Posts made by The Fire Knight

Ah, you’re right, I do have trouble visualizing situations, so thanks for your example. In any case I would still opt for an infantry and artillery first b/c i still believe that the movement value is wasted, the hit points per cost still is in the inf and art’s favor, and because you don’t win wars by defense; tanks don’t equal their cost defending by themselves for one turn, they equal their cost by constantly attacking and being shielded by infantry. However, I wouldn’t be deterred from attacking if all i had was a tank and an infantry either.

@JimmyHat:

@The:

Inf art is always better for islands. With no exceptions.

obviously not or this situation would not come up.  How is a inf/art better than an inf/arm in defense?  that’s 5 defense strength vs 4.  I used to have arm ‘sitting around’ in Japan after the US fleet came through.  They provide a threat of good defenders, provided they have a nice inf shield in front of them.  Arm defend at 3 and therefore have a reason to be on islands.

B/c first off, like has been said before, infantry artillery is a more cost effective attack than infantry tank. But there are even more reasons in this situation b/c it is an amphibious assault. First off, part of the cost of a tank is built into its move. Therefore, if you are transporting it to islands part of its value is lost and you are being cost ineffective. And secondly, you should never rely on land units to defend islands. One b/c any one who attacks you will probably be using at least two units and some support (either more transports, planes, or fleets). Two b/c although they might attack you, they also may not. So leaving your tank their would be like killing it. Three, b/c the only way for your opponent to get to his land units onto your island to fight your theoretical tank would be to kill your fleets, and you probably shouldn’t have attacked unless your fleets could hold their own. And four, even if you left your tank their to defend, which you shouldn’t have done, and your fleets swam away but remained within striking distance of the island (which they would do if it was worth keeping, and if it’s not, then again why bother defending it with a tank anyways) then the only reason your opponent would attack your island (unless he is below average intelligence) would be if he could defend his fleet from your fleet, in which case his army and supporting units will not be hindered by a tank, which, although better on defence, is not better per ipc on defence. I could go on for every situation, but I covered all of them that I could think of.

Inf art is always better for islands. With no exceptions.

Ah… I see. I take it back then.

@Cmdr:

Round 6, Russia surrenders.  Combined strength of the Italians, Germans and Japanese are too much.  Granted, mistakes were made with China.

Round 6 Moscow is taken? Who are you playing? B/c they suck. Edit (they could still be a great person, but sorry, they are still terrible ;))

Jennifer, I read your recent posts and am going to look into them next time I play (hopefully very soon). However, one of the things you said I’m not sure if I agree with. You said that Japan should wait until round 4 to attack America? I always (and my opponent too) attack on turn 2. We do this b/c when my opponent didn’t attack turn 2 as japan, I reasoned as the allies that since Japan would attack round 3 automatically (b/c America earns their money that round no matter what), that it would be smarter for the allies to attack turn 2, in order to catch japan off guard and get the at war bonuses (15 ipcs, plus positional advantages). So then the next game as the axis I assumed that the allies would do the same and, to prevent this, attacked turn 2 as japan, which prevents anzac and ukp from getting any of their war bonuses, the additional dei, and allows me to get the money islands and territories earlier. I believe that this more than compensates for the 20 ipcs that America would earn extra. And, anticipating your argument for a turn 4 japan attack (which is what it seems like you’re advocating and which I believe is ridiculous), I see the problem of an invicible India, and I don’t really think this argument can make up for that

“Contingency plans have been discussed if Japan wants to gift the Allies with a pre-emptive attack as this allows them to move faster and harder into a now woefully under-prepared and significantly disadvantaged Japan.”

Under-prepared Japan? If the U.S. isn’t at war until round 4, then it can only have built 3 ships per turn in the pacific, something Japan can, and doesn’t even need to, match. The way I see it, attacking earlier (turn two) allows for optimal player set up (which a turn one attack lacks), earns more money for japan than a later attack, and puts them in a better position to threaten the entire pacific.

edit: Was just thinking about it some more, and came up with a possible argument that you could use to support a turn 4 japan attack: that attacking earlier allows the u.s to put 10 units instead of 3 into the pacific. But this isn’t a reason to change when you attack, b/c America can just make its planes in central or eastern U.S. instead of west.

Just started reading this thread, and while I’m not quite sure if I believe jennifer, I have definitely thought from the beginning that America needed incentives in Europe as well as the pacific. Just a thought, but if this is the only thing that needs balancing (which it probably isn’t but could be a start) then a really easy fix could be to reduce america’s NO for holding the continental US from 10 to 5, and then give them a NO of 5 to hold a territory and have troops in Europe. I think this is similar to what anniversary did. And another bonus of this is that it gives a slight, slight incentive to hold Sicily or sardinia if the rest of Europe is too well defended. Plus, while not a hard objective, this is definitely realistic (b/c it was America’s goal since the start to invade france and such) and could even create the debate again with Britain as to whether or not invade Africa first or go straight to france. Plus, I think the general consensus is that even w/o the US crush of japan, the allies are slightly disadvantaged. This reduces America’s income by about maybe 15-20 ipcs over the 4 or so turns it would take to capture normandy or sicily or something. Thoughts?

@ThomasJefferson:

I always built transports turn 1, so as to force the British to decide to build up infantry or abandon their capital. If they abandon it, it is totally worth while to take it, if they defend it, they have 9 inf that will sit there for a long time, and then I attack russia through the Baltic with the transports.

yes. That’s usually what i do.

