Best posts made by Argothair

Percival’s still getting smoked in southeast asia, man. You gotta replace that guy.

@axis_roll Yes, that sounds good to me – but I’m flattered, @vodot, and I’ll be happy to post a screenshot and summary every couple of full rounds to the forum so you can follow along.

@DoManMacgee Thanks; both of these posts were super-helpful for me.

@Karl7 It was an interesting game! Germany helped Italy take a pair of British factories in the Middle East with an airbase in Yugoslavia, and was able to take Leningrad early by sending two transports into the White Sea. Almost immediately after we switched to in-person play, I missed an American can-opener in trans-Jordan, with the American transport coming from Gibraltar and the American bomber coming from India to let British tanks from Egypt into Iraq, shutting down the factory. Meanwhile, the Russians went south to help make sure the Middle East fully converted to the Allied point of view.

Germany attacked an Allied beachhead in Normandy with 3 inf, 1 mech, 2 art, 2 ftr, 2 tac, and 1 strat bomber against 7 inf, 3 aaa guns; my battle calculator says that’s an 88% win chance for Germany…but the Allies scored 3 hits on their AAAs and then hit with 5 out of 7 infantry, virtually wiping out the German forces in one round. The Germans only scored 4 hits on 11 dice, so the Allies survived with a large beachhead.

That left very few options for the Axis – I tried hitting a Russian squad in Vologda with 1 mech, 1 tank, 1 ftr vs. 3 infantry, but that also got wiped out in one round, with all 3 defensive infantry hitting. That stopped me from moving in a stack of mechs, which stopped me from threatening Moscow.

I also tried hitting the main US Pacific fleet with the Japanese, probably at somewhat below 50% odds, but that was also a disaster on the dice – sometimes the dice just hate you!

I had fun anyway, and I will always cherish the opportunity to have repaired a damaged Italian battleship at the captured naval base in Singapore.

This was the last league game that I intend to play for quite some time; daily sessions of 1940 Global have been fun, but have been chewing up much more of my time and attention then I prefer to spend. If you’re passing within an hour of San Francisco and want to play a game in person on the weekend, let me know, and otherwise I hope to see some of you at Bloodbath 2020, the Bay Area Invitational Tournament (BAIT), and/or Gencon 2020. Thanks for all the games, and have fun!

@vodot First round is posted! Anyone who’s curious is welcome to follow along.

I mean, if you’re taking Wake Island J1, then you’re pulling at least one transport away from the standard J1 attack, and that has immediate consequences – you are either only bringing one transport to the Philippines, meaning you are attacking with 1 inf, 1 tnk, 1 ftr, 1 tac against 2 inf, 1 ftr, and you could easily get diced, or you are skipping the attack on Borneo, which means that India will be richer and you will be slower to collect the money island NO, if you can collect it at all. With only 2 transports in Indonesia for the first couple of turns, your attack is slower by one territory every turn – the infantry that took Borneo could have moved on to take, e.g., Java, but if it wasn’t on Borneo yet then it can’t continue on. So you’re not just down 4 IPCs for one turn; you’re down 4 IPCs for each of the first few turns. There’s also a problem where if you leave the Allies any toeholds in the money islands, then your transports need to be defended – if you take every money island, the Allies need carriers to harass you and they don’t have any carriers in the opening, but if you leave one of the islands in Dutch hands then Indian / ANZAC planes can land there after sinking your transports.

Normally defending your transports wouldn’t be a big problem, but if you’re sending 2 CV, 2 DD, 1 SS to Hawaii then you’re running pretty low on boats. Your starting cruiser has to go to Singapore to fight the British BB there on J1 and may be lost in that battle or by an Indian counter-attack. So the Japanese southern fleet is something like 1 SS, 2 DD, 1 CA, 1 CV, 1 BB.

