Best posts made by DoManMacgee

I’d like a map/scenario editor myself. I’ve tried for ages to get the one in TripleA working but I’ve never had much luck. Probably my own fault for being too lazy to look up a guide or ask for help, though.

@Argothair:

To really boil down your advice, you’re saying to skip the attack on the British Home Fleet and the American Pacific fleet in favor of sending maximum Axis air toward the center of the board

Center board pressure, yup.
Only exception to the whole “not hitting the UK Home Fleet” bit is that I make sure to dive on the SZ12 Fleet (The DD/CRU pair). Taking that out gives the UK one less bombardment, gives Italy a chance to get its “clear the Mediterranean” NO, and might make the US think twice before storming Morocco US1.

Anyway, onto the nitpicks/discussion:

@Argothair:

Britain can pretty easily bring 4 land units + 3 air + 2 bombards to attack France.

That’s true, but think of the typical Allied strategy in AA50. Most players try to land in Norway and drop an IC there. If UK is spending its time diving on France it delays this factory until they decide to divert the resources needed to occupy it.

Additionally, devoting everything 100% to a France landing B1 implies letting the Baltic Fleet and surviving German Subs live. If UK does this and Germany landed its air force in-range you could be looking at a pretty bloody G2 attack on the UK Fleet (unless UK buys like a CV or some other big naval force B1).

I’m not saying that leaving France in shoddy shape is necessarily a good idea either, and I definitely see the downsides of having to tether a 10+ INF/1-2 FTR stack to France for most of the game.  It really does take away from the Russian front if I can’t cripple the Soviets economically in the first 2-3 turns.

Holding France isn’t 100% necessary either. It sucks if I don’t have enough punch to retake it on G4/G5, but if Moscow falls round 5 and the Allies are in France/Italy, that still should come up an Axis win once either:
A: Germany takes Russia’s lunch money and builds a massive land force in Europe.
B: Japan’s tank stacks flood into Europe to save Germany’s bacon.

@Argothair:

Second, it’s not clear to me that you can kill the British Indian fleet J1 AND shut down China hard AND and take India on J2.

Fair warning before I describe my order of battle here, bids change this strategy completely. I probably wouldn’t recommend something that’s basically a cheese in a tournament setting with bids because an experienced player would definitely recognize that India is a key position that the British need to hold at all costs if they want to keep Japan’s income from exploding.

Fair warning #2, the image I’m looking at for the setup is blurry, so forgive me if I get the SZ #s wrong (I try to describe the physical location).

That being said:
J1:

• Most of the East Indies Fleet (CV/BB/1 FTR, the other FTR is going to Yuunan), FTR from SZ51 (Caroline Islands) Vs. India Fleet (DD/CV/FTR), idea is to do this battle last and take casualties based on how other battles go (i.e. if everything else went perfectly take the ships as casualties to maximize available planes, if things went poorly elsewhere keep the navy around to transition into a normal Japan game.  Calc says 92% chance of attacker win with 1-2 casualties expected for attacker.

• Manchuria INF, 1 Kisangu INF (2 leftover), Japan FTR (it can’t reach Burma anyway) (Total: 3 INF, 1 FTR) Vs. Suiyuan (2 INF).  Calc says 94% chance attacker wins. At least one INF should survive. Yes, I know this means completely abandoning Manchuria to the USSR for a turn, but unlike older versions of A&A the Soviets gain 0 IPCs from attacking Manchuria, just one extra Chinese INF and the temporary deprivation of Japan’s NOs if they fail to counterattack the following round. In fact, I want the Russians to come at Asia as hard as they can because it means those 6-8 INF (possibly more if they funnel troops into Persia or Western China) won’t be in Moscow/Stalingrad when they’ll be direly needed rounds 3/4.

• 2 Kisangu INF (the other went to Suiyuan, see above bullet point), Manchuria FTR (Total: 2 INF, 1 FTR) Vs. Hupeh (1 INF). 98% Attacker.

• Transport from Japan picks up INF+Tank, BB from Japan, CRU from Philippines -> SZ61 (South China Sea), Kwangtung INF + Transport + bombard (Total: 2 INF, 1 Tank, 1 BB, 1 CRU) Vs. 1 Fukien (1 INF). 99% Attacker.

