Best posts made by The Janus

I’m not sure if it’s bad form to be posting in this thread after February ;) but anyway…

My name is Janus (also known on other parts of the internet as P.d0t)
I got into A&A with the MB version, back in about 1997 or so(?)
However, the biggest chunk of my A&A play experience is/was with the Imp Games expansion “East & West”: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/6441/east-west-global-war-1948

That company seems to have gone defunct (and their forums went down long before that) so I joined the A&A .org forums a while ago – somewhat passively – but have been following the site’s news via Facebook. When the announcement for A&A Online came through on that channel, it rekindled my interest in E&W. As such, I’ve been trying to track down anyone who owns the game or has played it, and have been working on honing strategies for the USSR.

One such strategy can be found here on the forums, which I ran just as a playtest against myself:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/topic/19172/east-west-by-imp-games-soviet-strategy-playtest

If you’re a fan of E&W, please get ahold of me here on the forums/PMs; it would be much appreciated :)

@black_elk I think the way to do Italy justice is to just have a full-blown “Axis & Allies: North Africa” in the vein of the D-Day game.

You could have German reinforcements come in waves sorta like D-Day, but more or less run the rest of the mechanics like A&A but with a cap on the number of rounds.

@black_elk said in Advice to Renegade! What is on your top 10 for adjustments to G40 3rd edition?:

I tend to agree with most of the points Janus is making about streamlining the game. I think the prob comes from low-balling the money and trying to keep those numbers so low, instead of just amping the production a bit.

After reading the thread saying “infantry should cost 3.2!” this idea popped into my head: increase the IPC values and unit costs by 10x except for infantry – which would then cost 32.

In that same vein, I think if you want to have a game with more and more unit types, they should look at doing a move to d10 (as was done with Napoleon’s Imperium.) Having infantry at A1|D3 on a d10 might help negate the IPM.

Tactics: Operation Fishnet (Soviet Pacific Fleet)

For those who know me, I’ve historically mostly played as NATO in E&W. As part of the ongoing refinement of my Soviet strategy, I wanted to come up with some better opening moves for their naval units; here’s what I’ve been looking at just recently:
(red arrows outline spaces that US navies could conceivably reach)

Objectives: To stall US transport capability in the Pacific.

This should be a fairly straightforwardly important goal, for any Soviet player: keeping the US off of your shores (or away from landing support into SE Asia.) It’s difficult to actually attack the US transports (because of their positioning) so instead we want to prevent them from steaming across the ocean, for as long as possible.

Scatter
The purpose of scattering your navy is to make it a less-attractive target for the US nuke. Many times, the Soviet moves in the Pacific involve slamming as much force as possible against another large force. Usually this is a no-win situation; either your remaining force is large enough to warrant dropping the bomb on, or is small enough that it is mopped up by US naval forces, with nary a whimper. Also, keeping subs separate from surface ships will tempt your opponent to split their air power from their naval power.

Block
By positioning the subs between your other ships, and the West US fleet, you’re able to effectively keep those units from using their full movement – unless the enemy attacks both ranks of your defensive line. Again, this is not the worst result, because you’ll have already prevented them from being able to concentrate their forces.
If the Japan SZ fleet attacks the Soviet ships in the Bering Strait, this means that the transport at Okinawa cannot effectively be used to amphibiously assault Kamchatka or East Siberia; the ships at Hawaii are also blocked from providing shore bombardment, and the carrier cannot move in to provide a landing space for supporting fighter aircraft.

