Posts made by KaLeu

@FieldMarshalGames:

One of the biggest mistakes made by Germany was the suppression and Oppression of the Eastern European nations after invasion.  In the Baltic states and Ukraine for example, they were greeted as liberators…  they squandered their chance to bring these nations into the Axis orbit as minor partners when they treated the locals as sub-human.

Not only did they lose the free co-operation of these nations, but in the end they were fighting a war behind their own lines against all kinds of passive and sometimes active resistance.

Excellent point. I even believe that the entire Nazi racial ideology contributed to the defeat of Germany. The holocaust was not only a horrible crime at a humanitarian level, but it also robbed Germany of many great minds and organizers in science, culture, and economics. Germany’s Jews thought of themselves as Germans, and many fought for Germany in World War I. Instead of keeping all that potential available for the benefit of their country, the Nazis expelled or murdered them. And to do so, they built a gruesome and expensive system of oppression, manned by large numbers of other Germans who could instead have fought at the front.

Check this thread for downloading the PDF: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=16910

First game…… long time ago! We were used to nothing more complex than Risk, and after a few turns, it dawned on us that we’d been doing a pretty bad job reading and understanding the rules. I can’t remember precisely where we went wrong, but it was such a major thing that we decided to cancel the game.
But we enjoyed the concept anyway, and played it quite a few times in years to follow. Not really often though - it’s always been difficult to find enough people for a long game. Well, and maybe because when we did, trying to hum the national anthem of each nation we were playing added a touch of strangeness to the atmosphere, though I don’t think anyone could remember the Japanese.

There’s an interview with Hartmann at http://www.acesofww2.com/germany/aces/Hartmann.htm

That site also has a lot of information on other World War II flying aces.

Raoul Wallenberg. He saved thousands of lives.

@Jermofoot:

http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/

Great site of a guy who pranks the people on these scams.

LOL - thanks, that was pretty funny. Here’s a story about someone who actually managed to get money out of one of those scammers: http://www.scamorama.com/threebucks.html

Very impressive…… great way to experience the game.

I don’t know, but check this post to download the rules:

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=16910

As Germany, you should normally be able to outproduce the USSR, so I’m assuming that you’d have at least as many infranty available to counter all that.
West Russia is of such strategic value that if you can take it force and stack it with enough infantry, the USSR is in big trouble. If they kick you out they’ll have to throw virtually everything they have at it, and that severely depletes Moscow and the Caucasus. If they don’t, then you can grind them down with a few strafing attacks because you can probably afford more offensive units such as tanks and fighters. That is: invade, use your infantry as cannon fodder while giving your stronger units the opportunity to shoot, and withdraw before the defense starts eating too many tanks.

I wouldn’t bother too much about the Ukraine - taking it stretches the Russian front and leaves them more vulnerable. And I’m not a big fan of the Northern route, as it only threatens Moscow and not the Caucasus.

Also, it will be difficult for Japan to do anything useful. They’d need a massive fleet and a lot of troops to threaten the US, and by the time they’ve built that, the war will be over in Europe.

My recommendation for you would be, to play the USA. And as your allies, you’d need a competent USSR player and a strong UK player.
The USA gives you high income, and it’s a safe place to be: no enemy troops hammering down your front door any time soon. I also think that if you and your opponents are not generally very strong players, the USA is the easiest nation to play, and you can afford quite a few mistakes.
Go for a straightforward KGF strategy and ignore Japan completely, unless of course they’re actually invading America, in which case you need to kick them out again (and doing so is not a very good plan for Japan anyway).
The USA, of course, does have a navy. But the only sea battle you would have to fight (and inevitably lose), would be Pearl Harbor. Because in your KGF strategy, the task of dealing with the German fleet would typically fall to the UK, and while you would need to build ships to get your troops across to Europe, you wouldn’t actually need to fight in the Atlantic. Beware of a last-ditch Luftwaffe strike though, so buy some protection for your transports (and AC with two fighters helps a lot), or make sure that the Brits help you there.

I think that by playing the USA in that manner, you can be actively involved in the fight, and be on the winning side even if you’ve made a few mistakes yourself. The basic idea is simple: all you need to do is ship troops to the UK turn after turn, and then use those troops to invade Europe. Find a strong player to side with you as the UK, and coordinate your strategy with him.

I suppose you’re off by a year. The Germans had quite a lot to do in Spring 1940: they were busy conquering Western Europe. The situation you’re describing would more likely refer to Spring 1941.
Also, lend-lease only became effective late in 1941 and was not a decisive factor in preventing Operation Sealion. As early as 1940, the UK simply outproduced Germany all by itself (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_aircraft_production).

Basically, if the game needs to have a result, they can only end it by surrendering. It’s not reasonable for them to claim that they can win when they’re unwilling to continue playing. It’s like in chess - you can offer a draw to your opponent, but if he refuses, the choices left are to continue or to resign.

Now in a game among friends, you may not want to follow such a course. But in that case, rather than conceding a formal draw, I would propose to cancel the game and categorize it as unfinished / undecided. The point being that a draw is similar to a peace agreement on equal terms, but an unfinished game is like saying “we could have continued this, and were both confident in our possibilities to do so in a successful manner, but decided not to do so for prevailing reasons”. I have played several A&A games that ended in this manner, and nobody felt bad about it.

You can also consider continuing the game at a later date. If it’s simply a matter of your opponents being tired of playing after a long game, that seems like a reasonable solution to me. After all, at that later date there would be no particular reason why starting a fresh game would be a better idea than continuing the existing one. It requires a bit of administration of course, but that should be quite doable.

Alright, it’s not precisely WWII, but I think I just found my favorite tank.  :-D
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11511886

I’ve been to Chalmette, where the Battle of New Orleans was fought in 1815, to Fort Sumter where the Civil War began, and to the site of the Battle of the Cowpens, which was fought in the American Revolutionary War.

Interesting question.

If you look at the size of the areas and consider the time it took to conquer them during the real war, then I’d say six months would be quite reasonable. That may seem a little short game-wise though, as it provides for only seven turns if you start early 1942 and end half 1945. But if the real war would have gone better for the Axis, then it could indeed have lasted much longer.

So yes, I would agree with an estimate of six months per turn.

@GrizzlyMan:

The Vikings were great at battling others and sacking villages, but they weren’t organized into empires, and their leaders made no attempt to form governments over the people.

On the contrary, Kings such as Harald Bluetooth and Canute the Great ruled large parts of Scandinavia and Great Britain. The last of the Viking kings, Harald Hardrade of Norway, launched a massive invasion of England, attempting to reconquer what he believed was rightfully his. He failed, but soon after, William the Conquerer was successful - and he was a direct descendant of the Vikings who had founded Normandy.
Men such as these definitely formed central governments and attempted to create empires, and often succeeded at doing so.
And how do I know all that? Well, apart from A&A, I also play Britannia!  :-)

@GrizzlyMan:

If they did form a central government, I’m sure they would have dominated Northern Europe and England for centuries

They did!

World War II - Carl Gustaf Mannerheim
Overall - Arthur Wellesley

Someone has…… see http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=16910

Thank you!