Prefer playing axis or allies ?

Russia’s abilities in AAR seem to have been a mistake (IMHO) by the creator.  Back in the day, I had some pretty neat games where the United States mostly ignored Europe while Russia beat the ever livvin snot out of the Germans virtually single handedly. (You did need the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy to generate threat and reinforce of course.)

Talk to me about the Russian triple one day.  I am not on that computer or I would repost it…won more games with that then any other version of Axis and Allies ever!

http://boardgamegeek.com/ look there

@bb82:

Because the med fleet will be blocked by a Russian sub, Germany, at most, can attack UK with the following:

6 infantry, 6 armor, 6 fighters, and 1 bomber.

I like the 2 FTR, 3 INF on UK1 myself so that isn’t that bad a battle to fight really.

7 INF (2 UK Start; 2 US; 3 UK1 buy)
2 RTL (1 UK, 1 US)
2 ARM (1 UK, 1 US assuming SZ1 TRN sunk)
5 FTRS (2 UK, 1 US, 2 UK1 buy)
2 BOM

Take the Bombers as 1st round casulties and you aren’t too bad.

Moving the UK BB and TRN and the R sub to SZ6 will draw off some air power as Frood says it is aprox. 78% for the UK/R in the naval battle with just 2 subs and a Des.

One of those things you shouldn’t feel too bad about losing though.

@Granada:

oh well, i have just tried the strategy against an experienced player and i was destroyed terribly. SZ 12 IS NOT A SAFE PLACE R1. You would not have 2 UK trans in most cases. I played against bid 9 so there was one sub more from the start and an AC on G1. Any kind of convoying system is necessary for US but next time i am going to make sure that i control the atlantic solidly first. I made some childish mistakes too, but if the germans put an effort to contesting the atlantic you cannot just build trannies. You have to sink their ships first and you have to do it quick and as cheap as possible.

Btw if the convoying system is to work smoothly you need for US actually three sets of transport ships, two wount do.

Early allied shipping losses can really hamper your game plan. It is always vital to protect not only the transports, but that British battleship! If Germany invests 24 ipcs in the water, you will have to wait a round or two to be safe, however, thats all right, as Germany took away 24 ipcs from the Russian campaign, you have time to get going.

I usually start shipping troops and a small fleet to africa to threaten the underbelly of Europe, building up enough forces over several turns to eventually launch a strike or reinforce WEU.  At the same time I am slowly building a navy in the Pacific to make sure Japan doesnt go unchecked, and maybe if japan has their navy out of the way I will build a transport and take borneo, just to be an annoyance.

The only difficulty would be deciding if the Pacific strategy is the right one.

This would be based on how strong Germany is:

Does she threaten Cau/Moscow?  If so, you might want to ensure some good Western Allied pressure (western, southern, even SZ14 pressure all over the med as Darth indicated)

If Japan plays it close to home fleet wise (to keep US honest), then again, a US pacific fleet may be sub optimal.

I think if Germanys a huge inf ball in their big 4/5 territories, then it might be best to be happy having them contained and go after Japan with the Pacific fleet… you have the time to do so (and the axis have proven it might be their soft spot)

@U-505:

I would have to say that you should be careful about advancing heavy Russian forces too far into Europe. Drawing Russian ground units away from Russia is a trap I frequently like to set with Germany. It gets really had to resist trading a bunch of advanced territories with Germany because the prospect of Russia making 30+ IPC’s a turn puts dollar signs in the Russian player’s eyes. With the Axis outnumbering Russia by 5 to 1 with air units, trading a lot of territories and ground units with Russia almost always favors the Axis, even if the unit trade is 1 for 1. No matter how much Russia makes, Japan always outproduces them by up to twice as many units and that point will get hammered home when a large number of Russian forces are aimed at Germany and their reinforcements going west dry up instantly because they are desperately trying to hold back the flood of Japanese units coming at them. Japan has a tendence to look benign one turn and the next turn be all over the map, in force, and Russia can quickly get into trouble by being too aggressive toward Germany. Especially if the eastern defensive structure is poorly maintained.

I completely agree.  I’ve used this “rope-a-dope” tactic a few times.  retreat with germany, attack with japan, and then usually around round 3-4 i counter attack with germany and squeeze russia out and hope that germany conquers russia so i can get the IPC’s.  I say thi cause usually the Allies have taken western Europe with this strategy at some point and I have to retake it.