I'm new, I'm addicted to this game, and I have questions!

@RiceAndChine:

Wouldn’t then tanks be the ultimate choice vs. infantry, because of their range?

Tanks are important, but as the others have said you need plenty of infantry to absorb any losses.

What an IPM approach allows you to do is take territories without a battle.  You leverage your shear numbers (both attack threat potential and defensive numbers) and force your opponent back.  You only need enough offense to prevent your opponent from doing the same to you and in the case of Germany after round 1 you’ll have 4-5 ftrs, 1 bom, and a half dozen tanks or so.  You don’t need any more offense.  You need fodder!
So with IPM you want to start getting as many units on the board as possible and start shifting the deadzones out (moving them closer to Russia).
First you stack EE, then you look to move that stack to Bel.  From here Russia has a choice, defend Kar or flee to Wrus.  They will likely eventually move back to Wrus since that is far more important and the Bel stack can threaten Wrus directly as well.  So now you’ve gained Kar and have successfully deadzoned it since any units that land there can be hit by your EE or Bel stacks.  Wrus is usually a tough nut to crack so your next target is either the shift of your EE stack to Kar or the movement of the Bel stack to Ukr, EE stack to Bel, Ger stack to EE.  Here you threaten Cauc and Wrus.  Again Russia must choose which to defend and thus you’ll gain another deadzone and find you next target (either Cauc or Wrus).

B/c of your tanks movement you can station them in France (for defense) with the least amount of infantry possible to deter attack.  Then as you move your infantry from Ger to EE to Bel to Ukr in 3 turns you can get your armor there in two.  1 turn to EE, 1 turn to ukr (or wrus).  Although you may need to keep them in EE for protection and to help deter an assault on Fra.  As you move your armor out of Fra, you may need to shift more ftrs there for defense.  But their movement still allows trading on the Eastern front.  Typically 2 ftrs in fra, 2 in EE would allow swapping of postions during each attack phase depending on where you need your strong defenders.

On the flip side Russia will be trying to push its way to Bel which will hold Germany progress at EE and then you just wait for the UK/US numbers to add up and push to EE.  The Russian stacks will then go from Cauc/Mos to Wrus to Bel.  So your armor should be stationed in Wrus.  Not only to threaten Germany from advancing but can also reach the backside of Russia to protect against Japan.

The bottom line is it is cheaper to defend, 3 ipcs get you a defensive roll of 2.  In order to “kill” that unit the other side must spend more than 3 ipcs.  Larger scale battles put the ratio at 3:4 or 5 in terms of what the attacker needs to spend.  So it is just cheaper and easier to move defensive stacks forcing your opponent to spend more to try and kill you.  The simple way to look at it is to kill an inf you’d need at least 1 rt to attack.  Even 2 inf plus planes costs 6 ipc.  :wink:

I’m not sure it’s so much an issue of resources/troops as it is just predictability.

Leningrad obviously can’t hold out, but with India you have the option of moving russian tanks and air (and later other troops) to hold onto it on turn 1 and beyond.

In a regular game this might not be a terrible strategy, but in any game where it’s the only strategy, that’s kind of lame!

But still giving britain more troops until india isn’t credibly threatened just pitches the advantage back to the allies.  I could see doing that if you then took away troops from africa to compensate.

Alternately, changing Japan’s VP city from Kwangtung to Manchuria might be an interesting counter-balance to make sure the axis feel the heat more often.

@axis_roll:

@Cmdr:

We’re already playing it…evidentially, most players at AAMC cheat since the stuff I’ve seen done that I’ve tried to do, AxisRoll has called me on.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=10442.new#new

Could explain why there’s near 100% win ratios for the axis over at AAMC.

I hope you’re not taking me as a Rules ‘Nazi’, but the rules of Enhanced are the way they are to ensure a fair, balanced game.

You could be right, the lack of playing by the rules, that might explain some of the imbalances you have observed.

A rules nazi is someone who doesn’t take into account that we’re playing on a forum and not face to face.  Not someone who enforces the rules. :P

Then 5 minutes per nation, 10 minute break every 2 turns.
2 turns an hour.

Even then you would be hard pressed just to roll dice and move pieces in the allotted time, especially Japan by mid-game, and Germany early in the game.

@Jennifer:

In that case they are +4 IPC for Caucasus that turn.  However, they are not in an tactical advantage and Russia has suffered no loss for loosing it.

Net:  Russia Tactical Advantage with larger then normal stack in W. Russ.  IPC Gain +2 (WR)
Net:  Germany at no advantage, IPC gain of 4 in Cauc, IPC loss of 2 WR, net 2 IPC gain, tactical disadvantage due to larger then normal stack in WRuss.

The way I see it, Germany gains +4 IPC from the territory, and +1 IPC from the 1/3 chance of killing a unit with minimum value 3 IPC (one infantry), so net +5 IPC for investment of +3 IPC.  Germany also benefits from tying down the UK bomber for that turn, which is not trivial; a UK bomber can do a lot of damage to valuable naval units.

The Allies gain a tactical advantage from killing a forward placed German infantry, as well as the fact that the UK, not Russia, depleted Germany’s forces, which in turn allows Russia’s forces to mass and therefore be more efficient.

Russia gains nothing by holding West Russia because I believe Russia should hold West Russia until Germany has heavily massed at Ukraine.  That is, Russia should probably be holding West Russia anyways.

Where’s the unguarded territory if he blocked off the Baltic? What if there are no troops or very little troops in W. Europe? You may be infinitley efficient when you can bombard a territory, but when the territory doesn’t have many or any troops to bombard, or you are blocked, you are many turns behind in amassing the necessary troops to attack.

Maybe you could make a thread about your strategy.  Unless your waiting to unleash it against one of the people here?

LOL, that person definitaly played to much RISK!
'cause in RISK you can do the move you are talking about, but not in A&A…

you can see it on the left of the chart of every axis and allie:
first you have combat move
then you have conduct combat