Axis "J2/I2" Strategy

SubmersedElk

@aequitas:

For an offensive Ger. player, Greece might be vital to him.
It provides 3ipc income per round and might be strategic in an aggressive Axis Med. Gameplay.
I often take Greece as Germany so I can save my 40ies each round for russia.

Greece is not that important overall. You could choose to ignore Greece entirely to strengthen the main stack earlier instead. I like having the extra income as income means flexibility, and it gets the Balkans over with for good. Leaving those units there gives the allies backup if they choose to invade via that route, and I’m not comfortable with the risks to Italy on that attack.

As you noted, it also opens up an additional option for counterplay in the Med, if the opportunity is right. Ignoring the Med is part of the strategy only because it’s inefficient, but if Allies allow an opportunity to efficiently counter then the option is there. A key theme of the method is preservation of options; an open option, exploited or not, still forces the opponent to account for it.

SubmersedElk

@Private:

Being on the edge of losing to wittman, who had a 13 bid as allies, I wonder what allied bid you feel would effectively counter the strategy you lay out? My understanding is that experienced players believe axis to have a significant advantage without such a bid.

That’s my question as well. I don’t even know if an effective counter strategy can be pulled off by Allies without serious mistakes made by the Axis player. That’s one concern I have had about G40 for quite some time and it has yet to be demonstrated to me that the Allies are viable on this map. If someone does pull it off, I would very very much like to know how.

SubmersedElk

@teslas:

This is all very standard stuff. I do very much the same most games if I am going for the throat.

To address this - I am not claiming any of this is original. It’s all stuff that was done to me when I was playing Allies more often that I couldn’t solve. So I started doing it to other people, and nobody’s been able to solve it yet.

My setup for J2 is very close to Cow’s J2, maybe 6-7 units total are in different position at the start of J2. I put less emphasis on northern China, if China wants to stack in Kansu they are not in a position to affect anything important.

As others have noted, G40 is all about threat projection. The aim of this strategy is to reduce potential allied threats to three manageable ones.

Foregoing Sealion attacks means there is no Russian offensive threat to deal with. A focus on China/India early means there is no threat from either in Asia. For Russia/China/India in general, turtled and isolated positions do not project threat. Ignoring Africa means there’s no threat to deal with there as there’s nothing to threaten.

The first threat is the Russian defensive counter. This can be managed by counterstacking, or even retreating temporarily if neccessary, or by moving around it.

The second threat is the US Pac fleet. This can be managed by building a defensive fleet in SZ6 or the Phillipines and using DDs to limit movement, and being able to bring back the second, expeditionary IJN fleet in a timely manner.

The third and most dangerous threat is the US Atlantic invasion fleet. I manage this threat by stacking inf preemptively. If Allies have any hope of countering this strategy, it’s by effectively managing this invasion - but I’ve yet to see someone pull it off.

There’s one other potential threat that I should probably address, which is the Russian eastern infantry if stacked in Amur. I ignore this threat, if it is created at all, and let Russia strike first. Because I rely on transports rather than ICs, there are no fixed positions Russia can reach that need to be defended, which mitigates some of the threat. As Russia can’t reinforce its position, the threat never grows. It can only hold one territory at a time so it can’t do much production damage, and Japan can set up to eliminate this stack at its leisure. Should the US reinforce it with air, that actually reduces the threat from the stack further as Russia won’t abandon expensive US air support thanks to the favorable turn order - Japan can strike the US air between the two enemies’ turns if Russia’s infantry moves out, so Russia is stuck wherever that air lands. And of course if Russia strikes first, it loses the 6 Mongolian infantry I’d otherwise have to account for.

taamvan

Even if it isn’t original, its solid. This kind of discussion is interesting and useful. I’m typically not repeating or testing out my own opinions because I’m not that good or creative–I’m repeating other people’s moves and opinions to test them against the group’s experience and opinions.

In most games, there is a “critical path” to victory. Not a series of “must-dos”, but a series of ‘should-dos’.

That is why the earlier posters this week were spot on by stating what is the “optimal” move. Not the “best move under all odds in all situations”. Just the “optimal” one considering everything that we as a group or individuals presume to know.

