What percentage is luck involved in a games outcome?

If you’re going to use the US as your trading country, then make sure you have a good transport system in place. Get a 4x4 going on. Four transports from Ecan to UK, and UK to EEU (preferably) or Kar. And buy a fighter EVERY round so you can fly it to Russia. Do the same with the UK. Buy a fighter every round and fly it to Russia. Get a good fighter cover going, have Russia buy infantry out the wazoo (and an armour every now and then) and continually wear Germany down.

I disagree with your analysis–from what it sounds like, UK1 was played quite well.  Ignoring Japan for a few rounds is not a problem.  As far as I can tell, the main factors contributing to Allied loss were
—not contesting Africa (big one!)
—losing the British fleet (carelessness + your luck)
—Panicking on the USA west coast–your landing in Canada could have been handled easily

Sounds like there was solid Russian play all the way through, and mostly sound Allied play, but with the aforementioned oversights.  If he had shut you out of Africa and not had to rebuild the USA fleet, I’ll bet Germany would have been about ready to collapse by the time Moscow fell.  Generally the Allies can win if Berlin falls even a round or two after Moscow.  I don’t think the idea of letting Japan go for a while and going full bore against Germany is wrong as a big picture approach, it just sounds like a couple of the details were botched.

@EskimoJack:

I was going to answer in this thread, but you may still be my opponent in the final match of the tournament and it would be foolish of me to give such information away  :-)

NICE  :-)  :-)  :-)

+1 karma for ya

@oldsalty:

Actually what our group is doing to our navy planes and Carriers is putting a very small strip of magnetic tape you can buy in a roll and cut to size.  One side is adhesive but we add glue to avoid any edge curling.  It doesn’t take much - especially a washer type magnet - because all you are doing is keeping the plane from falling off.

We put a small strip down the belly of the plane.  And we put a small patch on the top of the carrier.  Its totally hidden when the planes are on it.   Saves the work and trouble of drilling and iserting mag wire or metal down the centers.

smashing info! will try that out myself!

And Satchel… Wow! “Impressive” doesn’t seem to be nearly enough, to describe that table…  :-o

I have actualy played them all.  I would have to say that my favorite is probably revised or Minis, I more regularly play expansions.

@icemanjsg:

doubt that i live in littlehampton, i would say the 80% of the people who live in this town fought in the first world war , thats right folks the FIRST one!

Well, you can’t just leave it at that. What’s the rest of the story?

It’s a pitty to see that Bobbychicken is indeed a machine in his strategies (you use this word yourself)…

your dad and you can as well play the game solo, while you both do nothing to surprise your opponent with strats…

I love playing without techs because with heavy bombers in the game, the dice is rolled (allia iacta est - latin).
If USA has them? Allies win the game, so simple as that! so, no fun in accomplishing something everyone knows to be the outcome!

I still disagree with the placement of navy units in the Baltic…If anywhere…you’d need them in the Med(for Africa, Caucasus, Middle East…) but if I saw Germany building a Baltic fleet…I’d just build a few aircraft…maybe a sub(probably not)…it wouldn’t bother me if my British Airforce was dead…as long as there’s still a big hole in the Baltic Sea…which is inevitable anyway…the smartest thing to do with that navy is to keep it put…relieving pressure on Eastern Europe, Germany, Karelia, and Norway