This might be a really stupid question, but…
As a matter of tactics, are Allied players sending the UK fleet from SZ 98 (Egypt) to SZ 93 (Southern France), after punching through SZ 96 (Malta) with planes or whatever? (It occurs to me that the cruiser at SZ 91 can also meet up there.)
…or is does the game literally come down to “Taranto or GTFO” because absolutely nothing else works?
@RogerCooper said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
I find nuking counterattack forces is best
General observation, but it seems like hitting the backline with nukes while hitting the frontline with conventional forces is the way to gradually wear the enemy down.
@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
As a side note: the NATO “at start” nuke is very impactful in the ways that are considered secondary. Removing 5 Russian infantry might be a letdown, but when you do this to the SFE industrial complex on the turn you land in Kamchatka, you ensure the Russian counterattack is less likely to succeed because they’re down five infantry and can’t move their fighters due to EMP. Finally, on the Russian turn, because the IPC value has been reduced, the Russians can only add two Russian infantries instead of four.
This typically forces the Russian player into a horrific choice. Abandon the territory leaving the fighters to be destroyed because they couldn’t move. Or fight a losing battle in SFE and die with the fighters albeit at higher NATO cost. If NATO is using the nuke in some other way, imo - it’s being used inefficiently. Full stop. The NATO nuke is for the critical territory of SFE timed when landing in Kamchatka.
As a matter of tactics, I wonder if there’s a scenario in which the Soviets can afford to abandon Eastern Siberia, and rely on counter-attacking? I know in my early days of playing, China seemed extremely fickle, and always seemed to turn away from the USSR, leaving North Korea exposed and with the Soviets unable to hide in their territory.
Really I think in order to hold off the Americans, they actually need to have a big enough force in both Eastern Siberia and Kamchatka, and to at least control South Korea (even if they can’t hold off the US from landing there) while having the Chinese in, defending the North. Most US players are hesitant to attack North Korea militarily, because if the Soviets can retake it, the Chinese just move right back in at the end of their turn. That means still needing to have a strong counter-attacking force either in Eastern Siberia or Manchuria… but maybe that makes it slightly more workable?
That all being said, I don’t know where these hypothetical Soviet reinforcements would be coming from, in time for rd3. As tempting as it is to not place a ton in the east for the first round or so (while the US navy is all tangled up) I’m getting the sense that the Soviets kind of have to.
I do enjoy discussing strategy and tactics, but I’ll try to keep my posts shorter going forward. I don’t write huge walls of text to drown anyone else out, I just actually enjoy writing :)
@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
I’ve never seen a game of E&W stagnate.
Like I said, there’s generally some nibbling around the edges, but for the majority of the game, the territory that NATO controls is essentially stable by the end of the 1st Soviet turn; the USSR creeps ahead in territory by taking neutrals.
I guess while we’re talking about neutrals, maybe it’s time to question whether paying that tax is worth it, as the USSR. For every infantry that you lose taking Finland (for example) you need to hold the territory for 2 rounds, just to break even. Sure, a 2-IPC territory will pay itself off sooner, but in a game only lasting 8 rounds (and invading neutrals only really starts on the 2nd and 3rd rounds), we might need to rethink whether the juice is worth the squeeze. The other thing is that Scandinavia in particular is so far out of position for offensive units, particularly if the biggest area of concern is holding off Kamchatka.
@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
Most TripleA players will know what board TUV is. After a stock opener as the Soviets the TUV is usually 102 IPC in favor of NATO with land/air alone
You have a point, but you’re also completely discounting the fact that NATO can only really act at 1/3rd efficiency with those units. If we have the “fruity pebbles” situation in France, the USSR typically can’t outmatch NATO’s defense, but likewise even all 3 NATO powers acting in concert can’t evict the Soviets out of West Germany, either.
(In an Axis & Allies game where each side is split between 2-3 factions, this dynamic is more balanced out. Come to think of it, this might be why the Pacific 1940 game is so tilted towards Japan, because their opponents are split into China/UK/ANZAC/US whereas the Japanese are just one unitary behemoth.)
I mentioned it earlier in the thread that the total infantry of both sides is relatively even after the Soviet opener, meaning it’s only the rd1 purchases keeping NATO ahead; after that, there’s a big drop-off for WE from their starting income. (In fact, one of the house rules I had proposed back in the day is that their rd1 income should reflect only the territories they start their turn with, but that’s another conversation.)
Off the top of my head, (after S1) typically the US has 5 fighters, UK has 3, and WE has 2 – compared to 7 for the USSR.
For tanks, it’s in the same ballpark; USSR has 12 (+3 heavies) vs. 5 for the US (one that’s stranded on Okinawa, of all places), 4 for the UK (scattered across the globe), and 2 for WE.
