Best posts made by MarshmallowofWar

@anzacguy That is a big question in a little sentence. I will try to answer as concisely as possible, but it is impossible to answer in specifics.

First, Italy.

Italy is the only Axis power that depends totally on the actions of the Allies to decide its course of action. If the UK does things right, Italy has very limited options.

Assuming the UK does things right, Italy can and should provide ground forces to free up German resources for the destruction of Russia. After defending itself, Italy should position itself to help with the defense of West Germany, Southern France, and Normandy (assuming Germany or Italy was dumb enough to take Normandy).

Second, Italy should annoy the heck out of the UK by depriving it of its NO for as long as possible, maximize its income, and force the UK to try to neutralize that income. The best options for doing this are taking Cyprus if you have a surviving transport – this is very difficult for the UK to recapture without costing it extra resources. Taking African territories works only in the short term.

Finally, the Italian fast movers should move in advance of German forces to clear blockers and also allow German planes to land with the German stack that moves into the territory captured by Italy. The presence of defensive fighters can make a German stack feasible in circumstances where Russia might have odds of 50% or better when attacking the stack.

If the UK does things wrong (or just gets really unlucky)…

Italy might have navy play. Boost your income as much as possible and keep the UK tied up by taking its territories and forcing it to fight in Africa instead of reinforcing Russia. Keep can opening for Russia. With your boosted income, you can also keep building ground forces that can move to Europe or invade Africa.

Now, for ANZAC. Like Italy, it’s sucking hind tit. It has to support the major powers that keep it alive while not dying and thwarting the enemy as much as possible.

There are two schools of thought here – that ANZAC should turtle and that ANZAC should fight for possession of the Dutch East Indies. BOTH are true – ANZAC should do everything possible to not die while fighting for the DEI. To do these things, it needs US support. US fighters can reach Queensland from Hawaii in a single move. ANZAC ships can strengthen the US fleet to make it safe from Japanese attacks. The US can can open for ANZAC transports to let them take territory.

A major factor here is when Japan makes its move – with J1, ANZAC has less options than with every other Japanese opener. With J1, ANZAC should activate Dutch New Guinea on J1 for its NO. Without J1, ANZAC typically activates Java for income and possibly ferry fighters towards India via Java while building more defenses. (Whether or not to do this also depends on what’s showing for J2.)

A major limitation on ANZAC is factory capacity – there is one IC, and it is not in the best location. Some folks will tell you to build an IC with ANZAC, but timing is everything – too early, and your income will never support the enhanced capacity. Too late, and you’ll be giving initiative to the Axis powers. Also, the right blend is important – too many ground troops and you can’t help much. Too few ground troops and you’re a liability to the Allies.

A general rule of A&A combat is that fighters are sexy, but infantry holds off hits on more expensive units while they kill attackers…the more infantry you have, the longer your fighters live.

So, if you send a fighter off to India, it needs to be replaced but you also need to keep the infantry up. Combined with you factory limitations, this typically means you might build something like a fighter and two infantry, or a transport and two infantry, or a destroyer and two infantry.

Both of these minor powers require great skill to play properly – they both depend on balance and judgement of the enemy. Properly played, they can and have turned the tide of games.

Have fun!

Marsh

@Alex-Phillips said in OOB or BM3:

@AndrewAAGamer I’ll be baited. Unfortunately I think there’s a lot of arrogance displayed by some of the more serious/veteran posters like yourself, Gen. Manstein, etc. It puts me off joining any league on here. I like to post the occasional snippet, read interesting strategies, but that’s it, thanks.

With all due respect, I think you’re misunderstanding Andrew.

I’ve played with him many times and lost many times, having won against him only once when his partner made a massive mistake in the Pacific that cost the US catastrophically.

Three other times I’ve come close to beating him:

Once he and a friend took the Allies against me as the Axis in Global. I threw the script away and launched a devastating mechanized attack against Russia (which appears to be me to be the basis for Andrew’s current Axis plan, albeit with some refinement). The question, “How are we going to beat him?” was asked and the answer from Andrew was “I don’t know.” In the end, I made a bad attack and beat myself.

