Posts made by ItIsILeClerc

Hi Curly,

Germany:
-I usually don’t take Southern France with Germany, but let Italy have it instead. Italy has not many other options for expansion but Germany has.
-Never both Sea Lion & Moscow at the same time. What I consider the best German chance to win, is going for Moscow to the fullest extend but keeping an eye out for London. Does the UK over-extend, surprise attack it instead. As long as you are still learning the game however, I would recommend going full into Moscow. After you’ve done that a couple of games, try a few Sea Lions just to get an idea of what is needed and what the effects are.
Attacking Russia can best be done round2 or round3. Round3 is the more natural way of things IMHO, as you have a lot more land units to attack with (both returned from the attack on Paris and produced) while Russia basically deals with the same amount (their reinforcements mostly have to come from Moscow which is further away from the front).
-I’d race towards Moscow. This should get you the 2NO’s anyway because if Russia tries to defend either one of those, Moscow itself is left with too few defenders and will fall. Attack Leningrad and Ukraine if you can with your aircraft, fast units and/or the Finns but do it the turn when your slow INF and ART could have done it instead. However, the INF and ART should be marched 1 step closer to Moscow each and every turn so using them to attack either IC is a delay that the Axis usually cannot afford.
-My rule of thumb: more German ships means less teeth against Russia. In my experience, Germany needs ALL their IPCs to buy land units first 3 rounds to have a chance to take Moscow. Buying ships will not make Germany powerless against Russia, but taking Moscow will get further away with each and every ship bought. If Germany removes 165IPCs worth of units from European territories (by buying ships and/or transporting land units elsewhere), Russia will be able to start contesting Eastern Europe with Germany so I consider that a breakpoint.

Italy:
-I usually take SF and Greece with Italy, as her chances are most likely doomed in Africa/ME anyway. As soon as the USA arrives in Gibraltar (depends on when Japan attacks), all that is left for Italy is turtle in its boot. Against decent UK play, Italy cannot win. With German help it is possible but this severely hurts the German chance to win in Russia, so this is a major strategic decision to make for the Axis: (try to) take Africa OR Moscow.

Japan:
-Japan can do both. First priority is to assemble a force that takes all of the DEI and Philippines, etc. without loosing your ships in the process. This should leave you with enough forces to attack China&India second priority. Only if Germany goes full-bore into Russia: if Russia wants to hold Moscow, its siberian hunters should be retreated into Europe and Japan can nibble away Russian territories. In any other case (i.e. the Siberians stay): just destroy them when they over-extend by moving into Manchuria or Korea.
-Japan can attack when it wants. I consider J1 too soon, too risky (positioning is not good enough PLUS the US enters the European war too soon). J2 is the optimum for Japanese purposes, but still severely hampers Germany and Italy (early US entry). This is often overlooked by Japan. J4 is best for the European axis but I only recommend this if you have lots of experience playing Japan as this makes it very hard (but not impossible) for Japan to develop a superior position. This leaves J3. I consider this turn as the optimum balance between what is best for Japan itself and what is best for the European Axis. As J3 is not optimal for Japan, it is by no means too late for it to create a superior position in the Pacific and it helps the Euro-axis tremendously. Just remember you can still attack Russia and China without any penalty!
-Build no more IC’s than can be supported by your income. For example, if you build 5 IC’s, you can place 15 MECH per turn (INF/ART are too slow) in Asia. This will cost you 60IPC’s per turn. If you also need to buy enough ships to defend against the USA this can easily be too much but if the USA is nowhere to be seen… Go ahead, you might even be able to support 6 IC’s ;-). Don’t forget though, you will conquer Calcutta and should also place IC’s in the middle east for forward production if you get this far. I think building 4IC’s a good start and evaluate the need for more from that point on. Alternatively, you can build none and rely solely on TRS to ferry troops around.

