Posts made by SubmersedElk

• Leningrad has a very small force with no planes and no AAA.
• Bulk of USSR units are standing in Karelia

What Russia player would do this in the face of Germany having just bought a ton of transports? Any experienced Russia player is stacking Belarus in this scenario, not Karelia.

If Germany buys those transports it has to hit London or they’re a wasted purchase. The only thing that gives Germany superiority on land vs. Russia is dedicating that G2 buy to land units. That’s why Russia always turns into a monster in a Sealion scenario - the lack of a ground purchase plus another 20+ German land units hitting London, with almost all lost in the process, gives Russia land superiority. Germany needs the UK captial capture income just to defend itself at that point.

Game out the scenario and count up how many land units Germany has at the end of G2 and how many Russia has on the western front. Germany needs UK to be dead at that point, it needs the capital capture income, or it’s immediately fighting a losing battle on home turf.

Boy, the BB hate is strong here.

One should take into account the ability of the BB to take a hit and get repaired when considering the purchase. Your opponent will have to when considering whether to attack it.

It’s not an insignificant ability - every time a BB eats a hit and gets repaired, it’s getting the value equivalent of a free sub (the cheapest unit one could lose in a naval battle). Plus of course that amphibious shot makes recapture of islands from Japan cheaper as well.

If you use a BB right, you can use it to greater effect than you can a DD and two subs and end up income-positive relative to the latter purchase.

Building in 101 as an alternative also has the drawback of being a turn behind in the Pac theater. This gives Japan more freedom of action as it will have to devote less to defending SZ6 against early raids.

If people were arguing for a CV purchase as an alternative to the BB I could agree with that. Not so much on the DD/subs, which could be purchased by ANZAC to the same effect anyway while the same is not true of a BB purchase.

@ShadowHAwk:

@SubmersedElk:

@shadowhawk take into account the previous turn’s production, most of which will be within 1 move of Russia proper. There’s no way that German force is able to get even 10% odds on a capital attack, even if it’s all tanks and both bombers come in to support it.

10arm + 2bmb attacking 15 inf + 2 ftr + 1 tac is a 3% play. In other words, it’s a losing play in 32 out of 33 games.

That is why it could be nice, when going against sea lion russia will do good buying mostly art and arm in its forward factories ( leningrad and ukrain ) which cannot get to russia.
With only 10 inf + 2 fighters + 1 tac vs 10 tanks and 2-3 bombers ( germany can plan this ) it could become pretty tricky indeed.

It depends on russias build but you could really hurt russia with this move provided you still have land forces to hurt his forward forces as well.

Except Russia can only build 6 units in Novograd and Ukraine and has the cash to build more than twice that number. So the extra 5 are going to be built in Russia no matter what - UNLESS Russia makes a very specific (and boneheaded) mistake of building only in the two forward ICs, building no planes, building no mobile units in Ukraine, and saving no cash.

I’d have to think a bit to even come up with a plausible R2 buy that would fit those parameters.

Sorry, but the fake-Sealion-to-Archangel idea is a gimmicky strategy with very remote real chances of success, and very real chances of destroying your win chances early in round 3.

@Gamerman01:

Don’t EVER buy a battleship
Or a cruiser

US1 a BB purchase, or even two, is OK. You can only drop 3 ships in the Pacific unless Japan DOWs in round 1, so if you’re opening Pac side 2xBB 1xCV is the strongest initial purchase.

In a “search roll” scenario both players should independently roll to see if they detect the other. It should be possible for both sides to detect the other, not just the winner of a contested roll. One has to assume that both sides are using seaplane recon.

@shadowhawk take into account the previous turn’s production, most of which will be within 1 move of Russia proper. There’s no way that German force is able to get even 10% odds on a capital attack, even if it’s all tanks and both bombers come in to support it.

10arm + 2bmb attacking 15 inf + 2 ftr + 1 tac is a 3% play. In other words, it’s a losing play in 32 out of 33 games.

If Germany is going to successfully invade Russia it needs to spend that cash on ground units. Russia is a pretty good match for Germany if it doesn’t - its production early is quite good, defensive purchases are more efficient than offensive (and mobile) purchases, and its supply line distance advantage increases as Germany moves east.

Convoy raids are an excellent way to make your opponent spend on things he didn’t want to spend on, or pay a price if he doesn’t.

As Germany I often find success parking subs off the coast of the UK.

