Italy Strategy

Stratbombers and Dark Skies are so flexible and effective, that buying up to 6 is optimal play.  Strategic bombing is a bit too powerful OOB because Russia has little defense.  But on top of that, the 6 range and cheap cost makes them a bit overpowered–they are one of the few units that can consistently reach some interesting target the turn after they are built.

After almost 200 games in the last 3 years, I need to try new things.

@Baron:

@ShadowHAwk:

The american public and congress did not want to declare war but the president and some staff did.
Without the attack on pearl and the public cry for revenge i doubt it that the congress would even declare war because the public would not like it at all.

I always find it funny that Americans judge the japanese attack on pearl as a violation while at the same time they where violating the rules even more.

But history didnt work out that way, japan did attack the US after being provoked plenty and germany just declared war on the US ( but hitler did more stupid things )

Probably Hitler was hoping that his Japanese allies would do the same against Russia and Stalin.
He would have needed that oriental soviet troops be stuck with Japan.

Yeah, he was hoping that would have happened. If he didn’t declare war on the US, then the War would have been separate still.

“Never” is a strong word, and you even went so far as to hold down shift as you typed it and then went back to underline it afterwards.

If the airbase lets you hold Gibraltar for one extra turn, maybe even two, then is that 15 IPCs worth it for you?
Very possibly, sure. Delaying a US entry into the Med for one turn probably saves Italy at least 5 IPCs right off the bat, not to mention delaying its eventual economic implosion by an entire turn more of income.

Is it still worth it if the Americans can fly straight to Egypt or Norway from Gibraltar now?
Maybe they can’t do that yet, and won’t for another turn or two. Very possibly, yes, it’s still worth it. Maybe because you had that airbase, however, your Axis units were able to abandon Gibraltar and get into a better position on their way out. Lot’s of “if”'s. A lot of combinations of them add up to it being worth it.

Is it still worth it if the Americans can scramble planes off of it to defend their navy?
If you weren’t planning on attacking their navy (maybe because you simply don’t have the resources to do so), yes, absolutely, then there’s no difference at all.

So, yeah, sometimes it’s alright to give your opponent a facility if you got your money’s worth out of it first, even if it is only for a turn or two. Plenty of US and JP plays depend on building a naval base that’s only ever really used once in the game. There are some cases where the same is true for air bases all over the place.

Is for gameplay first but history two, the Italian is not prepare for this war and Russia two. Is simple and give a little more time for Italy. I repeat  i dont playtest this rules.

In the games a played it seemed that Japan could help the European Axis more by getting in positon to have enough victory cities on their side of the map than really pushing towards Russia.  If Japan pushes to Russia then USA is free to keep spending in Europe.  Maybe I will give this a try though with the newer edition of rules.

Off topic on my first paragraph, I admit.

JimmyHat - a friend and I changed everything in Revised to d20 for a bunch of games quite some years ago… it actually worked quite well, because everything could be adjusted by increments of 5%. It was fun, and felt more realistic. I wouldn’t recommend it for a game with as many variables as Global, though.

I’ll resubmit this idea - the best place for Italian economy is in Russia. Take small Russian blocker armies, move large German forces in to reinforce. In this way, Italy does the heavy lifting and losing of casualties while building a nice economic base; Germany gets to keep precious infantry alive, and has immediate places to land aircraft to make newly taken Italian holdings not able to be counterattacked.

In my experience so far a good Russian player playing conservatively can make Moscow close to impossible to take.   The way Russian territories are set up allows them to fall back and shadow any approaching German army until the Russians have reinforced their stack to the point where it can turn around and chase out or destroy the invaders.  There’s no real downside to this vs standing and fighting as you’re only giving up 1-2 ipc provinces as you fall back and you’re continuing to preserve and grow your Russian stack at a rate faster than the Germans can hope to reinforce theirs (assuming, of course, that GB and the US are putting any sort of pressure on the other side of Europe).  I’ve pretty much given up going for it and instead have resolved to find some way to take Leningrad and Stalingrad.  I’ll admit that Germany and Italy, given free reign to attack Russia can eventually bring them down if they focus all their strength on it but how are they doing this while preventing or counter-attacking allied landings?  There’s just not enough IPC’s available for them to effectively do both.

I posted my reply in the other thread ( http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=20063.0 ) so it’s a bit easier to follow. No use having two threads about the same confusing the discussion!

8-)