• FIC (2 INF, 1 FTR), Japan Bomber, Formosa FTR (Formosa->SZ61->Fukien->Yuunan->NCM to Burma), SZ36 (East Indies, the rest of the fleet engaged the Indian Navy) FTR (SZ36->SZ37->Burma->Yuunan->NCM to Burma) (Total: 2 INF, 3 FTR, 1 Bomber) Vs. Yuunan (2 INF, 1 FTR).  Calc says 99% chance Attacker win with 4 units surviving. If I get lucky I won’t lose 2 units but I’m not afraid to sacrifice a FTR or two to keep China down.

End result (key territories):

• Burma: 1 INF, 5 FTR (one from Manchuria, one from Formosa, one from FIC, two from SZ36 (East Indies), 1 Bomber.

• SZ35 (India): 1BB, 0-1CV, 0-1FTR (the FTR from SZ51 (Caroline Islands)).

• Manchuria: Empty.

• SZ61 (Off China): 1 TT, 1 BB, 1 CRU, potentially other ships.

• Fukien: 0-2 INF, 1 Tank

• FIC: IC from buy.

J2 you’re looking at 1 INF, 5 FTR, 1 Bomber Vs. whatever UK brought to India. If UK swings absolutely everything in range like you suggest (3 INF/1 AA from India, +1 INF from Persia, +1 FTR from Egypt, +1 FTR from Australia), then India will hold until J3 (1 INF from before + 2 tanks from FIC (J2 buy) + the IJN transporting the land units from Fukien + bombard will overrun whatever UK can possibly bring).

So it may have been a bit bold of me to suggest that India will “definitely fall by J2,” but it is possible if UK’s priorities lie elsewhere.

As for the strategy being “unstoppable,” I’d hardly call my plan unstoppable, but it does have a certain appeal to it if the first 2 rounds go smoothly.

@tasos Japan doesn’t have a transport in range of West USA on the first turn in the 41 scenario. If they start moving transports + their entire navy towards you, just buy 10 INF and move all of your starting fighters into West USA. They shouldn’t be able to break that, meaning they’ll need to either withdraw or amass more transports (in which case you can just buy 10 more INF). Japan should never be able to actually take West USA. If your opponent is trying to do that, they’re not expanding in Asia like they need to, and it should be an easy win for the Allies.

@taamvan Yes, but with no Tanks Russia can’t attack Germany ever or even strafe their positions. You’re just letting them run all over Russia and gobble up IPCs. Russia’s base income is lower than Germany’s and the US/UK need at least 3-4 rounds to establish and secure a Fighter Conga Line to Moscow (I typically use a Carrier on the US East Cost -> whatever relevant UK SZ you can manage to hold -> Mosocw, but your mileage may vary based on how your Germany plays).

I agree with your assessment though. If you have poor luck during the opening you’re going to lose as Allies every time. That can be said for most A&A versions, though.

< 100 here. Probably somewhere in the 70s. G40 has been out for an awfully long time now, so I don’t remember. Definitely not enough games to consider myself “good” or “experienced” at it, though.

If we’re going to talk about the G40 line, I might as well throw out my personal wish. Give us a 1939 (or even 1936) scenario. I love the idea of having a few turns to prepare for the war in your own way, as opposed to being handed a largely predetermined set of units by the developers.

It would let you explore zany what-if scenarios to your heart’s content, too.

@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Has Anyone Played This ?:

2. Its hex based system

That’s a point of interest in and of itself. In A&A Hexes only appeared in Battle of the Bulge but most wargames use them, so they’re not completely alien to me. Are there bonuses in combat for flanking the enemy or penalties for moving your units into the enemy’s “Zone of Control”?

Adding to the above is the introduction of a Cobra “Weather Dominator”, allowing to turn hexes with water into ice (i.e land) hexes at the cost of 1 reinforcement point (basically IPCs). They’re generally used to faciliate the land movement of Cobra-Destro units and bridge areas.

This seems neat. Good gimmick to make games more dynamic.

One huge change that I’m still getting used to is that ships, aircraft, and land units occupy hexes that contain both land and water together, attacking and defending with each other (with some small exceptions). As such, amphibious assaults are made with ships and land units fighting together, and most battles (especially over islands) are conducted with all air, land, and sea units fighting together.

Yeah that one sounds very strange. Land units being able to freely shoot at ships seems very off.

The unit selection

The asynchronous units sound very interesting. Honestly I wish the mainline A&A games did this as the different powers were better at different things during the IRL WW2 (the North Africa game seems like a step in the right direction with different stats for different nations’ units (compare the tanks between the different sides for an easy example).