The USA can do what YG suggested but if Japan is threatening to take its 6th VC in the pacific this may be a bridge too far for the allies. Too often I’ve see Japan forcing the USA to spend 100% of its income in the pacific from turn 7 because otherwise Japan will just take Hawai or Sydney and win the game for the Axis. A lot of people hate this (how can the axis win by taking Hawai, of all places), but I consider it necessary in this game otherwise the USA will just always overrun Europe and the Axis can never win.
Therefore, if your Japanese player can seriuously threaten to win the game in the Pacific,
the USA might expect to get into Europe (roughly, but not much more):
-A decent fleet protection (mainly carriers + aircraft on it + the odd destroyers);
-10 TRS [10INF+4MECH+1ARM+5ART];
-6 STRategic bombers;
-4 more other aircraft;
If this is the case, you better base your forces at Gibraltar or London and with it, threaten to invade as much areas as possible.
First and foremost priority for the USA is to prevent Japan permanently taking its 6th VC in the Pacific (usually Hawai and/or Sydney). This may require forging some plans, thinking and rethinking of strategies (over the course of several ‘learning games’) and most importantly: timing!
This is an absolute must and still I see a number of USA players pay Japan too little attention untill it is too late. For a lot of players (that I know of), balancing the spending of the USA between Europe and the Pacific is hard in one way or the other…

Good luck and have fun!

Ah,
But the coast was not yet taken from me J3 or J4 ;-). It never completely was. If you do the math, it looks like this:

26 + 10NO’s (outer perimeter + Hawai) + 1 (Hawai) + 20 (DEI) + 2 (Phil) + 8 (China) + 9 (SE Asia) + 4 (some Russian territories) = 80 max!

Later on I lost a LOT of ground in Russia + Asia, so from turn 5 the income went down quickly… I made a start invading Australian territories and contested some SE Asian territories back and forth and my guess is that by that time the Japanese income was indeed more between 55 - 65 IPCs a turn.
Compared to the 80 - 95 IPCs Japan can collect when going all in against Asia, Russia and Middle East this is peanuts, but the latter strategy puts the Axis in a time/tempo disadvantage (IMHO ;-)).

BTW, I have to correct myself. Repeating J1 & J2 in my head today I came to the conclusion I got some numbers wrong in my lazy guesswork some days ago ;-). I’ll correct them in my previous posts.

Hi Cyan!

First, sorry to post all this Japanese stuff in a Germany/UK discussion, but I think it can be useful still, as these are my experiences of a direct ‘cause and effect’ of a Sea Lion strategy extrapolated into Japanese actions (in an attempt to prevent the USA from liberating London)! Please note that my German partner and I decided on this after we saw the UK making a couple of blunders (not just 1, but ‘Taranto’ absolutely being one of them) that would lead to the fall of London should Germany launch a surprise attack on it.

To answer your questions:
I must admit I am too lazy today to calculate the exact income but I can make an educated guess ;-). I think I peaked at 71 that turn and I used 14 12 TRSs to get to it (and yes, I lost 7 5 of them). In this game I never managed to get more than this 71 IPCs income, as China and India quickly recovered and the Russians gave me troubles as well. They almost took Shanghai and Hong Kong from me but I managed to hold on to those VC’s.

I remember that I felt extremely Lucky my allied opponents had never seen anything like this before (they even took a picture in awe after all my CM’s J3) and China for example, very afraid of my previous game’s destruction of their entire army J2 at the cost of only 3 Zero’s, retreated towards the Russian border CH1 and CH2 so I had free offensives here at start. And I needed that, because I spent ALL my income on TRS and loaded them with japanese-at-start land units. The remainder, (nothing worth mentioning) was used to offend China and India :evil:.

This game was interesting for me because I saw proof of the potential for the Allies to KJF me and win the game. Fortunately, the allies did NOT see/do this and went Europe first which they screwed up in their panic as well. If the USA sees real threats coming on both sides it MUST keep its head cool and pick on 1 of the major Axis partners. Usually this has to be Japan because of the 6VC rule in the Pacific, but if it looks Japan does not get its hands on 6VC within the first 7 turns (meaning they go for India first) then Germany could be picked instead to get London back into the cart.

Edit: corrected some lazy miscalculations on my part  :lol:

Really like the ‘waterballoon’ comparison :D.

I love to go it slow for Japan as well but I must admit I sometimes go waterballooning on purpose -only I never called it that way ;-).

last time I played Japan and my German partner wanted to go Sea Lion versus a capable allied team so I decided to put a lot of pressure on the USA and I took J3:
Aleutians, Hawai, Midway, Wake, Johnston, Gilbert, Solomons, New Guinea, Guam, Borneo, Celebes, Java, Malaya and the Philipines. I also attacked the complete and combined USA and ANZAC fleets in SZ 54 AND I still managed to continue the usual offensives in Mainland Asia this turn (last turn of serious offensives for Japan here).

