Number of allowable unit stacks

@Hobbes:

@stebobibo:

Can you buy and deploy units on the first turn? Because in the rules it says you collect income at the end of each turn, therefore you would have no IPCs to spend on your first turn. If you do start with IPCs and can buy on the first turn, how many IPCs do you start with? Is it the number printed on the set-up cards? Or would it depend on the territories you have under your control at the start of your first turn? Example, USSR on his turn has taken some German territories worth 4 IPCs in total. Would Germany therefore start with 40-4=36 IPCs?

Germany (and the others) start with the money printed on the setup charts. At the end of its turn (after it places the units it purchased with its starting money) it receives income based on the number of territories it controls and their value. So, if G has 36 worth of territories, it will receive 36 IPC that can be used on beginning of its next turn to buy more units.

Actually, Germany starts with 41 IPCs instead of 40; the UK with 31 IPCs instead of 30.

These inaccuracies really bother me because ANYONE involved in the production of this game could have caught them before printing… but didn’t take the time to. Really careless work, and misleading for new players.

In fact, the rulebook as a whole seems largely geared towards an existing player base, rather than carefully explaining gameplay in a methodical fashion to beginners. Things could easily be laid out in a much more logical and intuitive fashion; once again, Wizards misses a trick.

OK. Obvious distinction that I missed there.  Thanks!

Ok, so this won’t be of use to everyone, but if you have an iPhone, and you’re new to the game, this might be of interest.

To get started, enter the number of IPCs you have, your industrial capacity, and click submit. Then press the “+” and “-” buttons to buy your troops.

It won’t let you add more units than what you can afford. But when you exceed your industrial capacity, that field with simply show a negative number. It won’t stop you from adding more units.

This is not an App. It is an html file that does local calculations. Nothing is sent to a server. It’s formatted using tables, and I know that’s bad form, but I don’t have much in the way of CSS skills (maybe later).

The only phone I have is an iPhone, so that’s all I’ve tested it on. It’s pretty standard html, so I would hope that it would work on other platforms. It works in IE on a PC, so maybe that is a good sign. Your milage may vary.

Constructive criticism is very welcome, but don’t tell me it’s stupid just because you can add up all your purchases in your head. This is a tool for beginners who haven’t memorized the cost of each unit, and may not remember to keep their industrial capacity in mind.

files.me.com/mtngoatjoe/ncwuur

I voted the DD, it is the backbone of every defensive or mixed fleet.

The CC imho is the least usefull unit, but still has some use in large fleets. The question always is, why buy a CC and a DD with 20 IPC when the same money can get you a BB. Well, the answer is fleet volume.
When playing Dice, you can get lucky or unlucky. But, no matter how lucky you get, one BB will only get you one hit (in att or def) while one CC and one DD, if you are lucky, will get you two hits. So, for every second BB I buy, I prefer adding some pure volume in my fleets by bying a DD and a CC.

Another equivalent is to buy 2 SS and one DD, but when def is a primary concern and volume is needed, 2 SS are no more than fodder, given the attacker will have a DD (or else his air hits won t be assigned on the SS, and they will be useless even for fodder…).

The optimum setup for a mixed fleet (for example a US2 pacific fleet aiming for south pacific in US3) is 4 SS, 3 DD, 1 CC, 2 AC loaded, 1 BB, 2 TT (carrying 4 inf). Total IPC cost 82 (buy US1 2 AC, DD, SS, US2 1 ftr, 1 TT+1 inf, 2 SS, DD).

gotta qualify this if you want answers.  better for whom?  Whats the situation and early or late game?

There is no “best” land unit. There are land units with different uses.

-When you want to defend actively, you want mostly infantry while having some attack units (which one depends on the kind of front that you are defending) to stop your opponent from going forward with a big stack.
-When you are all-out defense you want only infantry.
-When you are attacking you want a mix of attacking units and infantry, yes an attack as a bigger win% with the right mix of inf/tanks then with just tanks (there was a very nice post earlier explaining this for people who’d doubt).
-When you are all-out attacking well yes you’d want only tanks the only right scenario for that is blitzing Russia early with Germany and it necessites some prerequisites to be a fine option (in my own opinion, I know a good player who doesn’t agree with me there, depends on the play style I guess)

So in a nutshell, the most needed unit is definitely the infantry, but I wouldn’t say it is the “best” unit because it seems too much of a specific case question (although if you’d tell me that you’ll give me 20 bucks just to shut up and answer the question, I’d go with infantry).

Correct.

That CAP rule in good old Pacific always remained a mystery to me. As far as I remember you can only use airplanes that didn’t take part in any combat. Now who would let any airplane sitting around doing nothing in combat ?  Japan not using airplanes in her attacks ?  That’s why I never used CAP, not once.