The next time was Anniversary again, and three players against Andrew (running the Axis by himself I believe). The US and Russia did their parts, but the guy running UK was a horrible player who liked making questionable attacks. He did not want to do anything that his partners needed. At the end, the attack on Moscow would have never happened if the UK had killed just four more German infantry.

Once he and his buddy ran Axis in Anniversary, and I was on a team with two other players. One of the players was very new and a very good player who made Russia look interesting and easy, but at the end despite the fact that Japan was beaten in the Pacific Germany took Moscow. Japan was beaten but standing (and it would have taken many more turns to crush it completely). US fighters, a whole darned stack of them, were one more turn away from Moscow and that would have ended the game definitively in favor of the Allies, with Germany having no chance of success in Europe and Japan having no chance of success in the Pacific. The new player had refused to take a UK fighter in defense of Moscow in order to keep his objective. That resulted in a 50/50 battle that could have been like 35/65 in favor of the Allies. The dice came up against the Allies. With Russia defeated, we felt there was no way to achieve victory unless we risked defeat in the Pacific.

Andrew doesn’t believe in luck. He believes in hard work and patience, and he works harder at this game than anyone else I’ve ever seen or heard of. I’ve never heard him complain about getting diced (although I have seen him lose games because his opponent got lucky with the dice). He just waits til he has the best possible chance of success for an attack. He practices constantly.

He’s proud of his skill. I don’t think that’s arrogance. He works harder than any other player I’ve ever met to improve his play. There’s a difference between pride in your effort and arrogance.

Yes, Andrew is a serious player. He’s not a better player because he’s more gifted at strategy. He’s a better player because he works harder, period to understand the mechanics of the game and how they will play out. That’s not arrogance – that’s determination.

He’s not a better player because he blames other people for his mistakes. He accepts responsibility when he makes a mistake. That’s not arrogance – that’s honesty with himself, something many, many people in the world should consider taking more of.

I’m probably a better instinctive player than Andrew, but where I come up short is determination. Me, I spend my time on city government, running a D&D game, working on a book, and learning two different languages while juggling my day job and pondering graduate school. Why does he beat me? Because he practices harder and longer. Because I’m not as patient as he is.

Playing against him has made me a better player. He has always been willing to offer advice without judgement and to help me get better. He has taught me new things about the game both with and without trying to do so.

So, with respects, reserve your judgement and get to work. When you win as much as Andrew does, you’ll have the right to decide whether or not he’s being arrogant.

Your first turn build is being spent trying to psych out the UK, forcing them to spent their entire build reinforcing the UK rather than anywhere else.

For the record, I love the psych-out. I once won a game entirely by psyching out my opponent on turn one. When his teammates finally convinced him I was full of <bleep>, it was too late for Japan to build properly.

But I digress – back to your note.

You start behind Russia on total infantry. You build ships, and this allows Russia spare room to build tanks and artillery. By the time you start building for the Russian invasion, you are a full turn behind Russia in deployments.

You use those ships for Novgorad. So what – the ships don’t land and are a liability that you have to protect now. Without an air base to cover them, you have to build either an airbase (locking down your planes) or more navy (which ALSO don’t get you anywhere) and in the mean time Russia is building MORE ground forces. You will never catch up.

In the mean time, the survivors from the 8 or 10 units you were able to land can now be crushed by Russia (which had an entire turn to stack Belarus and Bryansk with pretty respectable stacks). Even if you swap unit for unit on your defense roll (you won’t), Russia comes out ahead here. Your ground offensive stalls out.

Solution: Stop wasting your money on ships that don’t actually get you anywhere. Alternately, use the ships to get troops to somewhere they can be effective.

@dazedwit said in Red Skies:

@AndrewAAGamer

are you dumb? 37 is not 42

3 bombers = $36

1 bomber, 10 inf = $42

1 bomber, 10 inf = $42

1 bomber, 9 inf = $39

Yeah, magical mystical sub can to to SZ125

I spent every Germany dollar on tanks and SB’s, and nothing else until G5 (which some inf thrown in with any extra dollars). Buying a sub to send up there takes one tank off of Eastern Front. I played Germany as ferocious offensive juggernaut to see if Red Skies could hold them off. And I went cobra kai so ignored Baltic/East Poland.

