Hi @The-Janus
You raise some interesting questions. One thing to remember about the Unit roster, is that Europe came out after Pacific and they were meant to be played together.
Obviously Europe as a stand alone plays differently and you can House Rule any units you’d like. The Captains House Rules address some roster changes considering price and function.
Although for the Global game, you may find it interesting.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jI_1JdIC-1KiTihBICJAbtX3GpVYnNgf/view
I’m not an expert, but I do have some thoughts on your thoughts:
I think you’re seriously underrating artillery. While I agree that tanks are the best buy for the US (though not the UK-if you’re doing “Middle Earth”, where you dump a bunch of minor industrial complexes in the Middle East and Egypt and mass produce ground units and march them up to the Soviet Union, they’ll be cash-strapped enough to need artillery, and the Middle East to the Eastern Front isn’t terribly far), as you mentioned, they’re the perfect option for large land powers like Germany and the Soviet Union. Keep in mind that artillery is way more cost-effective than tanks in terms of sheer firepower. 9 infantry and 9 artillery (63 IPCs worth of units) have a 70+% chance of winning against 6 infantry and 6 tanks (63 IPCs worth of units) regardless of whether either side is attacking or defending. Because of this, if America is focusing more on delivering troops to Europe directly via transports (rather than your strategy of moving through North Africa to the Eastern Front), artillery could still be valuable to provide more cost-effective firepower, since Western Europe is so dense that 2-space-movers aren’t very useful. If we’re going directly after Western Europe, I’d rather have 8 infantry, 8 artillery, and 8 transports (112 IPCs) rather than 7 infantry, 7 tanks, and 7 transports (112 IPCs).
Your view of mechanized infantry is mostly correct. I do think Germany isn’t as hard-pressed as you think and can afford them (and they’re an absolute must if you’re preparing a giant assault on Moscow on a specific turn).
Tactical bombers aren’t very useful in Europe because carriers aren’t very useful there.
You’re right about cruisers, and others agree with you (https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/35286/warfare-principles-of-axis-allies-by-andrewaagamer/4?page=1, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_P4GK8o2kE). Some people this was intentional to simulate how they and battleships were obsolete to make the game more realistic.
Yeah, convoys are messed up.
I think that a Baltic fleet for taking on the USSR is useful, but there are far better things for Germany (though a navy built for other purposes, for example Sealion, would be an excellent resource against Leningrad).
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
if America is focusing more on delivering troops to Europe directly via transports (rather than your strategy of moving through North Africa to the Eastern Front), artillery could still be valuable to provide more cost-effective firepower, since Western Europe is so dense that 2-space-movers aren’t very useful.
My general ethos as the US is to dump everything in Morocco; after that, any tanks drive towards the middle east, while any infantry then hop onto a 2nd set of transports, either landing in Greece or further up the Atlantic coast. I’m using carrier aircraft for the bulk of my offense as the US, rather than tanks (in fact I recently did a test of just spamming out carriers and fighters with no destroyers.)
The sweet spot for the “floating bridge” seems to be 4 transport loads, and I skew more towards 8 inf for that; due to using more transports to ship infantry farther, my deviations from 8 inf tend to be 2 arm+6 inf or 4 arm+4 inf, rather than mixing in odd numbers – but it really comes down to what else I’m buying, as I tend to “spend it all” most of the time.
