Do -downgraded- factories keep their damage?

I agree with Simon about the use of US transports in the Pacific. You wipe out the Japanese navy and take back the islands and the mainland. Shuck your troops to Europe and take out Germany and Italy. Japan will be forced to surrender. You know, just like WW2. Unless the Japanese player has been smoking crack you will spend all day assaulting Tokyo while Germany makes mincemeat out of Russia and the UK.

@Tolstoj:

It is possible for the Russians to attack Estern Poland, but you have to buy mech units and tanks, and perhaps a TB. Very curious to know how such a game would end, but I don’t think it would be favorable for the Russians to trade their army for a German army. Because unlike WW2, the Germans can make new ones…

ShadowHawk showed me many new (to me) and good tactical moves, so it was an interesting game to me.

Unfortunately I made too many mistakes with Japan on J3 to have a realistic game (lost many infantry because I forgot to use my figthers). Also I am not used to playing online, so it takes an hour to do one turn with Japan.

But I am practicing now… :D

Playing online is tough for me as well.  I need to see the whole board or I’m lost.

I only see a mutual annihilation as good for Russia if the US and UK are in Western Europe

The only thing I don’t like about Japan building factories on the mainland is if the game is going good for Japan, and once they eliminate China and India and any Russian threat, those factories become almost useless because Japan now has to branch out to sea.
Yeah, you can still use them, like to build transports to load up the existing land troops, but most of the naval production seems to happen at Japan itself. Plus, unless your navy is spread out, then you will have defenseless transports all along the coast. Then again, I guess if it is going that well for Japan then they can afford to “throw away” a few transports in order to get men on the islands or on Australia.

Italy’s job is threefold:
1:  Keep the UK spending to crush Italy
2:  Assist in Russia
3:  Lure the US Fleet past Gib and into the Med

With that being said, the Italian Navy is important to protect, requiring a DD to be purchased in Round 1.  This will draw more UK attention to the Med, which gives Germany more breathing room to advance on Moscow.  Provided your fleet was not decimated in SZ97, ferry units into Yugo with the TT and at least 1 Armor, possibly 2.

Assisting with Russia being your second goal pretty much requires that Italy activates Bulgaria on Round 1 and Italy either reinforcing the German Flank in Romania on I2 or if there is no immediate threat, clearing out Greece before the Brits activate it.  If Italy purchases a Bomber on Round 2, it puts 2 Bombers and somewhere in the range of 6-8 Inf plus 2 Armor in range of Eastern Poland, or Bess.  You even have a shot to can open Western Ukraine at this point, or if Russia is really incompetent, Ukraine MAY be open via an Armor Blitz (provided 2 Armor went into Yugo on Round 1, and reinforced Romania on I2.)  In any case, Italy can stand to gain some IPC and really create problems on the German Southern Flank in Russia.

As for the last goal for Italy, you need to continue to engage the UK into the Med through the time the US enters the war.  Usually this requires naval investments, I prefer to try to get at least 1 DD in every round.  At some point you’ll need to redirect your Bombers back to Rome / Southern France.  You’re goal is to force the Allies to defend SZ91 and interrupt the US TT rotation.  You need to be very opportunistic here and wait for the Allies to expose TT as lightly defended.  This doesn’t always happen, but it is devastating when it does and you can fly 2-3 Bombers and a send a few SS to potentially sink the TT rotation and buy breathing room.  If this doesn’t look like it could happen, you just have to turtle up and encourage the US to land on Rome and not Normandy or S.France.  The whole goal being to keep the US fleet in the Med and out of reinforcement for multiple turns outside of the 3 units it can place on whatever complex it takes.

@Clyde85:

@Cmdr:

You’d have to be prepared for Italy to take Spain on the same round true.

What is Italy going to be using to take Spain with? In this speculative scenario, isnt the ENTIRE Italian fleet, and perhapse a part of their airforce, destroyed?

Clearly not if they stack a few troops in Sfr before attackin Spain…
But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s probably a bad idea to allow US to land troops there every subsequent round.

I know my brother didn’t after I took the solomans killed his navy and left some subs to convoy his ass.

Thank you.

We both had prior family engagements, thought I mentioned that in our last email, and Germany was a paper tiger after the sealion bid and all the failed tech rolls. Yes you were pushing India, and I probably would have lost it, but the us fleet was moving and ready to rumble, not to mention ANZAC actually had a BB and a fully loaded AC fleet ready to move! UK had sealed up Africa and Germany had a one layer offensive into Russia (no backup inf on the way). By the way you slipped the +10 IPC for Japan rule into the original Alpha setup when we played. That is part of the improved Alpha i think, Jim and I had never played with the Alpha setup before that so we never noticed.

I still think it would have been close. But I distinctly remembering you folding during the auction due to time after we decided to call it (9 hours of game-play) but I may be wrong.

Also I will send you some links concerning the tactical game I mentioned that we should demo next year at Ellis Con. I have made Terrain and stuff for it over the past few weeks. Its Axis & Allies on steroids.