@DoManMacgee it’s Axis and Allies online. Allies rarely win and then only if the other player is clueless. The point of going to India is with the strafe and retreat, I can bring the sub, loaded transport and Destroyer up from Australia, with the retreat, along with usually killing a Japanese fighter. I buy 3 items for India, one plane to replace the one lost, and 2 ships. If Germany has a transport in range I wouldn’t do this, unless it’s easily destroyed.
@theskeindhu AAO has both setups. Ranked is LHTR-only, but you can play OOB and LHTR in free-play.
I am currently like #5 in Gold League with Allies, and ~8-2 (admittedly, I’ve only fought like 3 competent Axis Players, beat 2 of them lost to 1. The second loss I have is because I lost the West Russia fight R1 and ragequit rather than play the game out). Allies can win quite comfortably in LHTR if you know what you’re doing and don’t get diced.
Under LHTR, you might as well just stay in and kill the entire DEI Fleet. You have pretty good odds at achieving this if you killed Ukraine R1 and Germany failed to take Egypt G1 (they usually do. The most common opening I’ve seen is an ampib against Trans-Jordan).
FYI, the Australia navy has a CR in it IIRC, not a DD.
Calcs:
Best Case Scenario:
2 FTR (1 from Egypt + 1 from India fleet)/1 CV/2 CR/1 SUB Vs. 1BB/1 CV/2 FTR
A. survives: 55.1% D. survives: 43.3%
Good enough odds to pursue.
Assuming Germany gets Egypt G1:
1FTR/1 CV/2 CR/1 SUB Vs. 1BB/1 CV/2 FTR
A. survives: 24.4% D. survives: 75.7%
You lose everything but Japan only keeps a FTR/BB on average, assuming they didn’t stick with the (atrocious) default casualty profile, in which case they’ll take the CV after the FTRs, which often times leads to UK winning/drawing.
Strafing the SZ37 Fleet isn’t worth it, IMO. Whatever survives the attack will run off to join the rest of the IJN and from that point on you have 0 chance of killing it until late game.
EDIT: There isn’t a second UK SUB in the Pacific, even under LHTR. Bad on me. Changed the Calc to reflect that.
What calc are you using? Is there an app? I’ve run it 5 straight times and the worst is getting 3 hits. Average puts me at a sub, 3 cruisers a loaded transport and a full carrier. After placing units. That’s quite a bit of firepower for units that would otherwise be running scared and split up. I’m at silver currently after playing too many games and not focusing after reaching gold. Many times it comes down to the first turn with Russia, which is rather lame. Best success has been in getting the USA to help UK fleet to survive then getting Japan in a fleet spending War with the USA while Britain storms and irritates Germany. Issue is that Africa is too far from any routes and to spend any focus there detracts from getting boots on the ground in Germany. Still trying to work that out.
@theskeindhu said in UK opening:
What calc are you using? Is there an app?
No app that I know of. I’m just using the Calc hosted by this site (http://calc.axisandallies.org/). Just set your settings to “All Rounds of Combat”, “10,000 Runs”, and “AA1942”). 10,000 simulated runs is certainly a high enough number for Monte-Carlo style Probability for this small of an event.
@theskeindhu said in UK opening:
I’ve run it 5 straight times and the worst is getting 3 hits. Average puts me at a sub, 3 cruisers a loaded transport and a full carrier. After placing units. That’s quite a bit of firepower for units that would otherwise be running scared and split up.
That’s fair, but as I alluded to before, I prefer just suicide-ing the UK fleet (I NCM the FTRs back to India if things get particularly terrible) and taking as many Japanese ships down with me as I can. I then use the USN to clean up later. I don’t bring the TT with me to DEI. I NCM it along the bottom of the map so it can move up to India/Africa B2 (assuming it survives). Even if it gets sunk by Japanese Air Power it means Japan wasted a FTR killing your TT instead of doing something more important (killing the US FTR in China, finishing off the UK Navy, etc.).
@theskeindhu said in UK opening:
I’m at silver currently after playing too many games and not focusing after reaching gold. Many times it comes down to the first turn with Russia, which is rather lame.
Agreed with the bit on R1 being overly important. I’ve been playing only 1 Axis game and 1 Allies game at a time and trying to finish them within 2-3 days by checking up on them frequently. IDK exactly how rankings are calculated but raw number of games played doesn’t seem to hold a ton of weight. Try slowing down and playing fewer games at once, it may help you grind your way back into Gold and beyond.
@theskeindhu said in UK opening:
Best success has been in getting the USA to help UK fleet to survive then getting Japan in a fleet spending War with the USA while Britain storms and irritates Germany. Issue is that Africa is too far from any routes and to spend any focus there detracts from getting boots on the ground in Germany. Still trying to work that out.
You’re not too far off what I do. Only difference is that I buy 1-2 loaded transports with USA and commit them to cleaning out Africa. The TTs usually get blown up by German air units, but the land units can usually clean up whatever German stragglers are left in Africa and then NCM their way over to India/Caucasus to help out. How do you play the drop game with UK in Europe? I find that prioritizing securing Scandinavia/diving on Baltic States/Karelia does more to put pressure on Germany than attacking France over and over again, IMO.
EDIT: Grammar/Spelling.