Deadzone
As you’ll note on the map, the Marcus Island SZ can potentially be hit by all of the US ships in the area. However, if the US moves heavily into this zone with their surface fleet, they will not be able to keep the Japan SZ well-defended – potentially leaving it open to a counter-attack, with support from Soviet aircraft. If they instead consolidate their navy at Marcus Island, their transports will be far out of position to send reinforcements to SE Asia.
The place where the US can launch the strongest amphibious assault (with both their Japan fleet and Hawaii fleet) is against North Korea. Fortunately, the free Chinese infantry make this a tough nut to crack, and the Soviets should always have units in East Siberia and/or Manchuria, available for a counter-attack. Also, the commitment of US surface ships to such an attack would mean a much weaker naval response, to the Soviet fleets; if the US only commits submarines to Marcus Island, and only aircraft to deal with the Soviet submarines, they risk leaving the West US transport exposed to the Bering Strait ships. In this situation, the US may opt to instead move this transport towards the Panama Canal – both to be out of reach, and to instead assist in moving forces to Europe. In this case, the Soviet fleet will have succeeded at its objective.

Let me know what you think about this opening move :)
Comments and critiques are always welcome!

I’m kind of an old skool, Classic-ish grognard; I’ve been poking around with the Europe 1940 game (in TripleA, against the ai) mainly as the Allies, but a little bit as Italy.

I guess my question is, which units should each country purchase?

For example, I’ve found that the UK can make use of subs against Italy’s surface fleet (although I guess I’m a n00b for not just YOLO’ing and blowing them up with all of the UK’s planes, on rd1.) But generally, it seems like no one should really want/need to build any navy other than destroyers, transports, and carriers (with aircraft to go on them). Destroyers just do everything…

Is there any sense in bringing along extra carriers, i.e. more than just enough to hold your planes, in case one gets sunk? Why are carriers 2-hit anyway, if they’re effectively useless after the first hit? Are there any good spots to put down new airfields, or is scrambling underused in the Europe map, and really only applies to the Pacific?

I don’t find artillery all that helpful; if you’re the US for example, you have the cash to build tanks, and if your intention is just to send as much stuff as possible to the USSR, then you want units that can race across North Africa quicker. I think for poorer countries, artillery makes sense but even as Italy I tend to go all infantry, and as USSR I maybe crank out 1 artillery per round; if you can get your income up, tanks seem way more helpful for counter-attacking in and around Novosibirsk, while using your planes to clean up along the main front line.

What circumstances do people use mech. infantry in? Honestly, I rarely buy it other than to place at an Allied factory in Persia, Norway, or similar/nearby territories (Greece, Turkey, Finland). I particularly can’t justify putting one on a transport, instead of a tank (or even possibly an artillery.) I’ve heard that it’s a good unit for the Axis, on defense…

I guess I just feel like there’s a lot of chrome/cruft to this version of A&A, and I believe it could improve by being stripped down a little.

Turn Order:
(With the intention of keeping as close to the original turn order, while still slotting in the added countries)

1. USSR
2. a) Italy (and Vichy France)
   b) Germany
3. a) UK (Atlantic)
   b) China (includes India, Dutch, ANZAC, etc.)
4. Japan
5. a) US Pacific
   b) US Atlantic

Round Zero / “Impulse”:
Prior to the first full round, the Axis get one round to act. This should be played out in the turn order described above, omitting the Allied turns.

The Axis conduct all phases of their turns during this round, with some very important bonuses added:

• Infantry & Armor: attack power is increased by 2, costs are reduced by 1 IPC
• Fighters & Bombers: attack with 2 dice instead of 1, costs are reduced by 2 IPC
• Naval units: attack power is increased by 1, costs are reduced by half

During this round, Allied units defend as per normal, with one notable exception: since they are not yet at war, AA guns belonging to the USSR and USA do not fire.

Axis Advantage / “Russia Restricted”
On the first round, the USSR and the US (both Atlantic and Pacific) may only conduct the following phases of their turns: Purchase Units, Place Units, Collect Income.

In addition to the bonuses on Round Zero, all three Axis countries gain these benefits:

• all Axis battleships are 2-hit battleships
• all Axis powers have Super Submarine technology
• all Axis powers have Jet Power technology

Setup & Territorial Changes:
The original setup for Classic is used, however changes in ownership of a territory also govern changes in the nationality of ALL units listed for that territory (including naval units) with the following exceptions:

• All German naval units are given to Italy (including any newly purchased units)
• All Soviet naval units are given to the UK; the USSR may not produce naval units in this scenario

As you can see from the map above, the sea zones are broken down into two sections:

1. those bordering the territories of USSR, Germany, Italy, UK, and US Atlantic – to be used only by the navies and air forces of those countries
2. all other sea zones – to be used by the navies and air forces of China, Japan, and US Pacific

You’ll note that this limitation creates one sea zone in the mid-Atlantic which is effectively impassable; feel free to adjudicate this differently, if you find a change to be helpful.