Infantry work in the exact same way, but they only cost 2 reinforcement points, so it’s easier to spam.

Probably not a good thing but the stacking limit might somewhat mitigate the usefulness of spamming outside of blocking.

Each side has national advantages (although they’re not called that), encouraging certain moves.

Are they optional rules or mandatory?

All powers have a base, which essentially acts as their capital, which is where all units a power buys are placed (with some minor exceptions) and the capture of one base on the other side instantly leads to victory for the capturing power. Interestingly each side has a “shared” base, where units from two powers on the same side can be placed.

I know basically nothing about GI Joe other than the absolute bare basics. Is the game 2v2 or is their an uneven number of powers (example: most A&A games are 3v2 (R/B/A Vs. G/J)?

There are 2 ways to win: Capturing bases (I would compare this to a capital capture in normal games) or getting enough victory points from the board, the latter of which is both the most likely scenario of victory and similar to an economic victory in some Axis and Allies house rules.
Classic has economic victory as one of its official win conditions (for Axis) and its probably my favorite victory condition in the series. Big plus for me there.

4. It’s pretty fun. The round limits and victory conditions keep the games short and avoid the kind of prolonged deaths losing powers in Global 1940 experience. The changes provide an interesting twist, while what’s kept from other games make it easy for returning players to understand the rules.

If the game reaches the round limit and no one wins with one of the previously stated methods (capital/economic), how is the winner determined? Is it a draw?

5. I would put it in between 1941 and 1942. Definitely one of the simpler Axis and Allies games. Probably most similar to D-Day of the games I’ve played in terms of complexity.

Sorry to ask a follow-up on this one, but to narrow the scale to the “lighter” A&A games, which of the following (assuming you’ve played them) would you say this is closest to (complexity-wise). Disregard the actual quality of the games. I’m only asking about scale/complexity here:

41
Zombies
Classic
Revised/42 1st Edition
OG Europe
42 2nd Edition
OG Pacific

EDIT: Sorry, butchered my original post because I typed it on my phone. Hopefully this is more readable.

@tasos What you said is true, but I think you may be misunderstanding how the Combat Move Phase works.

The transports in SZ51 (Caroline Islands Sea Zone) can’t move through SZ53 (Hawaii) because the US Battleship is a hostile enemy “Surface Vessel” (i.e. anything that isn’t a Submarine/Transport). Even if you send the Carrier Group and its Fighters to attack the Battleship, your transports can’t ignore the presence of the Battleship. They have to stop in SZ53 for the turn, and can’t move again until the following round, which gives USA a turn to buy 10 INF as I stated above.

I mention this because going from SZ51 -> 53 -> 56 is the only way to get from the Caroline Islands to West USA in one turn.

The fact remains that it is not possible for Japan to invade West USA on its first turn. America will always have a turn to buy 10 INF and ward off any attack.

@taamvan That sounds more like a luck problem than anything else.

Counterattacks are not the same as strafes. You can strafe with land units as long as you pull out before you lose too many INF. Something like the following, completely hypothetical scenario:

West Russia (9 INF/1 ART/4 TANK/1 FTR) attacks Ukraine (4 INF/6 TANK).

Let’s say you have okay luck, get 4-5 hits and Germany gets 5 or so hits, leaving 4 INF/1 ART/4 TANK/1 FTR Vs. 6 TANK.

At this point, you just withdraw, and send 4 INF from your previous turn’s buy to West Russia to get your stack back to 9 INF/1 ART/4 TANK/1 FTR and force Germany to either reinforce Ukraine or step back, depending on the wider situation.

This sort of pressure works as long as the German player hasn’t so totally cornered you that they have a strong stack in Karelia and Ukraine. Once you’ve reached that stage, the Allies have already lost, more-or-less.

I won’t cite chapter and verse for you, but other rules demonstrate that you cannot unload.

1. Non-Combat Movement can only be performed under two circumstances:
   a. Air Units that need to land after having participated in combat.
   b. Any unit that did not conduct a combat move

2. The scenario you have described implies that a Combat Move did indeed take place (whether it was the loading of your Land Units onto the Transport or the act of moving the Transport into the enemy Sea Zone).

Therefore, as your Transport and the units on it conducted a Combat Move, they cannot offload during the Non-Combat Movement phase, as per point #1 above.

