Can an Improved Mech Infantry be supported by a tank and artillery?

@taamvan:

Any single piece, on land or sea, blocks all land or sea combat movement in the way you contemplate.   The only exception is air flying over it.

this is mostly true but there are a few exceptions:

as he says, all planes can fly over anything except neutrals that aren’t violated yet.

boats can ignore transports and subs and move right through them or end movement in the same sea zone as them. one restriction is that transports can’t load or unload in a sea zone with a a sub unless there is a surface warship along with it.

subs can ignore (move through) all ships except destroyers. they can also end their movement in sea zones containing any ships on non-combat.

I think those are the only exceptions for units blocking movement or being able to move through territories. If I forgot anything, one of the better players than me will notice it  :-D

I agree with both Bold and Cow.

Bold is right: 99INF is not a viable bid to demonstrate anything. It does not take away the risks (at all!) against a top axis player.
I also agree partially with Cow (after some more study) about the USA. Cow feels the USA is outright bad. I feel that the USA is indeed off-balanced.
This is because A). Japan can take Calcutta and keep it untill ~J9 when it attacks Hawaii with a fleet/invasion force worth ~600TUV and B) this cannot be dodged by US DD blockers, since Germany can fly some STR to Japan to remove them.

In other words: the USA cannot block off Japan indefinately, attacking the IJN if it moves forward in order to get in range of Hawaii. Therefore the USA must defend with a fleet worth ~570TUV (considerably more than what is needed for an attack on a blocked-off IJN) to prevent a Pacific loss for the allies, which leaves the USA with no more than a ~100IPC investment in the Atlantic for the first 9 turns…

The charm of A&A just dropped from 10 to 3 points on a scale of 0 to 10 for me. The 3 points left are for playing against players who are not aware of this loophole, thus not forcing me to go KJF.

I admit that this is not spelling doom for the allies because they can still go KJF, playing the allies in Europe like Gamerman said in another thread, but I find it highly disappointing that a KJF is the only way to go for the allies against this Japanese exploit (of what I call a loophole).
I’m afraid the easiest way to fix this while keeping all other rules intact, is to correct/improve the current victory conditions (G40.2) in such a way that the USA regains the option of going Europe heavy. To a certain extend, ofc, because largely ignoring the Pacific should still be punishable with loosing the game.
Brainstorm: why not set the axis victory conditions to 13 Victory Cities total. Europe heavy allies can prevent the Euro-axis from getting >6VC but then Japan will take 6VC (Hawaii), totalling 12 for the Axis and the battle for that 13th VC still looks like a tough way with a LOT of options to go for both sides…

@techroll42:

Actually, IIRC, there’s a helluva good reason: Mongolia. IIRC Mongolia doesn’t convert if USSR declares war.

Nope.  Only if Russia attacks a Japanese controlled territory bordering Mongolia before Japan does the same.  That means Manchuria almost specifically, but also addresses if Russia were to attempt to liberate Japanese held Chinese territories adjacent to Mongolia.  Note that Japan is free to attack chinese territories occupied by Russian soldiers and that will result in no penalty, as they are chinese (not russia) territories.

There’s absolutely nothing that penalizes either for a state of war between them.  It’s better for Japan if the US can’t land bombers in Russia and if the reds don’t reinforce china or india, but there’s NOTHING that prevents Russia from declaring war R1 and freeing movement for themselves (and their allies) on the pac board.

Soviet/Japanese Non Aggression Pact: Due to their mutual border conflct with Japan in 1939, the Soviet Union and Mongolia have a special relationship. If the Japanese attack any Soviet territory that is adjacent to any Mongolian territory, all Mongolian territories (Olgiy, Dzavhan, Tsagaan-Olom, Central Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar, and Buyant-Uhaa) that are still neutral are placed under the control of the Soviet Union at the end of the Japanese Combat Move phase, in the same manner as though the Soviet Union had moved land units into a friendly neutral territory. These territories have Soviet control markers placed on them, and their standing army units are placed on the board and are controlled by the Soviet Union player from then on. This occurs regardless of the state of relations between the Soviet Union and Japan at the time of the attack, with one exception: If the Soviet Union attacks any Japanese-controlled territory bordering these Mongolian territories while Mongolia is still neutral, Mongolia will remain neutral and not ally itself with the Soviet Union. In addition, the Mongolian territories will never become pro-Axis unless one or more of them is attacked by the Soviet Union.

Attacking is different from declaring war.  Japan and Russia are free to declare war on each other without ever attacking each other at any time, over the entire length of the game.

@Ruanek:

@Xandax:

@MarkHC:

Bottom line, I’ve played multiple games as the Soviet Union where I didn’t let anyone attack my units except an infantry I left as a road block.  Even when Japan invades Russia turn one/two and tries to keep pushing, it still didn’t make much difference because they can only take a territory a turn.  So when Germany finally reaches Moscow, almost every single unit I’ve built as Russia is there defending my capital.  Sure, if time weren’t a factor, it’s a bad strategy, but I know that the Allies are going to be landing in force by turn 5 or so, so the Axis is not able to deal with the Allied pressure and overcome a huge Moscow stack.

If the allies are landing in force in turn 5 Europe is lost regardless of a large stack of inf in Moscow.
Nothing is gained in the game by removing USSRs chance to defend and making a German attack on Russia go faster. On the contrary.
The huge stack isn’t an automatic win.

Well, not having the huge stack gives the Axis a bit more of a chance to blitz and take the necessary 8 victory cities quickly.

Well - of course. And removing the Russian troops entirely would equally.
You cannot remove the turtle. You shouldn’t IMO make it easier to take Russia.
We should however figure out why turteling is so strong and address that cause instead of just the symptom.

If you make it any easier to take Russia, you’ve effectively turned Germany into a one trick pony and removed most strategy from the European board.

Yes.

@Krieghund:

Yes.

that can’t be possible
please put it in errata, or ask harry
but if you start to lose money in this game by taking territories (eg, Greece gets subtracted 4 IPC every round), than there’s something wrong…

Ok, I looked everywhere but the dialog box.  Shame on me……thanx…Krieghund…I had a brain cramp.

The other issue is that Japan in the global game has nothing to do until turn 3 either, so this could seriously backfire.

The Japanese player simply has to say “if you declare war on me it’s gonna cost you Siberia” and the Japanese make a serious push into Russia with all his planes and Russia is screwed.  Buys the Pacific allies some time but may cost you Russia.