Posts made by Axisplaya

@MadPup77:

Turn 2:
Germany - invades United Kingdom

This was fun with OOB, but you might have to forget it with Alpha…

Adjacent to Kwangsi and Kiangsi, it’s a UK India territory, hence the “it depends on when you build it”….

Personally, i prefer a Minor IC in Kwangtung, but of course, it depends on WHEN you build it…

You can’t upgrade a minor IC on foreign soil, even if it was a Major IC before you took it. I mean, you can’t do that with Alpha 1 and 2, but you could do it with OOB.

And i dunno about the size of your signature…

:mrgreen:

@Cmdr:

eh, 106, whatever…new map.  That funny SZ off the cost of Quebec

And, for the record, you could scramble the French and British fighters to protect the SZ 109 destroyer from the submarine, but they could not shoot at the submarine

Uh ? Why is that ? There is a destroyer in SZ109, so the planes could shoot at the sub if they scramble… No ?

Well, as i said, it may not be a good strat for the allies, but when you do it, Germany will usually forget about Sealion…Only time i saw Germany insists on Sealion with that allied strat, they failed to take london on G3, but took it on G4. At this point, USA was able to take it back on the same turn, and Germany had about nothing left to stop the Russian and had an airfleet severely reduced. Italia was a monster, despite the fact that the little UK India fleet kept harassing them with bringing men to africa from India.
Axis had to resign this game because of their horrible position in Europe, while the Japan had a wonderful game in the pacific.

@kcdzim:

@kilroynothere:

Now have played one game with the new setup. Overall, very impressed. The new scrambling rules certainly dramatically help Germany with a G3 Sealion. Depending on how the initial sea battles go, it is VERY difficult (or so it seems) to prevent a successful G3 Sealion. Has anyone played through this and seen the same thing?  Has anyone come up with any wonderful strategies to deter/prevent from an Allies perspective?

There’s probably no way to completely 100% guarantee that a dedicated G3 sealion can be stopped.  The only thing the allies can do is make it as costly as possible.  The UK needs to build all infantry from the start (sheer numbers), pull all planes back to the UK (at the expense of establishing a Mediterranean threat), transport whatever it can back to the home islands (if transports are still floating after G1), and try to setup a large enough naval block that the initial naval attack will require Germany to commit some air units to discourage the UK from scrambling and stopping the amphib assault before boots hit the beach.  Even then, a dedicated sealion can still work.  But at what cost?  Usually, if  Sealion is too costly, Russia will be able to advance and Germany will not have the units in position to force her back.

I can’t say any better than Kcdzim on that matter.

If your main goal for UK is to do the maximum to prevent Sealion, you can try this :

–You scramble with your 2 fighters on G1 only if you have very good odds for not losing ANY plane (in doubt, don’t scramble)

–on UK 1 ,  NCM  : 1 fighter from Scotland to UK, 1 Destroyer from SZ98 to SZ94, 1 Tac Bomber from SZ98 to Gibraltar, 1 fighter from Malta to Gibraltar, and Gibraltar fighter to UK. Depending on the fact that a germain sub might still be there to suck 2 of your precious IPC, you will NCM the SZ98 transport(loaded of course) and/or the India transport to Greece and/or persia (taking both might be necessary). This will allow you to have enough IPC to buy 10 inf on UK2. the rest of the SZ98 fleet will NCM to SZ 80 i guess…
Now, the most important NCM of all : you will usually have at least one warship still alive somewhere in the atlantic after G1 (never seen a game where ALL UK boats are sunk on G1 yet) . So you NCM that boat on SZ 104.
Now, there is no way for the Axis to prevent your 2 planes in Gibraltar from reaching UK on UK2.

This will leave you with 21 or 22 infantry, one AAgun, 6 fighters and one Tac bomber at the end of UK2. Now, if Germany insists on Sealion, it will really be atrociously expensive.

I’m not saying this is a good strat for allies because Italy will soon be a monster, but it’s the best way to prevent Sealion i have found so far…

@Cmdr:

I decided to leave the BB and CA off the coast of SZ 110 to have overwhelming odds in France, SZ 111, SZ 112 and Yugo and some snipe attacks on SZ 91, 106 and 103

Snipe attack on SZ 103 ?  :?

Actually, i would say this :  I kill everything that looks like a UK ship , except in SZ109 + I got a very decent shot at the UK cruiser in SZ91 (works about 35-45% of the times) +  i take France AND normandy AND i land 2 fighters in Southern Italy on G1.  This has worked for me 100% of the times (on a huuuge sample of….3 games lol :-D).