I’ve had a couple games recently where the Axis declared war on the neutrals. Where this really causes problems for the US is that it extends the reach of Axis aircraft in France, to be able to hit the SZ west of Gibraltar; otherwise, you can usually get away with leaving transports there undefended. That being said, I’m generally of the opinion that any SZs where you’re keeping transports need at least 2 destroyers, 1 carrier, and 2 fighters.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve recently experimented with using battleships or carriers in place of destroyers. I’d say both have their merits, although once you make landfall and have someplace to park your planes, you don’t really need more than 2ish carriers per SZ that you’re defending. It seems like you can essentially do something where you churn out fighters and leapfrog them towards the front line.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
(though not the UK-if you’re doing “Middle Earth”, where you dump a bunch of minor industrial complexes in the Middle East and Egypt and mass produce ground units and march them up to the Soviet Union, they’ll be cash-strapped enough to need artillery, and the Middle East to the Eastern Front isn’t terribly far)
I should mention here that as a general observation, I don’t build a ton of infrastructure. I’ve used the “Middle Earth” tactic of putting a factory in Persia, and it’s… fine? But as you point out, the investment cost is pretty high. What I generally do is either rotate 2 transports between South Africa and Egypt, or 3 transports in rotation to supply Eastern Persia en route to Novosibirsk. I also tend to produce a tank (in addition to whatever I’m shipping) in South Africa and drive that northward, on basically any turn that I’m not putting down a transport there.
I’ve mostly always shipped 2 infantry using this route, although I’ve recently experimented with 1 inf + 1 arm – cost doesn’t seem to be an issue, when you’re not buying multiple factories. But I still think I prefer using 2 inf.
I think a factory in Greece is handy once you get there, and it can work for either the US or the UK. A harbor in Persia works if you’re pot-committed to that tactic, but I find using the 3rd transport instead (in addition to being cheaper) gives you that flexibility to pivot towards the Med.
Other than that, I find a harbor in Norway is useful if you’re wanting to pressure Western Germany and Denmark, or resupply the USSR via the northern route (although I find this to be pretty slow-going, unless/until you slap down a factory in Finland – which gets into the issue of the USSR wanting to have those territories more than letting the other Allies take them…)
A harbor in Greece is handy because it covers multiple sea zones:
one set of transports in SZ92 swaps places with another set, either in SZ97 or SZ99, paired with additional sets of transports ferrying between the US east coast and SZ91
So in 3 turns, you can get from the US to Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, or Syria. IMO it really comes down to whether you want the US and UK to focus on this route, or on the Atlantic, or to split their focuses.
Early on, I attempted the more traditional/“Classic” tactic, of having the US march their guys up to Canada, and then ship to SZ109 to land in the UK; this might be useful to defend against a Sea Lion threat, but it takes just as long as going to Morocco/Gibraltar first, with the latter having the added benefit of putting units actually into front line action, instead of… being in Canada. This is why I’m of the opinion that the harbor in Gibraltar is possibly the only worthwhile bombing target (other than factories) although I’m also starting to come around on bombing coastal airfields, in particular Southern Italy.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
Your view of mechanized infantry is mostly correct. I do think Germany isn’t as hard-pressed as you think and can afford them (and they’re an absolute must if you’re preparing a giant assault on Moscow on a specific turn).
I don’t have a lot of Axis games under my belt, but Germany feels really cash-poor, all the time. Like, maybe it’s a case of me needing to figure out how to attack every territory on my borders on the first turn to get my income up…? I find myself putting out roughly 13 units a turn (off the top of my head) and it feels like nowhere near enough to take a meaningful shot at Moscow before turn 7 or 8 – never mind having anything in reserve to fend off landings in/around France. (And I’m not even talking expensive units, just a mix of inf and mechs.) Because realistically, the USSR should be able to still crank out something like 9 inf per round, even into the first round where they’re at war – and possibly longer. That’s a pretty steep hill for Germany to climb, particularly since they’re getting comparatively no help from N.O.'s compared to the USSR, once the war kicks off.
The strain seems to be that you have to pressure the north, just to not lose Finland and Norway… But realistically, the German N.O.'s seem to be pushing you towards Volgograd/Caucasus and the middle east. I’m not sure if most allied players wait for Archangel to fall before they start sending supplies to the USSR, but I think this is actually designed/intended to dissuade the Germans from taking the northern route. Maybe it’s the case that you just have to bomb Novgorod into submission, rather than trying to attack it directly?
It does seem to me like Germany could afford to pull back even as far as leaving Poland empty, as long as they’re still sending waves through Slovakia-Hungary into Eastern Poland. If most of your production is being placed into Germany every turn, it basically makes Poland a deadzone for the USSR to even attempt taking. Again, it would depend on coming up with an answer for how to defend Norway and Finland, while maintaining a steady drive towards the southern front.