If there’s one obvious place where NATO is ahead, it’s bombers (5 to 1) but again, outside of naval combat I find myself mainly using them for paratrooper transport; granted, SBR can really sting the Soviets, but a bomber lost to AA basically isn’t getting replaced – so that stings pretty hard, too. I should also add that the US is essentially always at risk of losing one bomber to deliver a nuke, because ballistic missiles have such a limited range – and if you try to fire a nuke from anywhere in Europe (to get closer to the juicier Soviet targets) you’re risking a costly detonation, even if you did ship over an AA gun to do it without risking a bomber.
(Another point worth mentioning is that the ballistic missile tech works like a tonic for the USSR, because all of their coastal ICs/AA guns are basically exactly where you would want to launch a nuke from, if you’re gunning for NATO’s ships – meaning they effectively don’t require bombers for their nukes once they get the tech, unlike the US.)
So even if NATO is ahead by 102 on TUV, if 60 of that is just bombers, and another 34 of that are WE’s tanks+fighters…? I’m not sure there’s as wide a gulf as the numbers would seem to demonstrate. We’re both on record as saying that total infantry / infantry production is something we pay close attention to in E&W – I think that metric might be more telling than TUV in this game. Case in point, the USSR can be behind by ~100 in TUV and probably still be competitive, but if they’re below NATO in infantry production, their goose is cooked.
As our current game hopefully illustrates, I think there’s a case to be made that NATO needs to focus on building their logistics up in order to get all that TUV to where it actually needs to be; if this means building transports ahead of spies, that also opens a window for the USSR. Generally I think the randomness of tech and spying make for a bad balancing mechanic, but it’s not nothing at least.
I think it’s safe to say that both sides are on timers of their own. The USSR needs to come up with ways to disrupt the naval situation ASAP (as well as throughout the game) while patching up their defense enough to at least counterattack (if not repel) any/all likely invasions.
NATO on the other hand needs to make landfall before the USSR can spin up their nuke production. If the NATO fleet is bombed, the remaining transports are sitting ducks; if there isn’t another nuke in the pipeline, then sure, they can just keep on keeping on for a while – but my sense is it’s better to preserve those units by redirecting them out of range, rather than just feed them into the wood-chipper and replace them afterwards.
This is why I point to a Philippines IC as a way to keep some flow of US units into Asia if/when nukes make the Kamchatka route unsustainable. But this sort of begs the question of “if NATO loses the naval game, do they just lose? or is their 2nd-best strategy still a viable option?” Having tried non-Kamchatka strategies as the US, I’m inclined to think that the shortest/fastest supply chains for NATO are the only ones that work – so if the USSR develops a hard counter to that, then NATO just can’t win. The followup question then becomes, is 6-8 rounds enough time for the USSR to leverage nukes and defeat the navy? I think shy of them shooting way under on their opener, it should be doable.
@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
You don’t even need to buy a nuke as NATO
Correct, the US and UK instead need to add how many transports to the board, to even be viable? Compared to how many the USSR needs?
You’re trying to do the “crying poor” argument as the USSR, and it doesn’t wash because I’ve already laid the numbers out.
If the USSR “needs” 2 nukes and 2 spies to win the game, that’s 60 IPCs
If NATO needs 3 spies and at least 4 transports just to be competitive, that’s 62 IPCs already. So let’s call that a wash, for the sake of argument (maybe it’s 2 spies and 5 transports, etc.)
If the USSR is collecting 70 IPCs at the end of their 2nd turn (which, they are) that’s already putting them at 35 inf compared to a (reasonable, but generous/rounded up) 32 for all of NATO; if that trend holds, the USSR can basically afford to not purchase 3-4 infantry for 6 rounds, build 2 nukes with that money instead, and put the game out of reach – while still being at parity w/r/t ground forces.
And that’s to say nothing of the fact that after turn 2 they can likely/reasonably still boost their economy by invading:
…at a time when NATO is maybe maintaining parity in France, and often is struggling or failing to hold onto Italy.
Prior to rd3 NATO is only ever nibbling around the edges of the USSR, and at best they’re “trading” those territories – meaning both sides cash them in. The problem is that trading territories is a losing proposition for NATO, because their infantry cost so much more.
If NATO spends 2 infantry to kill 1 infantry and take a 2 IPC territory, and then the USSR spends 2 infantry to kill NATO’s 1 surviving infantry to take back the territory – guess what? We’ve both lost 6 IPCs in units for 2 IPCs in territory… but the USSR started with the territory, and also ended with the territory.
This is why the game stagnates; there’s no point for NATO to attack, unless they can either a) catch the USSR with their pants down, taking out tanks or aircraft with a nuke or paratroopers or similar, or; b) make a big enough landing that it can’t be pushed back, and also can be continually resupplied. Yes I’m talking about Kamchatka.
The problem fundamentally is that nukes are a hard-counter to anything NATO is doing involving transports, while the hard-counter for nukes is…? There isn’t one. If anything, the only counter is to be winning the game militarily/economically, which I think I’ve pretty clearly established that NATO is not the faction which is in the driver’s seat, in that regard… in addition to being at a disadvantage in spying, too!
