Posts made by KaLeu

Ik zit juist deze week een beetje vol, maar later is misschien iets te plannen. Ik woon in Schiedam.

No, they can’t. The rules say:

If your side (but not necessarily your power) controlled a canal or narrow strait at the start of your turn, you may move sea units through it (you can’t use it in the same turn that you capture it).

Related to this, there’s a well-known Allied ploy to have the Americans capture Denmark, and then move the British through the Denmark Straits to capture Germany, which is perfectly legal because the Allies indeed control Denmark at the start of the British turn in that case. But that situation is different from the one you’re describing of course.

Ik zit een beetje vol de komende tijd…. zal op z’n vroegst januari worden.

@Wolfshanze:

but none are anywhere near Pensacola, Florida where I play (or at least they’re in hiding and I don’t know of them)

I found one!

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=32848.0

I have nothing against more realism, but in the end, it’s a board game. Game balance is extremely important because without it, the game can’t really be played. In a historically realistic setting in terms of forces and income, the Axis wouldn’t stand a chance.

So for a change like this to work, it would be necessary to avoid putting the Allies at a disadvantage, especially because consesnsu has it that they already need a considerable bid right now.

@Caesar:

What I want to test this by making Canada its own nation, combine UK’s income into one making London the capital. I want to buff the Canadian military by giving it a fighter, maybe one for two more infantry, putting one inf. in Hong Kong, two inf. in London. Canada will go last and France will go first, not sure on National Objectives yet.

So if I understand this correctly, you advocate abolishing UK Pacific in order to boost the UK’s income and compensate the UK for not having Canada’s 7 IPC? That change probably favors the Allies at least during the first few turns, but historically, it would ignore the significant contribution India made to World War II, so I’m not so sure about it from a viewpoint of added realism. And Canada would still need a bigger income than 7 - I suppose the easiest way would be to just upgrade a few of their home territories.

And by “France will go first”, do you propose that France will move before Germany, or just that France will move before Canada? France before Germany would be a major change and a big advantage to the Allies.

Natioanl objectives for Canada…. I’m thinking: 5 IPC for having a land unit in Normandy-Bordeaux. This would reflect Canada’s role in liberating Western Europe and from a game perspective, might provide the Germans with an extra incentive to kick the Allies out of Normandy-Bordeaux as opposed to just holding Paris.

Having Canada as an entirely separate power, while doing justice to the role it historically played in World War II, would weaken the Allies’ position in A&A Global. At a production of only 7 and few opportunities of adding to that, Canada would have a hard time building units that could make a difference in the European theater. And precisely those 7 IPC would be sorely missed by the UK. The only scenario where an independent Canada could be beneficial, would be after a successful Sea Lion. But the very existence of a separate Canada would also make Sea Lion more likely because of the missing UK production.

The Halifax rules, which are based on the input of a number of very experienced A&A players, are much more than just giving Canada a different role.

Welcome to the forums!

Yes, you can scramble in that situation.

For ANZAC, you may want to consider a few quotes from Australia’s wartime prime minister John Curtin, for example:

“The game is not lost - or won - until the last bell goes.”

“Is not Anzac day a day that breathes the very soul of freedom?”

(and there’s more to be found)

While you specifically mention not needing anything for China (and how about France btw?), here are a few good ones from Chiang-Kai Shek:

“War is not only a matter of equipment, artillery, group troops or air force; it is largely a matter of spirit, or morale.”

and, especially applicable to A&A:

“Give me fifty DC-3’s and the Japanese can have the Burma Road.”

Ah, and what I should have posted first: welcome to the forum!  :-D

I didn’t see the image attached at first because I didn’t log in…… and my experience with AA Europe is extremely limited, having played the game precisely once.

Having said that, a look at the map situation make me wonder what happened. It looks like early in the game, but what did German do in the west and especially on their first turn? I’m asking this because I see some unusual situations on the board:

1. There’s a very powerful British fleet, plus three surviving French ships. Standard practice for Germany is, to attack the Royal Navy turn 1 and take out most it. It seems like that didn’t happen.

2. I see two French fighters in Algeria, so the Paris fighter somehow survived. Standard practice for Germany is, to conquer France turn 1 - perhaps not all of it, but at least Paris. In the unlikely event that Germany fails at that, Italy can still take it before France moves.