The Domino’s Pizza delivery guy will win.  :-D

@knp7765:

As for the battle dice calculator, I just want to say it SUCKS!
I’m not saying it’s wrong, just that it sucks.
Using a battle dice calculator I think is just like using Low Luck for battles.  Takes the risk and therefore the fun out of the game.  If you want to attack a territory or sea zone and you have good forces available, then just GO FOR IT!  Don’t sit around using a calculator to figure out the odds of every single battle or scenario.  That’s not any fun.  Besides, remember, it’s just a game.  If you figured wrong, you lose that battle and maybe the game.  So you set up and try again.

Okay, enough bitching.  That’s just my opinion.  If you want to use calculators and low luck, go for it.  I just don’t like them myself.

Battle calc and low risk are worlds apart. Battle calc doesn’t remove the risk at all, you can still get very poor results when the odds are good. Last few games I played I ended up on the wrong side of several key battles that had 1000-1 odds against the actual result.

What battle calc does do is help players become better players through supplying important information. The information doesn’t change if you don’t use the calc and helps to bridge the gap between newer and more experienced players (who will be able to eyeball the odds with reasonable accuracy).

@Juan_de_Marco:

A good plan. But as a matter of principle, and an in-joke with friends when playing, we say “go big or go home”. Spread out over too many targets and fail all of them.

UK can hit all the Italian targets in this discussion in UK1 with very high probability EXCEPT when that fighter comes down to Tobruk. If that fighter doesn’t come down, doing all the attacks is low risk/high reward and should at least be considered every game. Run the numbers on the dice calculator and tell me you wouldn’t do those attacks if it were midgame.

AA guns have no combat ability, so if they don’t shoot down all attacking planes they are automatically killed.

I might understand the question better in its original language…

but yes if a sub strikes a carrier, that plane has to either land in an adjacent territory or it’s destroyed

and of course a plane can’t take a hit from a sub since subs can only hit ships

If I’m sending European bombers to the Pac theater it’s almost always a coup-de-grace on an already-won game.

there’s no faster way to improve your game than to play online

If you’re a relatively new online player wanting to know how Allies can win, look me up and we can play a game @ no bid.

Offer not open to more experienced players, who I am unlikely to beat with no bid.

Not a fan of tech because I really don’t think that the whole tech thing was either conceived of nor playtested properly.

Either put it in the victory path and playtest it thoroughly, or take it out, I say. It’s worth noting that most players opt to play no tech precisely because it’s the least appealing feature of the game.

The sad fact of the matter is that teching regularly will lose you most games (due to the income not being spent on units) and hand you a near-effortless victory in a small percentage thereof. Both of these qualities detract from the main positives of A&A, which is a reasonably balanced intellectual strategy game with some - but not an overwhelming - element of risk.

Tech is not balanced (give super subs to Russia and Japan and tell me which one gets more benefit) and it diminishes the intellectual aspect of the game, replacing it with more random number generation. Not conducive to having fun, IMO.

My tips for Allied success:

1. Get the Germany player drunk. Everybody who plays Germany does it primarily for the exquisite role-play opportunities, and what better way to get into the spirit of the game than having a few beers. After all, the France player is paying for them!

2. Team only with retired 4-star generals. (Active duty generals may not be able to devote their full attention to the game.)

3. Japan should be played by your little sister. If she’s not available, ask Mom.

4. The dog ate the submarine rules.

5. Choose opponents who will give up an outrageous bid in order to play the Axis side.

6. Drop a subtle innuendo to a hypersensitive and jealous Italy player about his girlfriend and the Germany player. The less well they communicate, the better it is for the Allies.

7. UK must build a factory in every possible land territory.

8. At the beginning of every China turn, the rest of the Allies should break out into a Monty Python skit.

9. Praise be to the holy dice calculator!

10. This one time, at boot camp…

if it’s low luck I want a 50 IPC bid

You’re not the first to discover that on low luck, Germany can defeat Russia by G5 100% of the time.

Low luck eliminates all the uncertainty from the game and isn’t very much fun IMO. It’s more of an academic exercise than a gaming experience.

You can produce 20 TT with the equivalent of 2 turns of US production, this seems about right for what it should take to create a land bridge of that scale - this is a construct that will move 10 units from EUS to Gibraltar/Morocco AND 10 units from Gib/Morocco to any point along the European/Atlantic coast and most of the way through the Med as well. They’re a one-time investment, if you protect them. The leverage they provide is absolutely enormous - that’s 20-30 units that can be dropped in most of Europe at any given time.

2 turns for US… how many turns for Italy to protect Rome from that, and Germany to protect W Germany? It’s a fair deal.