia is to harass Japan and delay them. Keep them occupied with India if you can. If they ignore India move up to Persia to block them from stacking Kazakh. A Kazakh stack is dangerous because it threatens Caucuses and Russia forcing Russia to abandon Caucuses.

With Russia, their job is to kill lots of Germans in the first 3 rounds. Don’t sacrifice troops but make Germany pay if they are overaggressive with Russia in a KGF. After the US and UK are landing in Europe just defend with Russia against Germany. Shift 90% of Russia’s focus to Japan and let the UK/USA deal with Germany. If Germany is stupid enough to keep attacking Russia and spreading themselves thin, they’ll collapse even faster.

With Japan, try to keep them out of any territories bordering Russia. If Japan is ignoring Russia mostly and focused 100% on India, move some infantry down to India. If it takes until round 5 for Japan to get India you’ve done your job. If I see India’s going to fall, I pull back the troops to Persia, then Kazach or Caucuses.

If Russia’s struggling use the UK forces to back up Russia. Russia has to stay alive. If Russia is fine, the UK India forces can head to Europe to take out Germany.

The USA should be totally focused on Germany.

@JuliusBorisovBeamdog I started playing first as Allies because I hadn’t played the 1942 edition before. I have played the original version a lot in the past. When I played that, the Allies had a big advantage. I didn’t really know this was a different version until I started playing it and saw all these new unit types. I thought Allies would be easier, so I started with that. Didn’t know it had an advantage for Axis. Seems ahistorical.

@Eqqman Yeah that’s why I think a very quick attack by Germany poses the biggest risk to the way that I play as Allies because it takes some time for the US to get a big force in Europe. Maybe I could just bypass Morocco in round 2 with the US and just land in France/NW Europe with the 2 starting transports (if they weren’t attacked in round 1). It’s only 4 units plus whatever the UK could muster, but it would at least give Germany something else to think about.

I probably have to adapt my play to that very quick strategy by Germany. Typically I play for the long game. I knock Finland/Norway/Morocco/Algeria/Libya/Egypt/Transjordan away from Germany. Then, if Germany stacks Western Europe I take away Karelia/Belorussia/Ukraine. If they stack Karelia I take France and stack it, then start trading Italy.

But if Moscow is on its heels in round 4/5 from all tank builds, then that strategy hasn’t had enough time to bear fruit. Probably would need to hit Europe even earlier, send fighters from the UK to Russia, and pull out of India if necessary.

I’ve played plenty of games where Germany builds a few infantry and 4-5 tanks per turn, and I can defend that. Typically they try to tank blast into Caucuses and I put a big wall in Caucuses with a 3 nation combined force. Then, they either blast into that wall and lose, they retreat back to Germany when the main force arrives on its doorstep, or more likely I see a resignation because they realize it didn’t work.

I think that strategy does probably work a lot with Germany though because whenever I’ve beaten a player trying to do that, I look at their record and oftentimes they have a winning record, so I bet it works a lot. Lots of tanks coming at Russia is dangerous, and if you don’t defend it right with Russia you’re going to lose. That used to happen to me in the first few weeks I was playing this game.

Well about 3-4 posts are gone already. I just want to play a game with the other guy so we can see which ideas work better. I offered him $10 so he could send that to you as a patron on the condition that he provide his steam number and make friends and win prizes. I already did this but he declines which is his choice, but it will allow anybody else to see if his record matches the rhetoric and play a game with him. Isn’t this 1942 Online? The topic isn’t UK Factory in Egypt either. I posted about that and the Russian strategy under KJF but was criticized for being incomplete or too basic.

@aardvarkpepper I replied to you but deleted it because I didn’t see @djensen 's post asking everyone to knock it off and agreed with it. There’s no point in getting into a flamewar over dice RNG.

All I will say is that, if you’re that burnt out by bad dice, just take a break from the game dude.

