Sealion G1 - Economic Warfare

[shadowhawk]

@dazedwit said in Sealion G1 - Economic Warfare:

@shadowhawk

I’m going to reset this up since I forgot the French boat. I’m going after both fleets very light because I want both SB and Tacs to SBR and two subs need to be in that London convoy zone. The convoy zone in Scotland not necessary but I think that’s the only thing that one sub can do besides attacking the destroyer/tran in Canada

Maybe Germany fares very poorly this time. That’s fine. I go heavier on the Scotland fleet - so that should be gone, possibly a damaged battleship if bad dice. The London fleet is very light, and that’s fine - I’m not trying to eliminate that fleet as much as take out as much as I can turn 1, and leave the rest for turn two. I’m totally focused on economic warfare for this strategy.

I’m going to set it up many times and run it so I’ll get the average of what to expect and what to expect round 2 as a result and so on.

This is a solo game (strategy really as I may not play entire game) so I want feedback on how Allies will respond - so I don’t have to play this 100 times to test out every possible response. Playing solo, I know what I’m doing against myself so there are no surprises.

I love this game but playing the same strategy over and over can get boring. So I"m on a tear this week coming up with out of the box strategies that I’ve never seen before - and I assume no one else has.

In a real game, if I used this strategy effectively I plan to get 6th VC turn 6 - no Moscow, no Stalingrad. No one would see that coming.

This thread is about German economic warfare so I won’t go into Japan strategy that will pair with this.

Please before you do. just type what your attack consist off.

So 110, what are you attacking with, 111 what are you attacking with

Because dice can really change your perspective it would be nice to have before and after combat.

But i think you really overestimate your chance of doing any real damage to the UK economy. Your 2 subs wont live past round 1 because the UK can sink them in 109. Destroyer from canada + airforce -> exit subs.
Most of your air is gone and UK will have a decent size fleet left, or with luck its mutual destruction. I dont have to repair much, your estimated damage to the factory is 10ipcs. So i can repair 2 and build 2 fighters and still have room left in the budget for units in afrika. Its not like you will attack the home islands anyway.

[shadowhawk]

@farmboy said in Sealion G1 - Economic Warfare:

@dazedwit as shadowhawk notes, this is not a likely outcome of G1. If 2 bombers and 2 tacs are going to London and you are splitting your remaining units between 109,110, an 111, you are normally going to lose most of your German ships and air. Depending on how the remaining forces are distributed between those zones, I would certainly scramble 2 if not 3 of those zones and normally the British will have some units survive and the Germans will take significant losses, making Sea Lion much harder. Assuming no air goes to 109, an even distribution of the remaining German air between 111 and 110 ( and an additional sub in 110), the Germans have about 10% odds in 110 and 45% in 111. The average outcome is that 2 British battleship and 2 figs survive and all German units are destroyed.

If you are going for Sea Lion, you also don’t need the strat bombing G1. Its better to be sure that you have destroyed the fleets in 110 and 111 (hopefully without losing much air). You have anohter opportunity for a strat bombing on G2 and likely don’t need to spread your forces that thin to do so.

If British navy survives, and Germany loses fleet and air (which is the most likely outcome of your opening attacks) Sea Lion will be much harder. The British can put a blocker to deny the Germans access to 109 and stack navy (supported by a scramble) in 110. That will mean that much of the German air that you would want to support the assault on UK has to commit to 110 instead.

If Germany is going all in on sea lion, than the British should try to stop it or make it as costly as possible. So likely all inf although with a possibility of an AB in Gibraltar if necessary to allow the med fleet to stack 92. That gives you additional air and land units (which will more than make up for what you spend on the AB) but also allows you to stack 110 with fleet on UK2, which forces Germany to again commit air to 110 that they otherwise would need for the UK.

I’ll also just note that tehre are opportunities here to play online including in league play (which is fairly relaxed). Worth checking out as it gives opportunities to try strategies against other players.

Good luck doing sea lion if UK still has 2 function fleets and an airforce and you got nearly no airforce left. Might even kill your fleet and taranto on UK1 and get any hopes of sailing the high seas out of the european axis minds.