@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
buy a spy with the pregame IPC
What’s the implied game-ender that the Soviet spy provides? Spain?
I’ve said it upthread, but I think that’s also the strong counter-point to saying, “US can go all in on the Pacific, and there’s literally no downside.”
Leaving France susceptible to that stab in the back is what makes me think the Kamchatka push is less of a sure thing. I feel like a split focus between Europe and Asia for the US is often warranted.
@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
the USSR has to blow holes in its economy to build the two needed to make something you might call a difference in the naval war.
The situation in the Pacific is really a gambit, just because the US has the option to potentially retreat up to 2 subs, out of the Soviet attacks. But like I said, I’ve often seen the US lose all of the naval units that are attacked on S1.
That leaves them with 1 bb, 1 crz, 2 CV for the Pacific (generally assuming they’ll lose the Hawaii sub in mopping things up.) If those get taken out by a nuke (even if you lose some fighter aircraft to save ships) the remaining transports are pretty vulnerable to a kamikaze-style attack. If nothing else, that would cause a player like myself to consider pivoting my navy somewhere out of fighter range (i.e. perhaps supplying India instead.)
If the Soviets get the nuke tech early enough, I know that the US can’t really afford to have their navy out of position if/when the nuke arrives – that’s why in games where that early tech happens, I’ll often just focus on the southerly route, with an IC in the Philippines.
@The_Good_Captain said in "East & West" by Imp Games - Discussion:
When NATO buys a nuke, the opportunity cost is 6 infantry and two IPC. When the Soviets buy a nuke, the opportunity cost is 10 infantry - that hurts.
I think you need to ask the question, “why would NATO buy a nuke?” because you’ve always based the entire cost/benefit analysis on how many infantry a nuke costs. Why would NATO spend 20 IPCs to kill 10 IPCs of infantry? Even with the upgraded nuke, it’s still only a break-even proposition for NATO.
I think if the USSR can pull ahead by, say 3 infantry per round over/above what NATO can put out, they can afford a nuke every 3rd round while still maintaining parity on land units. If they can get the “10 IPC free SBR” of a spy kill, that helps their economic prospects even more.
If you take the standard chunk out of NATO (Norway, West Germany, Greece, Turkey, South Korea) on rd1, they’re down to 94 IPCs (31 infantry, rounded down). If the USSR can add Sweden, Finland, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (usually doable by rd3) they’re at 69 IPCs (34 infantry, rounded down) without any contribution from China – already putting them ahead 3 infantry per turn. If NATO loses any more territory than that, they’re completely behind the 8-ball economically (never mind militarily, because that would probably mean losing/trading Italy or India, or both.) So yeah, by rd3, the US had better have put together a landing that can sustain itself; if the Soviets are able to push that back either militarily or with nukes, I don’t see a path to victory for NATO.
As for the naval units, I find I tend to burn through most US and UK subs in the first few rounds, mopping up the Soviet navies; by the time nukes start flying, I usually don’t have any/many left – and this is coming from a guy who prioritizes using the US starting nuke on navies, whenever possible. I also find the WE navy very useful, so I’m not in the habit of just parking it by the UK to soak nukes; maybe I’m too aggressive as NATO but I feel those transports are valuable in opening new fronts around the Mediterranean (and that’s probably the best assignment for the UK’s carrier, too).
It also takes the UK a long time to consolidate their ships from around the Indian ocean into either the Atlantic or Pacific, if you spend any amount of energy gathering up units from Australia, Africa, and/or putting down extra transport loads of infantry at Singapore.
That all being said, I do think it is hard to defend Kamchatka (…unless the USSR has an amazing Tokyo Drift – which seems to happen about 50% of the time). The problem is mainly that the USSR has such a low production capability in/around the region, that even having 2 rds to build up doesn’t always amount to much. And the other problem is that aside from what starts in the region, all Soviet equipment is basically 2+ rounds of movement away from being able to help out. One of the things I’ve looked at is trying to get the tanks (or infantry?) from Moscow over to East Siberia ASAP, rather than stranding them in Turkey – but 2 tanks worth of offense is basically impossible to replace, on rd1.
This is why when I gameplan as the USSR, I’m always trying to squeeze as much non-combat movement out of my S1 attacking units as possible. I look at things like, can I get a fighter into my Scandinavia attacks, instead of a tank? or even a heavy tank instead of an armor? Can I get another fighter into Turkey and use the heavy tank somewhere else? etc.
The other thing I’ve tried to hammer out is, where should the USSR be producing more infantry, to send to the far east? Having a defensive line at Turkey/Georgia/Kazakhstan and maxing out placement in those areas, while marching them eastward seems like a good idea. The problem is the USSR is so tight on cash, that they need every scrap of territory in order to be competitive; not taking Iran, and also just abandoning Turkmenistan doesn’t seem to be viable. But if you dip too far down into central Asia, those units are effectively stranded for the duration, and can’t be used elsewhere. It’s a catch-22.
