Problems with this game

Right.  Just to clarify, your destroyers and combined fleet can happily sail right past enemy subs and transports.  You need to spend 8 IPC on a destroyer to use it as a speed bump.  Even then, you can destroy the blocking destroyer with air and a sub maybe, then non-combat move past that contested sea-zone leaving behind only the sub and the attacking air units non-combat move to where the fleet will end up.  It gets even harder to slow down a multi-national fleet, your ally clears the blocker then you can move 2 spaces and do combat before a new blocker can be placed, unless the defender was also multi-national….

@Bunnies:

I wonder whatever happened to this game.

Re:

So what makes you say it’s completely over?

If you’re trying to go KGF, and Germany controls/contests Africa on the fifth turn, and you’re asking for advice, it’s probably an uphill battle.  You would only be asking for advice if you were unsure that you could protect Moscow / crack Berlin, and with Germany fueled by African IPCs, and without a veteran’s perspective on how to run a tight logistic game with the Allies, I would guess probable loss for the Allies.  All the Axis need to do is pump out a bunch of tanks and run a bit of interference with Germany’s airforce, which as you mentioned was quite strong.

It sounds like Japan is screwing around (no industrial complexes by turn five), which means you may have a chance, but again, I lack context.

If US was building some Pacific fleet, and Japan went infantry with very light naval/air support (pumping IPCs into 1 destroyer, then subs and/or fighters to match the US threat) then the Allies really are in  trouble, because then probably Japan has some idea of what it’s doing.

If Japan was unopposed in the Pacific and built battleships and carriers, though, the Allies are probably going to win because Japan can’t just lay back and make Germany do all the work.  Same if Japan used its transports to screw with Alaska/Hawaii/Australia/etc. instead of establishing a fast hard unit core in Asia/India to help support Germany’s push against Caucasus.  You might see Japan doing both (i.e. hitting island targets plus hitting Asia/Africa) with five transports, but four transports on turn five with no industrial complexes built means SOMETHING weird is going on - like I said, either Japan was prepared to meet some unusual threat, or Japan was screwing around.

Yeah - what happened in the game?
I agree with Bunnies analysis - against a decent axis player, this game is probably over. But against novice players anything is possible, they may perform unfeasible or uncoordinated moves. In that case it is all about putting yourself in the position to exploit this. By this I mean armor for Russia, establish atlantic navy to threaten Germany, Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

I’ll save my next game, as soon as the server is back online. :)

I can host a game if anyone is interested

@Bunnies:

J1

J1 strategy:  14 IPC of transports moves up to 4 units from islands to Asia (as opposed to a 15 IPC industrial complex that can only produce 3 units). 
Transports let Japan hit any number of targets on the Asian, and later African coast, making it very hard to defend against Japan’s attacks.  As a final dealbreaker, Japan’s infantry on its islands are pretty useless, and it has 10 of them - that’s 30 IPC worth of unused material, that Japanese transports can bring into the game.  For all these reasons, transports are Japan’s answer to pretty much anything and everything.

There’s a little more to that math. 2 transports are more cost effective than 1 IC for Japan, if they are used to offload units to Buryatia/SFE/Kwantung/Manchuria (transports move nothing or 1 SZ to pick up units and land them). In the case of FIC you really need to have 4 transports to be able to land 4 units on FIC each turn (using a shuck shuck with 2 transports each on FIC’s SZ and SZ60).

And 4 transports is the bare minimum if you are planning on delaying an IC purchase until you really need it (i.e. Japan’s production is above 40 and you want to spend all money on land units). If you want to hit other targets (Australia, Africa) then you’ll need even more transports if you want to keep those 8 units flowing into Asia.

@Cromwell_Dude:

Find the loudest, big-mouthed bragger of Axis and Allies and make them play as the Axis in this game.  They should be humbled, hopefully.

Ha! That’s a great use for it!

They are the medium sized ones from Litko.  The small ones are too small.

@wmman09:

I believe the perfect game is one where everyone has a good time!  What fun is it to work out the perfect formula that works 100 percent of the time.  Or what fun is a perfectly balanced game where if everyone does everything 100 percent correct it always ends in a draw.   If that is what we wanted, we would all spend 10 hours playing tic tac toe instead of AA. LOL.  I am not that good, but getting better all the time and I ALWAYS enjoy playing and trying new things.  Sometimes I have to be happy with my own personal victory instead of destroying my opponent.  I can be very happy delaying the win of a superior opponent instead of falling to him in round 4-5.  :)  As long as there are dice rolls and human opponents we always have a chance to win and can ALWAYS choose to have a great time.

I second this notion.  We added tech to the game as well for more variance.  The fact that it can throw everything out of balance and new strategies have to be formed around the technology you have.  We are using AA50 Tech trees.  Can anyone say heavy bombers and paratroopers.  Pretty sick.

Uhm, one thing i liked that we do as a standard was that bombers could be used as a transport.  Only 1 friendly infantry and it can be dropped off into friendly spaces.

i wonder how many magic markers it took to make that map, :)