The British start with 3 DD, 2 CA, 1 CV in the eastern Med + India, which is only very slightly weaker than the Japanese forces you have available – the British could build a couple of subs and get to parity if they’re feeling frisky, or they could just force you to concentrate your fleet in one sea zone, and then you’ll be losing 1-2 Japanese transports every turn as they get picked off by Allied fighters. ANZAC is also potentially a problem – you can’t attack their starting fleet if you are going for Pearl Harbor and the Philippines on J1, so they have a DD, a CA, and 15 IPCs of income turn 1 from Dutch New Guinea that can buy a couple more subs.

Meanwhile, there is no naval base on Wake, so if you move carriers to Wake on J1, they can reach Caroline Islands on J2, Java on J3, and India on J4, assuming no blockers at all and no need to remain near Wake for even one turn to mop up American resistance. Neither assumption is guaranteed.

There’s nothing wrong with launching a Pearl Harbor attack if the Middle Earth defense is what worries you the most as Axis; you’re right to point out that Pearl Harbor makes Middle Earth somewhat less attractive. I don’t think Pearl Harbor is as strong as you think it is, either in general or against Middle Earth specifically. Want to try it out on TripleA? I’ll take the Allies with 24 IPCs in standard or no bid in Balanced Mod, and I’ll play my Middle Earth against your Pearl Harbor.

@mikawagunichi Thanks, problem was on my end. For some reason my computer is still loading the older version of TripleA by default when I click on tsvg files.

If anyone doesn’t want to read the entire game update thread, or if you want to skip my gaming buddy’s blatant pro-Allied propaganda, here’s the summary:

We played the first game out for five rounds, with axis_roll putting heavy Axis reinforcements into the Med via an early factory in France. As Britain, I built a factory in South Africa that didn’t quite pull its weight, and a US Pacific fleet that held the Japanese at bay but was not able to actually push them off of the core of their economy. axis_roll did a good job of shutting down Britain and Russia’s NOs, and Russia was so poor that even though German initially went south, Russia didn’t have the units to hold off the eventual German thrust, so we called the game when Russia’s position started to collapse. Germany also benefited from re-directing surplus African troops to Stalingrad via the open Dardanelles. The USA was earning slightly more than usual from the new NOs, but not nearly enough to compensate for Russia falling apart.

For the second game, to give Russia a bit more cash, we adjusted the Russian NOs to kick in on turn 2, and we switched sides. We are in the middle of round 6, and in my opinion, the game is still very much alive and kicking – fighting is hot in the Pacific, around India, and in eastern Europe. The Allies hold Scandinavia and are rapidly hoovering up Africa, but the Germans have western Europe locked down with big infantry garrisons – so the question is whether Moscow, Cairo, or the US Pacific fleet crack before the Germans and Italians run out of income after inevitably losing Africa.

We’re still struggling a bit to find ways to properly incentivize Pacific play – just giving the Allies money for holding territory in the Pacific doesn’t help much if holding the Pacific is impossible, so we’re not really seeing factories in India or China or Siberia or anything wild like that. There are too many d*** 1-IPC territories in the Allied Pacific sphere of influence, and too many starting Japanese transports and fighters to crush any initial pockets of resistance. It may be that just editing the NOs, by itself, isn’t enough to enable a truly competitive Kill-Japan-First strategy. Still, this game has seen a fairly convincing two-front war – the Pacific theater may be secondary, but it’s been a real front with meaningful losses and gains on both sides.

I’m enjoying the conversation, and I think you’re raising worthwhile points, but I still disagree with you on the specifics. Here is why:

As I stated before, you’ll have 4 guys to then send to Celebes, Java, Sumatra and Borneo with your 2 transports and take all 4 of them if you so choose.

That’s assuming you take no casualties in the Philippines, lose no transports before J3, and take no casualties killing off any reinforcements delivered by India / ANZAC. You can take the Philippines plus the 4 money islands with 2 transports and 4 ground units, but you’re spreading yourself thin and it’s not guaranteed.

ANZAC only has 1 fighter. Literally one.

