Posts made by teslas

I deeply enjoy playing Italy. You can facilitate so much progress for Germany. Yes, you’re often shut down nearly completely by bad luck, and even when you start raking in money it’s short-lived, and you don’t have a lot of units to build on top of, but man, I like Italy.

In some games, especially against weaker allied players, I actively shoot for the ol’ Big It’ly as Italy, or gladly derail Germany a bit to help them into it. 30+ or even 40+ IPCs for the once-scrappy nation is wildly amusing.

But in actuality, in real play, their role is to 1: help Germany (offensively in Russia as well as possibly defensively late-game), and 2: if they can, take Egypt and create discord in the middle east, as others have said.

My biggest weakness in this game is being effective with America as soon as possible.

Let’s assume these preconditions:

-All players are of relatively equivalent levels of skill.
-G1 “standard”. They either built some navy, bombers, or saved 30. At any rate ,no strong indication of their plan.
-R1 The 18 far east dudes begin heading to Moscow.
-J1 DoW on all allies (see 3rd post in thread)
-You are planning on doing some kind of KJF to avoid, or at least slow down, a monster.
-UK1 will be full defensive buy for London: 6 inf 1 fighter.

US1:
How would you spend your first 52 IPCs as America? What do you do with your current units? What do you look for in the Atlantic that could possibly distract you away from a full, or near-full, KJF?

US2:
Combat moves? What units? What is your goal? What can happen in the Atlantic to make you take notice?

3+:
Any general mindset here?

What would you ask of your allies?

When do you expect to be able to begin harassing Japan in a way that matters?

I find we get into a standoff either on the Japanese Phillipines and the U.S. Carolines (plus usually some ANZAC), or worse, U.S. must piddle around on Hawaii if it has spent too much in the Atlantic. This standoff does not end until either side makes a mistake, but let’s assume that won’t happen, or until turn 6 at the earliest. Do you see this as well? Something else?

Feel free to mention any situational but useful maneuvers as the U.S. (such as the Midway naval base to circumvent the destroyer block for a Korea invasion/convoy party)

Feel free to mention any adjoining ANZAC or even U.K. Pacific strategy in this, since they’re intimately related.

Edit(s)-
Assume no bid, or if you must, a bid in Europe/Africa/Western Russia–one that won’t help you in the Pacific for the first few turns, or ever.

I’m aware of this thread (also, great job on making video resources, Young Grasshoper), but was wanting something specifically for a reaction to J1 DoW:
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=35707.0

Synopsis of Japan’s turn added below.

@cyanight:

He produced 10 Artillery on G2 not G1. On G1 he went with 6 artillery and 2 inf.

Well, Narvik did indeed seem to make that error in his post, if I understood Narvik correctly (the same way Fred did). Fred was saying that Narvik was implying that Germany should buy 10 Artillery G1, which it indeed cannot do.

I think it’s also worth mentioning I don’t know what the hell Narvik was talking about in general as a strategy for Germany. Buying that many slow units, and at that ratio, for Germany with the intention of sending them east is detrimental. Buy slow artillery only once (or never, see my last post), as you only get an extremely tiny window of opportunity to do it, and then your mechs you build afterward to utilize them more fully catch up without issue. Also, Germany starts off with a lot of infantry and comparably few artillery. G1/G2 is the only chance to balance that out (or not, see my last post).

Either Narvik is way ahead on me with his 3:1 inf:art ratio on attacking wisdom, or he’s wrong. I put it more like somewhere between 4:3 and 7:6 as a general rule, and assume I have more infantry or mechs coming after me as reinforcements after a fight.

On offense:
3:1 = 6 pips / 4 hp for 13 IPCs
7:6 = 7.22 pips / 3.75 hp for 13 IPCs (fractions are fun!)

1.22 pips for .25 hp is a preferable deal for most compartively-sized skirmishes. Yeah, you’re going to have more HP with 3:1, but there’s going to be more things alive to kill you after the first round as well. If you’re going to be one-shotting a lot of battles, 3:1 is great, but your enemy is not very bright. He should be pulling back to avoid handing you little gift packages. It’s also better to front load yourself with plenty of artillery because new ones will never catch up to the fight. Mechanized infantry will.

