Why is surrender not an option in the original game?

If they J1, then I would suggest buying an extra carrier and having these guys hang out with the USA, making the main fleet much less vulnerable to a pre-emptive attack. With a sub or two, and a tac, the ANZAC forces can usually mop up the Japanese fleet if it survives an initial attack by the US.

If they dont, then your planes can land on java, usually, they find a good way to cross, and at least as far as the Japanese TTs are concerned, you can screen those out (even if they have an NB)

The idea of sending the 6 planes to moscow, however, denies you alot of other milestones in the game; without the grey and tan planes in theatre, Bombay is easy to take, and if not, Sydney will be. Players who are not cautious about building reserves with ANZAC can easily find both capitals under threat, esp. once Japan can use Malaya’s base. Whichever one you defend, they attack the other (now that you can’t cross back). If you dont defend either, they can take both.

Another fine plan is to marry the UK air force from India with the one from the Med, assuming that one survives. That roving force can do alot to wreck the Axis, or it can defend the factories in the core area (persia, Iraq–the axis mundi of the board. pun intended).

No matter what you do, its still more than one turn from India to Moscow, and this is very intentional on the part of the game designers. At that juncture in the game, the areas around Moscow are under threat, so you can’t land planes alone anywhere but moscow.

Sending all your auxiliary planes from the minor allies to rescue Moscow will probably save it, but you’ll lose the game when the Japanese dominate that board, or the Italians/Germans take Africa and the 2$ Russian zones. For all these reasons, I prefer to leave most of those planes nearer to where they start, using them to tear Japan apart, rather than sending them on a long range adventure that prevents them from attacking and expressing threat. If Japan is threatened by the USA, there are plenty of times that they have to weaken their westward push, and at that point, UK planes can join whatever Russian stacks are still fighting, once you see the outcome (save Bombay, we hope).

@cyanight:

I found you… Im SteelerLou, lol… I had made an account for a Steeler give-away sometime ago, lol.  Actually plan to use a couple of your house rules this weekend.  The NO’s, Strategic Bombing from AB, Neutral Blocs and Groupings of minor countries with majors.

Awesome, I see you, and if you’re not on twitter often I can always come here and inform you of scheduled game days so you can get the in game updates. Thanks for trying my house rules, the best one of all is the Strategic Bombers needing to leave from an Air Base in order to get the +2 damage bonus… I can see a rule like that fitting in nicely with the official rules.

How a cheaper Navy helps the allies is this. The US comes in after turn 4. With a cheaper navy, namely transports, Japan could be a real threat to Australia, forcing the US to pay attention to it, making it historically accurate.

The US paying some attention to Japan helps the Germans.

Lastly, IMHO, the game is close enough that these changes don’t ruin the game. But seeing your point, to go along with this, you would also have to fix the sub problem which is horrible. The advantage Germany had in the beginning of the war with their subs just doesn’t exist in the game. They need to make the subs more stealthy, like rolling the dice to locate them before attacking them, (destroyers would have a better chance than other units) and greatly expanding the areas they can convoy. Also giving the Germans a wolf pack advantage that the US copies and made use of much later in the war against the Japanese.

This whole incredible aspect of WW2 was somehow left out of the game.  A real shame. That would bring some balance.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=28013.0

@Daedelus:

It means you can win the Game without having to capture any Russian Cities.

Well, yeah, theoretically.  Just seems like, particularly with new rules bringing in the U.S. if Axis is in Canadia, that’s not a very realistic proposition.  South Africa seems like it would make for more viable strategery options.

I mean, I haven’t ever put a lot of thought into an Ottawa strategy, mostly because, just looking at it, it seems pretty well doomed to fail.  Might as well try to grab New York.

Mark: We will be starting the game around 9 or so this morning, so I will let you know how it goes. I usually spend some time going through various scenarios in my head and speculating as to which side should have the greater advantage when doing changes like this. Without really looking at the board, I am thinking it will be the Allies, because for one their are many more of them so they stand to gain more by teaming up/attacking the Axis at the same time. Furthermore, one of the 3 Axis players (Japan) can’t really use this advantage, b/c they are pretty much isolated.

With that in mind, I am considering weakening the Allies a bit and see how it pans out. One idea I have is reducing the major IC in India to a minor, and adding another minor IC in West India as well. I will probably also add a couple extra infantry in India to start out with too. This will allow India to serve as a legitimate garrison for the UK, with allowing them to dominate…at least thats the plan.

I am considering this approach b/c I believe the Allies will dominate the Atlantic, and Germany will be hard pressed against a combined US/UK invasion plus Russia breathing down their necks, so my thinking is that by weakening India’s offensive capabilities a bit, Japan will be able to pressure Russia more from the east, thus making up for the imbalance in the west.

Like I said, this will take some time to get down, but I think the two-turn system will be worth it in the end. I really wish A&A would move to this system in the first place, as I know many that use it, or would like to use it.

Let me know your thoughts!..

Got pretty lucky on dice for China.  They are down to 5 Inf co-defending with 3 UK Inf and 2 UK Tanks on the last hold before an easy march to India.  Plan is to hit India on an amphip assault next turn.  Should be possible if the dice go my way.

Are you talking to me about the bombers? We did them the way you said. I only said 4-5 hits for the 5 bombers because there’s still a good chance of missing with 1 of them, but like you said, its’ not super high. We also rolled each bomber separate so it wouldn’t influence our results that way either.