Industrial Complexes / “Victory Cities”:
Add an AA gun and Industrial Complex to the following territories:

• Ukraine SSR
• South Africa
• India
• Australia

No new industrial complexes may be built.

In this scenario, the number of units a complex can produce is limited to the IPC value of the territory in which it is located (including capitols.) As such, you may only purchase a number of units up to the total IPC value of the industrial complexes which you have controlled since the start of your turn. For example: the UK has an industrial complex on their capitol (8 IPCs) as well as in South Africa (2 IPCs) meaning they can purchase a maximum of 10 units on their turn.

Further to this, the number of naval units you may purchase is limited not only to the IPC value of your coastal/island complexes, but also by whether the adjacent sea zones are clear of enemy ships. For example: Since Japan only has an industrial complex in their capitol, if the islands are surrounded by Allied naval units at the start of the Japanese turn, Japan may not purchase any naval units on that turn.

A nation who loses their capitol may continue to collect IPCs from any territories they still control, provided they also still control at least one industrial complex after the Combat Phase of their turn. If a nation controls no industrial complexes after any nation’s Combat Phase, they must surrender their IPCs to the nation whose turn it currently is. They also can no longer collect IPCs, until they regain control of at least one industrial complex.

Victory is achieved when either side controls at least “2 out of 3” Axis and “2 out of 3” Allied starting Industrial Complexes (8 Industrial Complexes in total) at the end of any round of play.

Theatres of War
It is intended that each theatre may be played separately, as their own sort of “mini-game” but they may also be played in concert, and merge together under certain circumstances of victory or defeat. A nation may not attack nor move units into any territory which is not a part of their theatre, until those theatres merge together.

• Atlantic Theatre: UK, Italy, US Atlantic
• European Theatre: USSR, Germany
• Pacific Theatre: China, Japan, US Pacific

If Germany or Italy collects an income of at least 5 IPCs less than their starting income, the Atlantic and European theatres merge at the start of the following round. This also happens if Germany collects an income of at least 10 IPCs more than their starting income.

If Italy or Japan collects an income of at least 10 IPCs more than their starting income, the Atlantic and Pacific theatres merge at the start of the following round. This also happens if Japan collects an income of at least 5 IPCs less than their starting income.

If playing any theatre individually, the Axis country wins if they collect an income of at least 15 IPCs more than their starting income; the Allies win if the Axis country collects no income.

Starting Incomes:

1. USSR - 28 IPCs
2. a) Italy - 12 IPCs
   b) Germany - 21 IPCs
3. a) UK - 18 IPCs
   b) China - 18 IPCs
4. Japan - 15 IPCs
5. a) US Pacific - 18 IPCs
   b) US Atlantic - 17 IPCs

Mergers and Restrictions
Whenever the European and Atlantic theatres merge, Germany and Italy combine their cash on hand, and effectively become one nation.

Whenever the Atlantic and Pacific theatres merge, the same happens with the UK and China, as well as with US Atlantic and US Pacific. Additionally, when this merger takes place, the restrictions on naval movement end; the navies of all nations can enter any sea zones on the map.

Unlike most global Axis & Allies games, in this scenario Japan and the USSR may never attack each others’ territories or naval units. However, if the Pacific and European theatres have merged (i.e. all 3 theatres must have merged, for this to happen) the following actions are permitted:

• Soviet units may enter Allied-controlled territories (such as those belonging to China)
• Japan may destroy Soviet units in Allied-controlled territories, on Allied aircraft carriers, or aboard Allied transports.

