Posts made by chompers

@LHoffman:

I am thinking this game favors the Allies, due almost entirely to income.

I’m inclined to agree with you in spite of me pulling off an axis win (at last!).  I think the inf/art stacking early on with Germany is merely the most effective way to prepare for the mid-game coming of the US while still pushing on the Russians, not that it’ll actually win them the game.  It’s Japan that earns them the win, it’s Germany’s job to snipe a couple Russian VC’s while trying to lock down the ones in Europe.  I found a 55/45 ratio of art to inf buys early on (first 3 to 4 turns) with a couple extra mechs to catch up with your stack while whatever Russian cities you grab churn out tanks brought me twice as far as I’ve ever gotten into Russia with any other combination of units.  Germany ignores the naval situation because they can’t afford planes (that’s where the japs come in) and uses about 80% of their IPC’s from turn 4 onwards to prepare forces @ West Germany to counterattack allied landings.  Churn out a couple subs every few turns to keep the Brits convoy disrupted and just bunker down and wait for the Japanese to conquer the rest of the world.  Not quite sure how Italy should factor into this (since by virtue of buying that Major IC upgrade turn 1 you’re losing the Italian fleet normally) but I had them plop out a fighter or two to support the attack on Egypt and then switch over to inf to defend Rome.

@The:

@chompers:

@Pelanderfunk:

If sealion is successful, you can bomb the crap out of Gibralter, and nobody can repair it until london is liberated.

If the US lands in Gibraltar after London falls it counts Gibraltar as it’s own until London’s retaken.  So the US repairs it instead.

Not unless an axis power captured it first

Whoops, good point.  So used to Italy grabbing it.

@Pelanderfunk:

If sealion is successful, you can bomb the crap out of Gibralter, and nobody can repair it until london is liberated.

If the US lands in Gibraltar after London falls it counts Gibraltar as it’s own until London’s retaken.  So the US repairs it instead.

To my understanding, yup.

@valthonis:

I had 4x Infantry, 6x Fighters, and 6x Tactical Bombers (Japan) attacking a China Territory that consisted of 2x Infantry.  Honestly, my forces had nothing better to do.

After many rounds of combat, I took it with only 2 Infantry and 1 Fighter left.  I probably shouldn’t have pressed on, but it was out last round to play as it was getting late and Germany had just fell with no hope of Italy rescuing them.

That’s insane!

@hobo:

I’ve only played one game and it became very apparent that the game is seriously broken.  In aa50, it was still possible to win with either side even if the allies concentrated entirely on one axis.  In aag40 however, some of the rules are seriously broken and need to be adjusted for the “global” game.

1. ports are fine in the pacific, but in europe, it’s a disaster for the axis.  There is no way the axis can prevent a large US naval stack with 5 or more transports sitting on the atlantic side of gibraltar.  With air on carriers and bombers in uk, the US could strike anywhere in france, norway, or either german or italian capitals with a stack that could be as large as 20 units very early.

2. japan can’t do enough against north america to prevent the US from going all out kgf by moving all their naval units to europe.  They can be annoying but the US income is too large and the building base too high on continental US to seriously threaten taking w. US.  It would also mean giving up china and the rest of asia to put in a serious enough of an attempt on w. US which means japan’s income is just too small.

3. as discussed here, once the US takes norway, it’s over.  Germany would have to spend too much just to defend their homeland which doesn’t leave enough to do anything against ussr if that player is half way competent.  10 ground units with a stack of air every turn means germany gets picked apart pretty fast.  With the US strike force starting off at gibraltar, it’s impossible for the axis to defend everything with both their homelands are at risk.  Building a major complex in norway first doesn’t help since germany isn’t exactly rolling in dough.  The only way to even make any attempt of holding norway is by giving up any assault on ussr but people can see what would happen there eventually.

4. unlike aa50 where japan can eventually get strong enough and advance quickly enough to actually help germany, aag40 board is too large for japan to do anything to help against kgf.  Anyone looking at the unit counts can see it starts to go downhill for the axis very quickly.  There’s too big of a gap in incomes.

The only thing I can see possibly offsetting these factors are victory cities.  I haven’t lookated at it closely enough, but I guess if victory cities for the axis were set low enough, it might be possible for them to win that way if japan can take out all of asia before germany gets crushed.

I don’t want to believe this is true but every game I’ve played so far has reinforced these points.  Yes, if the Japan is extremely efficient and well played and makes a beeline for VC’s in the Pacific/Africa/Russia its possible to grab them just in time, however that seems to be the only reliable way the Axis can pull off a win.  I use the term reliable very loosely as each game I play the allies figure out new tricks to slow down the Axis, whereas the Axis are always one bad dice roll or miscalculation away from their plans being stalled for crucial turns they can’t afford to lose.  The Allies have a huge economic head-start that’s tough to chip away at beyond a certain point, and the ability to use the US to dictate the course of the game.

I’d say J1 is still the most beneficial attack if we’re viewing Japan in isolation from its allies.  I look at J2 is a good compromise between the needs of the European and Pacific Axis.  Is allowing the Pacific Allies an extra turn to put up what could be a formidable series of roadblocks to Jap expansion worth the trade-off of the US showing up in Europe 1 turn later?  Not to mention you’re giving the US an extra turn to stack Hawaii with planes and navy if they so choose, which can seriously hinder Japan’s ability to mount any sort of major offensive.  All depends on whatever strategy you’re following I guess, as well as the US player’s moves.  I use Japan as the primary breadwinner of the Axis side and don’t like to see them get bogged down fighting inf stacks in the Pacific.

