All tapped out for strategies? Is it Game Over?

I agree with the shield and sword statement. It is my experience that Germany on its first turn should buy a transport for Italy and all men. Regroup your tanks and all your infantry into Eastern Europe and plan to take Karelia on turn 3 if possible. Turn 2 can work but can be costly. Germany should buy mostly all men on turn two and three as well and move them into Eastern Europr so as to overwhelm Russia and get ahead of their infantry total. Once Germany has more infantry than Russia attack Karelia with men and tanks only, save your planes. From Italy send two full transports every turn into Egypt and Trans Jordan until you secure the Suez and subsiquently Africa.  Meanwhile Japan hits China, and India and then all out Russia, while still maintaining suppremacy in the Pacific by staying one step ahead of the US and as someone else mentioned take out as many US and UK ships as possible while not over commiting your fleet and only losing the cheap expendable replaceable pieces. An IC is a good idea if you are sure you can hold it: Manchuria is good to go after Russia, but can be reinforced by Japan transports anyway, FIC is safer but India is the best of both if you can capture and hold it, because it is two squares “a tank blitz” away from Caucauscus and Trans-Jordan and you can move fleet through the Suez if needed and assist Germany in conquering Africa as required. Not to mention taking precious money away from the UK. Japan would then purchase three tanks every round for India (or FIC) and keep that up until Russia falls. From India or FIC you can also launch a strike on Australia and New Zealand to further hurt UK. If UK buys an IC on India, Japan MUST capture it at all costs or UK will get the upper hand and its game over. If Germany and Japan hit fast and hard as a unit first at UK to bankrupt and “stall” them and get the valuable money they need and at US to “stall” them, then maintain that stall on both of them and go all out Russia so as to hit Moscow on the 5th or 6th turn from both sides, the Axis will have an IPC victory easily or if using victory cities (AA50 and new) or complete victory rules they will be on their way to world domination. :-)

hi,

if you are still interested i am willing to introduce you to triplea lobby play in real time?

bye
ole

Don’t worry about the Americans. If they split up their IPC’s between Japan and Germany, the Allies will end up loosing the fight. The Brits, if aggressive, can normaly only attack one of both Axispowers. Even if they sink your tranny and your sub, there’s nothing to be affraid of. You can destroy a lot with few efforts when the UK-fleet strikes at the Japanese in turn one, using your fighters.
The only problem is that if and when the UK strikes at the Japanese in UK1, you can probably expect a KJF. Then it’s up to the Germans to Panzer their way to Moscow.
If UK strikes the Japs on UK1, but then divert their offensive actions towards Germany, you shouldn’t have any trouble wiping them out of the Pacific and start nibbling on their income. Especially if USA splits its income between Germany and Japan.
Anyway, that’s what I’ve experienced in the games that I’ve played. An Allied player who tries to assault both Germany and Japans digs his own grave…

THANKS!

@Sankt:

Yes, in that respect we will have to agree to disagree. But I think that I feel that in “the average situation” the axis are favored, while you think the allies have the advantage.

Exactly how I see it as well.

There is no doubt that if you can sail the atlantic fleet through the suez the allies are very strong. My experience is that Japan will contest africa for most of the game by staging in sz34.

Sorry I don’t have a map available at the moment.  (don’t have TripleA on my computer at work, and I don’t have a board at work either.)  But if sea zone 34 is near Africa, then Japan still must contend with America building a naval fleet at the Pacific.  If Japan stays near Africa, just one transport, a carrier, and two fighters can really mess with the South Pacific.  Of course, if Japan does NOT stay near Africa, Japan has to spend time sailing west, during which time America can reinforce its navy, and also control the Suez, to pass into the Indian Ocean.  My experience is that Japan in Africa is pretty good, until Berlin falls.

The suez should be closed if not controlled by Japan, any allied med fleet should never be let through. But even that is a very defensive assumption, don’t you think Caucasus usually falls and is controlled by Japan before Moscow falls? That means Japan is building fleet in sz16 before the allied fleets can even move out of sz5. (Assuming Berlin falls by using units shipped from London.) Any us-algeria shuck will be too weak to enter the med alone, even with 5-6 trns for fodder. Any ships in sz14 will be attacked by Japan’s fleet supported by the fighters surviving the Moscow strike.

