Best posts made by Argothair

@Slip-Capone Can you elaborate a little bit on how or why these rules opened up new strategies? It looks like almost every territory worth 2 IPCs or more is a Victory Territory. How does playing with this list of Victory Territories change the strategy compared to just saying “whoever has more money after 6 rounds wins?”

1. Semi-official. It’s supported by the designer and some conventions, but not necessarily by the producers.

2. You could play without a bid if you wanted to.

3. No.

4. An R1 attack on Ukraine becomes mandatory; it is slightly more viable to build an Atlantic British fleet or an offensive Indian army. G1 purchases need to reflect the likelihood that 1+ British transports will survive in the Atlantic to threaten France. Germany may want 1-2 boats in the Med, because a Baltic German fleet would be threatened by the British Atlantic fleet, and with the German bomber dying in Ukraine, it is hard to take Egypt without naval reinforcements.

5. The new setup is popular primarily because Larry Harris, the designer, retains a lot of goodwill in the community, and people are eager to follow his suggestions. I think that’s fine – Larry’s done a lot of good work over the years and I understand why people respect him, but I think the new setup catastrophically fails to fix three of the four serious problems in 1942.2. The problems with 1942.2 are that (a) the Axis are much more likely to win, (b) most of the map is strategically irrelevant, © the Allies have no opportunity for counter-attacks in the first half of the game, and (d) the Allies have no efficient shipping routes anywhere on the map. The new setup fixes (a): the Allies can win again. That’s about it. There is still absolutely no reason to visit Norway, Finland, Archangel, Siberia, the central Pacific, Australia, sub-Saharan Africa, or Brazil. China is a useful highway for Japan to get to Moscow, but offers no opportunity for any kind of Allied defense. The UK will spend at least the first three turns just building fighters in London that will fly out to defend India and Moscow, and the US will spend at least the first three turns just passively building up its fleet. Russia can and must make smart trades in Eastern Europe, but the trades offer only tactical interest: nothing Russia can do will change its long-term income or prevent its need to steadily retreat toward Moscow. From the coast of the Eastern US and/or the Western US, there are no worthwhile territories that can be reached in one move: your choices are Morocco (1 IPC), French West Africa (1 IPC), the Caroline Islands (0 IPC), or the Solomon Islands (0 IPC). This means that any useful shipping route will require a minimum of three fleets: one to launch from the US coast, one to return to the US coast, and one to actually ferry troops from your forward base (e.g. Morocco) to somewhere useful (e.g. Italy). You can ship troops from Canada to France with only two fleets, but that is a full turn slower, and it also telegraphs your intentions, giving Germany plenty of time to reinforce France. Frankly, I don’t see the point of experimenting with the new setup. Unless you are very poor, I recommend buying A&A Anniversary and playing the Anniversary 1942 scenario instead.

@Black_Elk said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:

Fingers crossed for something that lets us play around outside the box a bit. Like a map or scenario editor with an intuitive UI for altering some of the behind the scenes stuff, so we could experiment, that would be hella exciting.

Yeah, absolutely, having some type of editor would be a mandatory feature for me. As far as I can tell from the preview photos and descriptions, right now Axis & Allies Online is not offering me any features that I want. The software only includes one game – 1942.3 – and you can’t edit that game in any way. Well, I don’t want to play 1942.3 using out-of-the-box rules, so, right now, I have no interest in playing Axis & Allies Online. I wouldn’t bother downloading Axis & Allies Online for free, let alone purchasing it on Steam.

I say all of this with respect and goodwill for the software designers, who seem to be working hard and trying to listen to the community. If anyone from Beamdog is reading this, I want you to know that your software could be a really exciting, useful gaming platform…but that you won’t get there just by thinking positively and hoping that the modified version of 1942 Second Edition (known around here as 1942.3) is a good “middle-of-the-road” map. It’s not a good middle-of-the-road map. It’s a bad middle-of-the-road map that makes thoughtless compromises and achieves many of the worst features of both ends of the spectrum. 1942.3 has enough rules and enough territories to be daunting for new players, but not enough strategy or fairness to be satisfying for experienced players. It’s not a good idea to start with an unmodifiable version of 1942.3 and then work on adding minor editing capabilities months or years down the road as a sort of ‘bonus’ feature. Those editing capabilities are part of the minimum feature set that you need to have a product that will attract significant support from serious A&A players.