I’m not sure how important being able to threaten sea zone 91 from Spain is. Strategic bombers in Western Germany or Paris with a functional air base can reach the zone (yeah, they’ll have to land in Normandy-Bordeaux, but it’s not hard to stack land units there and if you’re destroying transports in 91 you won’t have much of a threat anyway).
I generally think attacking strict neutrals are a terrible idea, especially since the Axis have far fewer resources than the Western Allies. Turkey’s a tough nut and attacking it means you’ll have to take Sweden to preserve your national objective, and it’s easy for the Allies to activate the African and South American neutrals. Spain and Portugal are extremely dangerous in the hands of the Allies (and it’s pretty easy for them get their hands on those territories).
I agree with you assessment of facilities. Naval bases in Greece and Norway work well.
I must confess that one reason I probably do minor industrial complexes in the Middle East rather than South Africa-Persia shucking is that spamming units in industrial complexes just requires a lot less organazation and planning. I’ll also mention though that when I say the UK is “cash-strapped”, I don’t mean because they spent a lot of money on industrial complexes but because having so many complexes incentivizes you to use them to the max and build a lot of cheap units rather than a few expensive units (as is the case with investing in any complex).
I apologize. I was thinking of Germany in Global 1940 games, and I forgot how tough the Axis have it in the game until you reminded me. Sorry.
Here’s a list of games I played by myself where Germany was unable to gain enough momentum, as well as one where the Axis did win:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/41133/how-to-win-as-the-axis
As I see it, Germany was able (with a bit of luck) to conquer the Soviet Union because they moved quickly and used mechanized infantry and tanks to cut deep. In my experience Germany has a pretty limited time window, so they have to do everything they can to move quickly. As you can see, what I did was that I had the slow movers move northwards (since they were closer to the capital) and bottled the Soviets up in Moscow via Bryansk. I believe that the game demonstrated that Germany’s mostly mechanized infantry builds were necessary to keep the momentum and have a large enough forces to pin the Soviets and move through the Caucusus, the Middle East and Africa. Italian support, both in distracting the Westenr Allies and helping out a little on the Eastern Front, was crucial. Italy’s main job, though, was to simply bulk up on infantry and artillery and deadzone the Western Front so Germany could do its thing.
2024-8-29-World-War-II-Europe-1940-2nd-Edition.tsvg
Edit:
I’ll also add that when I do Middle Earth, the UK doesn’t do a lot in the Atlantic. Maybe 1 or 2 transports to move the units from Canada and Scotland, but that’s about it.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
. I’ll also mention though that when I say the UK is “cash-strapped”, I don’t mean because they spent a lot of money on industrial complexes but because having so many complexes incentivizes you to use them to the max
This makes me think of a game I had recently, where the UK got bombed a lot, early on.
Honestly, I just spent a few rounds building up navy in Canada (2 subs and 1 destroyer at a time, after a carrier buy on the 1st round) while keeping my South Africa factory humming along as usual. I often don’t end up building much in the UK until the US has a presence in the war, or at least until the Germans swing all their air power over to the USSR.
Is the Taranto raid still “in fashion” or has the conventional wisdom changed on that? I honestly find it’s better as the UK to conserve your planes and ships in the early game, and then just overwhelm the Italians through weight of numbers.
Edit: (to add)
As the UK, I find that keeping 3 transport loads full around the home island is about the most you can expect to do. Later in the game, you could maybe bump that up to 4, but with your factory output only being 10 (unlike the US having 20) you’re probably not going to put out more than 8 land units, anyway. I tend to like having “space” in my budget for a bomber, here and there – so 6-8 infantry suits me just fine.
This is what AndrewAAGamer, one of the best Global 1940 players, said about the Taranto Raid (I think it mostly applies to Europe 1940 as well):
@AndrewAAGamer said in Let's talk the Taranto raid.:
I used to be a big proponent of the Taranto raid, but I am leaning against it recently as I’ve had two games where the German didn’t lose any planes on the counter attack, which was a disaster for the allies. Probably better to do Gibastion as you don’t have to worry that the dice will screw you.