Other Recommended Rules

1. No invading neutrals
2. No technology advancement

I’ve decided to leave out most of the “errata”-type changes I had written up in my earlier draft, since those are mostly down to a matter of taste; generally sticking to the 2nd Edition rules will be perfectly fine. But if anyone is interested, I’ll be happy to add those to the thread.

If you have any questions or comments, please post them down below :)

@tacojohn said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

Yeah, it might be that. But right now, the only TGW map is in MapView, right?

FWIW, I was able to dig this out of archive.org, from the Imp Games website; I probably have it saved somewhere, but it was just quicker to dig it out that way. (Obviously not high-res, but was freely available online, when the site was up.)

@hengst I mean if you’re building a game where your baseline assumption is that Germany would/should be overpowered, then sure :face_with_rolling_eyes:

Edit: To clarify my point, I think one of the things that works to keep Germany competitive is that the Allies don’t get to attack them together. Even then, their job tends to be “don’t die, until Japan sweeps the board.” If you take that disadvantage and give it to Germany by splitting their economy and units into smaller chunks, it’s not actually a benefit to them. And I think if the only justification for doing it is to have a 3v3, I feel like the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Our intrepid Axis & Allies player @The_Good_Captain has put out a video which includes a review of East & West!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsm4is72-sc

I’m about to check it out myself; I’ll let the crowd know if I have any thoughts on it :)

@hengst I guess my point is that you don’t make the Axis more interesting by splitting Germany into a moderate power and a minor power; I think you can do that more effectively by making Germany a proper superpower.

And like I said, any timeframe later than 1940 makes it harder and harder to justify Italy being a separate power, unless your idea is that their main contribution is to be an “also-ran” on the eastern front, as part of a bloc with the other minor powers. It just doesn’t vibe, IMO.

We’s fightin’!

After a relatively long hiatus, @The_Good_Captain and I have been getting in a few games of E&W.

I’ve mostly been playing as the USSR recently; as I may have said before, I think my opponent has probably nailed down the ideal Soviet opener, so I’ve been trying to go a little off the beaten trail.

In this video, you can see my latest attempt – a “no Turkey attack” opening move as the USSR:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zydQmlM2JWI

Thanks again to @The_Good_Captain for editing and posting the video.
Feel free to comment below (and if you’d like us to make separate comment threads for actual gameplay, let us know that as well.)

I’ve gotta admit, I’m genuinely baffled by the constant suggestion to add more and more unit types.

Especially when you get to the point of suggestions being literally just [(adjective) (unit that already exists)]

Like… submarines have a niche, destroyers have a job, cruisers have a job (i.e. being battleships, except cheap enough to actually purchase), carriers have a job – What are all these added unit types going to do, that would make them worthwhile? Furthermore, if you don’t perfectly balance them, you’re going to end up with the IPM problem, where there’s one correct purchase and everything else is just a bunch of useless cruft/chrome.

If anything the closest I would go in that direction is to make the same types of units weaker/stronger/cheaper/different (i.e. unique abilities) depending on the country – and not all units need to be available to all countries, necessarily! The utility of having units function the same from one power to another is so that you can learn the game one power at a time, and the lessons all carry over.

I’m not unwilling to sacrifice that quality of life design (particularly for such an advanced game as G40) and I think it could be really interesting. Maybe some countries just fart out submarines that are basically just bath tubs, maybe another country can do the same with tanks. Particularly if you’re keeping to d6, you can’t just go cramming in half a dozen new unit types, especially if they don’t have a job to do.

Ever heard of the Game Napoleon’s Imperium?

@crockett36 said in Advice to Renegade! What is on your top 10 for adjustments to G40 3rd edition?:

That would be monumental! Great innovation!

Appreciate it!

Perfect example would be something like paratroopers, or marines – those could just be infantry + special abilities.

• Maybe not all countries can use paratroopers
• Maybe some countries can transport paratroopers using tactical bombers in addition to strategic bombers; maybe some countries can ship 2 paratroopers per bomber, but others can only ship 1
• Maybe certain countries have infantry attack at 2/3/(first strike) in amphibious assaults (I swear this was a national advantage in at least one version, for the US) – which might actually incentivize them to attack islands.