Perfect example of a waterballoon because after this turn Japan had only 7TRS left, plus the leftovers of its fleet. The upside: J4 the allies had no warships anymore (SZ54 was an allied mistake) and the USA had a very hard time deciding where to spend its IPCs, either in Europe liberating London or in the Pacific stopping me. Downside: China, India and Russia were on the offensive in no time, seriously threatening Japanese VC’s on Mainland Asia.

Edited: My mistake, I took those territories as part of the J4 offensives. Controlling all Pacific islands still looks awesome!

@knp7765:

(…)I have said several times that we need to play more like ALLIES, although I have been guilty of this myself when playing either side. We each tend to use our own units to advance our own objectives. Sometimes we will land planes to support Allied landings or do follow-up attacks.

Very wise words!
Teamwork. IMHO this is 1 of the 2 problems the allies must overcome if they want to win the game. The other one being ‘intelligence’. The ability to see what the axis are trying to do and react properly. The more players in the team, the more difficult both problems become for the allies.
The Axis only need some sort of vague plan about what they are going to do. Japan waiting with its DOW till J3 or not being about the most detailed part of it ;-).

Hehheh yeah who knows.
Personally I definately feel the difference if playing Germany versus 1 (group of) player or the other.

@knp7765:

(…) Some may disagree with me, but generally if I manage to kill all UK/French ships and planes yet still manage to keep both strategic bombers and at least 1 ftr and 1 tac, then I think it is an overall success (…)

That’s okay knp, I don’t get you wrong :-). I’m afraid we just have to disagree on that. You are right in that all of the RN is down, but… The RN is non-existent anyway if 110, 111 and either one of 106 or 91 are knocked out and that can be achieved without loosing a single German plane.
If Germany and the UK loose aircraft G1 on a 1:1 basis I can still be with you but Germany loosing double the amount that the UK looses?

So I have been giving it some more thoughts and what I think loosing 6 German aircraft G1 against 2Brits and 1 French does:

• It worsens Germany’s chances for Sea Lion, compared to a Sea Lion where neither side lost a single plane. In my experience the UK can hold that off, so then why wouldn’t it if Germany lost double airplanes already?

• It kills German chances to capture Moscow, given some US pressure in Europe. Not that Germany won’t be able to push back the Reds, but taking Moscow is another thing entirely. Russia moves into a comfort zone which is very bad news for the axis plans.

• If Germany persist in the Atlantic, Italy and/or Germany will feast on Africa but can this win the Axis the game? As this also means Germany cannot expand anywhere else because Russia moves from its comfort zone into being outright dangerous!

• If Germany does not persist in the Atlantic and turns on Russia (without being able to seriously threaten Moscow itself), the UK is still capable enough to hold much of Africa and take back what is lost from turn 4/5 and onwards.

And then, indeed, the US enters the war and we can start guessing.

I 've seen it in our group a couple of times already: Germany resigning after loosing much of its luftwaffe to the UK only loosing half that amount of RAF/Armée de l’Air combined. We never put much debate into it as to why exactly we resigned as every1 on the table agreed, but now I am happy we can share thoughts about whether this is premature or not.
Personally I think fighting on with Germany in this situation is only an option if you know Stalin is very weak at defending Moscow. In that respect it can pay Germany well, ofc ;-).

AND I agree that indeed, a large amount of Spitfires often deters me from bombing Moscow. Sorry for parroting but tat ‘and’,
I just found that too funny to ignore :-). Seriously, Russia cannot survive a determined and focussed attack on Moscow without lots of units from the UK to help them out.
If I play the UK I always take into account Russia will need 8 of my FTR minimum UK5. More if it looks like a serious bombing campaign will hit Moscow. If Russia screws up by loosing too much troops in the opening turns of the war (for example by trying to defend Leningrad) and/or buying too few bodies to defend itself during the turns that it is still able to buy anything serious (at least 11 units per turn for the first 5 turns -on average-), it becomes very hard for the RAF to save them. If not impossile :cry:.