(https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/41082/let-s-talk-the-taranto-raid/2)
Here’s what he said about strict neutrals (while this is about Global 1940, 90% of strict neutrals are located on the Europe map, so it mostly applies):
@AndrewAAGamer said in Violate a true neutrals?:
Both sides should be consistently paying careful attention to “Should I go for the Neutrals?” as the game progresses. Looking for the key indicators that show the Player that “Yes, now is the time to attack the Neutrals.”
Typically, there are three reasons to go for the Neutrals:
Axis #1: The Allies have left their SZ91 fleet exposed if the Neutrals are attacked by Italy, specifically Spain, and that allows the Germans to annihilate a large Allied fleet on the cheap.
Allies #1: The game has come to a standstill and neither side may improve their position as the board is deadlocked. By accepting a short-term disadvantage, the Allies will gain a long-term advantage that may swing the game in the Allied favor.
Allies #2: As you mentioned, the Allies are not making sufficient progress in landings on the European coast so they revert to the simpler strategy of landing in Spain.
Normally, it is the Allies who are attacking the Neutrals and typically they will set up such an attack by being prepared to hit Spain (USA), Portugal (USA), Venezuela (USA), Saudi Arabia (UK) and Turkey (UK) all on the same Turn. In later Turns Chile plus Argentina (USA) and Angola plus Mozambique (UK) are taken. Typically, killing these 28 infantries results in about 11-13 Allied losses or about $36 worth of troops.The gain in income for the Allies is $15 a Turn. The Axis will usually gain 8 infantries from Switzerland and Sweden, or $24 worth of troops, and $3 a Turn in income from Sweden. That means the total initial loss for the Allies is 60 TUV. (36 troops killed plus 24 infantries gained Axis). Compare this to the $12 swing in income and you can see it take about 5 Turns for the Allies to recoup their initial losses and start making gains from their strategic decision.
As long as the Allies can last those 5 Turns then making the attack makes sense.
BTW, you will notice I did not include Afghanistan as usually the Axis are not able to gain those 4 troops because either they can never liberate them or the Allies kill them at a loss of usually 1 ground unit.
So to specifically answer your question… YES it makes sense depending on the circumstances.
(https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/41838/violate-a-true-neutrals/2)
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
Axis #1: The Allies have left their SZ91 fleet exposed if the Neutrals are attacked by Italy, specifically Spain, and that allows the Germans to annihilate a large Allied fleet on the cheap.
This is the circumstance I had experienced in one of my games (sort of/kind of) that I mentioned, where the Axis are basically attacking Spain as part of a broader strategy to disrupt the shuck-shuck into SZ91.
@SuperbattleshipYamato re: Taranto
My general ethos is that I’d rather the British keep their fleet intact, and back them up behind the canal. Even if the Italians take it by land, you can keep them from expanding into the Indian Ocean by sea.
The other side of it is like… I think air power is great, while navies are sort of “the cost of doing business” – so trading my planes to take out your navy is a bad exchange. I’m fine with taking the cheap/easy win of sniping the fleet at Malta, because in the grand scheme of things, I think the transport will cause more damage to me than the battleships and cruisers and whatnot.
I’ve seen some weird things, like 2 subs being sent against the British cruiser at Gibraltar and both subs being sunk. Generally I assume there will be a sub there, and a sub up near Canada; I tend to send the SZ109 fleet to Canada, along with a couple of fighters, and place a new carrier there on rd1. If there’s a damaged battleship (and sub/s) in SZ111, I’m usually inclined to attack it with the fighter from Scotland and/or the UK bomber.
Do German players usually prioritize the UK transports? The Ai always seems to leave those 2 sea zones alone; granted we’re talking subs attacking destroyers, and their planes are out of range (except the strat. bombers, but landing in Belgium would be pretty undesirable…)
To me, it also seems like it stands to reason that the Germans should prioritize hunting destroyers, just because I tend to assume that the great strength of the western allies is their air power; if you have no transports, your battleships and cruisers can’t influence land combat, and if you have no destroyers, your planes can’t target subs – it paints a picture that as “guy who has subs,” the German player should be targeting things a certain way, to play into that. Honestly though, it seems kind of moot, given how relatively short the battle of the Atlantic ends up being.