I count 3 – in addition to the fighter in Queensland there are 2 in New Zealand that can land on Java as early as A1. All 3 fighters are close enough to the action to interfere with Japanese takeover of the money islands.

Your transports will be defended by 1 carrier with 2 fighters on it, and 2 battleships.

Sorry, I thought you were sending one of the BBs east to Pearl Harbor. Sounds like both BBs are going south. So what’s attacking Pearl Harbor? Just 1 SS, 2 DD, 2 ftr, and 2 tac? Against that force, I would probably not scramble the Hawaiian fighters, and then counter-attack the Hawaiian sea zone on US1 with something like 1 DD, 1 CA, 4 ftr, 1 tac. That should handily win control of the sea zone against 1 SS, 2 DD, allowing me to reinforce Hawaii with the transport on non-combat. So now Hawaii has 4 inf, 4 ftr defending it against a maximum attack of 1 inf, 1 tnk, 2 ftr, 2 tac, which seems fine to me. If I lose Hawaii at all, it will be very expensive for Japan, and I can retake it immediately. I hear you that you are baiting the main US fleet into Hawaii and that you could sink that fleet if it moves there on US1, but all I have to do is not take the bait, and I should be fine. You’re forcing the US to invest some significant spending in the Pacific on US1 and US2, which could make a Sea Lion attack more threatening. I suppose if I saw a Pearl Harbor on J1 I would adjust the UK1 buy – instead of 1 transport, 1 artillery for South Africa and 2 inf, 1 fighter for London I might do something like 6 inf for London and 2 mech for South Africa, save $1.

And yes you can attack ANZAC’s destroyer and transport with the destroyer you have in SZ 33. Take out the destroyer and transport with no scramble and the cruiser comes after you manage to hit a 1 or 2 and you destroyed the entirety of ANZAC’s navy.

Sure, you can attack 1 DD vs. 1 DD, 1 trans and you might get lucky, or you might not. If you’re sending 2 DDs to Pearl Harbor and 1 DD to Australia, that leaves you with only 1 DD to escort your southern fleet, which, again, will make it tricky to cover multiple sea zones to protect your transports. With 2 BB, your main southern fleet will be safe enough, but the flanks are vulnerable, in my opinion.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say about the ANZAC cruiser, other than that you expect to both win a 50-50 battle with the destroyers and then also sink the cruiser with like 20% odds when Australia counter-attacks your DD with 1 CA, 1 ftr. So, yeah, 10% of the time you’ll get quite lucky and sink the ANZAC navy. So? That’s dice, not strategy.

Frankly any of my starting navy on the coast of Japan would be overkill in a natural J1 attack which would be a waste of valuable resources.

This is maybe your most interesting point – Japan does start with slightly more navy than it really needs to conquer and occupy the south Pacific, so there’s an interesting question of how to put that navy to gainful employment right away. I’m not sure I like your answer of attacking Pearl and stacking Wake, but I like that you’re asking the question.

What is to write home about is if the American fleet on San Francisco moves down to secure Hawaii from you.

Well, yeah, so, don’t do that. Don’t fall for the trap. You can secure Hawaii without moving the remaining US capital ships there immediately. It’s a good trap, but it’s still just a trap. It’s easy enough for the Allies to avoid.

Unless the British are invading Tobruk, they’d be absolutely stupid in the head not to do the Taranto Raid.

I can do the Taranto raid and still wind up with significant naval assets to send east, if I’ve got a bid. One of my favorite bids is 2 subs for the Mediterranean, which means the carrier doesn’t have to go west to do Taranto.

If I’ve got no bid, that means we’re playing Balanced Mod, which means you have some explaining to do about how you’re going to handle the Chinese guerrillas with zero reinforcements on J1 and at most 3 transports of reinforcements on J2.