@Chesty:

Is anyone still playing with the original rules? Me and my mate have palyed 3 games and we still have not got to the point of wanting to change to alpha. I dont know how people have had the time to fully experiment with the game before wanting to change to alpha setup.

I didn’t have time to fully experiment with OOB. However, why waste time trying to? The new version is official.

Just wondering b/c there are a lot of people who go straight Russia and a lot who go straight England. I personally try and leave it as open as possible but plan on Russia, but I was wondering what percentage of people do what.

&%&$^%)%&^#$)&%&%&%%R^&^^)&%$&^(!!! I personally don’t like it b/c it’s unrealistic and b/c the U.S. can just go between the two boards anyways. I mean maybe if you want unrealistic and make a rule against going between boards it might be ok but…

1941. http://www.harrisgamedesign.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=4949

2 transports and a destroyer and a sub. save 2.

As long as national advantages are fair then cool. But they definitely weren’t with revised. The allies had 6 more and theirs were just as good. Russia could dominate Germany with lend lease.

1. Can you purposely not convoy raid when at war with a power (b/c i will earn like 10 more for russia capturing berlin if i didn’t convoy raid)

2. “Collect 10 IPCs, once, for Soviet capture of Berlin (Germany). Theme: National prestige”

I know that it says once, but I think that this might be just to say that you don’t continuously collect it. So… say Russia captures Berlin and then Germany captures it back… can i earn the 10 ipcs twice?

3. can tactical bombers intercept?

Thanks.

@Cmdr:

@Cow:

low luck except round 1??? pick one or the other.

Allied nations use LL on round 1, Axis use the predetermined calculator odds on round 1, then LL on rounds 2 and forward.

I won’t have some weird fluctuation of the dice allow you to snatch victory from the statistical jaws of defeat.  We’ll go with the 10,000 battle odds for the Axis attacks and the mutual destruction in SZ 97 (because that battle has so much flux and I have never seen England not attack nor do well in there anyway, the only real thing is if there is a British ship left or an Italian ship left or no ships left, so just end it now and call it a mutual wipe, for it most certainly usually is anyway.)

I suppose, if you do not want to do the SZ 97 battle, you can move your ships out of the Med. /Shrug.  But you’d leave the Europeans a lot more stuff and I think you’d be far happier killing it early…of course, you also said to ignore America with Japan, so maybe you don’t want to cripple the Axis air forces?

I think I saw somewhere back that you think the axis are dominating and always win. Well, I would just like to point out you’re not playing axis and allies. So… quit with the bs.

“I won’t have some weird fluctuation of the dice allow you to snatch victory from the statistical jaws of defeat.”

Well, if you knew statistics you would know that low luck skews the statistics. ex. in low luck 2 tanks will always beat one fighter. In low luck, battles that are 70% turn into 100%. So, for the Sea Lion domination reasons that I believe you gave, and probably all of your battle domination as the axis, those just aren’t true. if you play all 100% battles it’s easy. but a 70% battle, with an 85% battle, with a 90% battle actually give you only 53.55% chance of victory for all of them. So if you think the game is unbalanced toward the axis then you may be right. I wouldn’t know, b/c I don’t play Pansy axis and allies for luck wimps. I play a strategy and war game. Taking away luck also takes away strategy, something that I think a lot of people don’t realize

@Cow:

Look. Are you playing dice games or low luck? I can see round 1 going bad vs uk naval in a dice game. It’s happened to me one time out of 5 games. Even then it’s not like I got to sink all of it.  I usually leave something alone. and overwhelm the rest.

Yea, if you’re using low luck just shut up b/c you’re not playing a and a, and you’re definitely not helping.

I like the way it is; putting powers that had the edge first before other powers. Ex. Germany definitely had the initial edge over everyone at first. Russia goes next b/c they counter-attack and lead later. They’re before Japan b/c they declared war later on on Japan. Japan goes next b/c they dominated the pacific early on. The US follows b/c they lead the counterattacks in both europe and the pacific. China follows and goes before Britain in order to create a situation in china where the British aren’t just always getting the Burma Road for china (they have to get it for themselves if the Japs take it). Then comes the UK, who are obviously before ANZAC b/c they’re larger and ANZAC was kind of under the UK. Then comes Italy, who pretty much got owned by everyone except the ethiopians. They’re only rivaled by France b/c France was obviously the worst of the all, falling the fastest. So I vote no. Realism and history over simplicity and possible playability improvements (though this is debatable as well).

You never run out of chinese inf. There’s more than one for every territory you could possibly be on.

Just a thought guys. But from what i’ve heard Larry and his “team” of play testers were rushed in creating this game and didn’t have near enough time to play test it. Yes, this is bs and i don’t particularly like being a guinea pig, but try and think of it as if we are once again “waiting for G40 to come out”. And each alpha addition is like a preview. If you just don’t like change then that’s fine. Go and play classic. But honestly this is a really minor change. In all reality alpha 2 or its successors is the final. OOB is the rough draft. If you like playing rough drafts then that’s your choice. And really you aren’t even playing that. Since we normally don’t buy a rough draft you’re in fact making up your own game now. Alpha 2 is the game. And i would also just like to add that this affects me almost none. If you buy big tank stacks that defend by themselves then you suck anyways. That’s just the truth (and if it works for you then your opponents suck). But i do understand the historical argument and the nitpicky thing. There are a lot more things that Larry could choose to insert history into, and this does seems really random.