I’m sure someone smarter than I will provide exact rulebook citations. Sorry, but your Australian/Kiwi friends are in a bit of a bind.

@djensen said in [Q&A with Axis & Allies Online Developers, Beamdog]:

Were there any interesting challenges about building this game that you would like to share?

@Cody said:

One of the largest challenges the team faced was how to approach implementing a lot of the finer and explicit rules like Fighter and Aircraft Carrier obligations. To paraphrase, In Axis & Allies 1942 2nd Edition, players need to ensure that when Fighters are committed to a movement or combat, that they have a valid location to land. Normally in 1942 2nd Edition, players need to pre-establish where their Fighters will land, especially if the unit they are landing on has not been mobilized yet. Creating a digital version of this, this very quickly become a logistical nightmare. The easier solution would have been to limit player options behind the scenes, but to new players who are still unfamiliar with the rules, that was not an immediately readable or understandable solution, so we had to rework how we handle everything behind the scenes in order to showcase to players why they could or couldn’t do something with a unit, be it a fighter or even just an Infantry.

@Trent said:

Early in the development of the game we did an analysis of the rules and plotted out how the user interface would work in most cases. Then we hit transports. From an interaction mechanic, transports are exceptionally involved. Not only can you move a transport during the combat round, but you can initiate an amphibious assault through an occupied sea zone, but only if you win the sea zone battle. From a state management and combat scheduling standpoint this starts to get complicated. When you add in the possibility of the transport carrying an Anti Aircraft Artillery and attempting an amphibious assault and the other unit dying in the assault, the AAA cannot win the combat, creating a complex rules scenario. The joy of written rules and exceptions is they can be easily interpreted by people when playing the board game. The complexity of building a simulation which can deal with all the edge cases and potential odd outcomes continues to grow over time. Additionally, the challenge of creating a capable Artificial Intelligence player who can comprehend those rules and play them well is daunting.

Sounds like they could have just hit up the TripleA Devs, haha. That’d probably be a legal nightmare, though.

Not a problem! Love your video series on Classic by the way. Hoping you’ll examine other versions at some point but it’s clear that your love is for Classic first and foremost.

@thedesertfox said in Allies strategy:

Even if you lose Karelia G1 by the Germans the UK landing in Norway and Finland will be inevitable so it won’t be permanent.

Generally, going for Karelia G1 via an all-in takes away too much from your overall gameplan (i.e. you’d need to send multiple air units that are better used taking out the British fleet + attacking Egypt).

@taamvan Oh, right! Gen con is this weekend!

Good luck! Hope you break into the semifinals or beyond!

Are you able to fit any other A&A Games into your schedule, or just 42SE?

@Argothair

It isn’t. At least OOB Revised is better. It takes a 7 bid to Axis OOB to balance Revised. It’s taken 10 Years of house-rules to make G40 something even remotely resembling balanced, and there’s still no clear consensus on how to solve the Axis-bias the game has. IIRC Siredblood and the 42 scenario are the only ones that are even close.

Balance aside, I like being able to finish a game in under 5 hours.

To G40’s credit, the larger, more detailed map gives way to more strategic options for casual play (I say casual play because there’s only one truly relevant strategy from what I’ve observed, Italy-Germany can-opener your way to Moscow while Japan spams Aircraft Carriers to accommodate it’s massive starting air force).

Another point in G40’s favor (again due to the massive and detailed map), is that the possibilities for customizing/house-ruling the game are endless. That’s probably why no other A&A Game since (42SE, 1914, zombies) has been able to replace G40 as the community’s favorite.

I’m on @Argothair 's side on this one. Making things worse is that djensen confirmed in the other thread that this is 42SE OOB, so there’s not even the LHTR to fix the balance issues.

However, I’m not going to take as extreme a position as Argothair. I still plan on buying the game in the dim hope that it’ll either spur the creation of another A&A Title, or that the online platform will improve down the road.

Similar to what @Imperious-Leader said, just go for Navy. It’s not the optimal Japan strategy (getting a land-bridge to mainland Asia and driving to Moscow with an INF push while simultaneously gobbling up the Pacific Islands/attacking Africa is), but it’ll at least give everyone a good time.

Just remember, Battleships suck and it’s ill-advised to spend money on new Carriers. Build Submarines and Transports out the wazoo, and do your best to keep your initial, valuable starting boats (Battleships and Carriers) alive at all costs.