Overall, don’t get me wrong; I think your plan of attack is interesting and worth experimenting with. Pearl Harbor plus Sea Lion as you’ve outlined it sounds like a very creative way of shaking things up against Middle Earth, and if you catch the Allied player off guard or if they fall for your traps or if they roll poorly, then you could have quite a nice game as the Axis. My personal preference as the Axis is to play with a more traditional India Crush that focuses on shutting down Indian income as quickly as possible and taking India J4 or J5, with Germany going east to take Leningrad and Ukraine by G5. The idea is that if the US focuses on the Atlantic, then Japan can expand from India to take some combination of Persia, South Africa, Australia, and/or Hawaii, forcing the US to pivot back to the Pacific. Conversely, if the US focuses on the Pacific, then Germany will wind up at the very least being able to push Russia out of the Caucauses and take the southern money. When Germany gets rich like that, they can threaten London while holding the line near Moscow, forcing the US to pivot back to the Atlantic. Either way, the US supply chain gets messed up and slows them down.

Do you want to try out a game? Might be enlightening for both of us.

You were kind enough to show me your strategy in the video, so I thought I’d better give you something interesting in response. :)

The North Sea battle was a disaster (Cunningham is fired!) but otherwise I am satisfied so far.

Sure, you could put interceptors and escorts at 3 if you like, as long as only fighters are intercepting/escorting. I don’t think it makes much practical difference. And you could stop subs from hitting fighters; that’ s a simple enough change that speaks to most people’s intuitions.

I think having hidden information (hidden subs) is not really the right fit for the rest of the A&A franchise; I like hidden info a lot but I’d rather just play a game with two-sided blocks, like Europe Engulfed or whatever it’s called, that is designed from the ground up to handle hidden info.

@luftwaffles41 Hey, buddy, glad you’re still enjoying the game. I think a landing in Syria is often a good idea, because it’s under-defended, it’s worth some cash, it’s conveniently located near other Italian resources, and it threatens an immediate move into Iraq to activate the armies there and the oil income for the Axis.

That said, I wouldn’t design an entire opening around that landing, and I think landing with 2 transports there is usually plenty; it’s rare for the British to have enough units stacked in Jordan or enough fast movers in Egypt to safely kill 4 Italian land units.

The main problem I see with your reasoning here is that while you certain can wrest control of the middle east from Britain by ganging up on it with Germany, Italy, and Japan all at once, that won’t win you the game – the UK plus Canada and south Africa is still earning enough cash that you can’t easily take London even after wiping the Brits off of the tropics, and if all you do is seize the middle east, most of china, and the money islands, then you’re not out-earning the Allies. The Japanese pretty much have to go after at least one of India, Australia, Siberia, or Hawaii in order to pose a serious threat to the Allies in the Pacific, and the Germans need to either take Moscow, take London, or penetrate quite deep into southern Russia – probably all the way to the Caucasus. Just gaining control of Persia from the middle eastern side won’t win you the game if the Russians are still holding Stalingrad, Caucasus, etc. from the north. By concentrating so many resources on knocking the British out of the tropics – where they have relatively strong defensive potential – you are likely giving up on the chance to score a knockout blow on Moscow, Calcutta, Sydney, etc., which in turn means that the Allies will be outproducing you and able to overwhelm you at a time and place of their choosing. It’s true that Italy will become a monster – I’ve gotten her up to 42+ IPCs that way – and that can throw some players off, but that’s still much less than, e.g., the USA is earning. If the USA is dumping 60 IPCs/turn into the north African theater, then eventually Italian income will start going back down. You also might catch a British player off-guard if they build too many factories too soon, and win the game that way, but when I play middle Earth I try to be relatively conservative: one factory in Persia on UK2 if there’s no Sea Lion, and then maybe one more in Egypt or Iraq (not both) on UK4 or so if the region looks reasonably secure. The idea is to use the factories you have to crank out a lot of infantry and subs, which are a pain in the a** for the Axis to go kill. If I see you focusing on the middle east as the Axis, then as Britain I won’t build that second factory, and instead I’ll put some resources into building up an Atlantic fleet that can harass Norway, Belgium, and so on. Nothing requires me to fight to the death over Egypt. I can withdraw to Sudan and then to Ethiopia and force you to choose between pursuing me into less-valuable theaters or leaving my army intact to re-take Egypt later.