The proposed 4:1 ratio is close to being insane, unless he means he was going to bring in planes, but he didn’t say that.

On defense:
3:1 = 8 pips / 4 hp for 13 IPCs
7:6 = 7.5 pips / 3.75 hp for 13 IPCs

Yeah, sure, defense is better. Won’t argue there. But, umm, maybe run by me again why Germany is planning on being so defensive?

As far as defending Moscow after you take it: there are a ton of what-ifs to consider, but assuming play of equal skill level up to this point in the game, I can’t see how this is going to be an issue in most circumstances. Some possibilities? Yes, fine. Most logical possibilities? Absolutely not. You either take it by smashing it all or with much less walking in after a Russian retreat, or you dig in and play the long game.

@cyanight:

I personally like to buy 2 bombers on G1. They can be put to use right away and the threat of sealion is still there. Without buying the extra bombers you cant bomb UK to 20 on G2 prior to the sealion invasion.

This is not the worst thing to do, strategic bombers are incredibly flexible for Germany, but I might have to disagree with you that you can’t SBR London effectively without them. To 20? No, you’re right. But you still have two strat bombers to hit the major factory on G2, and then hopefully some tac bombers and fighters left to hit the air base and escort, unless your G1 attacks went really pair-shaped on you. Also, two more strat bombers is two more chances to lose strat bombers. I don’t know if doing 5.5 IPCs of damage to UK (and then only maybe!) feels like the right thing to do.

As UK I would not see a 2x Strat Bomber purchase on G1 as a strong sea lion threat. For 24 IPCs you can do better than roll two more dice for 4’s in London, especially since both of those dice have a 1/6th chance of not even being able to participate because of AA cover.

You’re taking two 1/6th chances per each bomber by SBR’ing and then attacking with them. That’s a 30% chance to end the ordeal without a bomber, per bomber. I can’t run the numbers in my head to see if that kind of risk (but high potential future versatility) is worth the investment, but I can confidently say that it’s not the optimal play for Sea Lion, nor is it the optimal play for Barbarosa.

If you’re in the youtube comments helping them, I should go average out the quality to what’s normal on Youtube, and start suggesting they build a Russian battleships every turn to defend sea zone 125.

Addendum:

And you can skip artillery on G2 and go straight for tanks/mechs as well if you like. Dive into Barbarosa on G2. With experienced German players, G2 is the round it usually begins. G2/3: tanks & mechs. G4/5: planes. G6: Hit or dig in for a long game.

You won’t have as much hitting power, but you’re there faster, so they won’t have as much either. Being there faster means one less turn of high production for Russia, and 6 less russians from the far east if they came straight home. It also makes it a bit more stressful for the allies to get to Moscow in time to save it.

But, as I said, the above post was ultra-conservative.

This is not an easy question, because it depends on a multi-turn strategy that does not exist in a vacuum from distractions or opportunities of the game. You also explicitly said “driving” there. With that in mind, here’s an ultra-conservative direct push towards Moscow.

It is exceptionally useful to have some Italian fast units come eastward with you to take empty territories or territories with only one Russian in them so your planes can land on your main stack as it marches east.

A careful Russian player will punish you for mistakes by killing pieces of your invasion force if you split it up. Take extreme care to not let him outmaneuver you like that, as it’s usually the first dozen nails in the coffin all at once for Germany.

G1:
This is complex. Let’s assume no G1 Barbarosa, which is not a “standard” tactic. If you want to do a Sea Lion feint, then you can buy a navy here, or spend nothing at all. If you instead build a bunch of land units, then UK can do whatever it wants on its turn and you’re telegraphing your intentions to everyone. Generally, I’d suggest getting some navy or to save your 30. (The navy can be somewhat useful for moving some dudes in the Baltic against Russia, too.) If you give no shits about telling Russia/UK what you plan to do (very risky), then buy 6 artillery and 2 infantry.

G2:
10 artillery in Germany. Five turns from now these will be attacking Moscow if the allies let you. Buy whatever other units you want out of western germany, be they planes or tanks or whatever “fast” units you feel you need to kill Russia later or support whatever other thing you’re doing right now. You can declare war here provided Russia has left you some units on the front lines to kill, or you are confident you can make it to Novgorod with little resistance.

