Try your strategies out in the league

I view the essays as para-historical entertainment from someone who contemplates the board waiting to find an opponent.

Welcome to the forum and try the game online. It’s much more interesting than writing and speculating about the game. :wink:

True, threatening Sealion is strong German play, but as Young Grasshopper himself has said, many British players do not fear it much these days, so you might as well hit Russia hard, right from the start, and get the killing blow(in my strategic opinion).
Thanks and God Bless You All from AxisandAlliesGeneral

If Japan does a great J1 DOW on W.Allies,  ie:loses just 1-2 inf… ,

how should US respond? It’s first 2-3  rounds of buy?
And UK India? Should it keep its FTRS or send them to the Med?

Germany: Help Italy get to Egypt. Punch USSR in the face hard and grab factory territories. Use planes to keep UK from landing. Keep USSR on its toes until Italy and Japan open up extra fronts against the USSR.

Italy: Keep allies out of Mediterranean. Punch through into the middle east. Build factories in the middle east. Start a front from the south of USSR. Help Japan take India, sometimes.

Japan: Grab the DEI. Keep steady progress against China. Build factories on the mainland to funnel tanks into India. Use planes to stall US and ANZAC naval advances. Use your fleet on the offense very sparingly, it’s often more useful to keep your fleet in strongly defended positions and to threaten your opponent with it rather than commit to using it.

USSR: Build a catapult to throw men at the problem. Rifles optional. But seriously, stall the German advance with infantry. Gobs of infantry. You don’t necessarily want to win, you want to live long enough for the US and UK to save you. When the Germans start having to spread themselves thin, break through into Europe.

UK: Try to loose as slowly as you can in the pacific. Hold on to Egypt but don’t break the bank doing so. Get control of the Atlantic and the channel. Keep enough of a navy to defend against air raids. Then, use your navy in the channel as a bridge from England to Normandy (or elsewhere in Europe, Holland and Norway being good targets). Keep dropping men. Make the Germans fight a two front war. Hope ANZAC and US save you in the pacific.

USA: In Europe build lots of transports to funnel men to North Africa and Europe. Make sure you can survive German sub and air attacks on your transports by defending them. Using the UK fleet and UK airbases as cover for your navy can be helpful. In the Pacific, your basic goal is to pee aircraft carriers. Spray the Pacific with carriers like a dog marking it’s territory. Obviously not only carries, but they are much more cost effective than battleships as capital ships. You want to force the Japanese to commit to a naval battle then leave their navy on the bottom of the ocean. You can afford losses to your navy in a way they can’t. If you can get the Japanese fleet in range of an island with a lot of planes, that’s even better, planes are more cost effective in combat than ships. The Philippines and DEI are important targets. Take everything of value in the south pacific. Then, start landings in southeast Asia along with islands close to Japan like Iwo Jima. Strat bomb the living daylights out of them. Make sure the Japanese are too poor to even consider rebuilding a navy.

China: Die very slowly. Keep the burma road open when practical. Avoid big battles when practical. Keep the Japanese out of the USSR by being a thorn in their side. Make sure if you group your troops together there are enough to survive a big attack. The last thing you want is to huddle too closely together if the Japanese can win an attack against that stack, since you’ve lost everything at that point.

France: Use your troops in Africa to help Egypt live. Use your scattered fleet to try to harass Italy and Japan. Sailing the ship on the east coast of Africa to India is sometimes a good idea. If ever liberated, help push into Rome and Berlin.

ANZAC: Build a factory in Queensland.  Ensure you have your objective for the islands. Then, build a navy and try to land troops in the Philippines and DEI. You can move a transport from Queensland to Malay in a single move. Take advantage of that.

The are two plans at work here.

The strict neutral strategy should not work against a good player because of all the extra infantry (18+) that the Allies get. But those infantry take a while to get into battle. The troops is South America take at least a few turns to get into the fight if there are no transports handy in the Atlantic. It may even be a turn or two before all the extra income comes on line for the Allies as well. And the Axis get to decide when to attack the neutrals, so they have initiative. I have never seen the Allies attack strict neutrals.

As far a turn 1 attack by Japan on the U.S. - Japan can defend Hawaii and the DEI for a least a few turns from the Western Allies and the Americans. Japan can build a Aircraft Carrier turn 1 with a Transport. Attack Midway turn 1 with Infantry and Artillery. Attack American Fleet around Hawaii with 3 Fighters, 3 Tactical Bombers, 2 Bombers, and 1 Destroyer and 1 Submarine on J1. Turn 2 attack Hawaii with 2 Infantry, 2 Artillery, 3 Fighters and 3 Tactical Bombers. If any Destroyer or Submarine survived the turn 1 Assault on the sea zone around Hawaii they can help defend the fleet from the scrambling aircraft at Hawaii, or defend any American Assault on U.S. 2. There should be 4 Aircraft Carriers with planes and 0-3 support craft (Destroyers and Submarines). This should be more than enough to hold off American attack for a few turns. If there are any losses on the aircraft on any of the battles fly new planes to land on the Aircraft Carriers in the non-combat movement phase. The rest of the Japanese fleet, 2 transports, 2 Battleships, 2 Cruisers, 1 Destroyer and 1 Submarine can take Philippines turn 1 and can take Malaya turn 2. It can move on to capture the islands on turn 3 and later. Once the Philippines are taken, planes can be flown from China to cover the fleet at an airbase. The Japanese have enough fleet to match the British, Anzac and the Americans for at least a few turns. Japan does not have enough resources to fight China too while this is happening. So the Chinese will start producing 18 + income a turn and dominate the mainland. But this is the strategic problem Japan has always had. It has the initiative and not enough resources. IF you have to choose which Ally gets more money, choose the Chinese, as they cant leave China (except for Hong Kong and Burma).

All I ever see the Japanese do is build for a few turn or two, attack China turn 1 and 2, and then fight a traditional war against the DEI and try to hold on…

@TheWarNoob:

So I get the overall concept of what I am supposed to do, but what about specific unit strategies. What I like to do is:

G1 is buys 3 subs and a minor IC for Romania, and then move as many units as possible towards the Russia front, primarily in the south.

After that I try to dedicate at least 47 IPCs each turn to Russia, in the form of 5 infantry and 5 artillery to be placed in Germany, and then 3 artillery or infantry in Romania. What ever I have left I try to use to defend the west.

Once I take the factories in Ukraine and Novgorod, I build 3 tanks there every turn. I don’t ever bring Italians in Russia unless they do well in Africa and can come through Iraq.

Is this a sound strategy, or do I need to change it somehow? Any critique is very much appreciated.

With the new convoy disruption rules, it might be wise to purchase an aircraft carrier instead of submarines. Still buy the factory, but station fighters on the AC and move into seazone 109. This will be more effective, especially if you keep the battleship and cruiser alive.

Oh, and the cruiser is left in SZ 97, so if you also drop Inf.Arm in Greece, the Italians don’t have the power to kill them!

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.