Converting to KJF

@oysteilo After youve built as many carriers as you can fill with the starting planes, I think it might be best to play defensively with the navy, and focus 100% on land.

The US will overcome the Japanese at some point, so that will result in the loss of the DEI, and convoy raiding of your coastal territories. If you’ve got all of China under control, that’s 12 IPCs that cant be taken away, and if you grab the russian territories, that another 5-7 IPCs that are guaranteed. If you combine that with the occasional lucky convoy rolls, youve got like 30 IPCs per round to work on breaking India, or infantry on japan. Or just solidifying controll over the stuff you have making it harder and harder for the allies to make progress

I agree with Simon’s conclusion that Moscow falls G6. No need for Sea lion after UK1 DOW on Japan. This game is going to end very badly for the Allies unless the Axis player is very weak. Play some tougher competition!

Thanks for the replies everyone.

As it happens, there was some confusion about when the planes actually landed, so it turns out both my opponent and I were correct in a sense.

The UK planes actually landed on Greece during Italy’s turn after an adjacent UK carrier was damaged, so the move was legal after all.

My bad for incorrectly believing the planes landed on Greece during the UK turn, and neither of us realized what the other was talking about.  :-D

Good to see our fellow AAAers always ready to help out with good answers, though, so thanks again all.  :-)

Ok So first priority is to prevent any German Sealion Attacks. For this you would build Infantry and a few fighters.

You should have about 25-30 income so a Fighter and 6 inf isn’t out of the question.

Once you have secured you home island its time to consider offensive operations.

A good idea is to reinforce Africa ASAP. If you have managed to grab Persia or secure Egypt a factory here is a good way to boost India’s Defenses or annoy Italy.

Amphibious operations against France or Norway can also be considered but this will require many turns investment in fleet building or else the ships will be sunk as quickly as they are built. Typically a decent fleet will need carriers, destroyers and subs to protect the transports.

Typical build might be (

tank + Mech + Inf = 13 (for S-AFRICA)
Plane (str  ftr or tac) 10 - 12
1-2 inf to round out purchases

After about turn 5 you will see which way game is going (based on uS pacific v Atlantic focus) Then you can turn your attention to helping India or reinforcing US moves in Europe.

@Ichabod:

From my perspective when playing Axis…

From my perspective, the Jedi are evil… oh wait… wrong thread…  :-P

I start with a purchase of 3 CVs for the US.  You can get planes to fill them up later on.  It is nice to stack a bunch of fighters in Midway.  If the Japanese are careless, your planes can hit SZ 6 and then land on the carrier group in CZ7.  It doesn’t happen often, but is beautiful when you can pull off that raid.

On turn 2, I transition to subs and fighters as the primary way to damage their fleet.  You can also convoy raid their economy to bits if you can get a few subs into the appropriate sea locations.

Afterwards, I do mostly subs plus a destroyer.  Depending on the Japanese spending and success against China, I transition to the European side.

@MajorJuggler:

You need to understand probability and statistics to comprehensively answer this question. As a point of reference, I covered the prerequesite material around the 3rd year of my undergraduate engineering degree, so the call for “Math Geeks” is well titled here. :-)

Geee I surely do wish I had me an education too so’s I could know them things  :roll:

@knp7765:

<snip>However, if we end up forcing USA to split their involvement over both theaters, which seems to me to be a losing proposition nearly every time, aren’t you then imbalancing the game toward the Axis?</snip>

I don’t think it is a loosing proposition nearly every time, so I disagree with your premise.
It’s a game opener more than anything else. Remember originally - the stand alone games were balanced with a half USA in each. If you then combine the boards and throw the USA into one side of the conflict, you’re effectively putting two countries into one side. And the other allies basically just need to avoid loosing, and the game is won. India doesn’t need to win the game, they just need to not loose. Russia doesn’t need to win, they just need to slow down the axis enough. And so on.

I don’t see many other viable choices to a balancing act upon USA to be frank.
By buffing/nerfing the other axis/allies you’re effectively removing strategy and closing options by making alternatives too easy. If it becomes easier to take Russia by Germany/Italy for example - nobody will go Sealion. Strategy removed and game made more narrow.
By giving USA a clear incentive to split attention somewhat (I’m not saying 50/50 product limit or something) you open up the game and provide the chance for more strategies. If the USA can’t dump 2 battleships, 1 crusier and plans into the Pacific each round at war without loosing something on the Atlantic side - it will provide more possible strategies for the game overall.
A clear benefit as I see it.

Tweaking the USA is a win/win in my opinion. It makes the game more balanced and it will provide more choice for how to play. All other options as I see it might balance the game, but will remove choices.