Basically, I’m taking the principles of the Orient Express where units do “double duty” as both offense and defense, and trying to apply that to the Soviet’s supply chain into the far east. For example, would it make sense to be placing infantry in Orel every turn? They could be used to counter-attack landings in Karelia or Komi, but also moved to defend Moscow and then continue eastward. But is that really better than just placing as much stuff as close to the front lines as possible? It doesn’t seem to pan out that way, and it actually seems like it’s not maximizing the value of the placement rules, for the USSR.
@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:
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.
@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.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
Here’s what he said about strict neutrals (while this is about Global 1940, 90% of strict neutrals are located on the Europe map, so it mostly applies):
@AndrewAAGamer said in Violate a true neutrals?:
I ran a game recently, where I ended up declaring on the neutrals, as the Allies. The circumstances were as such:
The German counter-attack in Spain got “diced” (only managing to clear the territory but not take it) and they managed to wipe out the UK navy that took Norway – but rather than rebuild it, I had the UK put down factories in Greece, Turkey, Iraq, and (ultimately, the least-needed) Norway. Combined with shipping guys from South Africa directly to Iraq, the constant pipeline was too much, in the end.
It’s interesting how Iraq + Turkey forms a wall, insulating Africa and essentially steering any Axis attack towards India – a dead end in the corner of the board. But I had been funneling enough units into Kazakhstan, that the push into the Caucasus by the Axis never made it into the middle east.
Source: Zero loss British opener - F18 .tsvg
As the file name suggests, I also had no losses on my UK1 turn – which was mostly my standard moves, particularly in Africa and the Med.
(By the end, I was just screwing around and trying to give France territory, as I usually do.)
Re: US navy
I’ve recently keyed in on just spamming out a bunch of planes, as the allies.
One interesting thing with the US, if you’re going for a “floating bridge” to take and reinforce Greece: once you get a carrier set up in SZ92, you can move fighters from that SZ to Greece, while also having fighters from the Eastern US (with the airfield) able to reach SZ92. In this way, your carrier is always loaded, while also moving new fighters to Greece every round (once you control the territory) – taking 2 rounds to get from the Eastern US all the way to Greece.
I should also say more generally, my initial assumption about the US navy build was just to dump carriers with aircraft into SZ101, however:
The other thing is while I feel a loaded carrier is a strong defensive/deterrent piece of any naval group, it doesn’t really serve much purpose in SZ91 once the Atlantic is cleared of Axis subs/ships (and especially if there aren’t any bombers close by.) You also need a good number of destroyers for defense of any naval group, but I’m not sure a carrier is necessary for SZ97, if the idea is to be landing fighters in Greece all of the time (and maybe laying down an airfield?)
I recently tried an early battleship buy, pairing that with the starting cruiser and adding destroyers, to use as the tip of the spear going into the Mediterranean. Since you’re likely to need a few landings in Yugoslavia to wear down the Axis, the shore bombardment is nice to have – and it feels like more value than just parking a carrier there to passively defend.
So, I’ve said before that you probably want at least 2 destroyers and a loaded carrier as part of any naval group; now I’m trying to see if I can pare that down and be more efficient with how I spend and set things up. I can pretty easily get a “global domination” win as the Allies by about round 20, but I feel like I should be able to speed that up.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
1 reason why I, at least, usually avoid 109 on turn 1 is that the fighters in both London and Scotland can scramble.
Fair enough, and I wasn’t even thinking of that to be honest.
What about 106, though?
Let me write this all out, so I can gather my thoughts…
Subs:
124. can hit 111 or 109
118. can hit 106 or 109 or 111
117. can hit 106 or 109
108. can hit 106 or 109 or 110 or 91
103. can hit 106 or 109 or 110 or 91
…and then you’ve got your battleship that can hit 110 or 111
Now, from that, the obvious tactic would seem to be:
So that’s just me ballparking it without even hammering everything into a battle calculator; run 10,000 times, 2 sub vs. 1 crz, 1 trn has the defender winning 14%, whereas 2 sub vs. 1 DD, 1 trn has the defender winning 12% of the time.
The thing I think people don’t often do (in lieu of using a calculator) is just look at the number of hits you can afford to take vs. the number of dice the opponent is chucking. So in this SZ111 battle, the Brits can defend with 4 units (3 if they don’t scramble) – so it’s possible that they could hit you as many as 4 times, given 1 round of combat. If they don’t scramble, there is a 100% chance that your sub and battleship can absorb the hits from 1 round of combat, and your planes will be at 0% risk of getting hit. So, if you think they will scramble, then you need to include another sub in this attack, just to be 100% sure you’re able to retreat all of your planes after 1 round.
