Posts made by C_F

I am not sure about your specific tactics, but you are right. If Russia is allowed to attack on their first turn and there is no bid the allies are pretty much guranteed victory in advanced games. This is why that you have to either play RR or with bids. In beginner games you don’t need RR, because the allies have not learned how to coordinate themselves well enough yet.

The only other way I can see to beat the allies in a non RR/bid game is to supply the Germans with lots of gasoline and styrofoam peanuts.

Dertzfish,

It would be really hard to make the pieces look good at all, unless you were some sort of master sculptor. You might be able to use a sand or soap mold, but I know my manual dexterity would limit me to little squares and retangles.

Morten wrote:
“C_F, I have a bad feeling that that cocktail will expose the mixer to various gasses.”

Just do the misture outside instead of in the closet and hold your breath for a few seconds. Oh and you don’t have to mix it really, as soon as the acetone hits the peanuts it does the work on its own.

Just make your own pieces!! You can make a liquid plastic by mixing styrofoam peanuts and acetone which will harden after a while. It takes quite a bit of styrofoam to make any decent amount of plastic. The color of the peanuts will control the color of the plastic. Don’t use gasoline, that would give you something similar to napalm and we are playing WWII not Vietnam….

I am not saying the acetone/peanut mix is safe, just safer than gasoline :)

Are there parts of the game that just feel dorky or out of place with the type of game it is?

No

Does your version feel dated? (I know that mine smells like 50-year old mildewy cardboard).

No, it is still good, despite the flooding basement.

What do you keep your pieces and IPCs in, if anything?

The pieces are in the original styrofoam containers and the IPC’s have a rubberand.

Do you use (and how often do you refer to) the reference cards?

We only use them for setup and that is only when we haven’t played for a while. The rest of the time the are not used.

Do you like or dislike the board? Why?

Board is fine, except for the territories that are blown up. Sometimes units are placed in them and then we forget about them when it comes time to roll the dice.

Is your box all beat to hell? Do you still have the box?

The box is a little ripped, but mostly okay.

If you use the box, what is in it that didn’t come with the game (ziploc bags, variant rules, etc.)?

Maybe some extra dice, but that’s it.

Is the rulebook easy to read and use? Can you find what you’re looking for easily?

The rulebook is not real clear on some points, transports, some seazones.

Do you like the box illustrations? What about the rulebook ones?

They are fine.

Got anything else you like or dislike about how the game or pieces look?

Unit color is a good point, make the Japanese and Brits more disimilar. Other than that they are fine.

What is the flaw you are talking about? Strategic bombing? It doesn’t work very well in the game and it didn’t work at all in real life. Germany was producing more at the end of the war than they were at the beginning. Like real war, planes are better used to support ground units than bomb industrial locations.

First let me say I have done this and it has worked wonderfully, but that was when we first started and didn’t even play RR.

The benefits of strategic bombing has deen discussed to death on this site. Here is a quick summary of the economics.

Chance of Getting Through AA * Average Roll = Loss For Germans
5/6 * 3.5 = 2.92
Chance of Getting Hit by AA * Cost of Bomber = Loss for Allies
1/6 * 15 = 2.5
2.92-2.5 = 0.42
So on average a strategic bombing raid is worth about 0.42 IPC’s, which is not nearly as much as if it was infantry support.

You are right that by the fourth round or so you can be bankrupting Germany. Brits and Americans have no problems replacing bombers, but without a navy the allies cannot actually hurt Germany. Germany can just stack Eastern Europe and wait for Japan, which will steam roll Russia.

If you are going to do it, my adive is after a you have around 12 bombers start building a navy to spread the German forces thin.

Diplomacy is the best game for berating others, but at the same time it is almost impossible to win. Once you start to pull ahead everyone else bands together and beats you back down. As far as individual victory in Axis and Allies, the rules say the person who’s income increased by the largest percentage. If the axis win it’s almost always Japan, with the allies though it can be any of the three although it is often Russia.

How can you play without IPC victory. Do you really expect the Axis to be able to take two of the capitals? I have never seen the Axis win any way, but IPC, and would think the game would go one far too long if you made the Axis take two capitals

How does Russia manage to buy 3 fighters and 3 tanks and not have Germany and Japan dancing in the red square?

I like some of these ideas. One thing I have tried is moving the Russian fighters to Yakut. Hopefully, although you should never rely on opponents mistakes, Japan will view this as a defensive move to insure they do not attack Russia but go towards China/India/Sinkiang instead. The fighters are really there for the Japanese transports. If Japan goes heavy Pearl Harbor you have two transports in the Sea of Japan to sink and I for one am willing to risk those fighters. If they leave a carrier or battleship behind and you can’t attack who cares. Germany wasn’t going to attack Karelia on G1 anyway, not to mention the UK fighters are there to help defend. If you can sink the transports it puts Japan behind a turn. You can also accomplish much the same thing by landing the fighters in India and sinking the Phillipine and Sea of Japan tranport that drop off the 4 infantry in Burma on J1.

Germany should not be buying significant amounts of armour. Unless Russia makes a mistake, infantry is ALWAYS a better choice. You can always play the Germany strategy of mountains of infantry that just hunker down and hope Japan comes in time.

As far as Japan goes I agree that eventually you will want 1 IC on the continent. In the beginning of the game Japan transports infantry over and the fighters and bomber provide the offensive fire power. So after a half a dozen turns or so Japan is on Russias doorstep and finds they need a little more offense, tanks. You probably have about five tranports and you also probably want to keep buying 8-10 infantry a turn. To transport over two tanks you need two transports, 16 IPC, an IC is only 15 and you can produce three. Hopefully England will have done you the favor of building one for you in India.

Yes it is a bug, Germany would get Russia’s money and that is it. You only lose your money when your capital is taken. So when Japan retakes Moscow they would get Russia’s money but there is none so all they get is some vodka.

Well you can make the enemies units stronger too. I played the allies once and made the Japanese and German infantry 3-3 instead of 1-2. It didn’t really make any difference though. The biggest problem the AI has it does not have goals. The attacks seem random and have no long term purpose. Another thing to do is restrict yourself. Don’t allow yourself to buy any infantry or armor and then see if you can win. Doesn’t make you a better player in the real games, but at least it will force you to think.

Well laststrike I agree with you on this one, if not the sub and trannie hitting the trannie and fighter.

Why wouldn’t you be able to do this move during non-combat if you own WE?

All Gravy, for what it’s worth I agree with you 100%. Rules for almost every game are amiguous and as a player you have to try and determine what you think they MEANT, not what they actually wrote. If the rest of the world is wrong I don’t mind being one of the few lonely right ones.

“The Path of the righteous man is beset on all sides, by the inequities of the selfish, and the tyranny of evil men.”

I see laststrikes point, because that is what the rules say, but three things come to mind.
1. Nobody plays that way
2. The PC game doesn’t work that way
3. I don’t think the guys who wrote the rules intended that to be the interpretation.

Yes, you roll all of the defending dice and count the hits. If the attacker happens to have fewer ships than you have sub hits then you, as the defender, lose out on those extra hits.

Unlimited IC? If you do that, then there is really no point in playing, the allies have an even bigger advantage. If you did, the British IC should go in Persia where no one can take it before they build. When I first started playing we didn’t read the rules carefully enough and played this way. The allies could win without the US.

Don’t know about Yanny, but I am not a big fan of the IC in India. I think the sinlge most important thing in Don’s strategy is that you win by buying lots of infantry and throwing them into the meat grinder. The explanation of how to work the US and British transports is also very helpful.