Posts made by SubmersedElk

Even without VC victory conditions I don’t see how the Allies can stop the Axis from outright overpowering them.

The Allied material advantage to start the game is a complete illusion; between the easy G1 kills (200 IPC worth vs. 20 sacrificed), the effectively nonfunctional French units, the IPC bonus from the capture of France, the virtual requirement of the massive material sacrifice against the Italian fleet, the inability of the Allies to counterattack due to politics, pointless mech inf in the US, the extra division of powers with China and ANZAC, and units that start as many as 5 turns away from being anywhere useful, I’d argue that Axis STARTS the game economically and materially equal for all practical purposes, and gets massive strategic positional advantages as well.

For example, France actually starts the game with 227 IPC of units. By the time they get to actually move, they almost always have left 1 FTR, 7 INF (scattered), and a destroyer, for a total of 39 IPC of playable material. The nominal Allied material advantage to start the game is 600 IPC, so the French first-round losses represent almost a third of that advantage, alone. With Russia, only 60ish of the 363 IPC it starts with can be utilized at all until Germany DOWs, so that leaves about a 120 IPC advantage. Factor in the extra useless AA guns that the Allies have more of than the Axis and we’re down to 100. And then 487 IPC in US units can’t be used until someone DOWs them or turn 3 rolls around, 150 IPC of ANZAC units that aren’t really in the fight until the US gets there, and the fact that there is not a single, solitary Axis unit on the entire map that can’t be utilized for some immediate tactical purpose in R1, and the game really opens at a 1500 IPC to 1100 IPC Axis advantage.

Does it actually matter when Japan declares or whether UK spends in Africa? The Axis don’t need to contest Africa at all to roll to an easy win.

The key problem is that Axis has a number of ways to have an offensive force double as a defensive deterrent while the Allies have none. It’s a force multiplier that can’t be countered. For example, a fleet sitting off Kwangsi with a harbor and airfield built, with extra air parked in Kwangsi as well can a) keep the Allied Pac fleet at enough of a distance to prevent them from threatening anything; b) defend the entire Asian coast from Malaya to Korea; and c) pose a mortal threat to Calcutta and force the UK Pac forces to sit at home; d) degrade UK Pac income; e) support counterattacks against DEI; and f) support a quick rollover of China.

Losses can be replaced in 1 turn while Allied losses will take 2-3 turns to replace. And this can be set up by J2.

Germany can do something similar as well just by keeping its aircraft in Western Germany, preventing fleet building by the UK while defending against any landing that might be made, and threatening Russia and the Med at the same time.

Axis can mass their forces immediately and easily while the Allies can’t and this presents a fundamental gameplay problem on this map.

Japan doesn’t have to do everything to win the game. They just need to destroy China and UK Pac while maintaining deterrent against the US/ANZAC combined fleet… and they can. Then once Germany and Italy inevitably destroy Russia, the Axis have the economic advantage and can impose their will by marching the units that were used against Russia down to Africa, where there will be insufficient resistance to stop them. Russia can’t do anything more on that front than the Chinese can, and by the time the US masses enough ships to be a real threat Japan can match them in builds while maintaining a positional advantage.

Best I can tell, this map is simply a broken game. I would love to learn differently but I am searching and searching and can find no examples of a good Axis player getting beaten.

I’m an old school A&A player and have recently been playing and studying the G40 map quite a bit.

I’ve played Allies almost every game. In my own play, and as an observer of others’ games, I am not seeing any strong/winning strategies for the Allied side against strong Axis play.

The key issues I’m facing:

1. The Allies can’t seem to put a fleet anywhere effective against overwhelming Axis air power.
2. Neither Russia nor UK-Pac nor China can defend itself effectively against straightforward Axis build-land-units-and-advance strategies so both will inevitably fall.
3. Axis lines of supply at all the major conflict points are much shorter than Allied supply lines. Axis therefore can see what the Allies are going to do far enough ahead of time to build a counter.
4. Games eventually get to a “midgame” point where Russia and UK Pac are ready to fall, Axis has equalized income and nearly equalized material, and the Allies still have no strong counterattack, after which it’s just a matter of playing out the Axis win.

Things I’ve tried that haven’t worked for me:

• UK Taranto raid (effective but even holding Africa with no additional investment doesn’t help all that much)
• monomaniacal US focus on Pacific theater (no matter how much I build, Japan can always have enough fleet + air power to keep me away from Asia, even with healthy ANZAC and UK fleet units in theater helping)
• Atlantic dominance (takes too long to build up enough of a fleet to land anywhere, and that Denmark strait block kills counter and counter-pressure opportunities)
• UK-Europe using its builds to help UK-Pac
• Russia aggressive, and Russia defensive (both fail, the former fails faster)

I totally get that the Allies have to stall the Axis long enough to outbuild them, but common Axis play equalizes the economic advantage too fast for that to happen, while leaving Axis with better tactical position. All the while, all the strategic choices seem to belong to the Axis side (e.g. when to DOW).

Long story short, it doesn’t seem to matter what the allies do, Axis seems to have a straightforward victory every time unless they mess up badly, as the Allies had in the original game. Bids don’t seem to help; the map layout, movement rules, unit costs and strategic bombing rules all seem to conspire to give Allies nothing to hang their hats on.

What I would love to see is how a good Axis player can be beat. Every game I observe where Axis is losing, the Axis player made horrible newbie errors and appeared to lack a basic understanding of this map.

I’ve read dozens of threads in this forum trying to figure out what those missing strategies are and I’m just not seeing it. So I guess my question is: is it worth my time to pursue this map further, or is this effectively a “solved” game for the Axis side with no hope of Allied victory? Or are there some strategies out there that give hope?