SubmersedElk

Some screenshots of the progression on the Pacific side.

Japan turn 1 combat move and turn complete

SubmersedElk

Pac turn 2 combat and complete

SubmersedElk

Pacific turn 3 combat and complete

Notice that there’s really nothing at all Allies can do about any of this, the opponent played it about as well as he could have, and that the number of hits scored by Allies is about what can be expected barring very low probability outcomes.

A few transports get sacrificed in DEI on J3, which is compensated for by the additional transport builds on J2 which you can see in the SZ6 at the end of these turns. The transports in the Phillipines can pick up the units from the other islands and take them to Burma or Shan or recapture an island as needed, and the new transports go to Phillipines to pick up the units left there, which maintains the level of threat.

SubmersedElk

One more note, in case anyone was wondering…

UK can stack Burma on UK1 and then combine-and-hold with China on Yunnan on UK2. The problem with that is that UK makes only 6 income on UK2 and then can’t hold India from the direct amphibious threat from all those transports. The Japan response to this maneuver would be to move all the transports and their loads to Malaya and hit India on J4, while holding off on building the IC in FIC. UK/ANZAC cannot put enough units to stop 6 transports plus air plus bombard shots so that gives Japan a 100% attack on India for J4 that can’t be countered. In this scenario Japan would have a little bit more trouble in China but UK Pac is dead earlier and Japan has the use of that IC instead of the one in FIC. Japan can then build new loaded transports to clean up the Yunnan stack; staging in FIC is immune from a Chinese counter, UK doesn’t have enough units to attack, and US/ANZAC help is too far away to get there in time.

teslas

There’s still no reason to not do J1 that I’ve read (but I’ve not seen your screenshots). The points have been presented before in several threads, and if nobody else does it or finds links, I’ll maybe get around to doing it on a lunch break or something soon.

You can do basically everything you want to do on J2 on J1 with only slightly higher risk, with no net gain for the US, with significantly higher loss for UK Pac, and with a slight increase in your Japanese income. The only downsides are 1: America can go full Atlantic 1 turn earlier (great to see for Japan!), and 2: ANZAC makes 5 more IPCs for one turn. But I am going to have to stop there, bed time.

Or, maybe, you show me something I haven’t seen before and blow my mind. Here’s hoping.

SubmersedElk

Part of the equation is that I see the UK battleship as being perhaps the least useful unit, PU for PU, on the whole board. I do not view it as being even close to the equivalent of the US getting +20 to spend.

Another part is that you get free kills on UK and ANZAC transports when they inevitably go for Sumatra and Java in round 1, and that is a huge benefit to Japan. UK can’t replace its transport and ANZAC takes two turns minimum to do so. You often get a free destroyer kill where the battleship used to be, and you can absorb it with your BB - which gets repaired by the harbor right away - instead of risking the loss of a cruiser.

An additional factor is that having the position in Malaya on the first turn Japan is at war makes DD blocking in DEI impossible, and thus makes them easier to capture and hold.

Then there is also the risk of a successful China/UK combine in Yunnan which can be a serious problem for Japan. This can really only be prevented by having threat on Burma on the turn in which Japan goes to war. In the J1 scenario that threat can be completely nullified by a single ship left off Malaya. If you look at the prototypical J1 outcome http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=26960.0;attach=172410;image Japan has 2 land units that can reach Yunnan, against a potential stack of 13inf/2ftr/1tac for China/UK plus a backup UK stack in Burma ready to reinforce. Japan CAN wipe this out… at the average cost of a third of its air force, with some potentially catastrophic outcomes in that mix - while not being able to take the territory and facing yet another Chinese/UK stack of 17 units the next round. This is a great way for Allies to wipe out Japanese starting land and air forces, which can make China a serious problem moving forward and greatly weakens the ability to defend against the US. So what if India dies? They die anyway at even lower odds later on, if they can weaken Japan that much they have done their job. Now US is full-building Pac and Russia has every incentive to join in the party, and Japan is without much of the material they require to hold off these threats - and don’t yet have the income to take them all on.