Including the scrambled fighter, if you calculate this battle as “retreat after 1 round” it’s like a 55%-45% (even if you send like 6 planes) but if you do it as “retreat when only air left” it’s like 5-to-1 (83%-17%); if you add another sub into the attack, it becomes 97%
So to add another sub to SZ111, we’d be pulling it out of the battle I had proposed (in 106) from SZ118
Since the 3 remaining subs can all hit SZ106 (Canada) and because I, as the British, tend to want to form up my navy in that SZ this seems like the way to go. (This is a 98% win)
This leaves the British wide open to just pile everything into “Gibastion” but it (hopefully) would disrupt the move I do, of building a carrier (or really, any navy) in Canada on UK1
Ultimately it’s a question of whether it’s better to run 2 battles that go in your favour >95% of the time, or to run 3 battles where 1/6 of the time, you lose more units than you wanted; if the losses only come in the form of your submarines, that might be worth the gamble. It’s when you start losing planes that it becomes not worth the risk. How that first round of combat goes in SZ111 determines a lot, including whether or not the scramble is used.
In East & West there’s a strategy for attacking Italy as the USSR on the first round, but it involves sending (at least) a bomber against a territory with an AA gun; so there’s always that 1/6 chance that the AA gun hits and the whole calculus is thrown out the window. I know that these are not the odds that @AndrewAAGamer would tell you to roll on, but sometimes the riskier option pays off more in the grand scheme than the safe option – sometimes the safe options still lead to inevitable failure (i.e. in an unbalanced game.) I also think it’s interesting that all of the battles I’ve calculated here fall into that roughly 1/6 failure chance, because as A&A gamers, that’s very easy for us to contextualize.
@SuperbattleshipYamato re: Taranto
My general ethos is that I’d rather the British keep their fleet intact, and back them up behind the canal. Even if the Italians take it by land, you can keep them from expanding into the Indian Ocean by sea.
The other side of it is like… I think air power is great, while navies are sort of “the cost of doing business” – so trading my planes to take out your navy is a bad exchange. I’m fine with taking the cheap/easy win of sniping the fleet at Malta, because in the grand scheme of things, I think the transport will cause more damage to me than the battleships and cruisers and whatnot.
I’ve seen some weird things, like 2 subs being sent against the British cruiser at Gibraltar and both subs being sunk. Generally I assume there will be a sub there, and a sub up near Canada; I tend to send the SZ109 fleet to Canada, along with a couple of fighters, and place a new carrier there on rd1. If there’s a damaged battleship (and sub/s) in SZ111, I’m usually inclined to attack it with the fighter from Scotland and/or the UK bomber.
Do German players usually prioritize the UK transports? The Ai always seems to leave those 2 sea zones alone; granted we’re talking subs attacking destroyers, and their planes are out of range (except the strat. bombers, but landing in Belgium would be pretty undesirable…)
To me, it also seems like it stands to reason that the Germans should prioritize hunting destroyers, just because I tend to assume that the great strength of the western allies is their air power; if you have no transports, your battleships and cruisers can’t influence land combat, and if you have no destroyers, your planes can’t target subs – it paints a picture that as “guy who has subs,” the German player should be targeting things a certain way, to play into that. Honestly though, it seems kind of moot, given how relatively short the battle of the Atlantic ends up being.
I’ve run a handful of test games recently where I’m using battleships as my main surface unit, with the US. I think it’s a strat that pays off later/in the long run, when you’re stacking landings over multiple rounds (usually in the Mediterranean.) If your floating bridge consists of 4 transport loads and you can pile on 4+ shore bombardments, it starts to add up. But honestly, on the Atlantic side, I’ve seen a British strategy of just stacking bombers and fighters and strafing down the French coast – the number of casualties inflicted is staggering compared to what the battleships are able to do. Not an unexpected result, but I think to me this just cements the utility of destroyers, in that convoy-escort role.
I’ve found that when I’m too aggressive with pushing the allied fleets east too early, the Germans still tend to kamikaze their planes into my ships – but this actually only serves to speed up their own demise. As long as I’m not losing a huge amount of transports all in one go…? I can afford to lose a loaded carrier and 2-3 surface ships, as long as I take enough of their planes down with me. In these instances (for the cost) I’d rather be defending with the extra shots I’d be getting from buying destroyers, as opposed to the higher attack rating of a battleship.
But I think it’s generally best to be cagey with your allied fleets, and build them up to a point where the Axis can’t afford to attack them. This feeds into why I generally don’t like the idea behind the Taranto raid; I know I can outspend the Italians, so it’s actually in my interest to keep my fleets strong while I do that, rather than do a move that at best amounts to “mutually assured destruction” in my estimation.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
Axis #1: The Allies have left their SZ91 fleet exposed if the Neutrals are attacked by Italy, specifically Spain, and that allows the Germans to annihilate a large Allied fleet on the cheap.