This is the absolute last time you will every buy a “slow” unit, unless it’s on the western front to counter some small, weird allied landing parties.

G1 buys, if any, move to Poland.
Victorious tanks from the French campaign (and mechs unless you need them to kill Normandy/Southern France) move east to Yugoslavia.

G3:
Buy tanks/mechs (heavily favor tanks). Planes only if you need them. You can declare war here provided Russia has left you some units on the front lines to kill, and G3 tends to be the “standard” time to get the ball rolling.

Starting units (and perhaps a G1 buy) that were grouped up on the front go to Eastern Poland or Baltic States depending on whether you’re moving the bulk of your force through the south or the north. Both have their advantages. I prefer north most games. Wait in Poland only if you absolutely must.
G2 artillery to Poland.
French campaign veterans East to Eastern Poland, and they are now with your front.

G4:
Buy tanks/mechs (favor tanks unless you’ve lost a lot of mechs already). Planes only if you need them. If you’ve not already declared war, for god’s sake do it now.

G1&G2 artillery eastward. You’re either 2 or 3 spaces from Moscow with your front, and your G2 10 artillery are either with the front or one space behind.
G3 tanks/mechs eastward to wherever your G2 units are, 3 away from Moscow.
Bomb Moscow if possible.

G5:
Buy planes. Whatever optimized combination of strategic bombers + tactical bombers you can. You should own Novgorod or Ukraine by this point (or both if Russia sucks).

G1&G2&G3 combine or move eastward. You’re 2 away from Moscow with your main force, but you want to be able to take and keep Bryansk or Smolensk if Russia lets you. You’ve had one round to detour a bit to take Novgorod, Ukraine, kill some Russian stragglers, or whatever else.
G4 tanks/mechs eastward to Eastern Poland, 3 away from moscow.
If your planes were messing around anywhere else, begin to move them into position to hit Russia.
Bomb Moscow.

G6:
Buy planes. Tactical bombers from your Ukraine or Novgorod factories, and anything left goes for heavy bombers in Germany.

G1&G2&G3&G4 converge on Bryansk or Smolensk outside of Russia. Bryansk is clearly the tactically superior position, and is reachable by either the north or south route, but if you had people coming from a fight in Archangel killing fleeing Russians, Smolensk is an option.
G5 planes move east.
All of your planes are hopefully on top of your stack so that they can move back as far westward as they can once you have won, and to protect your stack. This, however, depends on whether or not Russia let you keep Bryansk/Smolensk from last round, or you brought some Italian buddies with you.
Bomb Moscow.

At this point, Britain could have flown in a bunch of planes to save Moscow. America might have even flown in some bombers to roll some 1’s and take hits. Maybe Russia abandons Moscow to head south. Maybe you even have some British pushing up through the caucasus. These are all things you need to consider and watch.

You might be facing a big allied landing in the west. Make sure to block tanks from blitzing around, but otherwise ignore this for now. If Moscow falls, you will almost definitely have all the resources you need to evict them. It is not uncommon to lose everything west of Berlin as you successfully take Moscow.

G7:

Option A:
Hit Russia right the hell now. All units converge, planes fly straight from factories. Glorious, fiery death. At best, you’re looking at an 80% chance to win unless the allies have gifted you with severe mistakes. It could be as low as 5-10% against a very careful Russian player with a bunch of British and American planes sitting there. Somewhere between 5 and 80 percent. Are you feeling ballsy? A fantastic victory, or the beginning of the end, awaits you.

If you get diced on Round 1 or 2 of the battle, consider Option B.

Option B:
Russia might not be able to be killed, but they sure as hell can’t kill you either. Dig in for a long game. Start sending only what you can southward to start getting that sweet, sweet middle east/caucasus/volgograd money. Snake around behind moscow and steal his eastern territories if he lets you. You will quickly outpace the crumbling Russian economy.