It’s clear that you and your opponents have quite a different style of play than I and my typical opponents.  In the games I play, Caucasus usually falls to the Germans, while the Japanese attempt to bulk up at Novosibirsk (or one of the other eastern territories adjacent to Russia).  The Japanese will often fly fighters in to reinforce German-held Caucasus in my experience, but having Caucasus USUALLY fall AND being controlled by Japan is something I’ll typically only see in a game in which the UK build an industrial complex in India, and in which I took India early with Japan.  As for entering the med, the typical MINIMUM I typically have will be 11 transports (6 US, 5 UK), UK battleship (from London), US carrier (built in Eastern US), and extremely likely US battleship and US destroyer from Pacific/Panama.  That’s 11 trns 1 destroyer 1 carrier 2 fighters 2 battleships.  There will typically be a few Allied fighters and bombers around as well.  Because the fleet is multinational, it is poorly suited to attack, but the fleet can base in the sea zone adjacent to Anglo-Egypt and Trans-Jordan quite well, because Japan will probably have a hell of a time attacking it.  (Although Japan CAN build naval reinforcements with an industrial complex at India, and WIN a fleet battle, the Americans should also be applying pressure at the Pacific after Germany falls.

Since we can’t agree on any “standard variables” we can argue this back and forth. My point is simply that the axis have some tactical advantages that will pay off more than an ipc advantage. We can probably agree that w.russia is a strategically much more potent territory than e.eur(or similar) in the early front between russia/germany. And similarly africa is “made up” in such a way that it favors Japan. The high ipc territories are along the eastern coast, making it very easy for Japan to take/trade. The BBs will pose a substantial threat to the allied movements. Egypt is a choke point, while the allies can only hit Egypt with troops from libya Japan can hit Egypt with troops from fic/india/t-j/persia/iea. For the allies to reach s.afr, congo etc their supply lines are that much longer.

I think probably one of the key differences is that in your scenario, Caucasus is controlled by Japan, and in my scenario, the Allies control the Caucasus.  Further, in your scenario, the Allies do not control a fat Atlantic fleet, while in my scenario, the Allies have quite a few ships.  I think that if Japan DID control Moscow, and DID have a solid grip on the Caucasus, and DID have its fleet already in the Mediterranean, and DID have lots of tanks in Moscow, while the Allies had really minimal forces in Berlin and throughout Europe, then the Axis WOULD have the advantage.

A suggestion for you, so you will have the chance to play USA and Russia.

Go with match play.  Set the victory conditions for the 5 game match. You will play each of the countries once. Draw for pairings for each game, thus changing the partner structure.

Who ever collects the most victories, wins the match. Break any tie by head-to-head.

Here’s some thoughts and experiences I’ve had with Japan recently:

If you’re a pretty confident Japanese player, I would suggest completely skipping Pearl Harbor. It is a waste of your time because the fleet there poses no real threat in either the Pacific nor Atlantic theaters. Any units you lose there (especially aircraft) is a detriment to your war effort, and any fighters you have left positioned there are way out of reach to be useful in the next round.

Now, why do I say that the Pearl Harbor fleet poses no real threat?

In the Pacific theater, it is simply a waste of time for the US to pursue attacking Japan head-on, provided the Japanese player is skilled. Japan will outdistance the US in IPCs soon enough, and starts with a tremendously stronger navy that’s even stronger on defense. If Pearl Harbor survives and the US says “gee, I’ll go after Japan”, then you have won a victory right there already. This means Germany will have an easy time in Africa, as well as have a fairly easy time keeping the UK from landing anywhere and force him to buy lots of defensive navy. The US really has to pour their entire income into navy to screw with the Japanese; while it can possibly be effective when islanding hopping using solomon islands, this lets a whole lot of steam off of Germany which is deadly.

The Japanese navy really shouldn’t fall provided you expand at even a moderate pace. You start with 2 carriers and 6 fighters, and if you need to you can put another carrier in the water to create a ridiculously strong defensive force, as well as add subs periodically, all the while dumping troops into Buryatia and walking them through Russian territories. The only way that Japan will have trouble is if all 3 Allies come at him from the start, and that will certainly end in swift defeat as Germany runs roughshod over Africa and the Russians.

Now in the Atlantic, what threat does the Pearl Harbor fleet pose? Except for that one extra fighter, nothing at all. The carrier and sub take something on the order of 4+ rounds to get into a position to defend the transport system. By round 4 you shouldn’t be needing protection unless something went horribly wrong. By round 4 the Baltic fleet should be scrap or very nearly scrapped, and you should already have sufficient defense from the first couple rounds of purchases.

