Allied Playbook - G40 Collection of Essays - Compiled by jacobgeo24 Nov 18-19 2023

@rommel13579
I also don’t use my mechs to attack.

IN SOME SITUATIONS.

Ok there is some merit to building an AB for Gib UK1, and merging all available ships to sz92. The ability to send the UK Med navy to the Atlantic will most likely table a German Sea Lion buy for G2 w/o dropping a bunch of inf on London. As others pointed out an AB at Gib is also very helpful in staging allied fleet in sz91 as the game goes on. You would defiantly need to take into account what Germany bought G1 though. A loaded carrier, cruiser, damaged BB (that will auto fix on Germany’s turn) and a couple transports sitting in sz112 is a real threat to your new Gib base with only air. In this scenario you should be looking at using the Med transport to bring over an inf and the Malta AAA gun to protect your ftrs, but that weakens Egypt.

Many people are in the camp of forgoing Taranto, to spare the UK Med fleet. Sometimes they pull back into the Red Sea (sz81), or make a stand in sz92 (as AldoRaine posted) and bringing in the India fleet in is also an option. The point is that the Italian navy will eventually come out to play and it is easier to kill it when they don’t have the support of the Rome AB. Plus as others pointed out the Italians might add to their toy boats which means fewer units heading to Russia.

The thing is that if you do merge all available UK ships to sz92, and build an AB for Gib you really don’t want to get double hit by the Italians then the Germans play mop-up w/o taking heavy losses. eames57 took the words right out of my mouth, you have to block out the Italian navy by placing a dd in sz94 (the French in sz93 completes the block).

You still run the risk of getting hit by the Luftwaffe, but that would also cripple the German air force so IMO it would be worth it. It’s better to take out German planes over Italian navy especially early in the game. At some point (maybe later when the US comes over) the Italian navy will be at the bottom of the Med, where the Luftwaffe is essential on all fronts through out the game. So in retrospect it isn’t in Germany’s best long term interest to attack you in sz92, so there is a good chance they won’t.

@knp7765:

As Russia, you should definitely grab Norway. With the large US fleet there and London getting liberated, it’s very doubtful Germany will be putting any more boats in the water (…)

I agree completely. I want Norway out of the way first round after London is liberated, just to rid Germany of another 8 IPCs. If the Germans position themselves in Finland however, USA will take Norway instead. Otherwise Germany can enjoy those 8IPCs one more turn.

@knp7765:

(…)Do you plan to liberate Paris if US troops successfully land in Normandy or Holland? (…)

I usually wait to liberate Paris for the exact same reasons as you mentioned. It is a matter of being able to hold it or not. Trading it back and forth with Germany is often unacceptable (but not always), especially if the USA has to spend a lot in the Pacific (sometimes I am forced to invest near 100% in the Pacific with the USA from US7 and onwards because the Japs have taken Calcutta and are investing near 100% on also getting Hawai). For that reason I keep my men and TRS next to each other in Gibraltar, London, Normandy or wherever they are safe while being the most aggressive.

In this particular situation however, it remains to be seen. If taking Paris means the fall of Berlin in a series of falling dominoes then taking Paris it is!

Thanks for explanations IL.

@Entek:

AFAIK in league you can’t add any units to China or to France with a bid, and you can only add units to territories or Sea Zones that already have units.

The Chinese bid is perfectly legal in the Global `40 league (unless it just changed).  Strictly speaking it is also legal to bid Chinese units which they cannot buy in the normal course of a game, but that probably will be changed if it hasn’t already.  There has been plenty of discussion on that topic.

Placing a French bid in Paris should also be perfectly legal.  I don’t think doing so would be that helpful since at best maybe you’ve delayed the German attack on S. France or Normandy by one turn, which i don’t see as having a lot of strategic impact on German play.

Thanks for the welcome Variance!

You are guessing correctly ^.^:
If the UK (in our group) sees that Germany is going ‘full bore’ (I guess that means throwing everything at Moscow to defeat it G6 or G7), then it starts channeling its fighters from wherever it must build them (Britain, Canada, South Africa and India) into Russia and finally into Moscow. All this happens Either via the northern route or via Persia/Africa (building a key AB here and/or there).
  UK is OK to sacrifice its ships in the med. to keep every plane alive, annihilate the Italian Navy first and to prevent any new axis ships to appear there.
Subsequently the aircraft help to destroy the Italian presence in Africa (from set-up plus maybe 1 turn of reinforcements) and then the aircraft flies into the Middle east, ready to go into Russia whilst trying not to disrupt Russia’s NO of having Archangelsk-route. But the UK fighters in russia are more important than the Russian NO if the threat is high enough.

This is why our UK is always strong while at the same time being able to be in Russia with their FTRs on time, giving Germany (statistically) no chance on Moscow, not even if it goes full bore. If it doesnt go in full bore than all those UK FTR can go elsewhere as a very flexible force. For example, fly into the areas in Europe that the US captures, stay in the med, fly to India to recapture Calcutta or prevent it from being taken… you name it).

So perhaps we don’t play Germany as optimally as possible ;-).
The best I have ever come up with myself is hitting Moscow with around 230 attack factors G6 (buying 4 STR G5, 4 TAC/STR G4, ARM+MECH G3&G2, ART+INF G1) while Russia alone I believe cannot have more than around 195 defense factors, their AAA still excluded. Combined with the UK FTR however, this can easily be too much over the 230 German attack factors. This combined with sufficiently enough more allied units, a full bore axis attack on Moscow is in our group a statistical fail.

Anyway, a quick calculation shows me that an all STR German build can reach to approx. 200 Attack factors and has way less defense factors so my guess is it will fail to deliver the message to Moscow.

I am looking for Axis strategies to counter the allied dominance (in my eyes) but Perhaps I should then move on to another thread or start one myself  8-).

I will definately look into the tripleA program if I have the time, thanks!

@oztea:

Dooming moscow is not a gamebreaker in this edition
It opens the possibility of getting france back in the game, if the Allies can push past normandy

At 17 if it controls all but FIC, it is a power that is near Russia’s IPC stockpile when it fell.

This is interesting, trade Russia for France (at some point). The axis strengthen would be way out of range unless most of it was lost in the battle for Moscow (make them pay). The US swoops in to destroy Italy and you now have 3 allies all in western Europe (knocking at Germany’s front door), instead of two coming from the west, and Russia in the east. If Italy does fall the 3 allied powers will have back to back turns (ooch).