So no, I do not at all like the potential outcomes of the J1 - there are some really really bad scenarios in there, whereas there are none at all in the super-safe J2 alternative. Allies have decent responses to J1. They don’t have ANY good responses to my version of J2.

I would also turn the question around and ask: what additional benefit is gotten by attacking on J1? By the end of J3, which situation is better for Japan, a typical outcome of a J1 attack (which comes with risk), or the situation in the J3done screenshot (which comes with almost no risk)?

If you can show me an outcome from a J1 attack which is better than the outcome from the J2 under discussion, I’d be happy to look at it. Take a screenshot from a save and show me the alternative for the J1 case.

Private-Panic

@SubmersedElk:

@Private:

Being on the edge of losing to wittman, who had a 13 bid as allies, I wonder what allied bid you feel would effectively counter the strategy you lay out? My understanding is that experienced players believe axis to have a significant advantage without such a bid.

That’s my question as well. I don’t even know if an effective counter strategy can be pulled off by Allies without serious mistakes made by the Axis player. That’s one concern I have had about G40 for quite some time and it has yet to be demonstrated to me that the Allies are viable on this map. If someone does pull it off, I would very very much like to know how.

Took a look at the League board pp 1&2 - bids vary between 12 and 28, averaging 20.5. wittman is offering me 18. Mmm!

teslas

K, summary time. This is super quick and dirty as I stuff my face during my lunch break. I very well may have forgotten something.

I assume you’re familiar with the “standard” J1. The user here, Cow, may not have invented the concept (or maybe he did), but he definitely popularized it.

Further assumptions:
-All players are of equal skill, and that the game will take place at an advanced or higher level of play.
-Russia does not stack Amur. (If they do (they won’t), you should take this gift.)
-If Russia fully stacks Buryatia (and doesn’t send 6 inf to Yakut), you understand the slightly increased risk of doing J1.

America:

On the Philippines, you kill a US destroyer/submarine that could have escaped, as well as a fighter. You have a 99%++ chance to win the fight.

I don’t like the hard IPC metric, but in this instance it’s entirely accurate. You are killing 6+8+10 = 24 IPCs of very mobile units that would have otherwise survived and would have been directly and immediately involved in the Pacific theater. Instead of collecting 52, America collects 70, for an increase of +18. (72 if they take Brazil for +20).

The loss of a land unit on the Philippines can be taken from Paulau. Losing two ground units isn’t optimal, but is still fine. If you get very unlucky, and hit that less than 8% chance, and lose three ground units, then that’s not fun for J2.

In the instance of losing three ground units, you must choose 1: to lose a plane instead, or 2: You’ll likely be taking Malaya J2 and the (rest of) the money islands J3 in that instance, but it’s sometimes possible to still take all of the money islands.

Pros:

1: You have actually removed 4 IPCs from America’s Pacific effort by doing J1, not added anything to it.

Cons:

1: America now has a major factory to build with in the Pacific, so can place more than three boats in the water. This is not a major difference. America usually builds at least one expensive unit on A1 anyway. The only time this would matter much is if they build six destroyers or 8 submarines or something (which is likely non-optimal).

2: America could decide to mess with Europe a bit. This is great for Japan. This is not great for Germany, but by your own admission Germany is likely able to handle this, and we’re speaking entirely about Japan here.

3: ~8% chance to either lose a plane, or to potentially reduce J3 income by 9-16 (somewhat mitigated by ANZAC’s income going down by 5).

United Kingdom:

J1 trounces the p�ss out of the poor brits.

I would disagree that the BB is the least valuable unit in the game. Indeed, it’s not useful in most games the first couple of turns, but any decent British person, if they can keep it, will be using it effectively on or before UK 4. Whether that’s in the med, or doing a suicide ram into your fleet before ANZAC does the same, it’s a damn battleship, and it is very useful. Sending the cruiser down to hit the BB is a 66% chance to lose the cruiser. 33% chance to keep it. If you do keep it, the brits can decide to put planes and a destroyer out of place to kill it, which is great for Japan. Britain never does this. That cruiser can then potentially convoy Malaya. Losing the cruiser hurts, no doubt, especially since you’ll likely be doing some bombardments and gimungous naval battles later, but you still have three other bombarding units, and I’d argue it’s totally worth the cruiser to sink the battleship. The reduction of variables in the game helps the Axis. When you add in the 1/3 chance of the cruiser surviving (actually very slightly less but let’s not get too deep into probability), which is a god damned fantastic boon, the move is fully justified in my opinion.