You could even do things like, certain countries have 2-hit battleships, some have 2-hit / self-repairing, and some have 1-hit battleships. You could adjust the cost as much as you want (up or down) and then you obviate the need for any kind of cruiser class, potentially. Or just say only certain countries can make the really chonky battleships, and everything else is a (de-facto) cruiser. Maybe certain countries have carriers that hold more planes than others; maybe some countries can have their destroyers carry one plane, while others can carry one infantry. Be creative!

@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

The problem with E&W rules for neutrals is that they are just passive sources of income, that can also be attacked. That is not very interesting.

I think you’d just be swapping one problem for another, because making them function in more “interesting” ways would throw the game balance completely out the window. Also, the USSR can attack any neutrals at any time, but NATO can only attack major neutrals, and only if they are providing their full income to the USSR. So generally speaking there isn’t a military solution to the passive income provided by major neutrals.

Without getting long-winded about it, China basically serves as a buffer for the USSR, keeping the US and UK to the perimeter; if the Americans could just land anywhere along the Pacific coast of Asia, that’s a whole different ball-game – and not in a way that’s good for the USSR.

The other function of major neutrals is to prevent the game from being bogged down with roughly double the number of minor neutrals on the map. Having them function as a bloc and then tying them into things like nuclear complications, controlling the Suez Canal, and North Korea rules are what make the system really shine. This also circles back to the rule allowing the USSR to attack neutrals; there’s more of a downside if attacking Iraq means that Syria, Jordan, et al. also turn against you. If you get rid of the Arab League as a major neutral, I imagine the USSR would start gobbling up the middle east piecemeal in probably every game. (And I have to imagine the major neutral mechanic is an outgrowth of the original designers having tested these kinds of strategies, and found them to break the game.)

If you wanna rebalance the game around an “active China” paradigm, be my guest – but depending on things like turn order, they either get dogpiled, or they win the entire continent pretty early on. These are the types of bog-standard house rules that people immediately tried once they got their hands on the game 25 odd years ago, and couldn’t get to work. I remember those discussions, trust me.

E&W is much more about ‘politics’ mechanics than any other A&A game, full stop, and basically the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If you swap out one mechanic for something you think is more interesting, that doesn’t immediately mean it’ll be better or that the game will even still function properly from a balance perspective. Trying to reinvent the China rules is probably the biggest hornet’s nest you could kick, and it’s not much less perilous to mess around with how the Arab League works, either.

Honestly, if you feel the need to strip things down, but maintain the flavour of it, I can definitely give you some suggestions in that regard – I’ve written an E&W scenario for Risk. But I’d lean more towards major neutrals not having any mechanics for getting active, than to add mechanics making that easier to do.

The unofficial home for modern-day “East & West” discussion is right here, on the A&A .org forums! ;)

Have a look if you’re interested or have questions:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1266842

@The_Good_Captain I’ve watched your first few videos about A&A: Europe (1999) and your comment about the game being a 6-round affair sort of struck a chord with me.

I think E&W is similar, except that it’s “1d6 rounds” owing mainly to how soon the USSR can get the first nuclear bomb tech. Granted, their economy needs to be strong enough that they can afford to build a bomb while maintaining parity in terms of land units.

The issue is that NATO generally can’t counter-attack anywhere on rd1; if the Soviets spread their Pacific fleet properly, they can insulate Korea as well as Kamchatka. The only place that’s usually left open is Yugoslavia. The adjunct to that is generally the USSR spends all of rd2 attacking neutrals, which NATO can do nothing about; since there is no “Pro-neutral” type of mechanic within the designs, NATO can’t lend support/deterrence to neutrals that are vulnerable to attack (i.e. on the Soviet border.)

If the strongest weapon in NATO’s arsenal is the US attack in the far east (which takes til rd3 to reasonably get new transports involved in a landing) you’re at least halfway along the doomsday countdown by that point.