3. Germany apparently spent its resources on factories in Poland, Slovakia-Hungary, and Romania. While there’s something to be said for a Romanian factory (although I’m not a big fan of it), the money on the other two would definitely have been better spent on units. Whatever these factories have produced, and more, could have been purchased in Germany, and would have reached those territories at the same point in time. Also, each factory costs 12 IPC, which is the difference between buying 12 mechanical infantry instead of normal infantry.

4. Germany doesn’t seem well poised to invade Russia in force right now, with a lot of its strength lingering in the west.

About the only good thing for the Axis, seems to be the strong Italian fleet in the Med. I’m not sure how much the UK has left south of Suez, but considering the surviving Italian transports, taking Cairo seems like a viable option. Apparently the UK didn’t attack the Italian fleet in force on their first turn (the “Taranto” raid), which is also more or less standard (though it was probably a poor decision in the only game I played myself).

All in all, I’d say the board situation heavily favors the Allies, mainly due to poor German play (sorry for sounding harsh here, but I hope I’ve explained my reasoning - see above).

The Java sea is rather shallow, 150 ft on average. I don’t have any information on the discovery of the wrecks, but considering that the battle was chaotic and the ships drifted for a while between being abandoned by the crew and finally sinking, it stands to reason that locating them posed more of a challenge than actually diving at the spot after they had been found. It’s speculation on my part that an illegal salvage operation would be the cause of the ships’ disappearance, and the Ministry has so far merely pointed out that the matter needs to be investigated. But today’s news confirms that the ships have likely been dismantled with explosives and the fragments removed towards Surabaya.

It’s not unheard of: the famous British battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse have also been targeted:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/malaysia/11187603/Celebrated-British-warships-being-stripped-bare-for-scrap-metal.html
http://thepipeline.info/blog/2014/11/13/mod-confirms-new-threat-to-historic-shipwreck-graves/
Note that the second article mentions a Singapore based salvage firm that decided against such an operation, but claimed that it could otherwise have made a 150 million pounds profit.

Searching some more, I found that this despicable practice is not limited to the Far East either:
http://thepipeline.info/blog/2016/05/22/exclusive-named-the-salvage-company-which-looted-jutland-war-graves-as-mod-fails-to-act/
And the company identified in that operation appears to be…… Dutch.

Very disturbing news was communicated today by the Dutch Minister of Defense. The wrecks of three ships that were lost in the Battle of the Java Sea in 1942, and had been rediscovered in 2002, are no longer present, as detected by a recent diving expedition. The cruisers De Ruyter and Java are completely gone, and so is most of the destroyer Kortenaer. Traces have been found and there’s no doubt as to where the ships were supposed to be.

What exactly happened will need to be investigated, but the obvious and alarming thought is of course, that the graves of the more than 900 men who went down with those ships, were not safe from scrap metal dealers.  :-(

@Gamerman01:

Sure,
Every single one of those sea zones you listed are legal for Japan.  They are three zones from WUS and Alaska, the way the rule book intends it to be counted.

Z10 counts as 1 zone, for example, and Zone 9 is the second zone so Zone 9 is off limits.
Z8 and Z3 are not allowed for Japan movement, but 4 and 7 are

I know this for sure because Krieghund answered it for us in the past - we had the same question

Thank you! I was leaning toward thinking those sea zones wouldn’t be accessible but opinions were divided, so thanks for clearing this up.

@ShadowHAwk:

Yes was thinking about SZ6 but that is the only SZ that really creates the problem.

And transports cannot get to alaska on their own they need the naval base.

But the intend of the rule is the same, to prevent a sucker punch to the US that cannot be stopped.

So in stead of trying to find loopholes to abuse the rules just try to find out what was the intend of the rule and then play by that. We are not lawers here ( most of us ) and we are not in a courtroom defending a murder suspect. Its a friendly game between X players, just use common sense if things clearly look like your abusing the rules just dont do it.

Like for instance Russia in afrika, clearly their NO was designed with the idea to help speed up the game in case germany screwed up.
The historical sense was also related to this, the allies would never allow russia to take control of Axis countries in afrika.

Yes it is in the rules, yes you can land 1 inf on sicily and move your mech towards afrika. But it feels cheesy.
If you go purely by the book then yes japan can sucker punch the US because withing 2 SZ means you can be in the 3th and would be allowed an invasion without warning, and that is also kinda cheesy.

Although you made a good point, might be an idea to put a naval base a bit closer to the US and actualy invade them when you declare war. Might be a 1 off thing but surely will get their attention. Idealy combined with sea-lion.