I’ve run a handful of test games recently where I’m using battleships as my main surface unit, with the US. I think it’s a strat that pays off later/in the long run, when you’re stacking landings over multiple rounds (usually in the Mediterranean.) If your floating bridge consists of 4 transport loads and you can pile on 4+ shore bombardments, it starts to add up. But honestly, on the Atlantic side, I’ve seen a British strategy of just stacking bombers and fighters and strafing down the French coast – the number of casualties inflicted is staggering compared to what the battleships are able to do. Not an unexpected result, but I think to me this just cements the utility of destroyers, in that convoy-escort role.
I’ve found that when I’m too aggressive with pushing the allied fleets east too early, the Germans still tend to kamikaze their planes into my ships – but this actually only serves to speed up their own demise. As long as I’m not losing a huge amount of transports all in one go…? I can afford to lose a loaded carrier and 2-3 surface ships, as long as I take enough of their planes down with me. In these instances (for the cost) I’d rather be defending with the extra shots I’d be getting from buying destroyers, as opposed to the higher attack rating of a battleship.
But I think it’s generally best to be cagey with your allied fleets, and build them up to a point where the Axis can’t afford to attack them. This feeds into why I generally don’t like the idea behind the Taranto raid; I know I can outspend the Italians, so it’s actually in my interest to keep my fleets strong while I do that, rather than do a move that at best amounts to “mutually assured destruction” in my estimation.
1 reason why I, at least, usually avoid 109 on turn 1 is that the fighters in both London and Scotland can scramble. So you could end up committing a ton of units to take down a single destroyer and transport. Better for the Germans to take on the tougher ships before they consolidate and become invincible.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
1 reason why I, at least, usually avoid 109 on turn 1 is that the fighters in both London and Scotland can scramble.
Fair enough, and I wasn’t even thinking of that to be honest.
What about 106, though?
Let me write this all out, so I can gather my thoughts…
Subs:
124. can hit 111 or 109
118. can hit 106 or 109 or 111
117. can hit 106 or 109
108. can hit 106 or 109 or 110 or 91
103. can hit 106 or 109 or 110 or 91
…and then you’ve got your battleship that can hit 110 or 111
Now, from that, the obvious tactic would seem to be:
So that’s just me ballparking it without even hammering everything into a battle calculator; run 10,000 times, 2 sub vs. 1 crz, 1 trn has the defender winning 14%, whereas 2 sub vs. 1 DD, 1 trn has the defender winning 12% of the time.
The thing I think people don’t often do (in lieu of using a calculator) is just look at the number of hits you can afford to take vs. the number of dice the opponent is chucking. So in this SZ111 battle, the Brits can defend with 4 units (3 if they don’t scramble) – so it’s possible that they could hit you as many as 4 times, given 1 round of combat. If they don’t scramble, there is a 100% chance that your sub and battleship can absorb the hits from 1 round of combat, and your planes will be at 0% risk of getting hit. So, if you think they will scramble, then you need to include another sub in this attack, just to be 100% sure you’re able to retreat all of your planes after 1 round.
Including the scrambled fighter, if you calculate this battle as “retreat after 1 round” it’s like a 55%-45% (even if you send like 6 planes) but if you do it as “retreat when only air left” it’s like 5-to-1 (83%-17%); if you add another sub into the attack, it becomes 97%
So to add another sub to SZ111, we’d be pulling it out of the battle I had proposed (in 106) from SZ118
Since the 3 remaining subs can all hit SZ106 (Canada) and because I, as the British, tend to want to form up my navy in that SZ this seems like the way to go. (This is a 98% win)
This leaves the British wide open to just pile everything into “Gibastion” but it (hopefully) would disrupt the move I do, of building a carrier (or really, any navy) in Canada on UK1
Ultimately it’s a question of whether it’s better to run 2 battles that go in your favour >95% of the time, or to run 3 battles where 1/6 of the time, you lose more units than you wanted; if the losses only come in the form of your submarines, that might be worth the gamble. It’s when you start losing planes that it becomes not worth the risk. How that first round of combat goes in SZ111 determines a lot, including whether or not the scramble is used.