I will have to play with this a bit, but it worries me for (more than) a few reasons:

Cons:

1: US can, with little effort, slowly pick up south America. 6 extra IPCs per turn is nothing to scoff at, especially since they start with three mechanized infantry already there to do all of the work for them. (ANZAC can also come over and grab south America for that matter, though it’s arguably more wise for America to do so since it can then transport the free troops elsewhere more easily and more quickly.)

2: Mozambique/Angola/Saudi Arabia for Britain means more units marching north to Egypt, not to mention more income. 4-6 IPCs/turn there, I forget what the African territories are worth. You may also not threat much of a sealion depending on your implementation, which could lead to early UK mICs in the middle east.

3: Afghanistan becomes something Russia or Britain can grab for a bit of extra meat in western china or even to take the long walk to somewhere more useful.

4: Sweden can be taken with your Norwegians/Fins and planes on Turn 2+ without issue, but any losses up there are kind of a small pain to replace.

5: Any units you send into Spain are necessarily not going to be headed east any time remotely soon. Once you do take Spain, you have given the allies a place to land that is not within easy reach of your major factories. You may also have given the allies some free units in Portugal when they do land, or you’ve spent a turn with some of your planes smearing Portual instead of somewhere else, like setting up to take Egypt.

Pros:

1: That being said, you do, ideally at least, keep Gibraltar for a long, long time, allowing Italy some leeway to work with the new avenue turkey provides. If you build an airbase (or two if you get crazy) on Spain or Gib, kicking you off the mouth of the med would be next to impossible any time soon.

2: I could even see a mIC in Turkey for Italy, depending. The loss of Italy’s navy is not anywhere near as detrimental, as the stranglehold on Gibraltar keeps them relatively safe, and they can drive, albeit with quite a bit of effort, through the Balkans to the middle east.

3: It’s something new to try, and would lead to a game with a strong Africa/Mediterranean/middle east brawl. I don’t know if Italy has the strength to pull off taking Egypt, though.

If America, as it does in 90%+ of games, goes nearly all-in on Japan, Germany is potentially okay with this strategy. If it doesn’t, say it takes the gamble and heads straight to Europe, hoping to hold out against a monster Japan later, I’d say this strategy might screw you.

Actually, I think this strategy would work better with an early Japan DoW than it would slowgame from Japan. Even if you do the slowgame, taking a few territories above Amur from Russia if they’re headed west does still hurt them in the long run and doesn’t affect the other map.

Actually, and sorry to reply to my own post, but it’s been a few days and I was thinking:

Do any of you see an Axis Neutral Crush with any regularity? As I said, I only see it when the Axis already have great momentum on their way to the win. Crazy turn 19 situations aside, do you see it within the first ten turns? Less?

Name: (teslas) Brent
Location: Antwerp area, Belgium
Games: I own A&A 1940 Global, though I’ll play all sorts of stuff. There’s a special place in my heart for Twilight Imperium, for instance.

Thanks for the effort, jluna.

We’ve got a core group of five guys that normally play in Flanders with a few more sometimes-y people. 90% of the time we’re at a game store called “The Outpost” in Gent that’s often full of smelly nerds, but the beer is cheap and there’s plenty of space. We start at 12:30pm sharp, and end, at the extreme earliest, at 9pm. The next two games are August 8th and August 23rd, so if you’re in the area and interested, let me know.

I actually live closer to Antwerp, so if you’re already part of a group in either city, I’d love to hear about it as well!

The version we play is A&A 1940 (either european or global, depending on the number of players and time constraints), though I also have access to 1942. I’ve played just about every other version there is as well.

Ik ben geen Belg, en spreek nederlands als een vier of vijf jargie, toch everyone else in the group is a flemish person (except for a dutch guy). I’m from the states and have been here for two years, and will probably be around for at least a year more.

@Narvik:

And if Italy do capture Egypt with a free factory, maybe they lure themselves to buy a lot of expensive stuff there, money that could be put to better use in the decisive Eastern Front.

I would argue some money spent in Egypt is usually well spent for Italy. Especially if you can keep your Italian fleet alive in the Med. Egypt is worth at least 2 IPCs/turn, perhaps 7 if you don’t have Gib (which is a big problem in of itself but outside the scope of this conversation). Perhaps it’s even your gateway to a few extra IPCs from african territories.