Yeah, I noticed lots of players are having a difficult time deciding exactly how to ‘spendsplit’ the American income…

Back to Russia. Shaniana made a good point in that the Russians will kill half the German army if it is split at the wrong time at the wrong place.

The way I often see the eastern front develop is that Russia has way too much defense in Moscow for the Germans to attack it. Germany on the other hand also has way too much defense in its main stack for the Russians to attack. The Luftwaffe usually must be used in this defense as well.
Kind of a standoff and this is the point where the turning point comes OR Russia collapses. And this depends on how well the USA and UK can ‘arrest’ the German reinforcements from G4 and onwards. If they do it well, Germany cannot find enough forces to surround Moscow because this will weaken its main army so that Russia can destroy it (or strafe if that is more opportune). But on the other hand, if Germany can find a way to keep channeling enough reinforcements into Russia it becomes very difficult for the allies (but not Always impossible).

Sounds very dangerous, knp!

Let’s play advocate of the devil again  :evil:.
I would personally be very tempted to scramble SZ110. On average, that would mean sacrificing 2 British FTR and a French one, to kill 6 German aircraft. That just sounds bad for Germany  :|.

@Shaniana:

(…)Unless you have Italian troops to destroy that Inf, of course… :)

But if you are comfortable waiting one or two more rounds anyway, you can of course easily take Novgorod and Ukraine, collect all you units and then start the final attack…

That is usually the way ;-). ‘My’ Finns lag 1 turn behind anyway. The main German army is in Western Ukraine/Belarus and the Finns are then in Leningrad.

So yes, for the Finns to be included, Germany needs to wait 1 more turn to attack Moscow. Personally I either attack Moscow without the Finns GE6 if Russia makes a mistake, with the Finns GE7 or I have to postpone the assault further, into GE8-GE10. Possibly even indefinately if Russia is strongly defended.

:-o You built two IC’s, soryy I missed that (guess ghr has a point :P).

IMHO, building any IC to channel troops into Russia is unnecessary. Probably it will not cost you the game immediately but it will mean less units to throw at Moscow. Because: by the time such a factory starts producing, fast units that you could have built instead of the IC will have arrived in this area or one at the same longitude…

About the scramblers:
Attacking SZ109 can only be done with units that would otherwise have attacked SZ110 or SZ111. Thus I think it is pointless if the goal is to draw the scramblers away from those areas as you have just weakened those two attacks as well. The goal should be: kill as many of the RN as possible while surviving yourself with as many ships, subs and aircraft as possible. Attacking SZ109 works against this goal.

Ahhhh okay I see :-).

I agree with the idea, of course! No sane German should ever split its army and position both armies adjacent to the 1 big Russian stack. Due to the military advantage Germany starts with however, Russia cannot defend Smolensk just yet and the Finns should find connection in Bryansk safely.

The Finns can walk into Belarus->Bryansk ;-). The Reds are cowering in Moskou (and they must be) so they cannot attack the Finns in Belarus. Germany does not have to attack Moscow GE6. If Moscow is poorly defended, sure them Germans can be opportunistic. A better defended Moscow can sometimes be taken GE7 with the help of the Finns. A purrfectly defended Moscow however…

In general, if Germany is really focussed about Moscow, the Red Army cannot afford to split off troops to attack incoming German reinforcements as this means the main German army will take Moscow next turn. That is, as long as there are no Brits/Americans in Moscow and there is no threat of ‘Normandy’ in the west. Turns 1 to 6 in General.

So, to turn a long story short, the answer to your question is: Belarus  :-P.

Hi Blu,

Herr kaLeun says he 's not very experienced but I think he is shamelessly modest and I agree with everything he posted ;-).

It looks to me you were really plagued by bad dicing man  :-(.
Having said that, I think you made the classical mistake to spread your forces too thin/want too much at once as the axis.

The first thing I noticed reading your post was that your attacks on all the RN stacks were either equally strong or even weaker than the defending UK. The usual recipe for success against the RN is to attack it with a force that is 1,5 (ish) times stronger than the defenders!
For example the RN in the Channel: the UK has 1BB, 2CA and 3FTR (sadly, you must take into account possible scramblers). That is 7 hits with 22 Defense Factors. To kill this you should bring at least 1 sub, 1BB, 2FTR, 2TAC, 2STR. This can still be risky (for both sides) if your UK opponent is a gambler and scrambles. To be more on the safe side, add a second sub.
As the Brits decide where they scramble if at all, as Germany you must take that RAF into account in every SZ you attack because where you don’t, they will scramble and defeat you.

