The eastern front is already difficult for the Germans unless they focus most of their effort on taking out the Russians. Will you be able to hold the Russians back while using so many resources on boat and facilities?
A Carrier might be the best air cover for the fleet. I think a Carrier is roughly on par with an air base for protection-value for your money.
How about just a minor IC in Romania, and then another one in the Caucasus?
A user over at BGG asked me about a link to the low luck rules, but for the love of God and Google, I can’t find them :?
They must be defined somewhere in one of the game club forums or something? Can you please help?
Thanks in advance.
Many times I have planned to use Italian ground troops for the same purpose, but I can’t seem to actually get them over there. There is always some other use for them that seems like a better solution in the short term.
Late game you are desperately trying to keep the Americans at bay.
Early game you need to take out Greece, Egypt, Southern France, the Middle East etc. Also you need to buy additional protection for the navy which is very prone to (air)raids. Actually, planes might might offer som some great synergies here between potentially threatening Russian and scrambling to protect the navy! :-o
Of course the range in Russia is rather limited if you need to operate out of Italy, but flying through the Dardanelles can be a shortcut to the southern areas of Russia. Perhaps an Air Base in Greece is what is needed to cover both fronts? It is adjacent to both the Adriatic sea, the SZ around Cyprus (in which it is otherwise difficult to cover transports landing in Syria) and the Black sea. That would allow Italian figther & tactical bombers to attack all the way up to the Baltic states, Belarus, and Smolensk, which is basically the entire front.
Would that be worth the 15 IPCs?
Actually according to most sorces on the subject you are not quite right.
@docfav7:
… The Germans bombed the UK (Battle of Britain) but everything I see and read on it was they bombed the cities (political purposes) or the hit the wrong airfields, hit shipping ports and bombed shipping targets.
The Germans started targetting RAF airfields and aircraft production facilities (and later radar stations when they discovered their importance). This nearly crippled the RAF (fighter command), and the Germans were very close to getting the upper hand, but then they suddenly changed strategy and startet carpet bombing cities because they thought that would make the UK submit. On the contrary it gave the RAF breathing room to rebuild and start giving the Germans unbearable losses again.
The Luftwaffe was designed for blitzkrieg ground support (and of course air superiority), and didn’t have the heavy bombers needed to conduct a carpet bombing campaign. Add to that, that the range of fighters like the Bf109 was rather limited giving them very little combat flying time over Brittain per mission.
Only the UK and US really used SBR to it’s fullest. They went right to the heart of German production. Killing it’s ability to produce anything.
Actually they went for the civilian population mainly. They made the same strategic mistake as the Germans in the early war. The effectivenes of carpet bombing civilians was greatly overrated by both sides. (until the A-bomb obviously)
:evil: :evil: :evil:
Or maybe the western allies knew this but kept focusing on the bombing campaign to put up an effort that seemed devastating while the dictatorships wore each other down on the eastern front.
:evil: :evil: :evil:
@Piet:
True, but only under the assumption that you will build inf in Rom, which doesnt make sense - if you build mechs in Rom they reach Moscow faster than mechs from Germany
Not really, :mrgreen: at least not if you count the turn it takes to build the IC.
30 IPC’s is a lot. That is 30 infantry units built in Berlin that you can upgrade to Mech inf for the same price. Mech inf from Berlin will reach Moscow faster than regular inf from Romania.
I know that there has been some debate on the board about whether it is worthwhile to attack Russia with the Japanese; however, if the Russian player is adopting a total turtle strategy I say hit them from the East.
If they are truly turtling 100% in Moscow then the Germans can also race past Moscow with a handful of tanks to grab territories. This is assuming the Russians pulled back the far east troops as well.
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I wanted to do it on black card stock like ____ did, so I found a shop that would do it but they wanted a few changes. Specifically, they wanted a black background, so I removed the diagonal background, text and white backgrounds:Don’t knock the white lines, i figure the idea is that no matter what file you use, you’ll be folding and bending so all that stuff is on the “underside” and unseen.
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Using black probably looks better. I guess black cardboard would be surperior to white (paper) with lots of black ink. You could print the original on standard white paper and then use it as a stencil over some black cardboard. Just punch a needle throgh at all the fold and cut intersections, as that will show you where to cut and fold the cardboard. Use a ruler or similar when folding and cutting to make sure you get straight lines. You might want to actually cut and fold one on white paper first as a prototype to help you find out which holes mean what :)
The IC in egypt would keep the Italy economy from growing at all. I mean for only 12 IPC for a one turn payment, than 6 more IPC a turn for two infantry or a tank and the Italians cant touch africa and the only national objective they can get is the Mediterranean one.