Right now, switching platforms from TripleA to Axis & Allies Online would be a huge downgrade for me. TripleA supports both live and asynchronous play of 30 different maps, with house rules and editing and a working lobby. Axis & Allies Online supports 1 map, with no house rules and no editing, and it’s one of the worst A&A maps ever released. I’m pleased to see new options entering the market, but those options will have to get much better before I consider playing them or recommending them to my friends.

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

It’s not a terrible idea, but there are a few problems to overcome. One is that you have to either keep the factory alive or force Japan to pay a crushing price for it – which is very unlikely. Even if you can stack the factory heavily enough that Japan doesn’t want to attack on J2, they can probably attack J3 – so you get 1 build before the attack. It’s not realistic to send in enough Russian reinforcements to stand up against a probable J3 attack of 6 inf, 6 planes with your US/UK/China forces of 4 inf, 3 planes; you could do it, but Russia would promptly collapse. The Russia vs. Germany battle is really sensitive to minor changes; Russia doesn’t have that kind of breathing room to spare. Send in 1 Russian inf as reinforcements, yes. Build 4 tanks and send them all into China, no, not without a huge bid.

Another is that even if you keep the factory…so what? Japan’s not dependent on China for its economy, for factory spaces, or for freedom of movement. China’s the fastest route to Moscow, but it’s not the only one – one of the main reasons why Japan might opt not to attack Szechuan J1 is if they’re busy stacking Burma on the way to India. Do you really want to pay for a 1-build-slot factory in Sinkiang for the US if that means that Japan gets free early access to the 3-build-slot factory in India?

You could imagine an all-out KJF plan where an American Sinkiang factory makes sense – Britain bids a sub and uses it to attack Japan’s capital ships in SZ 37, Russia bids an artillery in Buryatia and uses it to attack Manchuria, and America bids an AAA gun in Szechuan to make Japanese attacks there more painful. Britain builds 1 inf, 1 art, 1 tnk in India and starts flying planes from London to support the attack; America builds 100% in Pacific, mostly DDs, CVs, and ftrs, to gain control of naval lanes to the money islands as fast as possible, and Russia sends over 1 tnk to support the Siberian forces while attacking West Russia (only) and building mostly infantry, playing a nearly-turtling defense on the European front. If the SZ 37 battle goes well (and it should, statistically) then you can force Japan to give way on at least one front; they don’t have the starting cash to fight in China and India and Siberia and the Pacific all at once from the very first turn.

Without a bid, though, the Sinkiang factory starts looking more than a little silly. You’d need the perfect turn on defense before US1 comes along, with Japan getting diced left and right.

@crockett36 It’s true that I am a little cynical. Like everyone else here, I play Axis & Allies for fun, and I enjoy the games, and I believe we’ll all continue enjoying the games, so in that limited sense I have an optimistic view of things. Basically everything will be OK and we’re all going to keep having fun with this game we like, which is good. I don’t want to lose sight of the bigger picture.

That said, I think because people have fun with their hobby, or because people are just positive thinkers in general, they wind up with these unrealistically positive views of what’s likely to come out of the pipeline from Avalon Hill. Avalon Hill has literally never released a game that was balanced out of the box. None of the releases are balanced. Revised was close, and that came out in 2004, i.e., 15 years ago. You know what else came out in 2004? Ticket to Ride, Power Grid, and Betrayal at House on the Hill. This is a long frigging time ago. You think Days of Wonder would still be a household name today if all of their games since Ticket to Ride had been borderline unplayable? Avalon Hill fans – i.e., us – are some calm, patient, tolerant mo’ fo’s. For people who like to pretend to be taking over the world and slaying millions of enemies, we sure have a peaceful, mellow attitude.

Honestly, I think the best starting map to promote with A&A software would be the version of Pact of Steel that includes Italy and China. If we have to go with an officially published map, I’d pick AA50. If we have to go with an officially published map with no bid, I’d pick Revised.

In Revised, Anniversary Edition, and 1942 Second Edition, by far the most popular and successful strategy is for all of the Allied powers to concentrate their forces in the Atlantic/European theater. By far the second most popular and successful strategy is for all of the Allied powers to concentrate their forces in the Pacific/Japanese theater. Almost nobody recommends splitting the American forces 50/50 or 60/40 or even 70/30 between the Atlantic and Pacific theaters.