This is the most important lesson I learned with Germany: preserve the Luftwaffe in the opening turns! Loosing 1 too many planes and Germany is done for. So whatever your plans are, plan to loose no aircraft. Plan it so, that if you loose aircraft it is indeed the dicegods to blame by default…
This means you can attack SZ110 and SZ111 in strength and that’s it. SZ106 or ZS91 can also be attacked but this attack remains a little gamble. Attack it with 1, maybe 2 submarines but no more than that! I wholeheartedly agree with KaLeun about SZ109. All your land units in range should of course attack Paris and that’s it G1, west of Germany that is. Adding more targets G1 will add the risk of terrible failure exponentially. I’d bet adding 1 more target may work if the dice roll normally or slightly in favor of Germany, but if it’s the other way around Germany is in a lot of pain. It remains asking the gods to be on your side and loose if they are not.

Second thing, you mentioned it yourself already, building that IC in Yugho and started to ferry troops into the med. Russia can defeat Germany all by itself now. The IC itself should be OK although I agree with KaLeun about its efficiency. Using it to ferry troops to a front other than Russia was the real mistake.

So my advice would be: stay focussed!
Recognise the most important threats for Germany, being Russia and the (Wallies) Western Allies and from GE3 and on, attack only Russia or the Wallies while defending on the other side. As an alternative (I never tried this but it might work) you can try to defend against both west and east and attack south (Med/Africa), but Germany can never attack on 2 fronts at the same time (Luftwaffe may be an exeption during a short window of time). Before turn 10 that is. Do not loose your luftwaffe! A couple of planes is OK but not more than that. It is your most valuable asset and can be used very flexible, apart from the main German army. There is an exeption to not loosing German aircraft however… IF there is nothing else than RAF that can save Moscow (given a focussed German assault), it is usually affordable too loose Luftwaffe against RAF, as long as this is 1:1 or better! Germany can send its luftwaffe all over Europe to help attack/defend wherever they are needed, as long as they are back (rebased) for the attack on either London or Moscow, whenever it comes. If your German army is active in Russia the Luftwaffe must go over there even if you cannot attack Moscow, to help defend against Russian counter attacks.
As for an attack on London… don’t even think about it without keeping the Luftwaffe very close ;-)…

Okay, first things first ;-).
Bringing slow units via Leningrad over the Baltic Sea has 2 downsides:

• After they have been produced, it takes them 4 turns to reach Moscow, giving Russia an extra production turn.

• Germany must build a sizable TRS fleet + escorts to be able to do so.

Why I think those are downsides?
By producing fast units in Germany, or even in West Germany (!), the Wehrmacht arrives in Moscow 3 turns later, 1 turn faster than slow units transported to Leningrad. This is even cheaper, and thus, more units can be thrown towards Moscow, because there is no fleet needed. Buying ships is very expensive… Even transporting fast units over the Baltic Sea->Leningrad->Moscow isn’t faster (also takes 3 turns). But way more expensive than just driving them over land east (no Russian mud in this game  8-)).

As for the second point, why should the Finns be out of order?
This would only be the case if Russia puts up a strong enough defense in Leningrad. I have seen this happen a couple of times now and I can tell you this will cause Germany taking Moscow in force with Russia in control of Leningrad  :-o. All Germany needs to do is ignore the Leningrad defenders and mop them up after Moscow has fallen. Game over.

Really, if Germany moves towards Moscow ‘deathball-style’, or even carefully split like Shin suggested (both armies can merge again in Bryansk just in time), there is nothing Russia can do but retreat, give up everything and turtle in Moscow. Too bad for the allies there is no scorched earth tactic in this game too, so the Russian minor ICs become German!
There is only 1 prerequisite for this for the Germans: Germany must maximise the number of units and attack/defense factors marching towards Moscow and must not dilute its army strength by buying ships, or else Russia can do more than just turtle.

@oztea:

The soviets still having the “2” IPC territories in the south under their control would weaken the potency of a strategic bombing campaign IMHO.