Even if NATO is splitting their fleets to mitigate the effects of a nuke, I think that having to rebuild, say, 3 transports in the Pacific is more cost-intensive than the USSR having to crank out another nuke – particularly if their income is anywhere in the 70 IPC range. If India is bottled up, you end up in a situation of the UK basically throwing good money after bad, just to maintain the status quo, with no real potential of ever swinging the momentum, from that position. Never mind the costs NATO is going to incur trying to keep up on spying.

I think the Kamchatka landing can absolutely work, but it’s a lot easier if NATO can sway China (hard, if not impossible) and they absolutely need to be pushing past Eastern Siberia within “1d6 rounds.” Otherwise the game just deteriorates until NATO slowly dies to nukes. Even when I’ve had NATO making grand offensives to try and keep the economics of the game from stagnating, they either can’t sustain it because the USSR absorbs and counter-attacks everything, or they’re forced to pivot off of one position to bail out another, and all momentum is lost in the process.

NATO has time in which to gamble, but they don’t have the economic edge in this game – and they have all the drawbacks of the Allies, always needing to build up their logistics chain (and spying!) before they can really even act. They’re on the back foot from the word ‘go’ and they have only a handful of rounds to do something decisive.

@FranceNeedsMorePower said in France's role in Global 1940 SE:

@The-Janus You got a lot of good ideas by chance did you every watch his video I made. It talks about France.

Here’s the link: https://youtu.be/I0nxyB3JwAk?si=K0GHmYXuijhuSVDA

I just went back through this thread earlier today, so I had copied the link, and watched it just now. Here are my overall thoughts:

1. UK fighter: Generally I don’t scramble planes, ever; in a recent game I saw the Ai send some undefended transports, so I took the option to scramble, then. In the early naval battles around the UK, it just never seems worth it, because the scrambled planes can’t retreat from combat so they’re basically doomed to die.
2. North Africa: I tend to see the Ai axis take Tunisia but then back off; as I mentioned earlier in the thread, it seems like the thing to do as France is back off as far away from the Italian transports as possible, and add French units from the UK there as well; this basically means defending Morocco until the US/UK can land to reinforce the position. If you push everything into Algeria (assuming the Italians leave Tunisia alone, at first) I worry that they’ll get dogpiled by an amphibious landing; Morocco is a lot safer.
3. Egypt/East Africa: I don’t typically see the Italians break into central Africa, but just in case they do, I always move the French infantry from West Africa to Nigeria, rather than to French Central Africa. This might be a little bit superstitious of me, but basically, as a general rule I want to leave French territories undefended, so that they can potentially be reclaimed by my Allies, if Italy captures them.
4. Madagascar: As I said, I tend to send the destroyer to the Atlantic; I don’t find much use in keeping a large fleet in/around Suez. If the Allies can’t challenge the Italian navy in the Mediterranean, they’re best off hiding behind the canal; you only really need enough navy to fend off any planes from sniping UK transports. If there aren’t any Axis planes within range, then I just run the transports naked. What I tend to see happen in my games is that the US and UK built up around Gibraltar, and if the Italian fleet is in range of both those fleets and the Suez fleet, then the UK fleets merge up for an attack. (As I’ve mentioned in this thread: https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1696439 I know it’s popular for the UK to use their planes for a Taranto attack ASAP, but I tend not to.) I also tend not to build ships off of South Africa, aside from a transport or two – sometimes more, if I get in a position to start shuttling guys from the middle east into Greece.
5. Indochina: I think the obvious reason there isn’t a French infantry there to start the game, is because the Pacific game on its own can then easily have no French pieces, no? I think if it makes sense and/or makes the game better balanced, I don’t see any objection to adding it for the Global game. IMO that’s basically the same idea as how the Global game adds ANZAC infantry to Egypt. (I think if you wanted to represent the French in Indochina when using just the Pacific game, the obvious thing to do would be use an American infantry; they’ll be long dead before any “real” Americans show up, anyway.)
6. Mediterranean: Now, perhaps because I don’t do the Taranto raid, I see my French ships in the Mediterranean usually get wiped out on the Italian turn – so i tend to discount them from my planning. If any of them do survive, I treat it as a bonus (likewise for the Channel ship) and just try to merge them up with my other destroyer. To me, Gibraltar (SZ 91) is the obvious rallying point for the allied fleets. (edit: That being said, on the first turn I oftentimes send the UK fleets to sz 106, off of eastern Canada, to rally up and drop down a new carrier for existing fighters to land on. That way they’re well out of range of the Luftwaffe.)
7. Paris: I tend to play pretty old-school, so when I make a landing in Europe as the US, it’s generally all infantry with some planes; not that I expect France to have much to do at that point in the game, but I don’t agree that adding more French infantry for defense is the obvious move. I think if you want France sniping as much territory as they can manage when the opportunities arise (particularly if US/UK are doing can-opener type moves, for them) you might want to mix in another offensive unit, to go with your starting fighter. Generally I don’t change the default 4 inf in TripleA, but once I get France up and running, I always immediately feel like I need tanks or artillery, or else I’m just going to be sitting around defending – like France has been, all game.
8. Psychological Warfare: It depends on your opponent; if it’s someone who’s running every battle through a calculator, they’re probably not going to be fooled or have any surprises pulled on them. If you’re playing “live” and people are just eyeballing things, then sure.
9. Can-opening as France: I think the trouble is that most of the time, you’re going to (at best) be attacking with 2 infantry and a fighter. So you’re only really going to win a battle vs. 1 defender. And if you get hit back, suddenly you’re completely out of steam for basically the remainder of the game. I honestly feel it’s better to have French units as a mixed defending force, than trying to use them offensively, particularly since taking territory (even by accident) as France is a detriment to the Allies. (For example: it’s better to have the US land a 50/50 tank/inf force in Morocco, if it’s defended by a handful of French infantry + a fighter; otherwise, the US would want to go heavier on infantry and not risk exposing their tanks.) You make a valid point about opening up Tobruk for mech/tanks to break through; do you often see the UK push coming from that direction, with those types of units? I tend to see everything flowing in from Morocco.