But can the UK spare the IPC’s? I assume your opponent is not threatening sea lion in the early game? In the late game Egypt has typically fallen or received enough reinforcements from South Africa to hold, and thus an IC isn’t needed.
We have seen an Italian IC in Egypt in a few of our games, but hasn’t had any great impact. It’s usually is built too late. In the beginning Italy typically can’t take Egypt and expect to hold it, and later in the game their fleet and/or homeland is usually threatend by the US so it’s hard to find the IPCs for an IC.
Generally with the new National Objectives there seems to be MUCH more incentive for Italy to go east rather than south when they have taken Egypt. Therefore there is very litle fighting below Egypt.
In our games the German navy tends to be stationed just outside the Danish straight. That renders the Russian fleet useless.
If the Germans don’t get a detroyer, the northern Russian sub can should be stationed off of Norway where there is a convoy box.
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What it comes down to is if the Germans defeat the Soviets, game over. The Japanese need to do everything to 1) make themselves a fighting force, and 2) use their fighting force to take the US out of the European theatre.
Ironically in your oppinion the best way of doing that is ignoring them for as long as possible. I’m not saying you are wrong; it’s just funny. :-)
Obviously the alternative is to attack them on turn one, but then the Japanse will not have the economy to match the US, AND the US will be able to engage in both Europe and the Pacific with enough troops to make a difference.
- New National objective for Germany for controlling London
Given the other changes, would you recommend the removal of this NO?
I didn’t mean to imply, that it was too attractive or anything. Especially since I didn’t include the starting setup in the analysis.
I haven’t played enough of Europe yet to have an oppinion yet. Also in my play group no one has the balls for Sea Lion :|
There are at least four changes in Alpha+2 that make it more attractive:
New National objective for Germany for controlling London
The UK fighters are more likely to take damage on G1 as they can now scramble
The Germans are generally stronger compared to the Russians
The Middle Eastern oil field goals may also make it more attractive, as taking the UK production in SA out the African equation makes it much more doable for the Italians to obtain the Middle Eastern oil fields.
I’m not sure how the new setup affects the level of commitment needed from the Germans to pull Sea Lion off and the timing of the operation. That is obvioulsly a major deciding factor in the answer of your question.
I’ve played one game of Europe with Alpha+2. Worked pretty well. You can see the session report over at boardgamegeek, here:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/618278/europe-only-first-game-with-alpha2-setupOzimek1, do you have a list of alpha+2 for europe only, or du you just use the global alpha+2 and disregard anything about the pacific theater?
it was almost the same setup. Changes (as proposed by Krieghund) were:
The two ANZAC inf in Egypt were replaced by one UK inf.
Russia gained 9 IPC’s extra per turn to simulate “SFE” income.
We played that they had to placed in Novosibirsk, but that may be wrong. (?)
US ignored objectives from Pacific.
Worked pretty well. Much better than OOb anyways.
I’ve played one game of Europe with Alpha+2. Worked pretty well. You can see the session report over at boardgamegeek, here:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/618278/europe-only-first-game-with-alpha2-setup
Nice job. It seems from the pictures you have a sheet of glass over the board to keep the units from tipping, rigth?
You could have painted at the borders, IPC values, territory names etc. on the glass. That way you could easily use the 3D map for different games by changing the glass overlay :)
One additional point on this subject which I wanted to mention, and which is becoming much more important with the release of Global 40, is multi-power defensive combat.
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In terms of hardiness, and mobility, there are no alterations to the principles. However, with regards to pips, it gets a bit tricky if it looks like you will survive the defence…If you need a ‘can-opener’ manoeuvre against a minimal enemy force on the next turn, the smaller power has to retain as many of its units as possible, even if that means sacrificing ‘better’ units with higher pips owned by the larger power.
I think you need to add another principle: “Turn order Principle”.
Examples:
Please rename this thread to “Does endless statistics discussion break the ability to have a meaningfull discussion of Sealion” :wink:
Seriously it’s been a nightmare to try to distill any strategic insight from this thread.
I guess it comes down to estimating whether this temporary income boost for the Italians will pay off against UK/Russia before the US comes and takes the Italians down. Given the ressources (lost units + TIME) it will take to conquer these North African territories to begin with, it may not pay off. These ressources might be better utilized in the Caucasus.