I do appreciate your line of thinking and like to conduct actual games in that spirit, but at the same time I think it’s better to get clarity about rule issues when there’s no actual game involved. Attempting to understand the intent of a rule leaves us guessing, and may lead to debates about what is and is not reasonable during the game.

The USSR national objective is indeed a clear example of a rule that has the potential of being abused. Would a Soviet force have occupied Italian Somaliland during World War 2? Of course not. Could Soviet agents have infiltrated remote parts of Italy to bolster the already vibrant communist resistance and kick out Mussolini’s faltering regime? Now such a scenario could be open for debate.
And of course, it’s odd that the rule doesn’t apply to Korea. Taking Korea would clearly meet all the requirement of a major USSR success that should be rewarded accordingly, but it isn’t.

So all in all, I still prefer to do some rule lawyering here on this board, to having a debate about intent during a real game.

I think we need an official ruling here just to make sure, so I posted it to the FAQ.

There’s been some debate on this thread: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=38462.45
as to how the rule “When not yet at war with the United States, in addition to the normal restrictions, Japan
may not end the movement of its sea units within 2 sea zones of the United States’ mainland territories (Western United States and Alaska)” should be interpreted - specifically, where to start counting those 2 sea zones.

In effect, the question boils down to whether Japan, while not at war with the US, may end its move in any of the following sea zones: 4, 7, 13, 14, 15, 26, 27, 28.

Can we have an official ruling on this one please?

This debate about the meaning of the phrase “within two sea zones” has me somewhat confused about a rule I never really looked at before. For example, if you look at the map, then SZ26 is clearly three sea zones away from the Western US. Nobody would doubt that if they were land zones. But the fact that they are sea zones implies that an amphibious invasion from that zone would be possible.

And it stands to reason that you’d want to rule out such an invasion, as pointed out by ShadowHawk:

@ShadowHAwk:

Lets think about the rule.

It was clearly intended to make sure that Japan cannot invade the US before they are at war. Especialy important in the pacific game.
So verry easy, you cannot put ships in any SZ that would ( if those ships where transports ) allow an invasion of the US continent.

But if you consider that, then how about transports in SZ6? They can invade Alaska, but surely Japan can build them there?

So why I agree that SZ 26 is probably not accessible to Japan while not at war with the US, I’d appreciate an official ruling just to be sure.

@Charles:

@Herr:

@Charles:

In a series of games between equally good players, I calculated that in every 20 games, the Allies will win 12 with standard dice and 9 with low luck.  Interesting right?

That’s interesting indeed. How did you do that calculation? And are you making assumptions about a specific optimal strategy for each side to follow?

It was a mini tournament between 12 players most of which were around average (meaning not so good) skill.  Total of 96 games if I recall correctly.  The first rounds of the tourney were standard dice and the semi-finals and finals were low luck.  It was a very simple calculation.

That’s an interesting experiment indeed. Amazing that you got so many players together, and could also try both low luck an standard - I’m usually happy when I finally manage to get a single game going.
If the difference is indeed statistically significant, and given that over such a number of games there shouldn’t really be an imparity in dice outcome between the sides and probably not in playing style either, it would seem to imply that the Axis would have more opportunities for battles that they are supposed to win but that are risky, and could ill afford to lose - which low luck would guarantee them.

@Zhukov44:

@Herr:

Thanks a lot. Like I said, we’ve never played Europe before and went with our (also very limited) experience with Global.
As a followup question: without Taranto, what’s the best option for the UK Med fleet?

Consolidate in 92 if possible.  One often needs an airbase in Gibraltar to pull this off, so it may not be an option if UK needs to spend all of its UK1 income on defense.  But consolidating in 92 can be a decent option against Sea Lion (if it’s feasible), because your air/naval will be in range of London (unlike Taranto).

Failing that, you can consider running the fleet (in 97) to 76.  If you run around the Cape straight away you arrive at sz 92 on UK4.  By that time, USA should have plenty of fleet to join you, and you can begin your North Atlantic naval campaign in earnest on round 5.

Thanks again. In this particular game, we might have gone to 92 even without the Gibraltar airbase because Germany didn’t take out SZ110 and those ships could also have joined in. Especially if the UK uses only planes against SZ96 (accepting the risk to lose one) to allow the SZ98 DD to stay with the other ships. The odds would then be against Italy if they would attack that fleet.

@Charles:

In a series of games between equally good players, I calculated that in every 20 games, the Allies will win 12 with standard dice and 9 with low luck.  Interesting right?

That’s interesting indeed. How did you do that calculation? And are you making assumptions about a specific optimal strategy for each side to follow?