[dazedwit]

@shadowhawk

Here I made a video of the G1 battles:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pIQIBU3EX8

I put a lot more thought into this time

[dazedwit]

@shadowhawk @farmboy

I restarted the game and this time filmed it so you can see all the great dice and all the bad dice. I’m going to finish the game before sharing the YouTube playlist of my game.

For now, I need advice on what US should do on turn 3. Here is what the world looks like at the end of J3. US built on Atlantic to deal with Sealion. But now Japan is in North America - do you send the AC’s through the Panama Canal to the west coast or what do you do in response to this world?

These are just pics. If anyone wants to argue that this is impossible lucky dice or whatever, you can just watch me roll on YouTube

[shadowhawk]

@dazedwit

SZ 109 scramble the scotland fighter. Good odds of killing both subs there.

SZ 110 your odds of winning are slim at best.

2 cruiser 1 BB + 3 fighters vs 3 fighters 3 tactials.

Yea you take out 1 fighter but you lose a lot more
Using low luck for comparison here.
round 1 Defender 22 defence, attacker 21 offense, lets give both 3 hits here.
round 2 Defender 14 defence, attacker 11 offense,
So UK is left with a BB and 1 figher all attackers killed.

Sure you do win 111 combat, the battleship is there damaged and i got an undamaged BB.

Sure you do some economic damage ill repair 3 buy 2 fighers and 1 inf.
Now I got a fleet of 1 BB 1 cruiser 1 destroyer in 109 with 3 figher scramble.
Ill still do taranto and clear the med.

Or alternativaly ill destroy your carrier + cruiser + all transports
I only got 2 fighers 1 bomber 1 battleship and 1 cruiser, you got 1 full carrier + cruiser. So well guess sea lion isnt happening.

Ofcourse im assuming we both got average dice,.

[dazedwit]

@shadowhawk

I set up the board and recorded the strategy. Sealion was a smashing success with Germany keeping all their planes, 9 tanks, 3 art, and two inf. The conquering army was so large I then sent it to DC

I’m on J6. Germany will get it’s 8th VC on turn 7

I’ll post it here so you can all watch and see how you all have been doing Sealion wrong all this time.

[shadowhawk]

@dazedwit

Just because you for some reason have insane dice, or you dont know how to play the allies does not make the strat that good.

Just play it out using low luck so you get a fair estimate of how the battles will go, it does elimitate the luck factor a lot.

And like i posted, you are verry likely not having any fleet at all round 2 with both germany and italy so how will you do sea lion without a fleet? Naked transports will be easy pickings.

BTW if you use 4 color dies, which is really smart you could get the 5mm dice so you can throw about 120 in 1 go. Just in case you need to handle big combat.

[dazedwit]

@shadowhawk

I’m filming it. You get to see all the insane dice and all the really terrible dice. I developed this strategy using nothing but math. Numbers don’t lie. It works.

[shadowhawk]

@dazedwit said in Sealion G1 - Economic Warfare:

@shadowhawk

I’m filming it. You get to see all the insane dice and all the really terrible dice. I developed this strategy using nothing but math. Numbers don’t lie. It works.

Like i said, dont use dice use Low-Luck. And play as good as possible as the allies so dont do everything the axis hope you would do but try to play the best you can.

Did you bother reading my sugestions. How would you do a sea-lion without luftwaffen or transports? Because unless you got good dice you lose 8 german planes on G1 and have a good chance of losing the last + your whole G1 buy on UK1.

And without Airforce of navy what is there to prevent UK from building 2 subs and 1 fighter and you cant even invade the UK.

We can do this game on tripleA via the forums to test it out im not the best player around.

[farmboy]

@dazedwit A&A is a dice game so players can (hypothetically at least) make mistakes and still win on account of great dice. Or do everything right and still lose on account of terrible dice. For a strategy to be a useful one, it shouldn’t depend on getting lucky and unlikely results from the dice. For example, I saw in your video that you didn’t scramble 110 or 111. For those of us that play on triplea, we have access to a game calculator that can tell you the odds and likely outcomes of different combats. With a scramble, the allies will win that 110 80% of the time with a battleship and 1-2 figs left. The allies win 111 55% of the time with a battleship and a fig left. Dice are variable of course so that means the axis will win those some of the time. But if a game strategy relies on a 20% battle to be successful, its going to lose you the game at least 80% of the time.