This is the circumstance I had experienced in one of my games (sort of/kind of) that I mentioned, where the Axis are basically attacking Spain as part of a broader strategy to disrupt the shuck-shuck into SZ91.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
. I’ll also mention though that when I say the UK is “cash-strapped”, I don’t mean because they spent a lot of money on industrial complexes but because having so many complexes incentivizes you to use them to the max
This makes me think of a game I had recently, where the UK got bombed a lot, early on.
Honestly, I just spent a few rounds building up navy in Canada (2 subs and 1 destroyer at a time, after a carrier buy on the 1st round) while keeping my South Africa factory humming along as usual. I often don’t end up building much in the UK until the US has a presence in the war, or at least until the Germans swing all their air power over to the USSR.
Is the Taranto raid still “in fashion” or has the conventional wisdom changed on that? I honestly find it’s better as the UK to conserve your planes and ships in the early game, and then just overwhelm the Italians through weight of numbers.
Edit: (to add)
As the UK, I find that keeping 3 transport loads full around the home island is about the most you can expect to do. Later in the game, you could maybe bump that up to 4, but with your factory output only being 10 (unlike the US having 20) you’re probably not going to put out more than 8 land units, anyway. I tend to like having “space” in my budget for a bomber, here and there – so 6-8 infantry suits me just fine.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
if America is focusing more on delivering troops to Europe directly via transports (rather than your strategy of moving through North Africa to the Eastern Front), artillery could still be valuable to provide more cost-effective firepower, since Western Europe is so dense that 2-space-movers aren’t very useful.
My general ethos as the US is to dump everything in Morocco; after that, any tanks drive towards the middle east, while any infantry then hop onto a 2nd set of transports, either landing in Greece or further up the Atlantic coast. I’m using carrier aircraft for the bulk of my offense as the US, rather than tanks (in fact I recently did a test of just spamming out carriers and fighters with no destroyers.)
The sweet spot for the “floating bridge” seems to be 4 transport loads, and I skew more towards 8 inf for that; due to using more transports to ship infantry farther, my deviations from 8 inf tend to be 2 arm+6 inf or 4 arm+4 inf, rather than mixing in odd numbers – but it really comes down to what else I’m buying, as I tend to “spend it all” most of the time.
I’ve had a couple games recently where the Axis declared war on the neutrals. Where this really causes problems for the US is that it extends the reach of Axis aircraft in France, to be able to hit the SZ west of Gibraltar; otherwise, you can usually get away with leaving transports there undefended. That being said, I’m generally of the opinion that any SZs where you’re keeping transports need at least 2 destroyers, 1 carrier, and 2 fighters.
As I’ve mentioned, I’ve recently experimented with using battleships or carriers in place of destroyers. I’d say both have their merits, although once you make landfall and have someplace to park your planes, you don’t really need more than 2ish carriers per SZ that you’re defending. It seems like you can essentially do something where you churn out fighters and leapfrog them towards the front line.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
(though not the UK-if you’re doing “Middle Earth”, where you dump a bunch of minor industrial complexes in the Middle East and Egypt and mass produce ground units and march them up to the Soviet Union, they’ll be cash-strapped enough to need artillery, and the Middle East to the Eastern Front isn’t terribly far)
I should mention here that as a general observation, I don’t build a ton of infrastructure. I’ve used the “Middle Earth” tactic of putting a factory in Persia, and it’s… fine? But as you point out, the investment cost is pretty high. What I generally do is either rotate 2 transports between South Africa and Egypt, or 3 transports in rotation to supply Eastern Persia en route to Novosibirsk. I also tend to produce a tank (in addition to whatever I’m shipping) in South Africa and drive that northward, on basically any turn that I’m not putting down a transport there.
I’ve mostly always shipped 2 infantry using this route, although I’ve recently experimented with 1 inf + 1 arm – cost doesn’t seem to be an issue, when you’re not buying multiple factories. But I still think I prefer using 2 inf.
I think a factory in Greece is handy once you get there, and it can work for either the US or the UK. A harbor in Persia works if you’re pot-committed to that tactic, but I find using the 3rd transport instead (in addition to being cheaper) gives you that flexibility to pivot towards the Med.
Other than that, I find a harbor in Norway is useful if you’re wanting to pressure Western Germany and Denmark, or resupply the USSR via the northern route (although I find this to be pretty slow-going, unless/until you slap down a factory in Finland – which gets into the issue of the USSR wanting to have those territories more than letting the other Allies take them…)
A harbor in Greece is handy because it covers multiple sea zones:
one set of transports in SZ92 swaps places with another set, either in SZ97 or SZ99, paired with additional sets of transports ferrying between the US east coast and SZ91
So in 3 turns, you can get from the US to Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, or Syria. IMO it really comes down to whether you want the US and UK to focus on this route, or on the Atlantic, or to split their focuses.
Early on, I attempted the more traditional/“Classic” tactic, of having the US march their guys up to Canada, and then ship to SZ109 to land in the UK; this might be useful to defend against a Sea Lion threat, but it takes just as long as going to Morocco/Gibraltar first, with the latter having the added benefit of putting units actually into front line action, instead of… being in Canada. This is why I’m of the opinion that the harbor in Gibraltar is possibly the only worthwhile bombing target (other than factories) although I’m also starting to come around on bombing coastal airfields, in particular Southern Italy.
