Posts made by Pelanderfunk

I have not yet taken France without at least three planes.

I’m suggesting this rule because my opponent and I have not seen an Axis win in 8 games (euro only). I would like to think that we are at least intermediate players, but the games have been heavily lopsided.

Our first few games featured aggressive Axis opening moves that relied too heavily on the dice; the games ended quickly because at least one major Axis attack would fail early on – when Italy/Germany is making less than Russia/UK and they’ve lost their initial arms superiority, the game is pretty much done. For instance, neither of us has taken France without at least three planes and the full ground force. We’ve also had two Sealion failures, one against an almost undefended London where the dice gods just shat on me. Obviously these attacks won’t fail every time, but it’s hard to spend 30+ mins setting up a game only to risk it on your opening moves.

Our later games have been much more conservative (probably because we got hurt so many times with aggressive moves), but without aggressive play, you can’t get far into Russia before the US comes knocking.

Basically, the Vichy rules do two things:

1. They give the Med to the Axis, or at least make it a battle.
2. They give the Axis a slight boost in troops.

We’re just trying to find a way to a balanced mid-game that doesn’t involve risking the whole game on the opening moves.

@dadler12:

If the US is building invasion fleets in the Atlantic pre-war the Axis have already lost.

So you’re suggesting a J1 or J2 attack?

I think a big issue is that Japan cannot be both a economic juggernaut and a credible threat to the US. If you think making a significant landing across the Atlantic is hard on the US budget, try invading the US across the Pacific as Japan.

The first global game I played as Japan, the Russians and UK both attacked Japan early, and I was using all my money and airforce just to keep my mainland holdings. ANZAC pumped out fighters and landed them in the DEI, and the UK pulled all of its African forces to India. The US only had to maintain a token Pacific force. Japan was eventually able to win the mainland china fight, but it took them a while to get up to where they would be had they attacked J1. BTW, Germany had a successful Sealion, but the combined super-US and Russia were way too much for them.

Should I have attacked J1? Should a 30ipc Japan have devoted its navy and airforce to taking Hawaii and threatening the US? And with what? What Japanese invasion force could take and keep Western US for more than a turn? You would need a massive amount of ground troops and a fleet of transports. And if you’re buying those, are you just sacrificing the mainland? How are you going to take the DEI? Do you take the Philippines?

Japan needs money. They are not even a threat to UK/Anzac with their starting IPCs, let alone the US. If they are going to get money, they need to fight in the islands or the DEI, which means not threatening the US. I don’t think that an 82 IPC Japan could be a threat to the US, even spending all their money on transports and troops.

How about this set of house rules to represent Vichy France:

If the Axis takes both France and one of the two other “continental” French territories, the remaining territory becomes a pro-Axis neutral with the remaining French continental forces and Med. navy as the “activation force.”

Thus, if Germany took Paris and N/B on G1, Italy could activate Southern France on I1, gaining the IPCs, ground forces and med. navy.

Hey Variable,

All of the macros I wrote use Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), a very Microsoft-y programming language. I’m not positive, but my guess is that VBA is not compatible with Macs. You may be out of luck, sorry…

The Soviets get a 5 IPC bonus for being at war. In all of the global games I’ve played so far, the Soviet player has simply “declared war” on Japan on R1, regardless of whether or not they had plans to attack.

Is there any reason that the Soviets wouldn’t declare war on Japan as soon as they can? Is there any reason that being “at war” is a requirement of this NO if the Soviets can always be at war?

Thanks for the suggestions, Hamster. I was thinking about adding a “misc” row to the purchase sheet where you could just enter in the amount. I think that would take care of everything.

Nice changes, bcguitars. I like the colors a lot, and the buttons are awesome. There should be a warning before reseting though, because I could see myself hitting that by mistake. I can put that in the next version.

I put up an excel tracker a little earlier today at http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=20366.0

It’s not as easy to use as this sheet, but it does a lot of the calculations for you.

I added a thread with the spreadsheet and instructions: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=20366.0

I’ve created an Macro-enabled Excel spreadsheet for banking in Global '40. It keeps track of all the banks and has a calculator for purchasing units.

Installation:

You’ll need Excel 2007 (maybe 2003 will work, I’m not sure) to use this spreadsheet – make sure to enable macros.

1. Download the spreadsheet.
2. Rename the extension from .xls to .xlsm (I had to change it to upload it to this forum).
3. Open the renamed spreadsheet.

Use:

There are three macros within the spreadsheet: “ResetGame,” “EndTurn” and “PurchaseUnits.” “ResetGamr” resets all the game data to the Global 1940 starting positions, “EndTurn” advances to the next player’s turn, and “PurchaseUnits” sums up the purchase and subtracts it from your bank.

At the beginning of each game, you’ll want to reset the banks. To do this, open up the macro menu (Alt-F8) and select “ResetGame”.

Now that the game has started, Germany can enter in the number of each unit they’d like to purchase in column L. Once the purchases are finished, go to the macro menu and run “PurchaseUnits” or use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-P. If you make a mistake, you can always manually reset the current funds for the country (cell B4 for Germany, for instance) and redo the purchase. UK has separate banks for Europe and Pacific.