So what do I do with my forces when I skip Pearl Harbor? For one, I’ll use the extra aircraft to increase the chances of the China fight going down in one round. Usually the bomber/fighter in Japan are used against Harbor, but now they can be used against China, which gives you great chance to knock out all that equipment in one go, thereby decreasing chances of you losing infantry which you need early on to keep your gains.

With the Philippines fleet, I will sink that UK transport that’s off of Egypt, instead of sinking the destroyer in Kwangtung. This heavily decreases the attack force that the UK can bring on his next turn; usually with that transport alive he can bring 2 infantry (1 from rhodesia, 1 from persia) and along with the infantry from Trans-Jordan to attack Egypt again (there’s nothing you can do to prevent the first time UK attacks Egypt, but you can mess with his second turn chances).

The destroyer in Kwangtung poses no real threat in any case, especially since I retreat all navy to defend SZ60 instead of using them against Harbor. There is some variability here such as where the carrier/fighter went, but it shouldn’t matter. If there’s a carrier + fighter defending the transport, then I’ll still sink it and be glad. If the carrier went with the destroyer to ensure the kwangtung’s transport’s death, then I don’t care as it poses no offensive threat. Fighters from the Philippines fleet can land in Libya if the dice went bad and you had to lose your Japanese carrier.

I will use that fighter from the Carolines to sink the British sub or transport if they’re around because it has nothing better to do, then it goes to SZ60 with the rest of the fleet to defend the newly built transports.

And recently I’ve been messing around with the idea of starting with a 2 complex buy. It does sound crazy, but hear me out: this ramps up the pressure against Russia much faster than transport builds because of tank’s movement vs infantry. You give up fast island hopping, but you gain Russian territories faster as you can have a nice constant stream of tanks that are mostly in range of each other to counterattack if the Russians decide to push back. With infantry swapping in Bury/Indochina and their slow movement, it’s hard for them to adjust and support each other, as well as push quickly.

You can still island hop with your initial transport. It will be slower, but on the other hand, you do not have to worry about letting up land pressure. If you rely on transports mostly then you’d have to replace the transports or build a complex to keep the land pressure going if you island hopped. With the double complex buy, that’s the end of having to buy more infrastructure right there. Island-hopping slowly isn’t so bad anyways, since it’s not worth a ton of IPCs and you can use free troops from islands and battleship shots. IPCs you miss out on the islands earlier on is very much offset by the territories you can take earlier on the Russian front.

Now, definitely with a 3 tran “normal” buy, you have more flexibility. You can screw with the US and keep him somewhat honest; with a 2 complex buy he can go with a 4x4 fleet but if you have transports potentially invading Alaska/West Canada, he’ll have to run a 3x3 or risk getting snared up easily later on. You can do some pretty fast island hopping, and the transports will help a lot if you’re getting KJF’ed. Of course if you’re getting KJF’ed you should see it coming and definitely in that case go with transports, but if not, then I would definitely recommend trying 2 complexes some time.

And on a parallel note, there is a nasty/tricky move you can do to upset the Allies a bit. It starts with the concept of swapping, where you alternate dropping between Buryatia and Indochina every turn, which is a solid basic strategy since it secures more avenues of attack and lets you drop all troops you build in Japan every turn due to SZ60 bordering Buryatia. Now the tricky move is to actually drop 4 tran of stuff into Africa after you drop troops into Indochina, instead of going back and dumping in Buryatia. 1 tran can go take Madagascar while the other 3 take Egypt, Trans-Jordan, and Italian East Africa.

Now I don’t suggest counting on this or doing this all the time for a couple of reasons: 1) it disrupts your flow of troops against Russia. 2) sometimes the Allies already have a large force in Africa and can deal with you handily.

But if you want to risk it, it can throw a wrench into the Allies’ plans. If they have already shut Germany out of Africa and don’t have significant troops there, suddenly they’re going to have to do a big drop there which is going to mean less troops in Europe this turn. They will be forced to deal with it very soon or else your tanks will blitz up most of Africa next turn and eat up a very significant chunk of UK IPCs.

Mr.G, I must say that’s a great analysis of how to hold if Germany doesn’t attack Egypt and it’s proof-positive of how Germany does need to do that on G1.