Recently I played a Global game as allies where my GB army in India (consisting of 24 inf 1 art 1 tank) scored a grand total of 3 hits across 2 rounds of combat.  Anyone else have any stories to share?

I’m kinda leaning towards J2 myself.  I’ve had some luck moving the vast majority of my fleet to the Carolines J1 (including all my transports) while building 3 more transports.  Sets you up to do some major damage as you’ve got a ton of targets in range of your transports J2.  GB gets slightly more pesky by letting them keep their full territories for a turn but it’s nothing you can’t handle.  Not as huge a fan of J3 because that India stack can really start growing by that point, and the Chinese player can keep you from doing any significant damage to his main stack until J4-J5 so spending your first 3 turns just hunting the retreating Chinamen and Russians is kind of a waste of your turns IMHO.

As far as an actual full steam attack on the US, haven’t seen it pay off yet.  Very large investment on the Jap player’s part that can be checked with a minimal degree of effort by the US.  I just stick with Hawaii and the Philippines and keep a close eye on what the US is building on the Pacific side and position my fleet accordingly.

Interesting and I’ll definitely try it out at some point in time.  However, the UK doesn’t really need to spend IPC’s in Africa for several turns if it blasts the Italian fleet (something it should do if you’re not threatening a Sea lion) and moves some or all of its Pacific fighters over and it seems like the success of this strategy is mostly predicated on them churning out units in South Africa.

This was a profoundly frustrating game for me.  I had GB practically handed to me on a silver platter on my third German turn (went in w/ 11 inf 4 art 7 tanks and 5 planes on his 17 inf 1 tank), had a 45 point Italy at one point, and a Japan that actually surpassed the US in IPC’s by turn 4.  His ANZAC was gaining 3 IPC’s a turn due to sub convoy disruption and losing NZ, Pacific GB was spending 4 a turn (i held its Canadian territory w/ Japan), China was dead turn 5, and the 18 R inf on Japan’s side were gradually being whittled down.  Even with ALL this going my way as well as an invasion of Alaska, the taking of Hawaii, and my fleet convoy disrupting the US for 12 IPC’s a turn I still couldn’t stop the US from taking out Europe while simultaneously using their outrageous ability to produce 20-30 units a turn on the mainland when needed to check my invading Japs.
I felt I needed to do something as Japan to peel US attention away from Europe but ultimately in retrospect I should’ve just finished off the remaining pacific countries (who’d stacked inf the entire game) and then went to grab 1 of the Russian cities to complete the Axis VC.  Doing this while managing to keep the cities I already controlled in Europe as Germany though seems close to impossible as the investment I made to take GB and hold it against US counterattacks left me totally unprepared to fight off the massive Russian inf/art stack that came my way turn 5.  Even if I’d managed to beat that stack (it took Berlin R7 effectively ending the game) it would’ve been close to mutual annihilation which would’ve left only Italy to contend with the Americans for a turn or two, a task it’s completely inadequate for (even at 45 IPC’s!).  Sooooo, back to Germany turtling up and preparing to fight the US and maybe grabbing Leningrad, while Japan does the heavy lifting for the Axis side.  Sea lion just did not seem to pay off its investment even when it worked.

If they could find the IPC’s and the turns necessary to do this, then sure.  How they pull that off is another question entirely.

In my experience so far a good Russian player playing conservatively can make Moscow close to impossible to take.   The way Russian territories are set up allows them to fall back and shadow any approaching German army until the Russians have reinforced their stack to the point where it can turn around and chase out or destroy the invaders.  There’s no real downside to this vs standing and fighting as you’re only giving up 1-2 ipc provinces as you fall back and you’re continuing to preserve and grow your Russian stack at a rate faster than the Germans can hope to reinforce theirs (assuming, of course, that GB and the US are putting any sort of pressure on the other side of Europe).  I’ve pretty much given up going for it and instead have resolved to find some way to take Leningrad and Stalingrad.  I’ll admit that Germany and Italy, given free reign to attack Russia can eventually bring them down if they focus all their strength on it but how are they doing this while preventing or counter-attacking allied landings?  There’s just not enough IPC’s available for them to effectively do both.

Wow, that sure beats co-opting the kitchen table for a few days  :-D

I’ve been pulling my hair out trying to figure out ways for the Axis to neutralize the US but keep coming back to the fact that it slows down the Jap economy and/or attack on Russia/Africa to do it.  You never seem to be able to get past landing in Alaska before the US has effectively made the West Coast close to invincible, at which point you’re forced to continuously commit Japan’s purchases to maintaining their foothold.  As far as any other Axis country getting involved in the anti-US action, any points you’re committing to attack (assuming you even find a way to do so) is less points your spending beating up on UK/Russia, which IMHO needs to be your goal for the European Axis in order to take advantage of the fact that the US is outta the game.  If anyone has any realistic ideas would love to hear em.

I believe he’s assuming GB sinks the Italian fleet turn 1.

Wait wha?  SZ 106 is off the coast of Canada.  How is the bomber attacking it?

If the German sub doesn’t kill the transport/destroyer in SZ 106 there’ll be another infantry and tank in GB, plus you’re missing the 1 french infantry there as well.  If Germany loses even one plane sinking the GB fleet turn 1 this is a real dicey attack.  Big potential gains but big potential losses as well.

I don’t understand how Germany pulls off a G2 Sea Lion if GB goes 9 inf turn one outside of praying for good dice.  Hoping for good luck shouldn’t form the cornerstone of a strategy.

Yeah, he makes up for lack of creativity in choosing forum names by a good bit of it on the game board  :-D