Agreed.
I really don’t see any advantage of the ‘Northern’ route (Smolensk) over the Southern, as East Poland->Western Ukraine->Bryansk->Moscow is as fast as East Poland->Belarus->Smolensk/Bryansk->Moscow. The Southern route gives all the mentioned additional strategic options (Africa/ME/India) whereas the Northern has none.
Attacking either Leningrad or Ukraine with brute force (other than its fast units, the finns and its air) is a German mistake, but defending either one with Russia is an even bigger one (as Wild Bill already explained why, I’ll not), so both ICs will be in German hands anyway when either of the above ‘Moscow-approaches’ are taken with the German doomstack and Russia does not want to loose Moscow.

Personally, I prefer the Southern route.
Having said that, it depends on how the allies have responded if Moscow will be assaulted right away or Caucasus/Stalingrad will be overrun.

The economical differential that can be gained south is simply too much to ignore. Furthermore, with the Germans positioned in Bryansk/Rostov, the Middle East/Africa/India can be targeted in a carefully coordinated (with Japan) and more desperate attempt to subdue the allies if they made it impossible to capture Moscow and/or even outright dangerous for the Germans to approach at the risk of a Russian counterattack.

Nice strategies   8-).

Afaik, knp is absolutely right: Attacking the USA is a gambit. It is easily countered and after that the axis may as well resign. If all the axis powers are ganging up against the USA, it should move ALL its ships into Europe against Germany and let Japan have a party in the Pacific. If the allies know what they are doing China, India and ANZAC are growing into a dangerous thorn and yes, Japan takes SF and Hawai and Alaska. But the USA will just kick the Japs out of SF every turn again and again if it has to. In the long term, I guess people can see where that is going. Not very well for the Axis I can assure you. USA doesn’t even need good dice! And remember, the US fleet (or elements of it) is not bound to one map! At all times during the game it can move to another map and back again. Either entirely or a split off task force. If round x (usually round 2) sees Japan in range of Hawai/Alaska/Canada with a lot of TRS and Germany with a lot of ships in SZ112 as well, the US must relocate its fleet towards somewhere around Panama. Able to go into either Europe or Pacific whatever is needed. And WHAT is needed will be determined by the axis’ actions, ofc.

As long as the USA can keep its head cool and its priorities right, it should be game over for the axis. But here is the difficulty! From what I have seen, lots of allied players just don’t (seem to) know how to split the USA’s efforts. As long as that is the case, ganging up on it should pay off.

Long story short (still my humble opinion):
NO axis strategy guarantees victory. The allies can counter each and every strategy the axis try. IF they do it right, the allies should always win. And that is exactly the difficulty with the allies, especially in team versus team: IF. Because if they do not get the right idea about what the axis are planning they can be outmaneuvered into game loosing positions  :wink:.

All warfare is deception and THAT is where the axis’ chances are: fooling the allies and exploit it! Well… against an equally strong allied opponent, that is  :-D

I wouldn’t think it a violation if the Uk moves into an activated Brazil.
After all, if Brazil is already activated, this means the USA is in the war and allied with the UK. You can look at it as a co-operative action, carefully coordinated between the US and UK.

If, however, the UK activates Brazil (happens sometimes in our games, especially if the USA is kept out of the war for long), then I’d think that as a violation, technically. Albeit arbitrary, because for game purposes it doesn’t really matter who activates Brazil; they figth for the allies anyway.
On top of that, historically Venezuela provided the Uk with lots of oil that is not represented in the game. So I wouldn’t mind who exactly gets the ‘South American’ IPCs.

Sorry Little_Boot, I cannot be of help due to no experencie with that…

I think it will indeed unbalance the game when simply doubling all pieces by type in an area. However, it seems to me you can double just the number of pieces in each area (not necessarily and in some cases definately not by type!), but you will still need to test each chance for gamebalance.

For example, if you double Japan’s pieces, instead of doubling its aircraft, I’d place an extra INF in each area for each present plane. Or CA/BB in the case of a SZ. Same story for Germany (ARM, ART or INF instead of AIR). For the allies a completely diffent approach would be needed. Creative thinking for each Major Power apart. If you keep their historical strengths and weaknesses in mind, it could work. But imho you can’t escape some serious game tesing. My two cents of thinking.

Good luck with your project!