The Kwangtung fight is the most painful one, because there is the 11% chance to lose both of your ground units. In this case, I’d argue it’s better to lose a plane (which can be replaced quickly at any point later on since it’s flying in) because that also robs UK Pac of 8 IPCS (3 + NO). Either way, you can stand the loss of one plane at this stage of the game, especially if it’s only an 11% chance.

You can still lightly threaten Calcutta on J3, forcing a destroyer block (which you kill with a great ratio), or forcing them to reduce aid to China. You can have a serious J4 threat against Calcutta, which then adds enough pressure to turtle them up.

There are a lot of variables about the UK’s pacific transport. Do they go for Sumatra? Dutch New Guinea? Stack on Java? Persia? Iraq? Something else weird? All I can say about this is, is see my comments on the ANZAC transport below. Your arguments for J2 being better at handling this transport are flawed.

Pros:

-UK Pac’s economy is immediately reduced to only 10 + a money island if they choose to lose the transport to take one (which I’d argue is non-optimal). There’s also a 16.6% chance that you convoy them in SZ 37.
-A BB is destroyed, reducing the UK Pac’s navy’s effectiveness by half, and saving the Med. Axis or Japan grief later on.

Cons:

-Japan has a ~2/3 chance to lose a cruiser.
-Japan has a 11% chance to lose a fighter in Kwangtung.

ANZAC:

Anzac has the most to gain from this. They will make their 10 + 5 from the Malaya NO + another 4 or 5 more, depending on what they want to do, for 19 or 20 IPCs. (Britain could have also gotten Dutch New Guinea for them, meaning 24 IPCs, but that’s at a loss of a british transport).

J1 is definitely worse than J2/J3 if your goal is to take Sydney, but let’s be honest, nobody really ever guns for an early Sydney against non-stupid Allied players. There’s too much wealth to be had in China/the money islands. Easily shutting down Calcutta’s income to 5 - convoys helps both sides of the map immediately. These things are easily argued to be more advantageous than a very complex J4/J5 Sydney.

ANZAC is very possibly going to lose that transport to annoy you whether you do J1 or J2. If you do J1 and they don’t move it out to claim anything, it’s also not doing anything useful. Your claiming you get to kill the ANZAC transport where you otherwise may not and that this is a completely positive thing exclusive to J2 is a fallacious statement.

China:

China is in a stronger position than it might otherwise be, but not by a great amount. You mention them stacking Yunan, which is a major fear of yours. Yeah, that kinda sucks, but that’s not that bad. You can bring up a couple of infantry to defend your plane stack on Kwangsi. They won’t attack it, and if they do: good. Wasting 80% of the Chinese land units at this stage in the game is a dozen nails in their coffin. Is your progress in China slowed for a couple of turns? Potentially yes. When the Japanese ground forces move south a bit more, by J4/J5, China is in full retreat, having never made any real progress. Without Russian aid, China is dead or crippled, with only a momentary hiccup in the process coming when Japan must fight an American fleet or take Calcutta. Also see my comments below in Japan’s section.

Japan:

You now own FIC. You can place a mIC there one turn earlier. You now own Kwangsi, where you can also optionally place a mIC there one turn earlier. These can produce 6 land units (mechs, likely) to nail China, or to refill your transports on their way to wherever.

You now own the Philippines, which is a fantastic staging point for J2.

Instead of gaining +14 over your original income (Trading with America NO + 4 in China), you gain +14 or +15 (3 or 4 in China, +FIC, +Borneo, +Philippines, +Kwangtugn) so either it’s the same or better.

You are still in position to take the money islands on J2 unless ANZAC/UK has done something screwy with their planes/transports. However, if they do that, then you’re now able to kill their planes/transports. It’s a win/win situation. They could have done something equally as screwy whether you did J2 or J1, mind you, so this doesn’t really even matter.