Ok a few things…

Elk and Baron what are your steam Id’s so i can friend you?

My approach with Japan is to build 1 fighter, 2 transports and 2 infantry ( for the most part). If the toss up at the Indian Ocean results in lost Carrier and/or Battleship, i might build 1 carrier.

I always attack all expensive naval targets and this means Hawaii. I use the Japanese Fighter ( using 4 spaces) plus the usual units ( 2 fighters, 1 bomber, 1 sub, 1 cruiser)

I take the Japan fighter as the loss if it gets to that. That “teaser” saves the Cruiser. If i get lucky enough and can keep both, i bring the carrier to Hawaii and plop 2 fighters on it with Cruiser, and move both battleships and Destroyers within 2 spaces of Hawaii, so if he attacks i finish off US fleet sake her builds.

In Asia i perform the usual, and If USSR backs off i bring Manchurian units into Russia.

The transports i have i use one to shuck 2 men to Borneo, and the second to assist vs Russia ( tank and Infantry) or somewhere on the coast.

If UK does little to nothing, i might kill the US fighter and 2 infantry with 2 fighters and 1 Inf/1 art combo…it works

My plan is to stifle KJF by loading up the money islands with infantry quickly and not lose many Asian land units and building more ships to match any American contingency. My goal is to push the Allies to go KGF, and we want to ping pong the Allies back and forth.

I am keenly aware to defeat the island march and Allied factories. I stay near India to destroy any UK naval builds. If i see that stupid Egypt factory and 2 tanks/and 3 tanks in India showing up i have plans for that too.

I go after Hawaii only when the entire Pacific is kinda quiet and my focus is to deny USSR any money. I don’t do Alaska, its a panty waste and does very little.

In Afrika, my goal might be to take Egypt if i can, but once Germany breaks in, i will take Madagascar and whatever is possible.

This is on our eventual to-do list, just not a priority at the moment.

Sweet, didn’t see that and thought it was just a stack of 2 indistinguishable fighters. Disregard post.

@Eqqman I didn’t say anything about a round 2 timing. It does not exist. Round 2 allies ideally take nordics. R3 is when allies pressure on France and northwest Europe europe is severe. It is Germany’s elective if they want to stack France R3. But realize that stacking requires about 20 units.

Yeah, the current system is pretty annoying. Even after having worked a management-level position in a game development company I’m still amazed by the odd UI quirks that end up in games. I’m always running across things that make me think ‘how did the developers themselves not find this immediately annoying and try to fix it’?, like having your ships decide to move to the ‘wrong’ (from your view) SZ by default.

I know its an online game with “Online” in the name, but I still think not having really any focus on the single player experience is a bit of a missed opportunity. Its the lowest barrier to entry, low-pressure first introduction, that A&A really needs from a product like this. like at least as much as it needs solid online matchmaking. I know I probably played a hundred solitaires or games against goofy computer opponents with the old Hasbro CD before I ever put up an even remotely decent game in a head-to-head match.

Axis and Allies is a kinda wonky game to learn how to play, and one that would be well served by a robust computer tutorial. Even a middling computer opponent would be great to have for learning the basic mechanics of A&A, to say nothing of learning the UI. I think this one is serviceable for people who already know what they’re doing, and just want an official way to play, but I worry its not the most spectacular thing ever if what you’re using it for is just getting your head around the nuts and bolts. Or if the way you’re trying to learn how to play A&A is by running through the tutorial and then playing against the computer, before into a pvp match lol. The Hasbro CD attempt even with the limits of mid 90s gameplay still managed to find ways to engage the Single Player, with like AI generals, splashy stats/graphs/newsflashes stuff of that sort, and a lot of game mode options to mess about with.

This one really does need an editor though or at least a time machine.
Would be cool if there were more built-in communication features too and a way to share histories and gamesaves and such.

I wish I had more time to play lately. I missed the second season entirely. Might check it out again in the third. Things tend to open up for me in the Fall for A&A time sinks heheh. Hope all’s been well!