@Gargantua:

I agree with Axisplaya.

You can use the Hungary fighter in the battle for Yugoslavia, on it’s way to southern italy.

Oops…forgot to do that last time i played, but it won’t happen again !

@Idi:

@eudemonist:

Yeah, I think Germany really needs to get those planes down to Italy G1.  If they don’t, then yeah, could be very bad for Italia.

How, I don’t how 2 planes can attack the UK fleet and fly all the way to souther Italy. Kindly tell me which planes your talking about.

There is more than 1 solution to this,  but here is what i did last time i played germany :

1 figther (from Western Germany or Norway) attacks SZ 112 and then NCM to southern Italia.
1 fighter for Slovakia/Hungary NCM to southern Italy.

True : the slovakia fighter not participating to any combat on G1 might seem like an heresy to many players, but i don’t care ! My goal is to protect the italian fleet.
On that G1, i have wiped almost the entire UK fleet with losing only one plane ! SZ 106 and 91 have been “cleaned”. The only SZ i didn’t attack was SZ 109.

@Cmdr:

No, they have 1 fighter they can bring in.  North Italy does not have an Airbase to scramble fighters for.

SZ 97: Aircraft Carrier, Cruiser, 2 Fighters against 1 Battleship, 1 Cruiesr (1 fighter maybe)

Carrier, Destroyer from SZ 98 to SZ 97
2 Fighters from England to SZ 97
(Fighters can land on the carrier after battle, the tactical bomber can land on Malta)

Odds without Cover Air Patrol: 84%
Odds with Cover Air Patrol: 40% win, 40% mutual destruction (both are fine for me.)

SZ 95: Tactical Cruiser, Destroyer, 2 Fighters vs 2 Destroyer, Submarine, Cruiser
Cruiesr from SZ 91 to SZ 95
Fighter from Malta to SZ 95
Fighter from Gibraltar to SZ 95
Cruiers from SZ 98 to SZ 95

Odds without Cover Air Patrol: 92%
Odds with Cover Air Patrol: 60%

Finally, move one guy (or two) from Egypt to Greece, to get the Neutral and reinforcements. (2 IPC for the territory, 4 infantry.  6  Infantry can be some nice extra dmg to the Germans.)

Now, knowing the odds, most players are going to put their S. Italy fighter out to protect the Battleship.  But with 40% to destroy you and win, 40% to destroy you and be wiped out myself and only 20% you survive, I think it’s worth it.  I’ll still have boats left from SZ 95 (or not, lots of Fighters on Malta to hit your new builds with) and now England owns all of North Africa.

Maybe you are not liking 40/40/20 odds of failure, but then, you have to assume Italy’s going to use their fighter, maybe they do not?

If you look, strictly, at what naval ships and planes that can get to the battle you get:

England: 1 Aircraft Carrier, 1 Destroyer, 2 Cruisers, 1 Tactical Bomber, 1 Transport and 4 Fighters

Italy: 2 Destroyers, 2 Cruisers, 1 Battleship, 1 Submarine, 3 Transports

Now, I am not including transports for casualties, I am only including them in respect of how much money in units will be lost.

If you cancel like units (as you did) you get:

England: Aircraft Carrier, 1 Tactical Bomber, 3 Fighters
Italy: Battleship, 1 Destroyer, 1 Submarine

The carrier can take two hits, the battleship can take two hits.  So in that regards, they negate each other.

The extra punch England has is (3(3)+4)=13 (roughly 2 extra hits a round)
The extra punch Italy has is (4+2+1)=7 or roughly 1 extra hit a round.

I feel that either the testers were completely oblivious to the serious danger they put Italy in (essentially removing them from the game before Round 1) or they did so on purpose.

You’re right, UK has a lot of punch in the med, but i still don’t like that UK move for at least 3 reasons.

1- It’s not “maybe” one fighter that will scramble in south Italia, but 3 (2 germain fighters will end up there on G1). Their primary target is now those 2 UK fighters so they will all scramble on SZ95.

2- Often ( somewhere between 35 and 45% i guess), you will not have the UK cruiser on SZ 91 for your attack as a germain sub will have sunk it on G1. Depending on that, one of the 3 figthers might scramble on SZ 97 instead of 95…and it could result with an italien win on both sides ! But of course, you may not make that UK attack with the loss of the SZ91 cruiser.

3- The loss of these 2 UK fighters is a great incentive for Sealion (G1 buy : the “classical” 1 Aircraft carrier and 2 transports).

I won’t pretend to be an expert with just a few games of Alpha+2, but so far, our UK players haven’t be willing to pull that 2 zones attack in the med.

