MOVED: Axis and Allies officially FIRED (for me anyway)

@lil-germanz said in Optimal Japanese opening move:

@taamvan though I agree that crippling Germany is challenging you really can slow it down if UK builds up a fleet in Canada and Air Force in London. Than you convoy any where possible and continuous bomb the factories. You will take loses but your spending your income delaying and slowing down Germany’s offensive which buys Russia more time and allows US to get involved. That’s about the only ways that I know that is effective against a powerful German player. You have to keep your fleet off the GB coast line to protect against a air assualt. Need to be able to scramble.

My issue with that is you can’t hit Germany, only W. Germany from London and Germany can leave 4 fighters there to put make repeated bombing runs unlikely.

Also, typical is Moscow being threatened about G6. Its tough to build a fleet that can worry Germany at all with UK when UK1 is building inf and a fighter, then a lot of your air power shifts to the Med to sink Italy’s fleet, can make it back for combat on UK4. So buys on UK2 and 3 are around 60ipcs. Do you really devote that to transports and ships to keep them afloat?

I’m usually a factory in Persia and UK3 and UK4 I spend 60 ipcs on fighters for Moscow. So UK1 is a London buy so no Sea Lion, UK2 you spend 12 ipcs on a factory and then maybe 25 on… it depends. Fighters? Bombers? Troops and a transport for S. Africa? UK planes can land on Russia’s Karaellia if its safe to make it to Moscow in 2 turns…Or shift South if Italy’s a problem.

In games with big bids for the Allies (35+ PUs), it is possible to hold Yunnan by adding in an additional Chinese art plus flying in an additional two or three Russian planes that were bought before the game started.  If Japan pushes all of their units to Kwangsi on J1, the Allies will have to vacate Yunnan before J2 or face annihilation.  However the Chinese can counterattack or strafe Yunnan on Ch2 since the Japanese air force can’t land in that territory, seriously harming Japan’s ground strength in Mainland Asia.

Russia will have to methodically retreat back towards Moscow for the first three rounds with this plan.  The upside in Europe is that the US can execute a KGF plan since there is less urgency in the Pacific theater.

No discussion for a while now…

Any new conclusions about this strategy?

What’s about an airbase at Gibraltar and moving Egypt fleet west? Yet, I guess there was this topic deep down at forum’s splanchnic times ago but couldn’t find it…

@Rocmistro:

One gripe: I almost feel that the bonus income stuff forces you to play the War exactly how it played out in reality. That’s a bit of a bummer, as I would like to see different scenarios play out.  Oh well.

Yeah, the national objectives are based more or less on historical objectives of the actual war. Think about this though; you had Japan capture Alaska, Italy captured Cairo and Germany conquered Russia without having to face an Allied invasion of France. You DID play it differently from reality.
Plus, believe it or not, a lot of Allied strategies end up being vastly different from the real war. Most successful Allied strategies I have seen involve the US taking out Japan first, then dealing with Germany/Italy. In one game, Germany took London then went on to attack Russia. The US managed to take care of Japan then took Rome and liberated Paris. Germany used so much to take London that they didn’t really have enough to take on the Russians and did very poorly in Russia. Berlin fell to the US and London NEVER GOT LIBERATED!

Those are some good ideas. I think to make this game balanced, I do need to make some adjustments. Just giving Italy the Axis NOs and ANZAC the Allied NOs doesn’t quite work. It seemed to be working for a while, but once ANZAC got the upper hand, it just gradually got worse and worse for Italy. I know that happens even in some games of regular A&A, but I don’t think there was any hope of Italy turning things around once ANZAC started getting ahead.
We just finished this game tonight. It took 15 rounds before Italy surrendered. For the first three rounds, Italy really grew and just about closed the gap between them. Rounds 4-8 were somewhat even between the two. If Italy did well on one front, ANZAC was doing well on another front. From Round 9 on, Italy was more and more defensive. ANZAC managed to take Japan and pretty much ruled all the Pacific and Asia within the next 2 rounds. Once all other Italian presence was eliminated, all ANZAC had to do is keep pounding on Europe until something gave way. Between amphibious landings every turn in Western Europe and a flood of tanks, mechs and planes rolling in from Russia, Italy was finding it harder and harder to maintain any kind of border.
For a while, whenever ANZAC would land somewhere in W Europe, Italy had enough to take it back. There were a few sparks of good for Italy, like when they sacrificed most of their European air force to kill the ANZAC fleet outside of England, including a stack of transports. That delayed ANZAC for a couple of rounds, but soon they were making landings again and Italy couldn’t afford a whole new air force to risk against the navy.
While playing the game this way makes each round go somewhat faster, it is pretty hard keeping track of all the different fronts. You literally have attacks going on in every point of the map on some turns. It’s a little easier when Germany is dealing with England and Russia, Italy is dealing with the Med and Japan is dealing with China and the Pacific. Still, it is kind of cool to be able to carry out ALL your ideas in the same turn.

