Possible Glitch - "Sub Vortex"

Some time ago, I wrote a thread addressing a situation where another player was upselling their G1 6 tank line, arguing G1 Ukr was this great cool thing. Which, let’s face it, on some level I agree that 1942 Online meta Axis players are way too timid and uncoordinated. I think advocacy of aggression is good for the meta.

But I stated that playing G1 Ukr hold blind, ignoring dice outcomes and R1 action, was questionable, and further that I thought the proponent of the line had ignored R2 Ukr strafe (attack with intent to retreat).

One thing I remember from Discord is, after I said G1 6 tank buy does not necessarily require G1 Ukr hold, that I was ridiculed.

So I thought, you know, though I’ve spoken to various timings before, I’ve never really chained together what I’ve written into addressing the G3 W Rus line.

So here we go, it’s popcorn time!

THE BACKGROUND

Some months later, I was having a civil discussion with some other players on Discord about US1 bomber use; there were a few different participants, some points were made that I disagreed with, but nevertheless.

I wrote that I thought US1 bombers were not “correct” in any circumstance I would expect, that US1 transports reach Finland/France on US3, those transports threatening Karelia/Berlin/France on US4, and that US2 bombers (at the earliest) made for a pseudotiming - which is not to say, a specific line of play, but a confluence of factors that can be combined with other conditions to possibly arrive at something useful.

This was civilly questioned by another Discord poster. I thought they were civil and brought up coherent points, so I proposed a game - not as any sort of competitive match, or to prove or disprove any points with finality, but to possibly serve as illustrative context which, over repeated games, might form the basis for further analysis and discussion. Which maybe I didn’t say so much at the time, but at any rate we agreed to play.

I decided to take the G3 W Rus line, as I hadn’t used it in a while, and I thought fast pressure would highlight what I saw as questionable in the US1 bomber x 1 purchase line. My purpose, not to say that a US1 bomber is useless (it is not), but to more sharply define the terms; to show that a claim an entirely other player made that the US1 bombers should not be expected to bomb might not apply in practice - you get the idea.

THE POINT INTENDED TO BE ILLUSTRATED

US1 purchased bomber threatens France, Berlin, Karelia on US3. If the US1 East US fleet is left alone, it can drop to those territories on US3. But in practice, I think the Axis can counterpressure, discouraging the Allies from advancing their fleet.

HOW THIS WAS INTENDED TO BE DONE

Again, the framework was G3 W Rus line, specifically off G1 tank purchase, G2 air purchase, combining to pressure W Rus on G3.

Shifting G’s main stack to W Rus leaves Karelia vulnerable. However, G’s air force combined with J’s airforce moved to Ukraine on J2, counterpressure any fast Allied landings on Karelia. It is not desired that G bleed its stack, as G is the major Axis stack controller that is best suited to hitting a combined Allied defensive stack on Moscow. However, with both G and J in position, with the Allies still building their Atlantic fleet up, with G having some G2 air purchase to effectively take fewer casualties against possible attack against Atlantic fleet, the position is considered to work out all right.

Hello. i have been playing A&A since about 1990 and my 11 years old son is now actively playing the original version and the Pacific version.

Recently we purchased the online version on Steam and that is what my question is about.

Is there a way to set the level of the computer players differently? At the moment the level of difficulty is too high. It would be great if there is a way to lower it as a confidence boost.

Thanks!

@ManuC23
Maybe hop on the Discord (not officially supported but eh)

https://discord.gg/UYUpgeQW

ask around, find players you like to play with.

@JuliusBorisovBeamdog Hello, I would like to merge the following A&A online profiles: Janet Reno #6246 and Sydneyplatypus #4837. I would like the Sydneyplatypus account to be the one that survives. Would you be able to help with this? Thanks!

I find this new thing which is steadily increasing…which is i open the list of potential games in multiplayer ( not ranked) and lets say the list shows 6 games…I can only enter 2 of them, the other 4 are “blocked in a sense” you click and nothing happens…is their some new thing we need to do like update the game? And i cant believe for a second that only 6 games in total around the earth are being played…what gives?

Thank you! I found it and was able to create a new Defense Profile that submerges subs!

One problem with the casualty choice concept is a sub overwhelm. If the enemy has enough subs, and you lose all your destroyers first, and any subs survive the first rounds of combat, the attacking player can retain those. In a normal casualty choice, the last destroyer would not be lost until most or all of the enemy subs were destroyed.

This puts the defender at a disadvantage and alters the dynamics of the offense vs the defense. It forces japan and the atlantic allies to modify the way they defend because they have to set up to make their own overwhelming attack before the sub stack can attack.

Of course the defending ships on the sea will be able to fight back against the subs, if they survive the intial attack. But the planes wont–and the retention of the fighters + 1 DD in the later rounds of combat is one of the most powerful defensive combinations. If you’re out in the open sea, they can also exploit this dynamic to crash all your fighters, having first striked your carriers out from underneath you.

There aren’t any easy fixes to this problem, because its not only an issue with losing lower value units first. I want to lose all my defensive subs, then all my defensive dd except 1, then move on to losing better stuff.

I suppose there could be a checkbox or default to “lose all dd 2nd (after defending subs), except 1, until I’ve lost all my air, or the enemy has lost all their subs”

As others have pointed out, the changes made to facilitate async play may at first seem to have a small effect, and they would have a different effect on differerent versions of the game because the rules for subs and destroyers change. But the order of casualties issue obviously causes a major departure from the normal game dynamics, in all versions.