In terms of what I do recommend for German strategy, I’m not as skilled with the German pieces as I am with the British, but my insight is that victory as the Germans relies on crippling the Russians at an affordable price, which in turn relies on early control of Leningrad and Kiev – if you own Leningrad and Kiev, you can build 6 slow units a turn to use as cannon fodder while you build mechs and tanks in East Germany to threaten can openers. The problem is that you only have enough tanks in the opening to guarantee one of those two production centers. So, I typically send my tanks south to grab Kiev, and rely on transports to take Leningrad. A German Baltic fleet with 3-4 warships and 2-4 transports is affordable, will protect Norway, and can either force an early Russian retreat from Leningrad or allow you to crush the Russian garrison there. You can also keep shucking German units to Leningrad even after you’ve taken control of the factory; that allows you to place, e.g., some infantry and artillery in West Germany which can then either go west (if the Allies do land in Normandy/Belgium that turn) or go east by transport (if the Allies don’t).

Good luck, and have fun!

@Stucifer I would like to formally protest a flaw in the PTV game design, which is that (a) Germany had absolutely no capability at all of invading the mainland US in 1940 or 1941 and could not have acquired one, and (b) if that were somehow not the case, then there’s no way in hell that in real life a German transport sitting on the west coast of a German-occupied Gibraltar doesn’t trigger a US declaration of war.

The fact that I have to defend Washington against a German attack while the US is still at peace is ridiculous.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Love the idea of combining yakutsk, evenki, and novosibirsk into one high value inland territory, with Soviet far east as the low value, coastal dead zone between Russia and japan.

@luftwaffles41 I think defending London when the Axis come for London makes sense, because building anywhere else is mostly a dead end – if you lose the British capital, then other British units won’t be very effective. Otherwise, I firmly believe in hitting people where they’re weak, not where they’re strong. If you punch someone’s nose, you’ll break their nose; if you punch someone’s shoulder, you’ll just break your hand. So, no, I don’t have to spend 100% of British income in the middle east just because you’re attacking it. Part of winning A&A is learning how to use an inadequate force to extract maximum pain from your opponent. You will surrender the region in response to a max attack, but only slowly and gradually and at great cost to your opponent. If your opponent sends less than a max attack, then you get a stalemate in the region, which is also fine.

Having a sense that Britain needs to focus 100% in one theater is relative. Yes, British income is modest, and yes, they benefit from focusing, but so do the Germans. If the Germans invest big in the Med and then switch gears back to eastern Europe, that will be costly for them, as well. The question is not “can I afford to retool” but “does my retooling cost me more than my opponent’s retooling?” As the UK, I’m buying maybe 1 factory and 1 or 2 transports to enable the Middle Earth defense. As Germany and Italy, you are talking about buying 3 transports, plus the warships to escort them, plus diverting the entire luftwaffe for quite some time. I don’t see that the UK has a harder time pivoting away from the region than germany does.

Finally, the reason why flanking the Soviets from the south is not as exciting as it looks is because it’s a long frigging way away. Unless you pull off perfect can openers (not guaranteed given that Britain can afford to throw away 2-3 infantry at a time as blockers on some turns, and neither the Italians nor the Germans are likely to have lots of extra units at the end of their supply lines), you’re looking at something like I3 Egypt, I4 Jordan, I5 Iraq, I6 Persia, I7 Northwest Persia, so your first little poke into Russian territory doesn’t come until turn 8 or so, and often that poke is quite small and can be batted aside by Russian slow movers built in Stalingrad. If the British actually build a factory in Persia and build infantry there, you’re looking at more like turn 10 or 11. It can be done, and it can win games, but it’s not an opening strategy; it’s a middlegame strategy.

