Posts made by SubmersedElk

@Private:

Have just started my first game as the allies and been surprised by a G1 purchase of an AC, DD & Sub for sz 112. As UK I am already feeling nervous! Even though I believe sea lion can only work if I fail to react to that danger, but my opponent is so much more experienced than I am.

AC/DD/sub is a solid G1 buy even if he has no intention of doing Sealion. It cements the dominance of the German navy in the North Sea and forces UK to invest most of his first round buy into units that won’t see actual action until many rounds later.

Personally though I’ve stopped buying the DD and sub and just buy the AC, holding onto the extra IPC helps to keep opponents guessing, and you can always buy the DD/sub on G2 if you really want to yet preserve the option of spending that capital on other things, such as land units to attack Russia, or on transports.

Kill Russia. Don’t get distracted.

I’m going to take the contrary position and say you can get a lot better at the game a lot faster by playing online, simply because it’s much easier to find opponents, you can play whenever you have the time, and games go a lot faster in the vast majority of cases - if for no other reason than you don’t have to physically roll and tabulate dice.

Online = more experience in less time.

In addition, you have an opportunity online that you’ll never get with face-to-face, which is to observe others’ games, save the game history to your computer, study what other people did and how it worked out for them, learn from many more players than you’ll ever meet in person.

I went from ignorant of the G40 ruleset and map to being able to go confidently toe-to-toe with some of the game’s best players in two months’ time online. Granted, it was a pretty intense two months (played 3-4 games a week), and I was a very strong (top 25) Classic player back in the day so I wasn’t starting from scratch, but there’s no way I could gain that experience in that amount of time face-to-face.

A lot of the G40 rules, the only way to learn them so that it sticks is to encounter them while playing, and that’s purely a function of playing as many games as possible. Even with all my prior A&A experience, it probably took a good dozen games just to get a solid grasp of submarine rules, and the strategic and tactical implications thereof, alone.

it’s a recipe for letting the allies stack and hold Yunnan all game and turning China into a monster

Comes at the cost of losing the land route into Burma and letting China build artillery all game and giving China extra IPC to work with every turn. In contrast, a J2 opening can prevent that from happening.

Transports would be far more useful for Germany… you could get two for just 2 IPC more, and get more units into Russian territory faster with it, and would be useful after Novogrod is captured as well, plus they’d help project threat on UK, Gibraltar, etc.

If Germany needs to give up the attack on SZ111 in G1 it’s not a huge deal, there are better benefits the Allies can get on a 40 bid.

@wilk7011:

@Nippon-koku:

Correct.�  I should’ve clarified; since JDOW1 is very popular the US may have the chance to get over there as early as US2

Not to change/hurt this topic but I do not have the experience many of you do so I don’t understand this strategy. Why is JDOW in round 1 popular?

One reason seems to be that if you don’t get the USA player involved in the game early enough, he gets bored and leaves. Others find the few units that you get to kill that might otherwise escape to be enough value to offset the negatives about an early DOW giving Allies their war bonuses immediately.

I’m a fan of J2DOW myself, it’s much less risky overall.

@Nippon-koku:

@cyanight:

@variance:

With bids now getting solidly up into the mid 20s, a lot of things now depend on what kid of starting bid the allies choose.�  There will be cases where it may make sense to skip either z110 or z111 and go for the z91 cruiser or even the french ships.

Yea, an extra Scotland fighter (Bid) really throws a wrench in the plans.

Agreed.  Still crazy to me when I hear about bids in the 30s and 40s.  UK can hold onto a lot of fleet under those circumstances.

Not when you take into account that you can only place 1 bid unit per territory, so stacking Scotland with 2 extra fighters is out. Adding one makes SZ111 more treacherous but it’s still in Germany’s favor. You’d have to also bid extra cruisers or BBs to save one or the other, and there are better places to put bid units than that.

@ampdrive:

Where do you like to send the 2nd bmbr?
And keep in mind the sub that starts in sz117 can only reach 106 or 109

sorry, the 2nd bmb also goes to SZ111, I’ll edit the post above to correct it

It isn’t. Stick to two and leave the DD and transport on the west side of the UK alone.

The best G1 attacks against the UK navy are

• 2 subs, 3ftr 3tac 1bmb in SZ110
• 2 subs, BB, 1ftr 1 tac, 1bmb in SZ111

If you do the odds on the scramble you’ll see that a scramble into SZ110 is suicide and in SZ111 it’s better but still a generally losing bet, and in light of a possible Sealion it’s a very poor choice.

For the last sub, you have a choice of throwing it against the DD/trans off Canada (my preference) or if you like a little more risk and anticipate your opponent will move in hard against Italy, send it against the cruiser in SZ91.

@wilk7011:

Do you guys see UK scrambling often or do you try to make it so the risk is to heavy for the UK to scramble?