Welcome to AA50. What you just described is the entire point of the 41 Scenario, and to a large extent it showcases the exact horror/despair that the IRL Western European Nations (Netherlands/Belgium/France/UK/etc.) must have felt when Germany/Italy/Japan rolled out at the start of the war in the 39-41 period.

In all seriousness, there’s not a ton UK can do against the initial assault. Your priority needs to be on rebuilding/maintaining the British Navy against repeated German Air Attacks while you wait for the US to build a navy and get in position.

For the Pacific, you have it rough. You’re not getting Indonesia (The combination of “Borneo”, “Dutch East Indies” and “New Guinea”, we call them “the Money Islands” for short) back anytime soon, and Australia is likely going to fall as well. Your best bet there is to buy land units in India and try to hold the line until the US Navy can arrive in force.

If you still find yourself getting crushed with this (admittedly vague) advice, try either playing without National Objectives, or adding some units to the initial Allied setup (this is called a “bid”. You can mutually agree how much free stuff the Allies will be getting).

I don’t know how new you are to A&A, but here’s some general advice just in case you are a newer player:

• Buying cheap, expendable units is typically best. This means INF/ART for land units and Destroyers/SUBs for Sea Units.

• Buying Bombers, Cruisers, Battleships and other expensive units is generally not advised. Just use the ones you start with to the best of your ability.

• Focus on killing Germany/Italy first. They’re typically the far more threatening Axis Powers. Clean up Africa/Scandinavia before you go for Europe proper. This will cut off Axis National Objectives/secure your own.

@taamvan I was interested in going myself this year, but life had other plans. Definitely going to make sure I take the days off work well in advance next year. You should come back and write up a tournament report of sorts when you get back. I’m sure people would be interested to read it.

Axis are considered to have a massive advantage over the Allies by experienced players. The imbalance is so great in the Axis’ favor that the community has spent the better part of the last decade crafting alternate rulesets, setups, and strategies in an effort to combat this, which has only been partially successful.

I’ll let others comment on the specifics (and there are several stickied threads discussing those specifics), but in-general:

• Germany - Kill France turn 1, but move most of your units towards the border with the USSR. Build Tanks, Mechs, and Air Units. Try concentrating your units in one or two main groups rather than spreading them thinly. From turn 2 on advance your main army one-tile-at-a-time through Russia. Generally speaking, follow one of these paths:

  Path A: “North”: Eastern Poland -> Belarus -> Smolensk -> Russia
  Path B: “South”: Eastern Poland -> Western Ukraine -> Bryansk -> Russia

  This plan, if uninterrupted, will win you the game by turn 4/5, long before USA’s economy can make any serious impact on the game.

  The main force should not concern itself with territories like Novogrod (Stalingrad), Eastern Ukraine (factory location) and Volvograd (Stalingrad). Send minor detachments to scoop up those locations as you make a beeline for Moscow. You will be assisted in your mission by the Italians (see below), who will take territories before your main army, allowing you to Non-Combat-Move your planes along with your army.

• Italy - Largely ignore the Mediterranean Theatre. Instead, focus on building Mech and Tank units, which will make a beeline towards Moscow on the same path I described above for Germany. What Italy is going to want to do is kill the lone Infantry units standing in the territories blocking your path. If this is not possible (because the Soviets put their entire army in said “next territory”), the Italians can simply hold their position for the round, and the Germans can destroy the main Soviet army with their far superior numbers/strength. Aside from this, Italy’s job is to make the best use of its starting navy to defend itself against Allied attacks.

• Japan - Kill Calcutta and occupy the Philippines/Dutch Islands (modern day Indonesia) as quickly as possible, largely ignoring the Chinese Theatre. By accomplishing this, you eliminate the only true threat you face on land in your region, the UK Pacific Economy (as the Chinese units can’t leave China and can only build Infantry and Artillery). Doing this while also scooping up the islands I mentioned above greatly boosts Japan’s economy to such a drastic extent that they will be nearly on-par with the Americans, allowing them to build a steady stream of Aircraft Carriers to house the incredibly large number of planes they begin the game with.

  Once Japan is making ~as much money as the USA, they can move out their navy in the direction of ANZAC (or Cairo, if the European Axis haven’t managed to take that territory). More often than not Japan will win the game on the Pacific board by occupying Calcutta, Sidney, and Honolulu, provided that Germany doesn’t win first by knocking out the Soviets.