Luckily I was able to destroy the 2 year old I was playing against. He was way better at the game than you.

@dazedwit Your ad-hominem attacks are not appreciated. I know @AndrewAAGamer and he’s an amazing player, probably one of the best in the world. Before you get moderated before these personal attacks, I just wanted to warn you against them.

Marsh

In my experience, the most common loss/victory is through surrender, typically following a bad defeat. For example, if the US or Japanese fleet were caught in a death trap and annihilated due to careless play, the corresponding player would probably give up. I’ve seen this many times.

Only once I have actually achieved victory conditions (and I did it in six rounds). Even then, my opponent surrendered rather than play the rest of the 6th turn because he had no realistic hope of freeing a victory city.

No, anyone in our local area playing the Axis would have conceded long before that happened.

Marsh

Also, I have yet to actually receive a 60 IPC bid from Andrew.

“Let’s eat Grandma”

“Let’s eat, Grandma”

COMMAS SAVE LIVES.

@tchenao If you control Normany, the German battleship should have repaired in the G2 purchase phase.

Since you can’t move it into the Med unless Italy took Gibraltar on I1, it would be better to move it to sea zone 112 where it can have air cover.

Marsh

@tchenao We once play a game where the French were the most effective minor power on the board. They could do no wrong on defense. At one point my partner (who was running the French) responded to the player running Germany saying, “Two guys and a plane should be enough” with “Are you sure? They’re French.” and the other player winced visibly. The French in that game killed more German units than the UK…

Fun day!

Marsh

In all frankness, I have never seen KJF work. Yes, I have seen Japan be completely hosed, with income down to the teens. Despite this, the US still has to spend money to keep Japan down and is unable to dedicate 100% of its resources to Europe.

Admittedly, I have only played with a few dozen players. Maybe there’s a good KJF out there that I have yet to see.

It is hard to script out KJF because Japan has soo many options, but here are a few random thoughts:

First, Japan has other income options that don’t depend on its navy. Crushing China early and taking Russian territory helps Germany and Japan while impeding Russia.

Second, it does not take that much US income to give the UK and Russia the edge over Germany and Italy.

Third, it takes almost the entire US income to overcome Japan’s navy.

Fourth, it is completely up to Japan when to go to war with the US.

All of these factors lead me to believe that KJF as a primary plan can’t work because it fundamentally assumes that your opponent is going to do certain things a certain way.

If you know your opponent always does a J1 attack you can certainly plan a response for that, but in terms of strategy that works against every opponent you need more tools than that in the toolbox.

Marsh

It’s not boring.

It’s tense, hanging on the edge of a knife. Germany pouring as many resources as possible into the destruction of Russia, and Russia and the Allies trying desperately to avoid mistakes and stave off defeat.

Definitely NOT boring. Just not action-packed!

Marsh

I typically do 1 fig, 2 inf in the UK and an MIC for Egypt on UK1. I do not do Taranto usually, so the Scotland fighters (one gets placed with the bid pretty much all the time) wind up in the UK. One fighter usually goes off with the sea zone 109 DD and the strat bomber to kill German subs in sea zone 106, but I’m still left with four fighters in the UK plus the augmented infantry force. The four fighters are enough to dissuade unescorted strat bombing, and Germany usually does not have fighters positioned for escorted strat bombing on G2.

This approach puts Italy in the position of having to spend money to try to save its fleet, which it cannot do for more than a three turns. During this time, it is spending money on fleet and not on European defenses or fast movers to help Germany in Russia.

Once the UK kills the Italian fleet, Italian income sinks rapidly due to convoy disruption. If Italy doesn’t try to keep its fleet alive, it loses income sooner and can’t contribute.

Either way, Italy is very weak.

This secures the Med, allowing the UK to focus on the Middle East starting about turn 4 and shipping fighters to Moscow on turn three. It keeps Italy from helping Germany significantly with defense or offense.

Starting about turn 3, I try to add one infantry per turn on average to the UK to build for the eventual possibility of a late Sea Lion attempt.

@andrewaagamer My question was why build a battleship (one unit) when for the same price you can have two units that might get two hits in defense (or offense for that matter) and gives the same number of defensive hits?