If the UK scrambles, either a) he didn’t do his math right; or b) you went in too light.

It’s generally a really bad idea for the UK to lose those planes in round 1, they’d need to have an awesome opportunity to set Germany back to make it worthwhile. Keep in mind that the UK really doesn’t know if Germany is going Sealion by that point, no matter what Germany chose to buy.

It’s tough to give up the opportunity to gang up on Japan early, because once they get rolling they’re harder to stop than Germany is. I guess the presumption is that with proper play, Russia can be held on long enough to put Japan on its heels and for the US to switch focus to the European theater.

The US is the long-term balance power for the Allies. It is IMO the hardest country to play because you need to plan several turns in advance with purchases and positioning, at least through midgame.

The US should pick a side of the map to focus on and put just enough on the other side to provide counterpressure threat.

I personally tend to use the first round to create a threat against Japan, and thereafter build mostly for an invasion of Europe. A lot of others swear by building up the Atlantic first and addressing the Pacific later.

It is a good idea to watch others’ games and see how they play the US and see what works and what doesn’t. It can be a very detailed challenge.

You’d get into situations where losing a capital made a country stronger.

China’s “build anywhere” ability is crazy powerful. Without the severe limitations that come with it, it would dominate the game.

Just think of the difference alone the ability to build in a newly captured factory would make to the game. The Chinese have that, except there are no limits to the number of units they can build and it’s not limited to territories with factories.

And to take it one step further, try applying it to powers that make 50+ income rather than China’s meager teens. It’s absolutely game-breaking.

Here’s an example: The US captures Normandy on its combat move. At the end of the combat move, it places 25 infantry in Normandy.

The Chinese rules only work because a) they can be eliminated completely within a few turns with focused effort by Japan; and b) they are restricted both in unit selection and movement range.

Apply those rules to the French without the unit and movement restrictions and you’ll get a crazy powerful version of it which is way more than anybody would want to see. Imagine France getting a mech inf in FEQ and Syria every turn, which is what they can afford after all three territories in mainland Europe as well as FIC are gone. Or they could alternate turns building a mech inf one turn and a bomber the next, or any other combination thereof.

If you think the setup is unrealistic now, imagine games where by the end of round 6 there’s a group of four French bombers that can grow by 2 every three turns thereafter.

The proposed rule actually makes France significantly more powerful than Italy, which often finds itself pulling in less than the 8 income that France would be getting in most games.

@Charles:

is there any way we can make France

There are Axis and Allies maps for earlier European eras in which France is more significant than it was in WW2. If you specifically want France to be more involved, play one of those. The fact of the matter is that France was a bit player in WW2 because of how rapidly it collapsed, and its representation on the G40 map is thus accurate.

@taamvan:

All the remedial methods proposed are very aggressive in terms of balance (bid on board, bid in cash, extra NOs (fun!), free income) imply that the game is radically broken and virtually unwinnable, and my experience playing 50+ games of global with no house rules and no modifications does not support this conclusion.

I’d be happy to demonstrate; ever since I got a complete handle on the ruleset I have not been able to find someone who can beat Axis in the OOB setup (or even with any bid less than 16). That was what got this thread started in the first place, and so far no one has demonstrated otherwise.

Also you can observe others’ games and see what they do - between the two you will pick up enough tricks and nuances to become competent. If you don’t know a rule, ask someone.

The Chinese have strange rules but the exceptions they get makes them exceptional. The ability to raise new units in a newly captured territory is overwhelmingly powerful. Even though they can only raise INF and ART, the ability to have one main stack and move it anywhere while building, instead of having to defend a particular territory, would be gamebreaking if China wasn’t restricted to Chinese territories and Burma and given a fairly low number of starting units.

Simon, just to be clear, Japan never needs to hit Hawaii. US can build up there all they like, all Japan needs to do is prevent that force from moving to SZ6, and a modest home fleet plus DD blockers can get the job done cheaply.

Eventually the US can build up enough to move to Carolines to project some real threat, but that too can be frustrated with blockers. Any US advance gets forced around the perimeter into DEI and they need to wait for reinforcements - the closer they get to the Japanese air force the bigger the fleet they need - so it’s slow going the whole way. By the time they can actually force Japan back, Germany is done with Russia. Keep in mind that Japan is making 65-70 IPC the whole time and there’s absolutely nothing the Allies can do to prevent that.

If I were on the other side of the board, I’d probably do 1-2 turns in Pac for US to create some threat the Japanese have to deal with, then focus Atlantic so Germany doesn’t get out of hand, then switch back once the UK and Russia have Germany stalled out. I’m not really sure it can be done successfully if played right by Axis, but if it were to be done that’s the way I’d do it. Alternately I’d consolidate starting US forces in Pac, build 1 turn there, and then build from scratch in the Atlantic starting US2, the result is pretty similar.