Building some cheap units there per turn (not even necessarily three every turn) doesn’t cost you much in the long run, but it does hurt Britain. Furthermore, if Britain has an Iraqi (or Persian, but see my previous post) mIC going to help out Russia, you’ve just now made them think about what to do instead of just automatically driving north.

What expensive things would they buy that are wasted? Planes? They are mobile enough to go wherever they need to go, provided you’re thinking one turn ahead. Boats? They, too, are something you could normally build closeby as well. The worst thing they could build, then, would be 3 armor per turn. If they did that, they’re probably going to start raking in at least a turn or two of extra income from Africa, and further hurt the British economy, as well as providing a point of distraction for either the U.S. or U.K. in the coming turns.

I don’t think this is a valid point to make to support the decision of handing Italy a free mIC on top of a VC.

Time is still the enemy of the Axis for the first four or five turns, for sure.

Germany:
You must be in a position to begin enacting the neutered Russia tactic, hopefully having at least two of their mICs and in range to SBR Moscow. This requires that you get your units into position as quickly as is possible. Every turn you’re not SBRing or you leave Russia’s economy above 20/turn is no bueno. If you’re lucky, or the Russian player is not so great, or you focused on it and don’t mind the big risk, killing russia is even an option on or before turn 8 (though I haven’t seen this in any game since the first half of 2014).

Italy:
You must either have already taken Egypt and be making 24+/turn or be full-swing into the Russian can-opener. Some early shenanigans with Gibraltar could cause exceptions.

Japan:
Whether it’s J1 DoW or waiting all the way to J4, you must either be prepped to blast out and cause massive casualties when the time comes, or have a strong positioning of your fleet to where it is clear there is literally nothing the allies can do to stop you, ore even slow you down, for several, several rounds to come.

After the first 4-5 turns? Then yes, you’re right. Time is no longer a necessarily bad thing for the axis, then, but you still must get your shit done early on. That being said, the earlier simple idea of “if you don’t win by turn [9 +/- 2], then you never will” for the axis is indeed no longer something I follow.

I’m going to… yeah… go back to the original question.

@SJS063:

In recent topics I have noticed that the neutral crush has appeared quite a few times, and I was wondering what your guys’a strategy is to performing it, from both sides of the game.

Allies:

This is viable as a way to shake the game up by creating two fresh entry points into europe through Iberia and the Balkans.

Spain:
Americans take it, British land troops or planes to reinforce it if they can, if it is required. Gibraltar is now the Allies’ forever, and you’re in a position to begin picking away at the two adjoining French mICs. Portugal doesn’t really matter, and the 1/turn income likely isn’t worth the chance of losing a unit. If you get kicked back out of Spain, what does Portugal matter. Hopefully if you ever get kicked out it’s a Pyrrhic victory for the axis.
Turkey:
The Russians or British must find a way to handle this. If there are Italians or Germans already there, adding 8 inf to whatever it is is damning.
Sweden:
Not much can be done here. It’s Germany’s. If Russia is in a position to take this, then you’re either doing well as Russia, and you the game is likely yours anyway, or you have fled Russia into Scandinavia in some kind of weird desperation, so the situation is too complex to address.
Saudi Arabia:
If you can take this as the allies at some point, cool. Letting it sit there is also fine. Just be aware that it’s a cache of extra units for Italy/Japan later on if the tide turns.
South America:
I can’t rationalize how this could be worth anyone’s time to come in and conquer.
African:
Potentially worth the investment of time to take, but probably not.

Axis:

I only ever neutral crush as the axis when I’ve already got strong momentum. I can’t think of a situation where you’d do it when you’re in a somewhat weak scenario.

Spain:
Your gateway to Gibraltar. You must take this before someone else does. Portugal matters a bit more for you than it does the allies, since you don’t want to give any allied landing party extra units.
Turkey:
You must either take this or strafe off most of the units immediately.
Sweden:
Be very careful to not let Russia have this. If you don’t have Novo, and you’ve got transports left over from the start of the game, best to just kill it for the income boost and to take that risk out of the game. If you do have Novo, you can let this hang out for a while so long as you keep it in mind. If the allies might land in Norway, then this further mucks up the Scandinavian situation for you. You must be aware you lose your 5 IPC NO from not holding this after it is pro-allies, however.
Saudi Arabia:
If you’re in a position to do something with this, then you’re likely already winning.
South America:
What. The. Hell is going on?
African:
Depends greatly.

