Posts made by madscientist

So what would you guys recommend if Japan is attacked by both Russia and the UK like this?

Just so you know, I play with bidding, and if I’m Japan I usually place at least a couple of infantry on the mainland, to make such attacks less feasible.

Note that, using this strategy against the opening UK and Russian attacks, that Japan collects its full IPC’s + 3 for India at the end of the turn.

What I do as Japan has of course to do with what the Russian and British players did.  If both Russia attacked Manchuria AND the UK attacked Kwangtung, then Japan is definitely disadvantaged at first. I have seen this strategy before. I have heard it called “the crippling of Japan”. In this case I attack Manchuria back with the trn, 2 inf, the ftr and the bomber from Japan (chances are Russia only took it with 2 or 3 units). Note that if UK attacked Kwangtung then India is either free or it only has 1 ftr defending it. If there is 1 ftr, I attack with the trn and 2 inf from the Phillipines and the ftr from Burma. If the ftr is not in India, then I use only the two inf from the Phillipines. Then I attack Kwangtung with 1-2 inf from Burma and the ftr from the Phillipines (note that this ftr can reach a battle on the mainland if Kwangtung was taken) and possibly the ftr from Burma.

That leaves the BB and the ftr from the Caroline Is. and the BB from Japan and the sub from the Soloman Is. the attack Pearl, with suitable results. I move the AC to the sea of Japan and land the ftr (I lose it last in the Pearl battle) on it to protect trns in the Japan SZ.

If the UK and Russia did not attack (or if you are playing RR), there are more Japanese land units for taking things like China and SFE.

Oh, ya. I build 2 trn and 3 inf, so 4 inf and 1 tank can be transported to manchuria right away on the next turn.

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

This strategy works particularly when when the allies are using a “kill Germany first” strategy. The key is having Syria-Iraq or Egypt in Axis hands for a turn so Japan can land fighters there, for travel to Berlin the next round. Those three or four extra fighters really help Germany when the aliies are pounding infantry at the capital. In my experience, it has been enough to give Japan enough time to take over Russia, because Germany just has to keep building infantry.

:mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen:

Ahh, but if Germany takes out all of the British fleet with subs and planes, it will take both US and UK 3 rounds to get a sizable invasion force ready, and 1 round to land on the mainland. By that time, Germany will have enough of a force of inf (and planes) to counterattack, giving more time for that second stack to take Moscow. As Germany, I use the initial 12 IPC’s to put a destroyer in the Denmark sea, to help take out the UK fleet. UK usually doesn’t build any naval units on their first turn because there are still German subs lying around.

So I’m just wondering what most of you do with Western Europe. I played a game where I was the allies and my opponent had a stack of ~15 infantry on Germany that he kept replenishing. He would leave Western Europe open (taking out the AA gun too and moving it to Italy while moving Italy’s gun to EE), and then squash my allied troops there with his stack of infantry and fighters. I couldn’t use my fighters to attack anything, or to land in WE, because he kept taking WE back after 1 turn.

A bid of 8 inf in EE is really hard to deal with because Germany could take Karelia on the first turn and then take Moscow on the second turn, before the US and UK can even get any troops there. However, if the german 8 inf are placed on UKR, you can strafe them with everything Russia has in range and then retreat to Karelia (leaving 1 Rus. inf in Caucasus). This makes it impossible for Germany to take Karelia on turn 1 unless the use all their planes leaving UK with enough of a navy to take Karelia back on the second turn or do other damage like that.

@OpTorch:

With a 8 inf PE bid spread over Ukr/EEU those units might be trapped in Fin.

Yeah, with a PE bid such a move is not always advisable, but if Germany only bids one or two inf in Europe, I go for it because then you save your tanks for a future attack on Caucasus or Ukraine or EE.

I play with high bids and allowing Russia to attack on the first round, so I usually attack Finland-Norway on the first round if I’m Russia. It’s good income for the Soviets.

If Germany has been building only tanks and Russia has been building only inf and the allies have managed to fly all of their fighters to Russia (and Russia has kept Leningrad by placing the initial 4 inf there), then Russia has a good chance of killing the tanks on counterattacks because the tanks only defend at a 2. This is a key strategy if Germany is only building tanks.

What I have found to be a very good German strategy is to use subs and planes to take out as much allied navy as you can, and build 2 rounds of infantry and then 1 round of tanks and then just inf for the rest of the game. On the first couple of rounds, attack Russia with everything that can reach and maybe leave 1 inf in Greece etc. to deter UK attack on Southern Europe. On the first round, leave just 3 inf in each of France and Belgium, collect all tanks from Western and Central Europe onto Germany proper, and you will have a huge stack to use against Russia. If this stack gets defeated, you will have another stack because of the second round of building inf and the third round of building tanks. The stack of inf built on the second round can start marching right away because the tanks from the third round will catch up. This is usually a big enough stack to defeat Russia before the allies can get there.

If you’re playing against an inexperienced player you can sometimes invade Karelia on the first turn without even using your planes if they leave too many units in Cacausus or Russia. This usually happens to newbies, and they learn to stack Karelia.

What should USA buy on their first turn? 4 subs to attack Japan if Pearl Heavy was done? 3 trn + 4 inf to start up shuck-shuck? Should US always ignore Japan?

After you play Axis & Allies for a while, it becomes obvious that the game is slanted in favour of the allies. For example, it becomes commonplace for all three allies to attack Germany and spend everything on sending stuff against Germany, so that Germany is usually dead in 3-5 turns. There is almost nothing Japan can do about this, because even after 5 turns they have only taken over lots of territory in Asia and elsewhere. With Germany dead, the allies just have to march back across Asia and kill Japan. This is a common strategy for experienced players. Because, in this method, the allies win 95% of the time, people have come up with bidding to even out the game. In bidding, everyone who’s playing writes their name and a bid of units/IPC’s on a piece of paper. The people with the lowest bids play Germany and Japan. The axis players get to either place the units that they bid right on the board before the game starts, or they get that value of IPC’s as extra money to start with. For example, say the two lowest bids are 1 tank + 1 IPC and 3 infantry. If the lowest bid goes to Japan, Japan can place an extra tank anywhere they want on the board, but it has to be in their original territory. Also, the Japanese player would get 1 extra IPC, so they would start with 26 IPC’s instead of 25. The German player could place the 3 infantry anywhere he wants to in his original territory on the board.

a bid of 24 IPC’s? You could put a battleship in the German SZ for that, build 4 transports, and attack Britian in G2!

For those of us that bid, how much is your average bid for each of the axis? Do you only bid for Germany, or Japan as well? Do you bid less if playing Russia Restricted? Do you place units right worth your IPC bid on the board right at the start?

I picked Germany only because you have to scheme and scheme to come up with a good strategy. It is the biggest challege, so lots of thinking is involved. To win or even survive when you are Germany is like an impossible problem, and I like trying to solve impossible problems. It is kind of a downer when you you lose, but then you just go and plan for the next game, which is almost as fun as playing. It is a high when you win with your cleverly thought-out scheme.

As Japan, invading mainland Asia is often a top priority. But the question remains: should this be done with transports or industial complexes? Two transports cost about the same as an industrial complex. With transports, you can get more infantry into battle, but with industrial complexes you can get more tanks into battle. Tanks can move toward Moscow faster, but infantry holds territory better.

This friend of mine that I play against always builds 3 transports and 3 tanks per round with the US and keeps sending that force to Algeria. He loses tanks along the way, less later in the game, sending them to Persia. This totally keeps Germany out of Africa, and stops Japan in Asia later as well.