Most Surprising First Round purchases you have seen?

@gnasape:

Instead of doing too much, it might be advisable to hit W Rus hard with 10 inf, 2 art, 3 arm, 2 ftr, and create deadzones all around and trade territories with Germany until the reinforcements arrive.

This is usually what I do, and with a 3 inf, 3 arm buy you immediately have 7 armor which should be close to matching Germany and should prevent a German move to either Kar or Ukr for several rds.  You can follow up in rd 2 with 4 inf, 1 rt, 2 arm and your overall offensive units start to look pretty impressive:  3 rt, 9 arm, 2 ftrs.

I’ve also seen someone use an 8 bid to get another transport for this move.  He took UK but America took it back and since there was no pressure on Russia for a few turns the guy ended up loosing.

@newpaintbrush:

So are you saying that the Norway-Wrus-Ukr attack is bad for LL and for ADS for the SAME REASONS?  No, of course not.  See my last post.  Would you like to expound on the idea that what is good for ADS is good for LL and vice versa?  For I disagree.

My contention is that what is good in LL is good in ADS HOWEVER what is good in ADS may not be good in LL.
My point about the nor/wrus/ukr battle is that just b/c you may succeed in certian battles (either individual battles here and there or a few battles taken in the same turn) in LL way way way more in ADS does not make it a sound strategy for the entire game.  And I laid out just a couple of example where you could have high odds battles but it hurts you in the long run (the Moscow scenerio and the crazy ala move etc.)

It is much easier to translate LL strats to ADS.

I don’t think I said this triple would “inevitablely” fail in LL, I believe I said it “may” fail which in a way would confirm what the ADS odds told you in rd 1.
I certainly think there could be a coerrelation between LL odds and ADS odds.

Due to the nature of LL we know you can have a battle of a 100% success, which in ADS may be 90-95%.  I don’t think it is then unreasonable to think that multiple battles in LL where you have 80% success awould translate to maybe 65% in ADS.  Thus it isn’t unreasonable to think a LL battle with 60% success rate may then indeed be 40% in ADS (per your triple example).

So when playing a game in ADS if you have a threshold to actually go through with most battles (say you would like a 60-70% chance to succeed in ADS) that does not mean you’d have 60-70 in LL, the LL odds would probably be much closer to 80.  So when you see a battle at 40% success in ADS it should probably tell you that you have maybe 60% or so in LL BUT those AREN’T great odds for LL, considering you can be much more efficient in your attacks in LL.

60% odds are not that great for LL, considering the best LL players probably should win about 75-80% of their games.  Why lower your standards to 60%?  It just doesn’t make sense to me.  Maybe it is a good opening and causes enough damage to Germany, but I think it can leave Russia a bit too thin.

And yes there are times where 1-1 is a good trade and even times where you come out on the low end but the battle can still be deemed a success, but I don’t think Russia 1 is that time esp since the Axis can usually make an Africa push and Japan can make early gains in Asia, and it still takes the UK/US a few turns to get their shuck going.

Edit:

I should also say that by strat, I mean a series of moves (or buys) that take place over several turns not something a player may do in only one move or one turn.

Yeah, I would add the capture of India, reinforcing German-held Caucasus, and recapture of Africa from the Allies, also capturing Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, other things like that. Those are pretty standard goals for KGF.

There’s three things I usually do with the American fleet at Pearl.

1.  Attack with sub, destroyer, fighters, bomber.  Sub and destroyer are fodder.  Fighters land on Jap carriers at the Solomons.  Bomber goes back to Japan.

2.  Ignore it, if I can destroy the entire UK navy in the Indian Ocean and ALSO kill off 6 Russian infantry at Burytia.

3.  Send everything.  I really don’t like this, because using the transport off Japan slows Japanese progress in Asia.

UK assets at India can be used for a few different purposes.  One is to recapture Anglo-Egypt.  Another is to reinforce the Pearl Harbor fleet while weakening the Jap fleet (UK sub and fighter vs Jap Solomon sub; UK fighter lands on US carrier).  Yet another is to poke at the Jap fleet and threaten more (UK fleet attacks Jap Kwangtung transport, UK fighter lands on Burytia with the 6 Russian infantry, UK bomber flies west, threatening UK attack on Jap navy next turn.

@ezto:

@ncscswitch:

Aggressive Russia means you still take Africa, still clear the Med, AND take out the Russian advance forces.  Then re-group in G2 for further advances against a Russia depleted of offensive units.

This comes from the guy who uses a game board :lol:

And who has a nearly 70% win rate, including a perfect win record against Ezto in Revised  :wink:

If Russia puts 4 INF on Caucuses in R1, and amphib is out.

What I wrote abvoe was for a single INF left in Caucuses.

Also, that does NOT preclude an Egypt attack, expecially with ANY bid to Africa.  Skip the DD in SZ15 and jsut use Balkans FIG, 2 INF and 1 ARM from Libya.  Still a 70% clear and 60% win.  And if the Ukraine FIG is still alive for the battle it is an 89% win.

@CrazyStraw:

Howdy.

I hadn’t weighed in on this thread, but I just got a story to tell.

Yesterday I played a game against a good player.  It was time-limited.

No joke, in a 5 round game I built 9tra 1car with Germany.

And it WON the game for me!

It was ridiculous!

It was absurd!

It was outrageous!

It was sublime…

So German boats can be good.  That would have been excessive in 99% of the games I’ve played, but yesterday it was exactly enough to get the job done.  Simple lesson: the Baltic is important.

I begin to see the value in LL / No Luck games and in non-time limited games.

My entire strategies in my tournament game had to change because of a time limit.  It caused a waste of two turns because I forgot to take into account that there was a time limit in each round.  (not a round limit, that would have been easy to work with, but a time limit.)

needless to say, I’m never making that mistake again!

@Axel:

but the day after: we played axis&allies for 2 hours!
and remember this: after 1 hour, i asked her: “do you want to do something else?”
but she said: “no no, i want to see where this is going”
:-P
BINGO!!!

Ha ha, good work mate!

One suggestion I would have for the original poster is have a decent grasp on the rules.  If you can explain the basics to your friends before the game starts, then explain the more intricate details as you come to them during the game, the game will be more fluent.  There’s nothing like checking the rule book every two minute to detract from the fun.