One of these days I’m going to try an all-bomber-purchase US strategy and see how it works. After a few turns of bomber purchases the number of places the Axis will be able to sail a fleet will be sharply limited, since one move is all it takes to put those bombers in position to attack any given target.
Has anyone actually gone ahead and done this?
Just played a game yesterday and my opponent threw away most of Japan’s air force against a Chinese stack on J2. Dice went very poorly for him, but to take that risk at all was something I’d never do. The upside case is nice, but the downside case is game-ending for Axis.
Dutch are part of the Allies, they are not neutral. Dutch territories have always been valid landing zones for Allied aircraft.
Rule “change” is a clarification and not an actual change, I agree.
in real life the good guys won
The more I learn of history the less I believe in the existence of ‘good guys’ at all.
You’re confusing current-world issues with 1940s realities… trust me… there were good guys then… you wouldn’t want the Nazis winning and continuing the deliberate genocide of the Holocaust. If for one second you doubt the good guys won, you’ve got issues.
I’m afraid you misapprehended me. At no point did I even slightly imply the Axis were good guys.
But if you think guys like Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and Truman were good guys… well, you’ve probably drunk too much government Kool-Aid.
The point I was making is that when it comes to warmaking on a global scale, there are no good guys.
Transport loading rules according to rulebook I got , said that Transports could not be Loaded in a Hostile seaZone.
Ie: if the UK - BB were to be in SZ 6 , in peace on UK2, and Anzac declares war on Anzac 2….then on Japan Turn 3, they could not load the Transports, as the UK BB on SZ6, made it a hostile zone…
That was the point of The Mahatma Gambit…
If they changed those rules recently, then they removed the only preemptive capability of the Allies in the Pacific.
It’s not easy to have changes made in the rulebook, and should such a change have been made, although I (Ramdas Vaidyanathan )should get credit for that, it would be truly sad to see one more element of advantage added to the Axis domination of the game.
As I noted above, the rules prohibit that kind of cheese; and rightly so, as it would break the game.
One option with Italy is to simply not spend your income at all until you need to. It trades off the power projection of those units (which isn’t much for Italy since it can’t easily project power) in exchange for not getting stuck having purchased the wrong units. If you can make it to I4 without spending any money you can drop a decent fleet in the Med if the Allies sleep on locking it down - which they’re more likely to do if they don’t see you actively contesting it.
in real life the good guys won
The more I learn of history the less I believe in the existence of ‘good guys’ at all.
@Gen.:
Ok so I am a experienced AA 1940 Global player and I love playing as Italy. I have mastered early game (take Cario I1 0r I2, Double or triple Italy income by I3, and force UK out of Med).
If you are actually able to pull this off, your opponents are very poor ones. Play online for some stronger opponents and you will never again see the opportunity to take Egypt on I1 (and it will be extremely rare to have the chance to do so on I2 either). A good UK player can always hold Egypt - the only question is how much will it cost him to do so.
I usually buy a fighter I1
never a bad choice
and a minor IC I2 or I3 to put in cario but after that I’m kinda lost.
Against good competition you won’t be buying ICs with Italy anywhere, ever.
I have tried taking Africa but my units end up far away from the war (in south Africa) that they become useless or UK follows behind me and takes everything back. I have also tried taking the middle east but the western front is always wide open for a US invasion of North africa. I have played as Italy 5+ times and I always peak by I3 and fell off By I5 and Germany has to come and help me.
- I am looking for new strategies
- Are there better buys I should be making? I never know what to buy with Italy… Navy? Airforce? Army?
Against solid Allied play, Italy will normally be fighting for its life for most if not all of a typical game; a US player not going full Pac will typically have an armada within striking range of Rome (west of Gibraltar in SZ91) on the turn after it enters the war in Europe.
If the Allies are weak in Europe I generally try to float a small navy in the Med to force UK units to defend Egypt, or to grab Gibraltar, or to grab Cyprus to deny the UK N.O., or sometimes to invade the Middle East through Syria. Strike where the enemy is weak is a good rule of thumb.
If the Allies are playing a Europe-first game, then Italy should be building mostly infantry to defend Rome with the occasional sub or DD to harass or block Allied fleets. A mobile unit or two sent towards Russia as a can opener is usually worthwhile, and mixing in some artillery with the defensive infantry allows for stalling counterattacks if Allies land in France.
- Would it help Italy at all if Germany took southern France so Germany could build a small navy in the MED?
Opinions on this differ wildly. Personally I am of the opinion that Germany has bigger fish to fry, though others have found success with that strategy. I think there is at least one thread specifically devoted to this topic.
@Young:
I know i’ll sound stupid here… but…
DOW?
DEI?Declaration of war
Dutch East Islands
at the risk of being annoying… it’s “Dutch East Indies”
@Young:
Here’s a way the allies can be sneaky, when you feel it in your bones that the Japanese will DOW and start jumping on money islands, sail one British or ANZAC destroyer into the same seazone as the huge Japan fleet with all the loaded transports. This will prevent Japan from using their transports in an attack role as the destroyer blocks them, than the US can gain position around the islands and take a fight to them when they spread out the fleet. One of the major draw backs to waiting until a J4 attack, is that Japan will lose position around the money islands, and the Allies should be prepared to exploit that. Even if Japan sacks Calcutta, without a solid grip on the islands… their economy can not reach the necessary level in order to protect what they’ve gained let alone expand further.
Sorry YG but you’re quite wrong on this one. The rules specifically allow those transports to be loaded on the turn Japan declares war. If that tactic was legal there is no end to the number of ways the Allies could screw with Japan and it would make the game unplayable… just send destroyers to wherever Japan has their transports and they’d never be able to DOW and load transports on the same turn. It would create colossally stupid game situations.