People seem to agree that if you concentrate the Allied forces in one theater, you can seize an enemy capital and knock that enemy out of the war, whereas if you fail to concentrate the Allied forces in one theater, you won’t make progress quickly enough to stop Germany and Japan from uniting their forces against Russia, seizing Moscow and knocking Russia out of the war.

That all makes plenty of sense as far as it goes – I’m sure there’s something in Sun Tsu’s The Art of War about concentrating your forces and striking where your enemy is weakest, and so if we keep issuing rule sets that allow players to concentrate forces from all over the globe against a single ultra-important enemy capital, then the smart players will do exactly that.

But if you ask me, this business of concentrating your whole global army against a single enemy capital winds up wasting a major opportunity for fun. It’s fun when the US Pacific Fleet faces off against the Imperial Japanese fleet and they’re equally matched and it’s not clear who’s going to win control of the Pacific, and a brilliant tactic or a series of lucky rolls could help you build momentum and expand your borders. It’s fun when the US/UK invasion force squares off against the German Atlantic Wall, and they’re equally matched, and it’s not clear whether the Anglos will establish a beachhead in France, or whether they’ll get pushed back out to sea. It’s fun when the Germans divert every unit they can spare to defend the western beaches, leaving them equally matched with the Russians on the eastern front, and it’s not clear whether the Germans will break out at Stalingrad or Kursk and start pillaging the Russian heartland, or whether the Russians will break the German tank corps and start inexorably pushing the Germans backward.

It’s not fun when everyone at the table knows the Allies will win in the Atlantic and the Japanese will win in the Pacific, and the only question is who wins first. It’s not fun when you sit around counting out whether you’re three turns from the capital or four turns from the capital, and the game turns on whether or not your opponent can put a lone destroyer in your way to slow your fleet of 15 ships down by one crucial turn, so that instead of you sacking your opponent’s capital and using the proceeds to drop a stack of fighters to defend your capital, your opponent sacks your capital and uses the proceeds to drop a stack of fighters in his capital. In other words, winning the game should mostly be a matter of outfighting your opponent, not a matter of outracing your opponent. Yes, speed can and should matter in a wargame, but it shouldn’t be the only salient factor.

So here’s my question: what kind of house rule(s) would we need to encourage players to split their forces more or less evenly between the Atlantic and the Pacific? What’s the smallest set of changes we could make to the game that would make it an optimal strategy to split your forces, and make it a risky, unusual strategy to concentrate all your forces in one theater?

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.

@Black_Elk said in Grand Plans, 3rd Edition?:

I think there are a lot of new people who might across Axis and Allies online via promotion on steam or from the publishers at Wizards and such, and the fact that beamdog will have tutorials and a single player mode for learning the ropes is definitely a good thing.

Yeah, my guess is that the primary target audience is new, casual players who aren’t really familiar with A&A – maybe they heard about it once from a friend who plays over the table, but they’re being drawn in by ads on Steam or while playing Magic:TG. That’s fine; there’s nothing wrong with mass-marketing a game and focusing on what casual players will want. However, I seriously doubt that even casual players will enjoy 1942.2 out of the box for more than a few plays if there’s no option for a bid, a mod, or editing. I also think that the interviews from Beamdog so far don’t admit that they’re focusing on casual players – the marketing pitch says that people like me are supposed to enjoy this game. So, that’s part of why I’m pushing back: if the game is for people like me, then it’s not ready yet.

Well, I think your comment about “unfun” gets at the heart of the matter. Every new rule has to balance simplicity, fairness, excitement, and accuracy. An otherwise exciting rule that’s too complex to easily remember or that’s too fiddly to easily apply is probably not going to enhance the average player’s experience.

Keeping in mind that your new ruleset functions by adding several new unit types (and mechanics) to the game without removing much from the game, you may already be at or near the limit of how much complexity you can include in a house rule and still have it be fun. My advice would be to ruthlessly streamline your pricing scheme so as to minimize any further complexity, even if that means losing a bit of accuracy or excitement.

In other words, pick one pricing system and stick with it. A flat fee, or a flat fee plus a per unit premium, or a flat fee plus a one-time conversion fee…and apply that scheme for every single one of your technologies on every turn of the game.

That’s just my two cents. Ultimately, it’s your rule!

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.