Not location-specific, but I’m just hoping to get in touch with anyone who owns or has play-experience with this game. I own a copy myself, and am just looking for anyone knowledgeable, who would like to discuss strategies for the game – and possibly play in some electronic format or another. :)

The official site has long since gone offline, but a bit of info still exists here:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/6441/east-west-global-war-1948

@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:

The TripleA AI does not make good use of nukes and generally will not buy them. I do see that Russia has an advantage with its cheap infantry and central position.

Not sure how you would code it as such, but the Soviets should view the nuke as an anti-ship weapon; never mind just raw “TUV swing” numbers, but taking out 5 transports is way more valuable than only taking out 5 infantry.

As for the infantry cost and such, the start of rd2 typically should have the cash on hand as something like:

• USSR: 65 = 32 inf
• WE: 21 = 7 inf
• UK: 33 = 11 inf
• US: 41 = 13 inf

So already, the Soviets are ahead of the allies by 1 infantry – but that’s not taking into account that the US likely needs to put down about 4-5 new transports at the start of the game, as well as up to 3 spies for the NATO alliance, and as many as 3 more transports for the UK.

The rd1 attacks should more or less even out the units on the board (if it’s implemented in TripleA we can get an accurate accounting of TUV, but even a mock-up of the typical battle results would likely bare this out) so from rd2 onward, the USSR should be edging ahead. It isn’t even really advantageous for NATO to attack (in most cases) because unless they can take out planes or armor, or guarantee an infantry kill ratio of 3:2 or better, they’re just spinning their tires and likely weakening themselves in the overall calculus of the game.

In rd2, the USSR typically builds on their lead by taking Iran and Sweden, with Finland, Pakistan, often Afghanistan (and Switzerland, depending on the circumstances) falling in rd3. In that time, NATO might be able to counter-attack a weak West Germany position, and the US might start to land in Asia. But the alliance is most definitely behind the 8-ball from the outset.