@SuperbattleshipYamato said in Units, Mechanics, etc.:
Your view of mechanized infantry is mostly correct. I do think Germany isn’t as hard-pressed as you think and can afford them (and they’re an absolute must if you’re preparing a giant assault on Moscow on a specific turn).
I don’t have a lot of Axis games under my belt, but Germany feels really cash-poor, all the time. Like, maybe it’s a case of me needing to figure out how to attack every territory on my borders on the first turn to get my income up…? I find myself putting out roughly 13 units a turn (off the top of my head) and it feels like nowhere near enough to take a meaningful shot at Moscow before turn 7 or 8 – never mind having anything in reserve to fend off landings in/around France. (And I’m not even talking expensive units, just a mix of inf and mechs.) Because realistically, the USSR should be able to still crank out something like 9 inf per round, even into the first round where they’re at war – and possibly longer. That’s a pretty steep hill for Germany to climb, particularly since they’re getting comparatively no help from N.O.'s compared to the USSR, once the war kicks off.
The strain seems to be that you have to pressure the north, just to not lose Finland and Norway… But realistically, the German N.O.'s seem to be pushing you towards Volgograd/Caucasus and the middle east. I’m not sure if most allied players wait for Archangel to fall before they start sending supplies to the USSR, but I think this is actually designed/intended to dissuade the Germans from taking the northern route. Maybe it’s the case that you just have to bomb Novgorod into submission, rather than trying to attack it directly?
It does seem to me like Germany could afford to pull back even as far as leaving Poland empty, as long as they’re still sending waves through Slovakia-Hungary into Eastern Poland. If most of your production is being placed into Germany every turn, it basically makes Poland a deadzone for the USSR to even attempt taking. Again, it would depend on coming up with an answer for how to defend Norway and Finland, while maintaining a steady drive towards the southern front.
@FranceNeedsMorePower
I mean, I’m no expert in that regard. My whole ethos is “a penny saved is a penny earned.”
My general experience of playing as the western Allies in these types of games is actually about projecting a large enough force that your enemy won’t attack you; if preserving French units helps with that, then all the better.
The whole thing with the western Allies is that they need to ramp up and leverage their economies, but it’s not simply enough to out-spend your opponent; you have to actually be able to out-unit them, too.
AFAICT this sort of thinking lines up with one of the more well-considered strategy breakdowns for Global40, which I was pointed towards by more than one person:
https://www.axisandallies.org/forums/post/1397227
credit to @AndrewAAGamer for this^^^
@The-Janus said in France's role in Global 1940 SE:
I recently ran a game in TripleA where I played as the western Allies (as I often do) and was gifted a particularly strong start w/r/t my French units. So I wanted to share that game here:
best France start ever - US18.tsvg
I started another game (more of a gimmick run – battleships instead of destroyers, for the US) and somehow Germany failed to take France or Normandy-Bordeaux on G1…?
G1 fail - F22.tsvg
Turned out to be a weird game all around, because the USSR seemed to be in a fairly dominant position (obviously) yet somehow the Germans still made it into the middle east via the Caucasus. I was a lot more aggressive with my UK Mediterranean fleet than I normally am, so that cost me a few units I normally never lose; I think that slowed me down somewhat, but ultimately the Italians probably got the worst of it.
I ended up feeding France some territory towards the end, but with that in mind, I think this game is a pretty good demonstration of how I tend to protect and shepherd my French units – in case anyone wanted some pointers, for reference.
Getting back to the main topic of the thread, I’ve played a couple of games recently (in TripleA) and I’d say my opinion of the unit types has solidified even more.
For context, I want to lay out the general tactics I tend to use, as the western Allies:
That all being said, here are my opinions on the various unit types:
Artillery: I don’t see a ton of use for this unit. I think the issue lies in the split between countries that are land powers vs. sea powers. If you’re the USSR, artillery are an attractive option because you have a low income, you need some offense, but also you just need as many pieces as possible. If you’re the US or UK, tanks do all of the above, but also are more useful to put on a transport, and move better once they’re on land – and you have the budget for it, too. Hypothetically, if you were to remove artillery from the game, and increase the USSR’s income to compensate (i.e. encourage them to buy more tanks) I think they’d just opt for bigger hordes of infantry. Limitations on the amount of units that factories can produce might play into it a bit, but otherwise IPM logic would win out, I assume.