Also, I almost never see the “bad guys” do a neutral crush. It’s usually the allies being the bastards.

edit-
important note about sweden added

British middle eastern mIC’s are a tough thing to discuss, because they depend greatly on what the axis are up to.

To build an IC in Egypt on UK1, I’d have to see, at a minimum, this:

-No legitimate Sealion threat.
-Taranto has a near-certain chance to resolve favorably for the British.
-The German and Italian players are inexperienced, or are, or soon will be, drunk.

Even then, there is the very real (and probable) risk that Italy, with the help of German planes, takes Egypt, and you’ve given the enemy a free minor IC. If the US is not going to be pushing on gibraltar soonish, this means Italy is going to be a monster.

I prefer, again, depending on the results of G1 and J1, to take Iraq UK1, then build an IC there on 2. Again, this depends greatly on what Germany and Japan have done, but I do prefer “abandoning” India over losing the middle east, which seems to be a popular sentiment for most people.

The Iraq mIC is two spaces away from the med, making it very difficult for Italy to take. It is two spaces from Egypt, allowing you to buy slow then fast units to lead up to a retaking of Egypt (or just to drive mechs into fortify it). It is as close to Russia as anything else. Naval-wise, it’s no further from a rampaging Japanese transport fleet, but if they’re going that far west, that’s probably not the most effective thing it could be doing in the Pacific, so good. Terrestrially, it’s further from India to protect from a mid or late-game Japanese encroaching invasion.

If Britain is doing exceptionally well, say because of a G1 or G2 declaration on Russia and going all-in for a land battle, then I might build a mIC in Persia in addition to the one in Iraq, or, rarely, Egypt. At this point it’s UK3 or 4 and the game is far too advanced to discuss strategy without a long list of assumptions spelled out beforehand.

First off, well said, Argothair. If I were going to be a proponent of LL, that would sum it up. I also agree with the sentiment that rolling for large battles is time consuming, though I turn into a dice-rolling robot when it’s my turn, and everyone involved goes into a calculation trance to get that shit done as quickly as is humanly possible. If I were at a table where this was not the case, I can imagine I’d go crazy.

On the other hand, at my table, we play with a range of people. I recently moved a great distance away from the old group, so most of my physical people are only on their 0th through 6th game ever. Still far too early to propose low-luck in my opinion–even if I were to consider suggesting it.

As far as online with people I used to play with back home, we always have done, and will likely continue to do, dice games for anything competitive.

For theory-craft and screwing around with what-ifs, however, we always did/do LL. And actually, usually branch at decisive battles (because it’s easy to do in an electronic format). One branch where the results were subpar but not disastrous, one where the results were exactly average, and one where the results were slightly better than average. This turns into a fractal of “wasted” time, yeah, but it lets you see how the game could evolve from turning points depending on how well you bounced through a particular fight. If you have the time, it can help you plan not only if a strategy is worthwhile, but what can be done immediately afterwards depending on the results.

If you’re in the thick of a real game, the dice are an equalizer of sorts. Yes, you can drop to a mathematically negligent chance of winning in only an hour or two of play (if you’re doing something overtly risky or have exceptionally bad luck), but that’s part of the challenge: adapting to what happens to you. In LL, you can plan everything to the letter nearly. In dice games, as calvinhobbesliker said, you must actually play differently at certain times, because you need to overkill battles that you need to win. It also leads to situations where that one frenchman that runs headlong into three italians (to take the 1/6 chance to soften them up before a US landing, for instance) can actually win. This is a fantastic thing to see, and much drinking is done when it occurs.

We also are usually very respective (yet reluctant, mind you) to throw in the towel. If it’s 3v2 or what have you, and everyone on one side and at least half of the people on the other agree there is nearly no chance for one side to continue, we shake hands, and if it’s early enough, set it all up again.

I think dice are just more fun.