How do you respond as UK to this german first turn?

I don’t much like playing Revised with tech… basically it means the game revolves around whether you get the techs early on.  Like say if you tech for rockets with UK and get them on Round 1 then Axis is pretty much screwed, but if UK techs for several rounds and doesn’t get them then they fall way behind.  Not to mention the fact that heavy bombers are very unbalanced, particuarly if USA gets them.

The game plays out beautifully w/o tech–why screw it up by making game outcomes exclusively determined by luck?

I agree, the game is already favoring the Allies. A great bid for the Germans then seems fair to me.

There are numerous errors in the rule book that comes with the game.  You may want to check out Larry Harris Tournament Rules (which are available from a link on the main page of this website).

The only “opening fire” that repeats after the first round of combat is Submarine Sneak Attack.

BB Shore Bombardment and AA fire are limited to only opening fire of the first round of combat.

You definitely need the AC in a move to SZ3.  Otherwise UK can destroy you with just their AF.  If they have a BB to absorb damage, you could lose the Baltic Fleet potentially w/o loss to UK.

Yeah, I would add the capture of India, reinforcing German-held Caucasus, and recapture of Africa from the Allies, also capturing Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, other things like that. Those are pretty standard goals for KGF.

There’s three things I usually do with the American fleet at Pearl.

1.  Attack with sub, destroyer, fighters, bomber.  Sub and destroyer are fodder.  Fighters land on Jap carriers at the Solomons.  Bomber goes back to Japan.

2.  Ignore it, if I can destroy the entire UK navy in the Indian Ocean and ALSO kill off 6 Russian infantry at Burytia.

3.  Send everything.  I really don’t like this, because using the transport off Japan slows Japanese progress in Asia.

UK assets at India can be used for a few different purposes.  One is to recapture Anglo-Egypt.  Another is to reinforce the Pearl Harbor fleet while weakening the Jap fleet (UK sub and fighter vs Jap Solomon sub; UK fighter lands on US carrier).  Yet another is to poke at the Jap fleet and threaten more (UK fleet attacks Jap Kwangtung transport, UK fighter lands on Burytia with the 6 Russian infantry, UK bomber flies west, threatening UK attack on Jap navy next turn.

@Jennifer:

Leaving the second BB alone is bad for two reasons:

You gave England a capital warship that can bombard you at will.  That means two bombardments for the price of 1 infantry.  (6 IPC for 3?  That’s a good trade!) England is not out 16 IPC for a carrier to defender herself.

Don’t forget that the Allies don’t have to worry about keeping 1-2 Figs on the carrier giving them even more versatility

Mayhem, we too play with NAs. Actually we did two games in a row with all NAs. On the first game, Germany bought 1 AC and 3 subs on G1. That left him with very little ground force but he just held his cocoon and on G2 built just INF and ART to compensate. In the end, Axis won the game and the subs made the Allies loose at least 60 IPC through the course of the game (which wasn’t very long, maybe 7 turns). Plus the allies were always threatened by a mighty fleet of 1 AC, 1 DD, 5 subs (attacking on 3s), and 2 trannies (one of which was built later on) plus all german air force.

In our second game, Germany made a G1 purchase of 1 AC and 8 INF. Every turn thereafter Germany purchased 1-2 subs. The end results was the same, an Axis victory, but it was a lot safer against Russia with the additionnal 8 INF on G1.

No matter if you play with NA or not, a G1 buy of an AC is HIGHLY recommended.

@trihero:

It is indeed moot because of LHTR, but it was precisely this move that inspired LHTR. It’s dumb for a game to be decided in less time it takes to set it up, and it’s also dumb to lose your capital before you even made a move.

Actually, this was the move that inspired Caspian Sub, and you’ve pretty much quoted their rules paper without crediting it.Â

Great shame upon you!!!

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Caspian_Sub/