Actually I’ve had some success with buying not only a AC the first turn but a BB also.  This cuts down a LOT on the need buy a fig every turn to replace your naval losses, and you can bombard anyone foolish enough to land on norway or western.

Another choice is to buy TWO AC’s (either both 1st round, or the 2nd on the R2).  This gives the ability to cover western AND the Baltic.  A little difficult to do since both fleets need to be a reasonable deterrent to any attack.  I still think a BB, fully loaded AC, a DD and some trannies or subs as fodder is very hard to stop (except an equal or greater IPC value of subs and fighters).

Okay played another game after yesterdays posting, this time the allies did a KJF with USA1 buying two carriers (w/ 3 fighters) and a sub (plus the bb, dd, and transport), and then the remnants of the Pearl Harbor fleet attacks this on J2.  Disaster (Japan had two bb’s left but the usa had the bb, and two ftrs).  During USA2 they purchased a replacement carrier and IC in Sinkiang (to got with UK’s India IC).    Then ended up with island hopping for the usa on r4-r8, on R8 it was operation Overlord Japan and fell forever. UK fell to germany on r7 and smashed Moscow to a single ftr…luck was on the allies side for once.    With Japan gone the allies were able barely hold moscow during germanys next wave (again destroying 20+ units leaving moscow with a single ftr…luck was again on the allies side).  Once again the USSR purchasing a single ftr on round one can make a huge difference.

19 games:  17-axis, 2-allies.

I’ll see if anyones foolish enough to play the allies against me at DunDraCon. :evil:

I totally agree the axis are out of control.  I’ve played 18 games of Revised, and only one of those was an allied victory (germany on turn 19 moved it’s two carrier Atlantic fleets away from Germany and the USA fleet was able to slip it’s norway fleet of ten fully loaded trannies into the Baltic and take germany).  Most of the games ended with Russia dying on turn 5, turn 15, or turn 19 (weird).  :?  Germany playing turtle (lots of troops and occasionally plane, and a strong Atlantic fleet) is able to keep pace with the best that UK and USA can throw at it (usually UK  unloading 2 or 3 loaded trannies and USA with two fleets of 5 to 6 fully loaded trannies with germany smashing this into dust by the time they round the Baltic into eastern Europe after landing in Norway).  Stalemate. :x

Japan is able to chase the US from the pacific without too much effort (after pearl harbor 2 on r1, r2 Japan smashes the US’s two newly built carriers, three ftrs, transport,  the dd and bb, with Japan only losing one loaded carrier and dd after that the US gives up the pacific with Japan loaded carrier and two bb’s smashing anything that appears).

The allies must work together.  The UK has to kill the kwangtung tranny and the SZ45 japan sub (landing the ftr on us carrier), Russia must dump six troops in buryria, and the USSR purchasing of a single ftr on round one (which many troops after that) helps (but it only slows the axis vise on Russia).  The allies must be perfect.  A single screwup and the games is over.  The axis seems to have lots of slack and can recover from most mishaps.

I even let the allies bid a UK factory, a USSR ftr, and USA bomber, they still lost.  They lose even quicker if tech is allowed and germany races towards rocket spam.  During on  game on round one germany got rockets, USA got hvy bmbr, and UK got hvy bmber  (okay these were LHTR crippled heavy bombers) with the purchase of a single die each…the axis still crushed the allies like bugs with the heavy bombers not being that useful with territory limits, but you have to have those limits or the rocket spam is really insane. During one game germany was making six rocket attacks on the allies-england, India, south Africa, Sinkiang, Russia,  and caucus.  Ouch (the allies lasted three turns after that).

The revised edition is  sadly unbalanced, especially when you compare it with the “Pact of Steel” setup and map from the triplea program (played 7 games, allies 3, axis 4, still an axis advantage).

trihero and ncscswitches games are fun since both react and counter the other well, but sadly the dice seemed to rule more then strategy.  :-(