And I’ll note here again that if the axis really want to go for sea lion, its very hard for the allies to stop it. And there are tactics out there to do so that will get much safer odds than what you ahve here. But the problem for the axis is less that the allies can win in Britain, but that in buying 80-90 TUV in navy and trading their air and land units against the British, they are vulnerable to the Soviets.

[dazedwit]

@shadowhawk

average number of UK/French inf on typical sealion is 22 (sometimes more)

After bombing the factory to max and convoying, UK had 13 inf instead of 22. The battle is over after 2 rounds instead of the usual 3-4. This strategy is removing a massive amount of the UK’s soakers - and as such, Germany won’t lose a single tank.

Most videos I watch of Sealion (GHG, YG) they lose most of their air force and take London with a single tank. You take off that many soakers and your air force is spared and so are your tanks.

[dazedwit]

@farmboy

They didn’t scramble because I was playing against myself and I knew Sealion was coming. I wanted at least 4 fighters to defend London for the battle.

I rolled out the scramble for 110 a ton of times to see what would happen. Most common outcome on like 30 rolls or whatever it was, was UK loses one fighter from a 3 fighter scramble. The second most common was they lost 2 fighters. Third was they keep all 3 fighters. I said in the video I pray they scramble. Sure I lose an extra 4 planes, but they lose valuable defenders they can’t afford to lose. And if they buy planes to replace any lost during scramble, that’s 3 less soakers they can plant.

I could have added the two inf from Scotland instead of trying to defend the Double Dutch, but they wouldn’t have mattered as Germany had an extra 6 hits on their 2nd round battle.
I could have bought 3 inf instead of 1 ftr for UK, but again, still over after two rounds, and prob 1-2 less causalities in the battle for Germany.

After sacking London, on J3 all of the boats and ground units that could go invaded Alaska and Western Canada. I lined up the 3 destroyers as blockers so US couldn’t reach Alaska in one turn. On J3, bought 4 trn too. On J4 bought AB, NB, Minor and dropped them in Alaska, flew 3 ftr, 1 tac, to Alaska, landed 8 ground units. So US was hair on fire sending everything it had trying in vain to take back Alaska - East Coast empty save AAA. US4 they could finally reach Alaska after taking back Western Canada and taking out a blocker. But now Alaska was stacked with however many inf and tanks and planes I could get there. US failed to take back Alaska on turn 4. Thus began a hot potato of Western Canada next two turns.

G4 Landed 8 surviving tanks, i art in London in Western Germany with 9 trn and entire fleet.
1 tran took a tank and inf to take Iceland. Not a single boat in Atlantic as US sent all boats through Panama Canal to deal with Japan. US responded to obvious Sealion by building the 3 loaded AC’s and dumping them in SZ102, and trns and troops on East Coast.

G5 took Labrador. Moved entire fleet with 9 trn, 9 tanks, 7 inf, and a bunch of planes to Iceland and dropped a NB on it.

Now US has to scramble to get back to east coast while trying to save SF. US limited to adding 10 new units on DC so it’s going down no matter what. And since they started moving some guys east to deal with Germany, SF was open for Japan to take - which did J6 with a single tank and losing some planes

I was just doing a Sealion strategy but decided early on I would play whole game decided J3 North American invasion to coincide with Sealion. The J3 strategy here meant UK Pacific and China hold most of China. That’s fine. They will be dealt with eventually.

Because of G3 strategy, Soviet Union is a monster and putting serious pressure on Berlin. We’re trading Poland back and forth, and the just took the entirety of German Eastern Europe with considerable troops, and second line of offense right behind them.

Losing Warsaw going to extend the game at least one turn as I won’t have forces to take it back immediately. Soviets are scary as F right now, but Germany just collected $162 so looking to spend my way out of it.

[shadowhawk]

@dazedwit said in Sealion G1 - Economic Warfare:

@farmboy

They didn’t scramble because I was playing against myself and I knew Sealion was coming. I wanted at least 4 fighters to defend London for the battle.

I rolled out the scramble for 110 a ton of times to see what would happen. Most common outcome on like 30 rolls or whatever it was, was UK loses one fighter from a 3 fighter scramble. The second most common was they lost 2 fighters. Third was they keep all 3 fighters. I said in the video I pray they scramble. Sure I lose an extra 4 planes, but they lose valuable defenders they can’t afford to lose. And if they buy planes to replace any lost during scramble, that’s 3 less soakers they can plant.