Have you ever wanted a training scenario for Axis & Allies? Something that can help newcomers decide if the game is right for them, or a way to break in new players who need some practice, or something to use to teach your kids how to play one step at at time? Hasbro publishes the “1941” box, but in my opinion the production quality is kind of cheap, and it’s still not really fast enough for a proper training scenario – you don’t want to play a 2.5 hour game; you want to play a 30 minute exercise that could serve as a warm-up or a test run for friends to check out after a weeknight dinner.

So, I designed a couple of scenarios for just that purpose.

The rules for both scenarios are:

• 1 player vs. 1 player

• Each player gets 3 full turns

• Each player has only 1 nation

• Only limited territories are in play

• No capitals present or necessary

• Each player starts with IPCs in hand based on territories controlled at start

• Whoever controls more IPCs on the map at the end of the third turn wins

The basic scenario, on the European side of the 50th Anniversary map, also has the further rule that the only units allowed are infantry, artillery, tanks, and fighters. The idea is that you can play the European scenario first to learn the basics of land warfare, and then if you want more practice you can play the Pacific scenario to learn how to use your boats. All unit types are allowed in the Pacific scenario.

European Scenario (Germany goes first with 7 IPCs, then Russia with 8 IPCs)

HUNGARY: 1 factory, 1 infantry, 1 tank
ROMANIA: 1 factory, 1 infantry, 1 fighter
POLAND: 3 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter

vs.

EAST POLAND: 3 infantry
UKRAINE: 1 infantry, 1 tank
EAST UKRAINE: 1 infantry
CAUCASUS: 1 factory, 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 fighter

Pacific Scenario (Japan goes first with 10 IPCs, then Britain with 14 IPCs)

JAPAN: 1 factory, 1 infantry, 1 tank, 1 fighter
SZ 62: 1 transport, 1 cruiser, 1 carrier, 1 fighter
IWO JIMA: 1 infantry
SZ 59: 1 submarine
FORMOSA: 1 infantry
OKINAWA: 1 infantry
WAKE ISLAND: 1 infantry
CAROLINE ISLANDS: 1 infantry, 1 fighter
SZ 51: 1 submarine

vs.

AUSTRALIA: 1 factory, 2 infantry, 1 artillery, 1 bomber, 1 AAA gun
NEW ZEALAND: 1 infantry, 1 fighter
SOLOMON ISLANDS: 1 infantry
SZ 46: 1 transport, 1 battleship
NEW GUINEA: 1 infantry, 1 fighter
EAST INDIES: control marker
BORNEO: control marker
SZ 49: 1 destroyer
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS: 2 infantry

Players may use any sea zones they wish, but no other land territories other than the ones named above are considered to exist. For example, you cannot conquer or land on Hawaii or French Indochina.

As in the real game, the Axis start with slightly more total unit value, but less income, so they will have to rapidly conquer some territory (and briefly hold it) in order to win. But, really, winning isn’t the point – the point is to help bring up a new generation of Axis & Allies players. That’s the real victory.

All comments welcome!

@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!

(Pacific photo)

@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.

@SS-GEN That’s very relevant commentary, and I’m interested, so, thank you, SS Gen.

I agree that many A&A games have an issue where Japan becomes a monster if ignored by the US – some might see that as a problem, and some might see that as a feature – maybe the USA should have to pay at least some attention to Japan to keep them contained.

What bugs me about Anniversary 1941 is that, at least in my experience, even if the USA focuses 100% on containing Japan, sometimes Japan still grows big enough to be a huge problem for the Allies. For the most part I like Anniversary better than Global, but one thing I think Global gets right is that the USA, at war, is cranking out 80+ IPCs a turn even before they have any major conquests, whereas Japan, even after grabbing the valuable territories in their immediate neighborhood, is still only making 50 IPCs per turn – so if the USA focuses entirely on Japan early in the game, then the USA will still have the stronger economy and will be able to reliably beat Japan down – the only question is whether that beatdown will happen fast enough for Moscow and/or Cairo to hold against Germany and Italy. By contrast, in Anniversary, Japan can singlehandedly outearn the entire American economy, even when America is spending 100% on the Pacific…and because (with no bid) there aren’t any suitable territories for an Allied factory in the Pacific, America is the only Ally that will be spending any money in the Pacific, so Japan can still dominate even when all the Allies go 100% KJF. That’s crazy. I didn’t believe it at first, but @axis_roll pounded me into the dirt repeatedly in the process of showing me how and why it’s true, and now I’m a convert. So that’s the problem I’m trying to solve; I’d like to see an Allied Pacific force that’s capable of meaningful resistance to the Japanese expansion.