It’s true that the battleship shoots better on the second round of combat, but getting that extra hit potentially on the first round of combat weakens the attacker opponent’s second round of combat.

It seems to me that any time you would build a battleship you’re better off building a destroyer and a cruiser instead unless you are limited to building only a single unit…

@Poptech said in Bonus Movement is Unrealistic Nonsense:

The worst part about AAEurope, AAPacific and AAGlobal is the bonus movement granted by airfields and shipyards. The entire game plays so much more unrealistically when using bonus movement. Not to mention it makes no logical sense how a ship could travel farther from leaving a shipyard or how an aircraft gets more range from leaving an airfield.

1. This makes the Japanese Air Force even more ridiculous, they can fly bombers from Japan to Novosibursk in one turn or Bomb the West Coast of the US from Japan or Land bombers in Australia from Japan.
2. It allows the Japanese to invade Pearl Harbor, Mainland Alaska and Canada from Japan in one turn instead of just the Aleutian islands.
3. It makes defending the Mediterranean near impossible for Italy;
4. It allows the UK and US to attack ships in the Mediterranean with bombers from mainland UK specifically sea zone 94.
5. It allows the US to move troops to Gibraltar in one turn.
6. It allows an invasion of mainland Italy from Gibraltar in one turn.
7. It allows the UK to invade Egypt from South Africa and West India in one turn etc…

I have been playing with the bonus movement off in TripleA and it plays so much better in my opinion. I believe it should be removed from all future versions of A&A.

@Poptech For what it’s worth, I understand your points.

I think it’s important to realize that this board game is first and foremost an abstraction of a very large, immensely complicated situation. Take 100 players and we’ll come up with 100+ things that are not totally accurate about the game.

The goal of the game is to simplify the complex down into something that a group of friends can do in one day (albeit a long one!). The more rules that are added to the game, the more complicated it gets and the longer it takes to play. If you think Axis & Allies is not realistic enough, you might enjoy “The World at War” which is extremely complex to set up and play through.

Proper logistical support for naval and air forces is important for those forces to operate a full effectiveness. This is not just fuel, but other critical supplies and facilities to properly maintain and repair those forces as well as meet the needs of their crews.

The choice made for aircraft and ship logistical support made by Larry Harris and crew was increased movement from proper support facilities. As someone else pointed out, perhaps it could have been phrased differently and more clearly in the rules as this being the normal movement and the absence of a base shortening the movement, but none of us are perfect and I’m willing to forgive Larry’s phrasing.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with you desiring more realism in a game based on historical events, but at what point do you sacrifice brevious playability for realism?

I think we all welcome polite and informed discussion of how the game could be made better, but at the same time I would challenge you to consider exactly how you would have represented those logistical needs and how they’re met if you had been in Larry’s place.

Marsh

@kyle47 said in Revisiting G2 Barbarossa:

@MarshmallowofWar Good thoughts. I have run this attack quite a bit now. I disagree with the “profound weakness in Europe”.

By “profound weakness”, I’m making a couple of assumptions. First, that every available ground force that can make Bransk by G5 is there (including the Romanian infantry) and second, that all your builds for G2, G3, and G4 (probably strat bombers) have first priority of eliminating Russia as opposition. That doesn’t leave a lot of ground forces in Europe proper, hence the phrasing. While it’s true that your air force and limited ground forces can hold off the US/UK for a bit, on G4 it’ll be ground forces by itself but most of that has been shipped off to Russia at that point.

You might ask why the US would go Europe-first. The answer is because your G1 build telegraphs your intentions.

It would be interesting to see this in play.

Marsh

@oysteilo Ok, I’ve got the file. I’ll send you my first move sometime this weekend. Please be aware that my availability from day to day varies considerably and it may be more than three days before I’m able to move in some situations.

Marsh

@Contango I might be able to attend this, but with all due respect to YG I don’t want to watch a 27 minute YouTube video instead of actually reading a rules document. Is this variant written out somewhere?

Marsh

This is starting to cross over into house rules.

@oysteilo No need. I have tried everything except changing my profile name. I am trying that now.