I would love losing 2 fighters as the UK if that takes away 3 fighters and 3 tacticals from germany. And keeps a BB and a fighter there.
You played yourself but in a way that you where helping the axis win with the allies, not trying to win as the allies.

I could have added the two inf from Scotland instead of trying to defend the Double Dutch, but they wouldn’t have mattered as Germany had an extra 6 hits on their 2nd round battle.
I could have bought 3 inf instead of 1 ftr for UK, but again, still over after two rounds, and prob 1-2 less causalities in the battle for Germany.

No need with no protection for the transports germany wont be invading anyway. And let germany take schotland dont care.

After sacking London, on J3 all of the boats and ground units that could go invaded Alaska and Western Canada. I lined up the 3 destroyers as blockers so US couldn’t reach Alaska in one turn. On J3, bought 4 trn too. On J4 bought AB, NB, Minor and dropped them in Alaska, flew 3 ftr, 1 tac, to Alaska, landed 8 ground units. So US was hair on fire sending everything it had trying in vain to take back Alaska - East Coast empty save AAA. US4 they could finally reach Alaska after taking back Western Canada and taking out a blocker. But now Alaska was stacked with however many inf and tanks and planes I could get there. US failed to take back Alaska on turn 4. Thus began a hot potato of Western Canada next two turns.

You wont be sacking london as you dont have any luftwaffen left after your first turn. And you will be hard pressed even landing on london let alone taking it. You need basically all your airforce in the amfib attack just to make sure you get there.

G4 Landed 8 surviving tanks, i art in London in Western Germany with 9 trn and entire fleet.
1 tran took a tank and inf to take Iceland. Not a single boat in Atlantic as US sent all boats through Panama Canal to deal with Japan. US responded to obvious Sealion by building the 3 loaded AC’s and dumping them in SZ102, and trns and troops on East Coast.

G5 took Labrador. Moved entire fleet with 9 trn, 9 tanks, 7 inf, and a bunch of planes to Iceland and dropped a NB on it.

Now US has to scramble to get back to east coast while trying to save SF. US limited to adding 10 new units on DC so it’s going down no matter what. And since they started moving some guys east to deal with Germany, SF was open for Japan to take - which did J6 with a single tank and losing some planes

I was just doing a Sealion strategy but decided early on I would play whole game decided J3 North American invasion to coincide with Sealion. The J3 strategy here meant UK Pacific and China hold most of China. That’s fine. They will be dealt with eventually.

Because of G3 strategy, Soviet Union is a monster and putting serious pressure on Berlin. We’re trading Poland back and forth, and the just took the entirety of German Eastern Europe with considerable troops, and second line of offense right behind them.

Losing Warsaw going to extend the game at least one turn as I won’t have forces to take it back immediately. Soviets are scary as F right now, but Germany just collected $162 so looking to spend my way out of it.

Try the strat against an allies player that wants to win as the allies not yourself because most of your allied moves where helping the axis more then really resisting them.

[farmboy]

@dazedwit my point is that if you can’t win 110, you can’t win sea lion. If Britain wants to stop sea lion they are much better off scrambling in G1 rather than conserving air for the land invasion. Typically in the game german air are more valuable than UK air. I would always scramble in that situation because its very likely that I am trading 1-2 planes against 6.

If Germany uses 9 transports and loses those 6 planes and the British lose 2, the UK doesn’t need to build more than 6 inf before G3 to have a better than 50% chance of denying sea lion. I’m assuming here no J1 or J2 which would make stopping sea lion easier. And I’m calculating with British going with a 92 stack (which would add 2 figs, a tac, an inf and a AA) although I’m sure that won’t strictly be necessary. Obviously even with the bombing and convoying, they should manage more than 6 inf. And they may not need land units at all since they might be able to stop it at sea.

Axis have a significant advantage in the OOB game (absent a bid) and it looks to me that in taking risky combats that you will likely lose, you are trading that away. Of course, the dice can help you out here, but usually they won’t.

But the best way to test strategies will always be against actual competition. At some point I’m sure you will get a chance to test this against other opponents.