@Gargantua:

Game thinking is no longer conventional, people forget that.  They focus on taking territory by territory thinking it’s helping them economically, when really, they just need to focus on objective and economic based territories that ACTUALLY matter.

Japan’s outright strategic objectives for winning should be

1) Hong Kong - Easiest
2) Phillipines - Easy
3) India - Difficult  (But not if your plan properlly)
4) Hawaii - easy to extremely difficult.  - The reason Hawaii is last, is because it can be reached from your Capital Zone - so your Entire income can focus on it.

It all comes down to What happens early in China and India.  Most people just buff themselves Right into China Right away -  I think this is bad, the new theory should be all about Neutralization.

Stack up in Kwangsi.  You can get like 14 ground units there.  take the odd territory here and there from china, but don’t expose yourself to counter attack.  The game is not won by  beating china,  it’s won by getting your men out of china and into the fight for  india.

J2, you can hit Yunnan with everysingle plane you have, and a FAT stack of ground units.  Chances are, the Chinese won’t stack here, but they could - hope that they do.  Regardless, they have almost no counter to take yunnan back on China 2, it will be a slaughter.  So you have a stack in Yunnan .

Yunnan IS the burma road, without this territory you cut China’s income roughly in HALF.  by taking 1 Territory!  Forget about China for the rest of the game.

J3 you attack south to fight the british, right along the Burma road,  China won’t have a chance to take it back - Ever.  By this time you can have built a naval base in Hainan and an airstip in Kwangsi, all fairly standard japanese buys.  You can then also make any ships or transports available - ready in this region as well.

Now a few things can change here depending on what the british have done with their navy.  But there is a trick to this-  Most ppl Fck it all up here because they hit the money islands instantly - instead of a direct focus on India. I think this is BAD FORM.

Ignore the money islands- sure you might lose 16 IPC’s of income, oh well, you’ll get India.  Use your airfoce to take out ANYTHING that is blocking the path from Hainan to Burma.  Then, NCM your entire navy and full transports from Kwangsi/Hainan to burma, and unload the ground units INTO burma.  Now what’s india going to do?

Not soon after this it is easy to nuetralize ANZAC from the game.  IF at some point you take the Soloman islands, or a likewise territory - you can eliminate ALL ANZAC No’s.  That said Mayla takes out half their NO’s aswell.  Make sure you deprive them of these objevtives, and make a point of killing there navy once or at the same time you do.  They’ll be out of the game for the rest of it.

It all comes down to Hawaii after that, and at the same time peeling units from India into those Money islands.  Now you are on Economic Par,  China has done F-all.  Anzac is neutralized, and all you ahve to do is put everything you have into Hawaii.

OR, you send everything you have onto the Europe board to make all the difference in Russia.  Ouch.  an Anti Russian campaign is part of my strategy too.  But I’ll put this all together in an article someday to make it easy.

If you don’t do something like this, then you better be sending everything you have against America, to try and draw their units out of Europe.  Otherwise you are just a panty waste Japan, who floated around for awhile and sank.

Thank you for taking the time to write an elaborate answer to my question. Very interesting post as usual. I will try your strat as soon as tonight !

Basile II : nowhere in his post Gargantua talks about attacking Yunnan on turn 1.

Funcioneta : i don’t think Gargantua means to ignore China for the rest of the game, but that a J2 attack on Yunnan is a killer move for China.

@Gargantua:

I agree Japan is the weakest link.  But I find it’s because people don’t understand what Japan’s Goals and Objectives HAVE to be.  They mostly just seem to grind/wind into China and die.

What should those objectives be according to you ?

@Daedelus:

India on turn 3 is going for blind luck and hoping that your enemies won’t take advantage of you while your busy.

I totally agree with this…

@McMan:

That’s all well and good, but if the Germans are shipping units over to London AND investing in building units there AND investing to keep their navy alive against the massive US forces, then Germany is going to fall to Russia quickly, no questions asked. In that case, neither the fall of India or London is of any real consequence.

Hmm…you were talking about dividing the US income…So if it is the case, investing in building units in london (9IPC), bringing a few more unit each turn (maybe 4-6 and just a few turns, not every turn for all the game) and in keeping the navy alive won’t cost all German IPCs. The rest of the IPC will be invested on eastern front and it will be enough to stop the russian.
If you tell me that i will not make a lot of progress on the russian front with this strat, i will agree, but there is no way Germany will “quickly fall to Russia”.