I completely agree with your criticism about Japanese tanks in, say, Axis & Allies 1942 Second Edition, or Axis & Allies Revised, or, even, to a lesser extent, in Axis & Allies Global 1940. Japanese tanks blitzing through the Gobi Desert, the Himalayas, or the frozen swamps of Siberia should not really be a major theme of this game. Japan did not have and could not have built a logistical infrastructure capable of delivering spare parts, fuel, and ammo for tanks over 2,000+ miles of hostile, snowy, mountainous terrain.

That said, I’ve never noticed Japanese tanks in Anniversary to be a major problem; my Japanese opponents typically use transports to conquer coastal Allied territories, as well they should. If you or anyone else is having trouble with Japanese tanks in Anniversary, I suppose it’s perfectly reasonable to nerf the Japanese tanks down to A2 D2 M2 C5 – they were, after all, mostly light tanks and somewhat outdated relative to other superpowers’ models. You could also just have a house rule that there’s no blitzing (for anyone) in western China or central Siberia.

@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.

@axis_roll said in Balanced Mod [Anniversary 41]:

Do defending ftrs have to intercept? In other words, they can decide to not go up to avoid the risk of being lost.
Does the AAA flak only shoot at remaining bombers, not fighters?

Nope, defending fighters are not required to intercept; that’s part of where the strategy comes in – it’s your choice whether to try to protect the factory or protect the fighters.

Yes, AAA flak only shoots at remaining bombers; the escorting fighters are assumed to be operating at extreme range, and therefore they begin returning home immediately after protecting the bombers from enemy interceptors (if any), and do not stick around to hover over the factory, so escorting fighters never interact with ground-based flak.

what (if any) is the difference between a warship and a ship? There’s several references to both in these.

In my personal vocabulary, I consistently use the following definitions:
“Ship” includes TT, SS, DD, CA, CV, BB.
“Warship” includes only SS, DD, CA, CV, BB.
“Surface ship” includes only TT, DD, CA, CV, BB.
“Surface warship” includes only DD, CA, CV, BB.

That said, for this variant’s NOs it is not very important to distinguish between different kinds of ships, so if you want to just say that the list is always “warship” for simplicity, that’s fine with me.

If so, do you have a side you prefer to play? I will go with either one. One last question… Low Luck or pure luck for battle outcome?

Once we decide these, then I can start to strategize more seriously and then we can arrange a date to start.

Nope, I’m happy to play either side! I cut the cake, so you get to pick your slice. :-)
I have a mild preference for low luck and no tech allowed so that we can more quickly arrive at a sense of where the game is unbalanced, but I certainly don’t insist on it. We can use a slightly tweaked version of your rules for low luck bombing, too – just add +1 to the damage table.

So @Argothair, this is the list we’re using to game play test?

Yes, I’ve been keeping the list at the front of the thread current. This is version 2.1; I had to nerf the Russian NOs heavilyi and nerf the UK NOs slightly after a live playtest with my buddy Corpo24.

You’re not going to be able to hold Moscow in an OOB game with no bid just by bombing and convoying Germany and Italy, because the Axis forces that take Moscow are 90%+ built by turn 3 using income collected on turn 2, so there isn’t enough time to build and attack with a significant number of bombers/subs. Subs built on turn 1 mostly can’t even reach Axis convoy zones on turn 2, and England can only afford to buy 2 bombers on turn 1, which isn’t going to have a significant impact.

If you want to reduce the size of the force that’s attacking Moscow, you have to put enough pressure on Germany (by credibly threatening to take Berlin) to motivate the Germans to retreat a portion of their forces back from the Russian front lines.

So, if you don’t want to build British units in the middle east and walk them north to Moscow, what are you going to do instead? You can go all out kill-japan-first with the idea of losing Moscow and retaking it much later using American / Indian forces advancing from Asia. You can land in Norway and Finland and build factories there and invade Germany from the north. You can land in Normandy and Belgium and invade Germany from the west. You can build a factory in Egypt and maybe Greece and attack Italy and then invade Germany from the south. There’s lots of options; you just need to think about your overall strategic goals.

@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.