Well, the dice swung back a bit the other way in Soviet Far East. Glad I sent more than looked necessary to that one.

Please use second save; I moved a cruiser because I think I need it there to allow for a scramble to protect the transport.

@squirecam Land in Syria and take Persia? Easier said than done! After a Taranto raid, Italy has only one transport remaining – if you land on turn 1, you get 2 units into Syria, which can often be immediately counter-attacked and killed from Egypt/Trans-Jordan. Even if they survive, there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to conquer Persia.

Waiting until turn 2 to move into Syria doesn’t necessarily help – with only 10 IPCs, Italy can only build one extra transport, so now you’re landing with 4 ground units in Syria on turn 2. You can pick up the 3 infantry in Iraq on turn 3, and maybe land an infantry and a tank in Syria again on turn 3 so the tank can blitz to Persia on turn 4, which means you attack Persia on Italy’s turn 4 with 4 + 3 + 1 = 8 ground units plus maybe a couple of planes.

For its part, Britain can activate Persia on turn 1 with a loaded transport, meaning there will be 2 + 2 = 4 British units there on UK1. On UK2, Britain builds a Persian factory. On UK3, Britain builds 3 infantry in Persia, plus the 1 infantry from West India can arrive by foot. On UK4 (UK goes before Italy), you build 3 more infantry; 2 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 3 = 11 units defending Persia, not counting a couple of planes that can easily be stationed there as needed. So something like 11 inf, 2 fighters, even without any loaded transports coming up from South Africa or mech. inf. coming from East India.

Even with Italy going all-out against Syria/Iraq/Persia, and even with little/no reinforcements beyond just building the Persian factory and building infantry there, Italy is heavily outnumbered in attacking Persia. Much, much later in the game, after Italy has already taken Egypt, then the main Italian army can walk over toward Persia and cause real problems there – but that means the Persian factory has successfully produced for 7-8 turns, so it’s done its job for the Allies. The game will likely be decided elsewhere before the Italians can make to Tehran.

@mikawagunichi Yeah, there was some risk in that Greek battle, but the actual results were headed toward a 1-in-a-100 disaster. The combat hit differential summary underestimated how bad it was because I did better than average in the tiny battles in Russia that were less important.

Your Russian battles just now were also a 1-in-a-100 disaster, but I don’t know that it matters very much; there will be time for those to even out.

As far as Canada having its own separate economy, yes, that’s certainly part of what I’m envisioning here, although you can use the Supply Crate rules even if you have no interest in switching up the British economies. I would ideally like to have four English-speaking powers:

1. USA
2. British Empire
3. Canada
4. ANZAC

British Empire would be UK + Iceland + Gibraltar + British Africa + India + Malaya + Hong Kong, and anything they conquer or liberate during the game. The Indian major factory is downgraded to two minor factories: one in India, and one in West India.

Canada would get +1 IPC each in British Columbia (allows purchase of a minor factory if desired), Yukon (becomes passible), and Newfoundland, as well as an NO for clearing Axis subs from the Atlantic worth about 3 IPCs/turn. Alberta would start with an extra tac bomber, Hudson Bay would start with an extra DD, and Ontario would start with an air base. If anyone knows of other NOs that would make sense thematically for Canada, I’m open to suggestions. Politically, Canada is treated like ANZAC, i.e., it starts off at war with Germany and Italy, and it will declare war on Japan as soon as Japan is at war with UK and/or ANZAC. It can declare an unprovoked war on Japan if desired, but that keeps the USA out of the war for longer.

The lack of Canadian income would make Britain slightly more vulnerable to Sea Lion…but you can now spend Indian income to protect London if you want, so there is still plenty of flexibility for the Allies in terms of which English-speaking countries will come under early attack. If you build nothing in India, you would wind up having more money to spend in London than in a standard OOB G40 game.