@DoManMacgee I usually drop on Norway and stack troops there, if the USA takes it, occasionally I’ll go industrial complex there. I think many of my last few losses were due to frustration and waiting too long to push with the UK. It’s so frustrating losing ships to a massive German Airforce. Plus, I’ve played a few very good Axis players lately. I definitely need to prioritize Africa, I’ll do that next time. Especially considering it’s like 13 ipcs and losing Russia is only 8 lol. Thanks for the calculator. I usually only strafe one time. For example, this game, I’m currently on, I did this. Japan sent everything to destroy me, and did. Leaving them with no bombers and 3 total fighters. They also left the USA Pacific fleet alone, so I promptly bought 2 CV and a fighter, leaving me an extremely strong position in the Pacific. The UK will go back to a German only focus and the USA starts Japan in a fleet War early. I like the results so far.
@theskeindhu Generally speaking (you never know with A&A, most games get pretty situational after the first turn or two), I don’t like an IC in Norway. I’d only do that if Moscow going down was a sure-fire thing and I needed to get land units into Russia ASAP. In 42SE Norway can only produce 2 Land Units at a time, which is abysmal and insufficient to make progress in Russia.
I like parking the UK Fleet in the Baltic Sea (SZ5) once it’s set up. Hitting Norway/Finland gets 3 IPC/round out of Germany’s hands, which means 1 less INF/ 1/2 less TANKs heading towards Moscow every round. Additionally, if you can hit Baltic States you mess with the flow of land units from Germany -> Russia. One typical path is Germany -> Karelia -> Moscow, so taking Baltic States, even with units intended to die, will provide some harassment for you.
If you get a lesser Axis Player, they may end up giving up Karelia without too much of a fight. If you can get Karelia and Baltic States in the same turn, USSR can drop 2 Land Units there on the following turn, which may help turn momentum against Germany.
Lastly, don’t get discouraged if Germany keeps sinking the UK Fleet (unless they’re not taking losses in the process). Any Air Units that Germany loses are basically irreplaceable due to Germany needing to commit 100% of its builds on killing Russia. However, if you’re really having problems, try loading up a Carrier as USA and sailing it towards one of the UK SZs. If you buy a navy on a UK Turn, a US CV within 2 spaces can NCM to whatever SZ the UK Fleet was placed in to bolster it against Germany’s Air Force. Something like:
UK Turn 1: Do whatever (buy a fleet to trade with German Air Forces/stack India)
USA Turn 1: Buy a US CV/2 FTRs
UK Turn 2: Do whatever (buy another fleet to trade with German Air Forces/stack India)
USA Turn 2: Move the CV/2 FTRs to a space where they’ll be in-range of UK for next turn (either the Africa SZ or the Canada one, don’t have a map in front of me so I forget the numbers). Don’t move near Africa if German Air Units would snipe you, obviously.
UK Turn 3: Drop a fleet that you intend to keep alive. Spawn all the naval units in the same SZ.
US Turn 3: Move the CV/2 FTRs to the SZ you spawned the UK Fleet.
Unless you messed up and Moscow already died, or unless Germany has literally been building Air Units all game (in which case Russia should be winning on the Eastern Front), Germany will not be able to break the combined US/UK Fleet you’ll end up with in this scenario without losing most if not all of their air force. At that point, you’ll be free to start building Transports with UK and landing wherever you please.
ONE LAST THING: If you’re building UK Naval Units to trade with Germany, put them in SZ7 (the one that’s just kind of a box to the Northwest of UK, not touching France/Northwestern Europe/Norway). That way, Germany can only hit you with Bombers, or FTRs based out of Norway/France (if Germany’s basing their FTRs in Norway/France, it means they’re mostly out of range of Russia, which makes life easier for them anyway). Only step up to the Baltic Sea or the English Channel SZs when you’re positive that Germany would lose if it tried engaging your fleet.
Yea, tracking. One more thing I’ve noticed. The Japanese fleet standoff is probably needed, but unless the other player is not paying attention, it’s nothing more than a distraction. Ultimately it takes too long to get into any kinda position to threaten and to actually take islands separated the fleet from reinforcements. I’ve gone right at their fleet with success, but even with destroying their fleet that late in the game, it’s still a careful dance to keep mine together and not get too extended and get picked off. On the plus side, they must be solely focused on me, not Moscow. The games I’ve lost lately, have usually involved heavy strategic bombing, and bomber use, this becomes incredibly frustrating with a country like Russia, or England, who barely have any money and facing chain bombers from Japan and Germany cannot do much in the way of offensive operations.
@DoManMacgee I had what I considered a brilliant move lol. Straight at their fleet, had them on the ropes, destroyed and took their Industrial hub in Manchuria. But they literally sent one man and all Airforce to destroy my little landing party, I briefly considered chaining fighters to defend from the USA, but realized that was pointless. The end result in my outmaneuvering their fleet, landlocking them and taking a key piece of terrain resulted in fuck all because I needed to keep outspending their massive Airforce to maintain my fleet.
The UK opening is garbage, tried and succeeded, but it’s does nothing other than distract ultimately leaving India weaker, though Japan is also much weaker as well…
@theskeindhu For the Pacific, what I like to do it bait out elements of the IJN by sending loaded transports at Borneo/DEI/Philippines on suicide missions. The TTs are going to die in all likelihood, but if the opponent overextends you can punish them for it, and if they lack TTs they won’t get the islands back right away, which gives you some healthy income/slows Japan down for a few turns. Even if they have TTs, you can usually sink them with your Carrier FTRs + 1-2 SUBs. This forces them to buy a few more TTs/spend effort cleaning up your SUBs, which distracts them from India/Moscow. Every small distraction helps. 1-2 INF can swing a battle’s odds dramatically in the favor of one side over the other.