You have an 11% chance and an 8% chance to lose a plane. You have a lot of planes. Come on. And while losing both would kinda suck, there’s only a ~1% chance of that.

You hurt the allies more or no less by doing J1 instead of J2. Inarguable. Your situation as Japan is either stronger doing J1 than J2, or the same, unless you get truly terrible probability. J2 reduces this probabilistic self-fucking, but a very tiny amount made even less isn’t really all that noticable. It’s like being stranded in the middle of, then drowning in, Lake Superior vs. the Indian Ocean. Apart from the saltwater stinging your eyes a bit as you gulp in your final, deadly breath (drink?), what’s the damn difference?

_edit-

And finally, there’s one more thing I like about J1 that has no place in a mechanical discussion, but I feel is worth mentioning as a footnote. When playing at a table of real people, getting the guy playing America into the fight sooner is a bit more fun for him._

Shin-Ji

Yea, this is a solid strategy. I use a variation of it myself lately, and it’s working out pretty well for me. I feel like the most important part is deciding what to buy as Germany. I tend to forgo the carrier in round 1, building only 6 Art, 2 Inf instead. Realistically, no one takes the sealion threat seriously anyway, so why bother?

Another fun side effect of this is that I often see my opponents leave Britain nearly undefended. And I let them think that’s safe, until I pull a round 6-8 sealion out of my hat. Fun stuff. But situational.

So I continue building mostly Art and Inf in rounds 2, 3, and 4. Then build fast movers for rounds 5 and 6. Of course, you’re also building in the Russian factories during all this, but that’s pretty intuitive.

By round 7, you’re building mostly bombers. At this point, you’re almost unstoppable.

SubmersedElk

@teslas - I really view the Japanese cruiser as a more valuable unit than the UK battleship - in my experience the BB is usually hanging out in the Indian Ocean for the first half of the game or just a non-vital part of a mixed Allied Pac stack in the Pacific acting like a turtled unit. At best it maybe gets an amphibious shot in Africa around UK4 or so, but it’s never really in the thick of things and takes a long time to be put to use. Meanwhile that cruiser is making bombard shots every turn and is a vital part of the keeping the IJN southern fleet safe from counters, from the very first move.

Also all these scenarios where Japan is taking plane casualties instead of land casualties are bad ones, IMO - very costly, and Japan has a lot of demands on its income in the early game. I regularly go whole games without losing a single Japanese air unit, and the size of the Japanese air force is an important part of its threat/counter-threat projection as well as fleet protection.

I’m less concerned with where Japan stands after J1 or J2 as where it stands in on J4 or J5, is it robust enough to continue offensive operations when the US has a real naval threat in play?

What would be really helpful are screenshots or a saved game of a J1 scenario that I can compare to where things usually stand for me with the J2.

In other notes, some playtesting is showing that Allies can throw a wrench in the works by going all-out KJF including using Russian air and mobile units with a specific focus on Yunnan, and full-Pac US builds or nearly so aimed at SZ6 to draw Japanese ships and air from South Asia, but of course that comes at the price of giving Germany and even sometimes Italy terrific game opportunities.

Either way, the balance mod seems to be an absolute requirement for Allies to have a viable game, without the extra income especially for Russia it just can’t put enough units on the board where it needs them.

aequitas-et-veritas

@teslas:

I might also have a hard time understanding you based on your word choices and grammar as I have in some other posts, so forgive me there. (I’m not making fun of you by any means, I can barely speak just this one language, so anyone who can piddle about in two or more deserves respect.)

I’ll try to improve my grammar.
You are right. It is only a 2PU value territory.

What I meant is:
Adding Greece to Germany on G2 is saving the Italians the NO Bonus for I3.
Sometimes, Italy ends up having only 3 Ipc’s on I2.

I agree with you teslas, that in the run for moscow, the attack on Greece by Germany might not be much of a help if you need all available Units in Russia as SubmersedElk suggested in this Topic.