In East & West there’s a strategy for attacking Italy as the USSR on the first round, but it involves sending (at least) a bomber against a territory with an AA gun; so there’s always that 1/6 chance that the AA gun hits and the whole calculus is thrown out the window. I know that these are not the odds that @AndrewAAGamer would tell you to roll on, but sometimes the riskier option pays off more in the grand scheme than the safe option – sometimes the safe options still lead to inevitable failure (i.e. in an unbalanced game.) I also think it’s interesting that all of the battles I’ve calculated here fall into that roughly 1/6 failure chance, because as A&A gamers, that’s very easy for us to contextualize.
Re: US navy
I’ve recently keyed in on just spamming out a bunch of planes, as the allies.
One interesting thing with the US, if you’re going for a “floating bridge” to take and reinforce Greece: once you get a carrier set up in SZ92, you can move fighters from that SZ to Greece, while also having fighters from the Eastern US (with the airfield) able to reach SZ92. In this way, your carrier is always loaded, while also moving new fighters to Greece every round (once you control the territory) – taking 2 rounds to get from the Eastern US all the way to Greece.
I should also say more generally, my initial assumption about the US navy build was just to dump carriers with aircraft into SZ101, however:
The other thing is while I feel a loaded carrier is a strong defensive/deterrent piece of any naval group, it doesn’t really serve much purpose in SZ91 once the Atlantic is cleared of Axis subs/ships (and especially if there aren’t any bombers close by.) You also need a good number of destroyers for defense of any naval group, but I’m not sure a carrier is necessary for SZ97, if the idea is to be landing fighters in Greece all of the time (and maybe laying down an airfield?)
I recently tried an early battleship buy, pairing that with the starting cruiser and adding destroyers, to use as the tip of the spear going into the Mediterranean. Since you’re likely to need a few landings in Yugoslavia to wear down the Axis, the shore bombardment is nice to have – and it feels like more value than just parking a carrier there to passively defend.
So, I’ve said before that you probably want at least 2 destroyers and a loaded carrier as part of any naval group; now I’m trying to see if I can pare that down and be more efficient with how I spend and set things up. I can pretty easily get a “global domination” win as the Allies by about round 20, but I feel like I should be able to speed that up.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
Here’s what he said about strict neutrals (while this is about Global 1940, 90% of strict neutrals are located on the Europe map, so it mostly applies):
@AndrewAAGamer said in Violate a true neutrals?:
I ran a game recently, where I ended up declaring on the neutrals, as the Allies. The circumstances were as such:
The German counter-attack in Spain got “diced” (only managing to clear the territory but not take it) and they managed to wipe out the UK navy that took Norway – but rather than rebuild it, I had the UK put down factories in Greece, Turkey, Iraq, and (ultimately, the least-needed) Norway. Combined with shipping guys from South Africa directly to Iraq, the constant pipeline was too much, in the end.
It’s interesting how Iraq + Turkey forms a wall, insulating Africa and essentially steering any Axis attack towards India – a dead end in the corner of the board. But I had been funneling enough units into Kazakhstan, that the push into the Caucasus by the Axis never made it into the middle east.
Source: Zero loss British opener - F18 .tsvg
As the file name suggests, I also had no losses on my UK1 turn – which was mostly my standard moves, particularly in Africa and the Med.
(By the end, I was just screwing around and trying to give France territory, as I usually do.)
Some thoughts (sorry it took so long, I’ve been busy over the past month:
I generally agree about the superiority of battleships versus carriers in Europe.
I looked through the game. While your situation was certainly ideal for attacking the strict neutrals, I think you probably would’ve won without it (I’m not saying you implied that, I’m just adding on).