@Eqqman When I was playing this heavily (played a lot in Season 1 and got to Platinum, got too busy with IRL stuff + got fed-up with bad dice luck Season 2 and haven’t played much past my qualifier games) Players didn’t start becoming competent until like high Gold Tier in Ranked. Especially the Axis Players, as the balance in 42SE (even the Gencon Rules, which is what Ranked uses exclusively) is in-favor of the Axis to the point where a lot of Axis Players can do totally wonky stuff and still win through the sheer advantage (at least on-paper) that the Axis have in the starting setup (win rates in Platinum Tier are probably more even, but the Allies are much harder to play at a high level in 42SE than the Axis are, IMO).

@Brian-Cannon don’t be -too- scared of fighters. For the 10 IPC cost of the fighter you can buy 2 INF + ART which will defeat the fighter at 98% odds while the fighter has 2% of winning an attack. If you push fodder units while your opponent pushes high-quality units too early you should win. Any player spending all their income on high-end units is disadvantaged against one buying mostly or all fodder.

Honestly if I saw an Allied first-turn purchase like this I would probably immediately assume I would win as the Axis (maybe making me cocky enough to make a mistake, which could happen). The only thing Russia will do with the fighters is trade territory with Germany but they will quickly run out of fodder. Maybe the extra defense will help them hold Moscow a few turns longer- so what? Just take everything else and start doing SBR on Moscow when Russia is down to 8 income.

Something that might make this buy useful for the Allies is if the point of these fighters is to be placed on carriers purchased round 2. It might be a viable strategy to place 4 fighters E USA to have them land on UK carriers dropped in SZ 7 turn 2 but as I understand it A&AO doesn’t correctly implement this rule. In this case these fighters would either have to start a shuck going through Greenland->London or the US would build carriers for SZ 11 so that newly made fighters can get to London in 1 move after being directly produced in SZ 11. With US fighters building up in London the Germans won’t be able to maintain a fleet in the Baltic for long if they are trying, and the US planes can land to defend any territory taken by the UK in Europe on their turn. Keeping behind enough units to recapture territories held by air -might- be enough to save Russia, but what is Japan doing all this time? This sounds like a plan designed for a very fast KGF so India should fall by J3/4. If Japan has been sending units to Yunnan every turn it will be able to take India with a combined attack of land units by sea + walk from Burma and its carrier-based air which will crush any defense of India that is just mostly air. Plus if Japan is willing to sacrifice its transports you can leave its navy in SZ 61 to keep having a standoff with any US forces camped at the Solomons, but even if the whole navy goes in to India you can still counterattack any US invasion of Borneo.

@Brian-Cannon The Japanese basically need to hang out in SZ 61 with all of their navy and air force. If the starting US forces in SZ 53 are killed J1 then there won’t be any credible US forces at the Solomons until US3. By that point Japan should have enough parked in SZ 61 that it would be suicide for the US to move in. The magic of SZ 61 is that it threatens both India and the money islands and allows you to shuck in troops from Japan right into Yunnan so you can choose to either march for India or Russia from there. The US player is very limited in how fast they can attack since they have to start by replacing expensive capital ships and then moving them into position. Japan mostly just needs to buy fodder. J1’s first buy should probably be enough transports to get 3 total and then subs. J2 buy a carrier. After that you make sure your transports are always full dropping off troops for Japan while buying more naval fodder or an air unit as the need arises. You may have to buy more carriers later on to keep parity with the US but with massed subs on your side 3 carriers total may suffice and it may be more cost-effective to build bombers to base in Yunnan as they can support Japanese pushes for a long time from that area. All purchases of capital ships by the US make them stronger at the cost of slowing down when they can make their big move.

