Posts made by 221B Baker Street

How about a theocracy? :lol:

IMHO, the big question is whether or not the gas prices are a real problem. I recently read an article in the paper which said that adjusted for inflation, gas prices in the early 80’s cost $2.50 to $3.00 a gallon which makes me question whether or not this is a really significant cost increase. Of course this was not too long after the OPEC embargos of the 70’s and the Iran hostage crisis.

I do think it would be great to wean ourselves off petroleum for many reasons (reliance on OPEC, greenhouse warming, etc.) however there is no easy way to do this. The current infrastructure of most western nations makes it impossible to go back to a pre-automotive transportation system and there really are big limitations that prevent widespread adoption of mass transportation from ever having a huge impact here. I think the solution will have to come from new technologies, but it won’t be the hydrogen car because there is no way to get the hydrogen without using large amounts of energy (which comes from ???).

What I think will have to happen is to go with alternative sources for electricity (wind power and nuclear are the only feasible possibilities today) and perhaps the use of biomass technologies (conversion of agricultural by-products) to create synthetic oil where it is needed.

Just wondering what others think is the best option for the infantry Great Britian has in Western Canada. Usually I will move it to Alaska to assist the USA in defending it in the event Japan decides to attack there, but there are obviously many other possibilities. However, when I play with the computer program :roll: I will sometimes move it to W. USA as the AI does not do a good job in defending that area from Japan.

Just to clarify matters a bit, I do not (yet) have the revised version so I can only comment on the orignal A & A.

However, in the original A&A, nowhere in the rules do I find anything that states US or UK troops cannot occupy the same territories as Russian troops. Is this a house rule that you use? If this is the case then the Axis should win nearly every game as I cannot see any way that Russia would not eventually be overwhelmed. Also, I do believe that it is allowed to occupy neutral countries as long as you are willing to pay 3 ipcs.

A direct invasion of Germany is rare, but it can happen with the Uk/US double team and a bit of good luck with the dice as long as they are willing to sacrifice planes. The UK and US can fly all its fighters from Karelia (or Finland or even from carriers) to participate in this attack. In the mid to late game and without the African ipcs, Germany begins to get really stretched in trying to defend against a massive buildup against E. Europe, where most of the forces normally go such that it becomes really tempting to leave Germany and perhaps even W. Europe thinly defended.

To answer your other questions, I beleive the best approach for the Allies to Invade Germany is to go the route of Finland to Karelia then to E. Europe. However this is dependent on what Germany does. If W. Europe or Germany itself :D is lightly defended such that I beleive that the UK/US double team would be sufficient to take these I would certainly try this. Another variant that I have used once or twice is to invade neutral Spain before going after WEurope.

As far as most important pieces, its my belief that you can’t go wrong with infantry. However it is better to have the right combination of peices which will provide an optimal combination depending on what you are trying to do. For example, for defense the optimum might be something like 10 inf, 4 fighters. The fighters will generate more hits than the infantry, but you can lose the $3 infantry first. For offense, the optimum might be 10 inf, 4 tanks. Again the tanks generate hits, but your losses may be taken by the inexpensive inf.