Japan would have to J1 DOW every game if that tactic were legal, otherwise the only place it could be guaranteed to be able to load transports on its DOW turn would be SZ6 on J2, and no SZ thereafter.
Use the same colors as Diplomacy. Problem solved!
This thread is a good example of how people can rely on the battle calculator too much. Maybe in some cases the infantry over the AAA will be a mathematical edge, but taking down an extra plane before the battle even begins is a game changer, and in many cases it’s worth the risk.
From my point of view, this thread is a good example of how an emotional bias can override hard numbers in normally clear-thinking individuals.
Interesting how one little poll about something so seemingly insignificant as AAA becomes a multi-page debate about the merits or lack thereof using calculations, probabilities and psychological warfare… all over a AAA battery.
Seems everyone has at one point looked at the AAA unit and a fleet of enemy planes looming and wondered it wasn’t particularly useful even in that situation.
@Arthur:
The circumstance comes up almost every single game: a final raid on Moscow. Usually you know that the Germans have one or two rounds to do the attack and then have to return their planes to western Europe to defend against Allied invaders. Russia must choose how to spend their final 10-15 PUs. The choice might only change the outcome by a couple percentage points, but why not take the best odds.
the best odds are going to be with purchasing an infantry, not an AA
unless you are so badly outgunned that that final stand for Moscow is a 1-round massacre.
@Arthur:
Definitely the odds do favor AAA in large battles with big air forces. They essentially kill a 3-attack fighter 1/2 the time, resulting in a 1.5 decrease in the opponents Power. That corresponds to a 0.3 Power/PU. Another defending infantry would kill an enemy infantry 1/3rd of the time, resulting in a 0.333 Power decrease on average, or 0.111 Power/PU.
Unless all your battles are one round long there’s something rather vital missing, which is the INF number stacks with each round because it can keep attacking and the AAA can’t. At 3 rounds the inf is ahead in straight up terms according to that calculation. If all factors are considered I believe the INF is ahead in round 2.
I think you guys need to run the numbers on an INF vs. an AAA.
The AAA is for all practical purposes never better odds than an INF. Like, ever.
Not IPC-adjusted.
1 INF will straight up defend better in all cases except a 1-round battle with 2+ air for it to shoot at.
That last case can occur in 2 situations:
Defender’s capital last stand, overwhelmed - trying to spend every last IPC so enemy doesn’t get it. The minute difference between 1 AAA vs. 1 INF isn’t the player’s problem here.
Defender’s undefended factory, building token resistance. If an attacker is relying on an almost all-air attack with one token land unit to take the territory, in addition to the 1-round limit, 2 inf 1 AAA can be slightly more valuable than 3 INF here. Of course, the more AAA the fewer planes the enemy will need to send to capture so the balance of forces needs to be quite particular.
It’s a broken unit. At the very minimum it should have the ability to continue to roll 1@1 against enemy air as long as there are attacking air forces, even if that means reducing its initial AA roll to 1@1 as well. Either that or it should roll 5@1 instead of 3@1 on the initial strike. It needs something to make it mathematically viable in competitive game situations.
The calculation you are making here isn’t right. It ignores the first strike of a AAA and also ignores that it is hitting a strong unit attacking at a 3 or a 4 instead of a probable 1 or 2.
Although you raise an interesting point - AAA vs 3 planes kills 0.5 planes on average while 1 inf kills 0.33 inf. But vs 1 plane it only kills 0.166 planes.
The calculation is correct. The battle calculator (omg run hide!) does take first strike into effect and determines the inf is a better play in pretty much any situation you can think of. Fire up Triple A, load up a map, and run some calculations. Only place it doesn’t hold is if the inf is guaranteed to die 1st round. That 3-hit AAA volley is actually just a 1 in 216 scenario (with 2-hit not better than 1 in 30) and doesn’t have as much game impact as an inf’s ability to roll a die every combat round.
or we can call it G40 Vichy because that sounds weak and effeminate
not that there’s anything wrong with that
I think you guys need to run the numbers on an INF vs. an AAA.
The AAA is for all practical purposes never better odds than an INF. Like, ever.
Not IPC-adjusted.
1 INF will straight up defend better in all cases except a 1-round battle with 2+ air for it to shoot at.
That last case can occur in 2 situations:
Defender’s capital last stand, overwhelmed - trying to spend every last IPC so enemy doesn’t get it. The minute difference between 1 AAA vs. 1 INF isn’t the player’s problem here.
Defender’s undefended factory, building token resistance. If an attacker is relying on an almost all-air attack with one token land unit to take the territory, in addition to the 1-round limit, 2 inf 1 AAA can be slightly more valuable than 3 INF here. Of course, the more AAA the fewer planes the enemy will need to send to capture so the balance of forces needs to be quite particular.
It’s a broken unit. At the very minimum it should have the ability to continue to roll 1@1 against enemy air as long as there are attacking air forces, even if that means reducing its initial AA roll to 1@1 as well. Either that or it should roll 5@1 instead of 3@1 on the initial strike. It needs something to make it mathematically viable in competitive game situations.
The player that is best suited to buying AAA is Germany since they can be plopped directly on Normandy and Southern France, but since the common defensive strategy is to launch a counteroffensive from Paris there’s no point.
Could an extra AAA or two in addition to starting ones help swing the Moscow battle for Russia? Have to consider the opportunity cost of fewer infantry.
nope an extra inf is more valuable every time
I’ve thought about buying AAA a couple of times over the course of a hundred plus games, and that’s as close as I’ve gotten to actually doing it.
If I’m really on my game I remember to move them in noncombat.