Speaking of which, a lot of players promote massed subs + air for the naval game, and this is a good combination but one that only works for attack, not defense (the same IPC spent on destroyers or subs always has a higher chance to defeat the equivalent number of subs). Luckily this works out for Japan since you want the US to be so desperate to save Russia or India they attack Borneo at bad odds, so you’re almost always going to be guaranteed a first strike. In this light you have to be careful since something the US can do is send in just enough to take Borneo while still leaving their main navy camped at the Solomons. Now you may be forced to send in capital ships to retake Borneo since you can’t send in air power to get the island back without giving them carriers to land on and you may be very weak to counterattack if you did nothing but sub buys. If you don’t fall for this trick then you’re sacrificing transports, but that still works out. If you do a big dump of 6 units on Borneo (only if you’re forced to take it back, mind, not until then) then the US player will not take it back again without either taking time to buy a bunch more transports + ground (ok for you, any navy they don’t buy delays the big showdown) or having to move in their navy so they can use air power to get it (same choice Japan needs to make on retaking it).

Very long-term though (like turn 10+) the UK and US will of course defeat Japan if they refuse to take needless losses since they outnumber Japan in income. So the wiseguy answer to How do you beat KJF? is really win with Germany. Given that it is so easy for Japan to at least tread water in the Pacific even if they can’t expand, Germany should be close to taking out Moscow. If Germany can reliably hold Caucasus then the UK can be forced into doing trades for both Persia and Burma that is not sustainable given the 3 unit production limit, or they have to let Axis units pile up there and let themselves be bottled in. With Japan in SZ 61 and pipe-lining troops into Yunnan every turn it takes a major effort from the UK to keep India in the game- they will be forced to fly in fighters which means their European spending won’t be anything more than an annoyance. Consider making sure the Med transport doesn’t die so that Egypt goes under by turn 2 at the latest and you keep pumping 2 units every turn into Africa to capture it and add more pressure to India. Take Gibraltar so that there is no place for Allied air to land if they try to get air units into the Med to sink your navy. Possibly also start a very slow build-up of men in Morocco so you have a small stack there mid-to late game to discourage the Allies from landing there and taking back North Africa or encourage them to waste a turn cleaning it out. I’ve never tried that personally but it might have a little more value in a pure KJF setup since it might discourage the Allies from switching their strategy or make it far more difficult to pull off if they do switch. Either way make sure that over half your income as Germany goes into infantry every turn and you only add to your supply of tanks and air power very slowly. Based on Russia’s opening moves minimally you would have 9 tanks in Europe which is already a good stack after you consolidate it. I would probably not even buy any tanks at all and just build up the air force which will likely need a few replacements anyway after the G1 naval attacks against the Allies. A stack of German fighters in Caucasus will be able to threaten Moscow and India. Germany has such an income advantage over Russia there is no way they can hold out that long if the Allies literally do nothing in Europe. The most likely players would probably do 2 turns of US buildup unless Japan was so misplayed that they went in immediately. In this kind of a case the US would not have a navy at Borneo until US4 meaning Japan attacks on J5. With 4 turns of buildup I don’t know how Japan wouldn’t devastate any fleet the US could possibly get to Borneo. And after that comes G6, by which point Russia should be doing well just doing exchanges over Archangel and Kazakh. Honestly I think it is so easy for Japan to delay the Allies (notice I said delay, not defeat) KJF seems like an nonviable strategy in this version of A&A between skilled players.

Side note- with Caucasus in German hands, you could also even consider shucking German fighters onto Japanese carriers in SZ 61 to help shore up the defensive power of the Japanese navy, but from what I understand A&AO doesn’t implement this capability which violates the board game rules.

Another way to look at this is there could be a “view completed phase” button where you could view what your board will look like before proceeding. This would help remove the lines everywhere giving you better vision into what is happening. If we cannot support a “go back” button, could we at least support a “view completed phase” button?

@Panther Thanks!

Tournament has started and signups are closed. But you can still hop in and watch!

https://discord.gg/45Cxbcg
Enjoy!