1941 troop setup at the begining of the game?

@Argothair said in Reliable 1941 Axis Strategy:

@cheezhead1252 You’re welcome!

No, I think it is counterproductive to worry about attacking Egypt on G1 – especially with NOs off, it is just not that important, and you need every plane in the German air force to win 2 naval battles + 3 land battles on turn 1 at reasonable odds.

If you want to go heavy in the Med, you can get excellent odds on taking Egypt turn 2 by instead using the German med transport to shuffle another inf + tank to Libya on G1, where it will be protected by the Italian navy for a turn. Italy will do the same, shuffling another 2 units to Libya on I1. If you pre-position another 2 units in Italy / the Balkans on G1, then on G2 you can ferry them to Egypt with your transport, allowing you to attack with ~8 land units, plus the German bomber, which can now be spared from anti-British-navy duties, plus also a German fighter that should have landed in Morocco. This is far more than anything the Allies can bring to the region, and if you somehow roll poorly, the Italians are there to follow up with an equally hard punch (~7 units, 1 plane, and 2 naval bombards).

Italy can build any land units it wants for the eastern front; it’s just a style preference. Tanks allow you to threaten a ‘can opener’ for Germany in a larger number of territories, but they tend to be a one-and-done attack, since Italy doesn’t have enough cash to build many tanks; sooner or later Russia will call your bluff and force you to either attack with the Italian tanks into a stack of 2-3 Russian infantry, or else retreat. If you send in the tanks and Germany can’t take Moscow that turn or stack up with the survivors, then you’ll lose the surviving tanks next turn to a Russian counterattack, and you won’t be able to replace them anytime soon. But, if you build all infantry, then it takes longer to become relevant, and Russia can clearly see where it’s headed. There are pros and cons. I usually build a mix.

Good luck against your old man!

I took the advice from your first post and applied to a game of triple A hard AI before you posted this response. I ended up coming to the same conclusions as above, so it is good to confirm I’m on the right track haha.

I agree that the juice in Egypt isn’t really worth the squeeze. I strafed them in G1 to kill some units. And they end up running to Persia once you pressure India anyways. So the French tank and an Inf got shipped to the Eastern front via Med transport and I did the same with Italian units too.

Also, the tip for transports to pressure India was money, getting it a round earlier than I had been was huge. Was able to rush in some planes to help defend Germany on J2 or maybe it was J3.

Was the first time I beat the AI without No’s, it felt great crushing Russia, not going to lie hehe. It’s a slog on the eastern front and you have to be extremely careful and concentrate your forces at the right spot at the right time or you’re fooked.

Thanks again for the great advice and I look forward to kicking some allied booty, cheers!

Amen Brother…  Axis need to be offensive, axis have shorter supply lines and can take losses a little bit better then the allies.

@Veqryn:

@cts17:

Reviving this a bit, I think that a 6 IPC bid is sufficent. Two infantry to Egy is often enough.

bids generally don’t allow more than 1 unit to a territory….

at least, that is what i’ve always been told

(a max of 1 unit to a territory, and you must have units in that territory already)

That’s a ‘house rule’ from the Triple A lobby, from what I understand.  Usually bid limits are listed with how the bidding works (i.e.  all cash (no immediate units), 1 unit per territory, etc).

In other words, bid rules are all over the board.

One of the big questions is “How Easy is it to Hold France”?

The point is that randomness is assumed here… I am just as often allies as I am axis and it makes no difference.

that being said I think the game sides are equal. The stats show that.

Any decent A&A player wont care what side he plays.

If you ate truelly concerned about the skill issue, just review the tournies from R3 to the finish.  every player from that point knows how to play the game.

A big thing in this game as allies as well is to keep German and Italy with as low of an income as possible.  I know that sounds obvious, but it is harder said than done.  Do NOT abandon Karelia!  That is a terrible idea.  UK1 can land 2 figs there along with 2 extra russian inf being built giving you 11 inf, 1 art, 1 arm, 2 fig, 1 AA gun.  Following on UK2 they should begin landing atleast, but with luck more, 4 ground units a turn there.  Yes G can take it, but that stack will be destroyed the following turn by the UK.  US should be in africa at the end of turn 2 in force.  Do not let Italy get both of her NOs for more than 2 rounds, do not let Germany get 3 for free.  If you SBR, do it to Italy first.  Germany can only build 10 units a turn (unless they buy an IC) and rely on Italy to stack france with INF.  Be sure to threaten atleast 2, with luck 3, imporantent territories with drops (usually france, italy, and berlin).  And try to get russia her 2nd NO by turn 4 or 5 so they can afford to hold off the Japan monster.

One purchase that works well for me on R1 is 6 art 2 inf.  Place the inf in Kar, art in moscow.  On R2 buy mostly/all tanks, move all moscow and karelia forces into Belorussia and put a good stack of units into Eastern Ukraine.  Typically you will have on Belo: 13 inf, 8 art, 1 arm, on Ukraine 4 ish inf.  Plus your 6 arm in back may force the Germans to pull back (doesn’t always work depends on G’s purchases, but that is alot of Russian punch has odds vs 15 inf 10 arm or 5 inf 18 arm), and if you get the Germans out of East Poland that is always a very good thing.

i think it’s fairly balanced to be honest. i’ve seen both sides win, and i’ve won with both sides. anyone who thinks one side has a much larger advantage needs to play the game a lot more  :-P

Just had an 8 hour game with the 1941 setup. We played with NOs and techs enabled and I was Allies.
G starts by buying 7 inf and 2 researchers. It then attacks the CA and DD, the single DD and the 3 russian territories. G attacks Egypt with the BMR but it fails.
Russia counterattacks and retakes Baltic and Ukr. It moves 4 inf into China and masses all the inf on Bur.
J attacks EE, Borneo, Philippines, US BB and DD/TRN plus 3 chinese territories. It leaves the DD/TRN off India alone.
UK buys 1 IC for India and builds a carrier. The BB land units on Algeria.
Italy buys 1 DD and counterattacks on Algeria.
US starts building a fleet on the Pacific and gets 2 researchers.

From that moment on, the game went like this:

G and R were trading territories. G managed to conquer Karelia once but couldn’t keep it. Besides fighting G, R managed to sent some 9 tanks to help in China. J tried to attack India on J3 but failed due to the AA shooting 3 planes out of 5. Meanwhile it built some ships to counter the US buildup and had to deal with the Chinese and the Russians on China. After defending China, the UK moved to Burma and kept attack FIC. This, and conquering both Norway and Finland, securing Africa and liberating EE and Borneo (the Indian TRN went back to Australia and a US TRN moved from the Solomon) gave the UK a massive income (+50). Italy tried to attack the UK fleet off Algeria and lost big time. The US fleet eventually grew to 3 ACs, 1 CA, 2 DDs, 4 SUB. When we decided to end the game it had attacked and sunk the J fleet off Japan with the help of 8 jet fighters and 1 BMR (against 2 AC, 1 BB, 2 DD, 2 SUB and 4 FTR).

The game wasn’t really decided at the end, we stopped because of getting really tired but it was really interesting, although the Axis made some bad mistakes.