@McMan:

I feel like a skilled US player would be able to divide his income to be able to take on Japan and take London. 82 IPC’s aren’t necessary to take out the remainder of the German invasion force plus the three units MAX that Germany has built there each turn. If the Germans have done Sealion and fortified London, chances are they’re getting curbstomped by the Soviets. I imagine that the initial neutral builds of the US could take London, in which case they would be free to hit Japan with everything.

I feel like a skilled Germany player would NEVER allow this to happen…At least not so fast…
With his transports, germans will bring some infantry each turn to London, and your reasoning that they will built 3 units MAX doesn’t take this into account…
If your skilled US player divide his income, you can totally forget about taking back london for a while…

@chompers:

See, that’s the part I don’t get.  We’ve played about 15 to 20 games total of Alpha using its various setups and the Axis have won about 80% of them, the only time the Allies haven’t lost has been when they managed to contain Japan through ceding most of Africa by retreating to the south and holding there while the Mediterranean UK fleet went into the Pacific to link up with the US and ANZAC fleets.  This was the only game we’ve played where the US was actually able to spend enough IPC’s in the Atlantic to overcome the German naval and air force deterrent in a reasonable time frame (before, say, turn 8 or so), which is generally 8-10 planes plus the Baltic fleet (usually a carrier and battleship) as well as one to two subs purchased per turn.  The UK atlantic has a tough time ever putting out any sort of navy in time to be threatening as their turn 1 purchase is generally dictated by the Germans, and they’re forced to spend a portion of their IPC’s each turn to hold the Italians back from overrunning all of Africa.  This only leaves them with IPC’s in the the mid-teens to commit to fleet each turn, some of which has to be transports for it to have any effectiveness, which the Germans can happily blow to kingdom come every time they approach the shoreline.  If the UK slowly builds a fleet off of Canada and holds back until it has a (slim) chance at surviving the German deterrent, its generally not showing up before Germany has enough spare IPC’s to watch its coast as well as continue its push into Russia.

With regards to Russia, I agree that they need some offensive power in their purchases in order to keep the front line as far away from Moscow as they can so that they retain a degree of purchasing power longer into the game.  However, its been my experience that whatever Russia does, Germany can do better. Even purchasing a sub a turn Germany still has more IPC’s to spend on attack than Russia has on defense and also has the numerical advantage out the gate in armor as well as parity (roughly) in inf/art/mech.  If the German is cautious in his drive into Russia, only moving forward in the north when he’s assured to survive whatever Russian counterattack might come, and sitting comfortably in the south trading the Ukraines with Russia, I don’t see where the Russians really have any option but to begin to fall back eventually.  As I’ve said before, this is generally a slow process in our games, but once you do begin to fall back Russia surrenders a lot of the IPC’s it needs to be competitive and loses its ability to divert significant German spending away from the Allied landings that are now occurring in Europe.

I just don’t see how more than 1 Axis power can really be contained effectively by the Allies.  Whatever theater you choose to bring the pressure in, the other one goes to hell.  If you choose to fight hard in both, you cede the advantage (slightly) to the Axis in each.

I hope someone will give a good answer to Chompers. His post makes a lot of sense to me, as a lot of our games look like what he’s describing here… But maybe we are just not playing the allies well enough…

Very interesting thread.
Thanks for your post Gargantua. I read a few things that we don’t do enough in our group…

For Calvin, i’m just a little confused by this :

@calvinhobbesliker:

1. Remember that you can’t take subs as casualties if the opponent has no destroyer

This apply only for the hits caused by the opponent planes when he has no destroyer right ? I mean : if your opponent attacks with just subs, battleships and cruisers, you can take subs as casualties right ?

@frimmel:

My experience is that a first turn airfield on NG is a mistake for Japan that allows the US to call the tune.

In this article : http://www.axisandallies.org/node/325

No 11 says this : " It’s easy to build an airfield near your home base and harder to build them farther away. Try building your first airfield on the furthest safe island from your home base card. Your opponent won’t make it to Guadalcanal or Bougainville for a few turns so you have some time to build their. On the other hand New Georgia, Santa Isabel, and Choiseul will quickly become hostile environments. If you can safely transport supplies to one of those islands early, it should give you and advantage later."

So, sorry to come again with that, but what should i believe ?

Could you please, Frimmel, explain to me in a little more detailed way how the US will “call the tune” ?

If needed, i can provide the exact japanese moves so you have a clear position to work on.

Depends : if the fighters belongs to the same power than the carrier.

Exemple : US Carrier with US fighters: planes are in the air and have 1 movement to land.

UK carrier with US fighters : planes are considered cargo and are sunk with the carrier.