G1:

Purchase - 30 IPC
1 CV
1 DD
1 SS

Combat:

SZ110:
1 BB via SZ112
All Aircraft less the Tac in Poland and the Ftr in Hungary

SZ106:
2 SS via SZ117 and SZ118

SZ91:
2 SS via SZ108 and SZ103

SZ109:
1 SS via SZ124

Normandy:
2 Inf/Art via Holland

France:
3 Arm S.Germany
4 Mech, 1 Art, 3 Inf via W.Germany
3 Arm, 2 Inf via Holland
1 Ftr via Hungary
1 Tac via Poland

Yugoslavia:
6 Inf, 2 Art via S.France
3 Arm via Poland, Hungary and Romania
2 Inf via Hungary
1 Inf via Romania

Only thing to realistically note about this move is that if you sink all the ships in SZ110 and the BB is remaining, retreat to SZ112.

NCM:

Finland:
1 Inf via Norway

Bulgaria:
1 Inf via Romania

SZ112:
1 CR via SZ114
1 TT w/ 2 Inf from Poland to Norway
2 Ftr via SZ110

W.Germany:
All remaining Aircraft from France and SZ110

Unit Placement:

Place 1 CV, 1 DD, 1 SS in SZ112

End Move

Notes about this opener:

I like this opener due to the fact that provided the SS score hits in both SZ106 and SZ91 that you effectively eliminate units into England via Canada and help Italy in the Med.  Further, your SS are in a location (SZ106 and 91) that if the DD in SZ109 survives, that the UK has to choose one of the two to hit.

Your fleet in SZ112 has the following in it:
1 CV (with 2 Ftr)
1 CR
1 DD
1 SS
1 TT

It also has the possibility of a tipped BB as well as 3 aircraft to scramble out of W.Germany.  This will most likely deter England from sending its SZ111 fleet against your fleet.  The preservation of your fleet in SZ112 is paramount to allowing for SS builds on G2 and G3 to keep England in a defensive posture until the US establishes a presence of a fleet in Europe.

In example, the UK is going to have to face multiple SS from varied locations and it does not have enough DD to address them all, which enables Germany to establish a convoy on SZ109 as early as G2.  This convoy will probably survive until the 4th round before the US and England can remove your SS and fleet and regain control of the Atlantic.  This is beneficial to enabling a march on Moscow if the Allies cannot just waltz in with TT once the US enters the war.  Further, for every SS you purchase at 6 IPC - England has to spend 8 IPC on a DD to attack it with.  This creates a 2 IPC per SS advantage for Germany on top of any Convoy damage England takes.

The drawback to this is that Germany will probably not make significant headway into Russia until G4 - but it also enables Japan to work its magic of getting China under control while establishing an AB in Northern China to fly in its entire starting Air Force in support of your delayed entrance into Russia.  Many Japanese players will not buy into this tactic, but from an Axis perspective, If Germany owns Moscow then the fight is for Egypt - which Japan can assist with via its fleet sailing PAST Calcutta and into the Med.  A combined Japanese/Italian move against Egypt is almost impossible to stop - especially if Germany is providing air cover out of W.Germany once Moscow falls.

i would also rather fight on his turf where i get income generating for as long as possible. once you have to back down that’s when you are basically saying, “I lose moscow sooner or later.”

@MarkVIIIMarc:

If you have the AA guns around do you have the white complexes from one of the old games?

I use the complexes & AA Guns from old games. I much prefer that over the silly little squares that are so hard to pick up.