When the UK’s turn comes up, the european purchases are made first, then Pacific. Hitting Ctrl-P for UK E makes that purchase and sets up the purchase area for UK P. UK P then loops back to UK E when you’re finished. If you make a mistake in one theater, finish the purchases for the other theater then you’ll automatically be back at the first theater.

When all the purchases are done and combat has been resolved, make sure to adjust the Income and Bonus values for each country. Using the “EndTurn” macro (Ctrl-T) will add the income and bonus to the current bank and advance to the next country (remember to manually adjust the current funds for convoy disruptions and whatnot). Hitting Ctrl-T after France resets the country to Germany and advances the turn. If you make any mistakes or get lost, you can always manually enter the country and turn in cells C10 and D10 respectively (the cells with the country and turn in rows 15 and 16 are just for display, any adjustments need to be made in the smaller cells above).

Remember that if you make any mistakes or need to adjust the setup at all, you make manual adjustments to the income, bonus, current funds, country or turn number.

Other Features, Quirks:

-Rows 19 and 20 contain the total incomes and banks for the two teams, giving a quick look at the overall economies.
-The big cell around 24C gives my approximation of the year and season based on the turn number.
-If you update the current funds for a country, it won’t immediately be reflected in the purchase section, even though when you hit Ctrl-P it will use the updated value. You can always manually enter it in cell K24 if you need it to help with your purchasing.

I wrote this program to help out with my games, so it’s not extremely user-friendly. Please let me know if you have any suggestions or notice any mistakes.
AAG40_Bank.xls

I play a lot of AA with one of my roommates. We had a nice little war room set up for 1942, P40 and E40, but for the global game, we needed a new plan. None of the tables in our house are big enough for the full boards, so I made my own.  I put together a table top using plywood, 2x4s and felt. I also glued together some balsa wood and wooden dowels to make the little rakes that generals use in the war room in movies. Finally, I got a large piece of plexiglass to cover the table when not in use. This way, my other 3 roommates can use it as a coffee table for most of the day.

The table in the room.

My “war rake”

As you can see, the table with plexiglass can support full beers.

Here’s the banker’s set up.

I wrote this program in Excel to track the banks and purchases. Makes it a lot easier to record 10 economies.

Let me know if you’d like a copy and i’ll put it up here for download.

Thanks, this is good advice.

Do you recommend taking out the royal navy G1 or using the planes for other attacks?

Also, Egypt has been a problem for me. In a couple games I was left with no navy whatsoever in the mediterrean. In another game, I was able to get two units over (i sent them to Trans-Jordan), but I2 Egypt attack failed. That was pretty much the end of Italy.

I’m having trouble getting to a good mid-game as the Axis – usually after turn 5 my armies are almost completely depleted, and I’m still at a heavy income deficit.

What reliable stategies can I use for the Axis will leave me with a relatively balanced mid-game?

I’ve lost 5/5 games as the Axis against my roommate. He’s a competent player, especially as the Allies, but he makes mistakes, and I almost always beat him using either side in P40 and 1942.

Neither of us knew what we were doing the first game, but I went with a conservative strategy against Russia. Germany lost steam right after taking Stalingrad. I think I needed to get my income up faster than I did, because by the time my initial armies ran out, I was still being heavily outspent.

The next three games I tried some riskier moves (Sealion or Germany buying a yugo minor and focusing on africa), but each game went downhill early, as inevitably one of the risky early attacks would blow up in my face (I would destroy the royal navy but not take france, or I would get egypt but sealion would fail). None of the individual attacks were particularly risky, but they all had to succeed, and at least one wouldn’t.

The last game, I went back to my roots and focused completely on Russia, building a lot of mech stacks to get the troops there quickly. Eventually, though, even the mechs take a long time to get to the front, and the British and US start landing…

If sealion is successful, you can bomb the crap out of Gibralter, and nobody can repair it until london is liberated.

If I bomb Gibralter, can the UK just repair the naval base and use it right away?

No, the rules specifically say LAND unit.

It’s the Ark of the Covenant NO

@Llordbone:

the euro boards r also about 1/4 inch longer  :-o than pacific, though this will not keep me from playing :lol:

:-o Uh-oh… I’ve been making a table-top to hold my Global game, and I’ve been going off the AAP40 dimensions…

I just finished the structural portion of my Global table last night. It’s basically just four 2X4s nailed in a rectangle over a sheet of plywood. I bought some dark green felt to cover the wood with (kind of a pool table feel), and I got a sheet of plexiglass that we’ll use to cover the whole set-up when not in use. This way it functions as a coffee table too – albeit one with a raging world war just below the surface :)

Oh, and I bought a couple of long wooden dowels and glued little rectangular pieces of balsa wood to them to make those little rakes that generals use in the war room in war movies.

I’ll post pictures when we’re all finished.

If a sub attacks a lone transport outside an enemy island with an airbase and fighters, is the transport automatically sunk, or does scrambling do anything to prevent that?

Or can you only build them on your own territories?