Alpha+2 Global, Europe and Pacific Setup and NO charts - FINAL.

@special:

@Thantonous:

and to go through the straights Turkey has to be controlled.

They don’t need to go through, Greece borders the Black Sea

Thats why I thought of doing the attack.

An extra submarine, if my opponent is foolish enough to give it to me, is always welcome!

The tournament bids are averaging out to 6-9 IPCs for Alpha 2.  That’s relatively miniscule given the size and scope of the game.

Is there any timeframe to which Alpha+2 will be officially released?
Thanks.

I am currently in the middle of my first game of Global using Alpha. It is going really well actually. We have played 6 games of global in our group (this alpha game is our 7th). Initially we certainly believed that there is a distinct allied advantage, and I still do. I believe that only very skilled players playing as the Axis have a chance of winning with them, and that is if they play against mistake prone allied players. If you have skilled allied players against equally or even more skilled Axis players, the Allies seem unbeatable barring extreme luck or blunders going in Axis favor.

We have 1 victory for the Axis, and that actually came down to our two best players who are much better than the rest of the group playing Axis, and the allies were made up of our third best player and two totally new players. America’s player was playing for the first time ever. And the Axis just barely won due to a 1/36 tech miracle and botched allied play (poor use of transports).

There were also 3 allied victories, and 2 games we called draws, but the allies would have won if we decided to play for weeks longer…

We are currently on J3 in our latest game with our first go at the Alpha setup. We also have the same two players as Axis, only this time switching powers. I have to admit that I think I like this setup better as Germany because our UK player is infamous for bringing the whole british empire into Egypt and holding Africa with overwhelming force while threatening Italy all game long. Less planes and ships and initial transports makes this harder for him and makes Italy more viable. Also we started with a G2 DoW on USSR. Things are going very well for them with the USSR’s hardware in dead zones, so by R4 they will be down to only Inf.

Japan is doing very well also in China and with the sizeable Manchurian land force nipping at the retreating Russian’s heels in Siberia. The lack of planes certainly is putting a cramp in Japan’s game play in the Pacific itself, and in its Caroline/Hawaiian posturing against the Angloish-Allies, but they are still in a solid position. I the new naval base in NSW is a very interesting double edged sword. It makes Australia very happy that they can move around a bit easier, and can claim DNG on ANZAC1, but they have to be careful because it no longer is a dead end for the IJN, which makes ANZAC a viable target for Japan.

SHARED THIS ON LARRY’S SITE ALREADY, JUST WANTED TO SHARE THOUGHTS HERE ALSO:

Ok Larry,

Me and an official playtester of yours here in Michigan (his name is mentioned in the rulebook for Europe 40) played Global with the new setup given with all the aircraft taken away and such. Here was a short summary of what happened:

On the Europe side:

Germany played pretty predictably, sinking most of the UK navy, taking France and the Eastern European pro-allied and pro-axis neutrals with Italy. They continued to build on their air force to keep the UK from building ships right away. Began to stack some ground units as well. Italy expanded into Africa and shored the Middle East slowly controlling the Med.

UK responded by NOT attcking the Italian navy and pulling back the rest of the navy it had left until it could come back to England with a strong navy that included the US. UK took the Pro-allied Brazil and shucked the troops to Africa to help the SAfrican force which slowly pushed the Italians back up to Egypt turning the tide in Africa.

Russia stedily built a force consisting of infantry spiced with some tanks, artillery, tacs and mechs. Stacking behind some dead zones and waiting for the declaration of war.

US spent about 70-80% of its cash in the Pacific since it could not even approach Africa/Europe before a state of war.

Now for the Pacific side:

India with little cash built mostly infantry and stacked. Combined navy near India and activated the Persian troops to bring back and help defend India. In Global, India has a little more help from some extra troops west and a few ships, including one French destroyer to help defend. Also, it can fall back with its stack to West India if needed.

ANZAC naval base is much needed and I am glad it is there- balances nicely.

China was stonger, but does what it normally does and stacks at Yunnan to wait to wear down Japs. China units are really used as a delaying tactic for the India crush.

Japan didn’t see an advantage to the India crush in J1 but felt that the initiative came to them in J2. They didn’t want to wait until J3 because they felt the Allies would have established a long-term defense of India. So with that the Japs declared war on J2 taking back the Dutch East Indies and unleashing the fury. Japan built transports J1 and J2 and built more planes to replace the ones missing from the new setup in J2.

Now even though both Japs and Allies have the same amount of planes removed, Japan can build them faster and move them closer to the action (India). US could also build their planes back but it takes them longer to get them to the battle scene (India). Brit India and ANZAC can’t build much of an airforce because of the typhoon of Jap units coming fast, so India stacks and ANZAC tries to distract and/or try to send some units.

Japan can make the US wait longer to send ships and planes down to ANZAC by using its navy as a shield. I as Allies, I made tactical blunder ruining my chance to meet the Jap onslaught of India from behind through Australia. However, if not for this the setup seems very balanced and gave some options to both sides.

A hot topic question will be “what to do with the Russian inf on the Pacific side??”
It is very frustrating for the Russians, if you attack immediately, Japan will bring the heat to wipe them out with now China and Russia give large concessions to Japan $$$. If you stack and sit. Japan has to garrison Manchu with a small force but continues to spearhead to India. I figure as the Russians, you have to attack with the 18 inf at some point. The hard part is when. Timing is everything in this decision.

With US entering the war at turn 2, the US began to throw a good amount of cash to the European side, mainly because of the blunder in the Pacific- India would not last long now- 2-3 more rounds. I recovered nicely putting pressure on the French coast quickly until I made another tactical error involving Gibraltar- arrggh!!!- new rules and new map takes a little while getting used to.  :-(

Besides these 2 blunders, I thought the Global game was pretty fair and balanced with a slight edge to the Allies. I definitely think the Allies are a little easier to play because that sides is spilt into 6 sub parts (countries) that are easy to prepare while you are waiting for the Axis to finish. The Axis with so many more units in the beginning, take longer and you have to be very efficient both in the short-term and the long-term planning.

Anyway that was are anaylsis so I hope it helps.  :-)

Bob has told me that he’s too busy to update his creation, and he has denied me permission to do it… so I it looks like these charts will remain obsolete.