I was also interested in SubmersedElk view of an Russian Player who is going after Finnland, but this question is allready answered now.

teslas

I have two games on these boards where I’ve J1’d. Sadly, neither is a great example because in one, the opponent wasn’t super good, and in the other, he went heavy Atlantic.

This is the more recent one, still ongoing:

Houserule: +14 IPCs/turn (including initial 52->66) for USA
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=36657.0

I’ll J1 some more and post them here in the future, I promise :p

SubmersedElk

That’s a little hard to follow, but I have a quick related question: If you were playing Allies and had the option to alter the setup, removing the UK BB in SZ37 in exchange for an extra US cruiser in SZ10 or SZ101, would you do it?

teslas

SZ 101 doesn’t need it, and if I had it, it would often just sail right on through the panama canal on US 1 anyway, so it may just as well go to SZ 10 or nowhere at all. (A destroyer might be a different story since that could be used to kill a German sub US1 if on a J1 DoW.)

SZ 10, that’s somewhat tempting. I don’t know for certain, actually.

SubmersedElk

In chess, pieces are considered to have relative values in the general case: Queen 9 (or 10), Rook 5, Knight/Bishop 3, Pawn 1.

However, any given piece can have a value much more or less than its nominal value; a passed pawn is worth far more than the average pawn, a knight posted in the center is worth much more than one posted on the edge of the board, a queen exposed to attack is worth less than one not so exposed, and so on. Also reflected in the relative values is the value of time; a piece that requires two moves to get into an effective position is worth less than one that is one move away, which is worth less than one already posted optimally.

Likewise, units in A&A have nominal values, reflected in the purchase price; but they also have relative value based on position as well.

In the case of the UK BB in SZ37, it has nearly as low a positional value as a BB can possibly have. BBs are most effective as part of a defensible fleet in a location where threat can be projected or the enemy is projecting threat. The UK BB in question cannot easily join with such a fleet and cannot project any serious threat, so its positional value is negligible; and because it is so far from joining with the rest of the UK fleet it scores very poorly on the time value as well. It can actually have negative real value if the UK spends cash or other units to protect its nominal value while it is not in a position to be actually useful in combat.

Contrast this to the hypothetical US cruiser tradeoff. The cruiser is nominally worth only 60% of the BB, but positioned in SZ10 it is already combined with the US fleet and is one move away from projecting threat from an important location. So even though the nominal value is much less, I’d assert the positional value makes it more valuable.

Likewise this is my view of the Japanese cruiser vs. the UK BB. I can use that cruiser to great effect from the beginning of the game until the end. It is immediately useful, it is immediately firing its bombards or improving odds in sea battles, it is immediately protecting other assets of value. Same goes for Japanese air, they are projecting threat from the very first move and barring a mistake they are always in good position.

I would argue that taking out a cruiser in J1 is close to the maximum value that particular BB can provide, barring a very long 15+ round game where it is constantly protecting a valuable fleet and/or firing bombard shots for most of that time. Even the Atlantic BBs get shots at useful German units right away, something that cannot be said for the SZ37 one.

This leads me to the conclusion that the ability to kill off that BB in J1 should be assigned a very low overall value, one much less than its nominal 20 cost - and that trading it for 20 US income on turn 1 is a good trade for Allies and bad for Axis. 20 US income is two extra fighters which can be far more useful than that UK BB can ever be, especially when those fighters can be used to project threat into SZ6 as early as US2. That is a nearly immediate downside to J1 that doesn’t occur in the J2.

ColonelCarter

Can’t the British BB sail to Queensland Rd1, becoming an important backbone of the Allied navy when trying to advance on Japan? It’s only out of position Rd1, which is why killing it is such a boon. Not to mention you already kill more that 20 IPCs of immediate US units that can’t be back in the fight until Rd 3/4 (collect extra Rd1, spend it Rd2, planes can reach SZ6 Rd3 [although you might not have extra carrier space for them], ships can do something Rd4)

Also, you talk a lot about the bombard value of Battleships/Cruisers. How often do you find yourself actually using these? You can’t bombard in island trades because they’ll just die to air counterattacks, which is what most of the transports in the Pac are used for.

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