Mech. Inf.: Germany feels like they’re in the ‘mushy middle’ of needing fast-movers (for the southern front, in particular) but not really having the economy to go all-tank in that regard (the way I typically would, w/r/t fast-movers for the US or UK). OTOH, Germany has the problem of also being a land power that needs as many units on the board as possible. I get the sense that a well-executed Italian strategy will give Germany a bit more time/space to breathe, so that’s something I’ll have to get some more experience with. I think with my strategies involving resupplying the USSR via South Africa, I could probably pivot to 1 inf+1 mech instead of 2 inf…? But on the whole, I don’t really see a use case for this unit, beyond Germany and possibly the USSR (or Italy, using some leap-frog maneuvering to do can-openers.) Generally I feel like Italy is a country that needs to focus on infantry and aircraft, more than anything else.
Tanks: My overall impression is that an artillery is “a tank without the mobility” and a mech. inf. is “a tank without the offense” – if you can afford tanks, they’re always the better option than either of those other units. This is why (as I’ve said in discussion elsewhere) I’d prefer to see the artillery and mech. inf. units/roles merged into one; some countries need the offense, some need the movement, and those that can’t afford tanks need a cheaper option for whichever niche they’re looking to fill. In short, I don’t think there’s enough design space for the 4 types of land units.
Aircraft: I’ve toyed with mixing tac. bombers into my carrier fleets; they’re nice to have, but I don’t think they’re an overall necessary addition to the game. I’ve generally reverted to purely fighters as my carrier aircraft. I think bombers are really strong, particularly for the allies in softening up Germany; the +2 bombing damage as well as the US/UK ability to just stockpile planes over time is really deadly. I almost feel like the US economic boost via National Objectives needs to taper off after a few rounds. I think the bombing mechanic overall is a little undercooked; the harbor in Gibraltar is probably the only thing worth bombing, other than factories. This fuels part of the weakness of tac. bombers, at least in the European theatre; I could see this tactic being potentially stronger in the Pacific.
Cruisers: They are obsolete. A fighter is basically always a better purchase, both for naval defense and shore “bombardment.” Destroyers are weaker defensively, but not relative to the cost, and they’re better for ASW as well as just general cannon fodder. For the same cost, I’d argue a bomber is way better, offensively. I’d even argue a battleship might be a better purchase, if you can use it to soak hits while also managing to keep it repaired.
I’ve said it earlier in the thread, but I think to make cruisers viable, you’d need to rebalance them through reducing the cost significantly and/or making shore bombardment be insta-kill. I honestly think there isn’t enough “design space” in the game for two classes of middleweight surface ships. Maybe if they were merged into a single unit, but interacted with other ships differently; for example, maybe pairing them with a battleship would upgrade their shore bombardment to a 4, while pairing them with a carrier would provide the ASW mechanics of a destroyer, or pairing them with a sub would grant them sneak attack.
Submarines/Destroyers: I’d be interested to see if there are any viable Axis strategies around leaning heavily into submarines… For the allies, while I think the slight cost saving/attack boost of a few subs over a few destroyers can help with wiping out the Italians, overall the destroyers are going to have more staying power, since they’re better for the main purpose of defending transports from enemy planes. Once you’ve got command of the seas, you’ll find yourself wishing that you had some ships that could bombard, and not just all destroyers – since they’re just defensive and not pro-active, at that point. (Now I’m finding myself wondering if there might be a case for Battleships over destroyers, as the US – particularly in a strategy involving additional harbors being built by the Allies. I might try and test this out, in the future.) You of course need transports, but overall I don’t think your naval purchases need to consist of anything other than destroyers, carriers, and fighters.
Other general musings:
The convoy zone to the east of Italy is such a huge detriment. I really like the idea of a constant Italian shuck-shuck into Syria, but once the Allied navy is in the Mediterranean, the Italians are basically forced to turtle up their ships to protect their coastline. In general, I find the convoy zones to be very arbitrary and “gamey” – Like, there aren’t any convoy zones adjacent to West Germany, or Berlin? Or the English Channel? Seriously?
I wonder if there’s any value to investing in a Baltic fleet, as Germany. Thus far, I’ve tended to send infantry towards Novgorod and mech. inf. towards Rostov, as the Germans; would speeding up the northern route with transports add any lethality to their strategy?
It seems like the Italians need to go into the middle east to get any meaningful sort of economy going (i.e. via National Objectives); the catch-22 is that it’d be expensive to get the necessary navy built up, to support that. Is it something they have to gamble on early, and hope they can parlay that into successes elsewhere later on? Are they better off just stalling the allies, while focusing on supporting Germany on land vs. the USSR? Do they have the economy to really make any difference, with that strategy?
Is it worth it for the Axis to declare war on the neutrals? I feel like taking out Turkey is too big of a hill to climb, but does that route make it easier to attack the USSR, or the middle east? Would it be viable to park the Italian fleet in the Black Sea and cause havoc that way? I see the Ai do it a lot, but is it worth it for the US to gobble up South America in this situation? Is opening up Spain just too much of a weakness for the Axis to even consider it?
Places like Saudi Arabia, Spain, and French West Africa all seem like interesting spots to put harbors. In practical terms though, the existing infrastructure tends to make those options fairly moot, and I rarely see the Axis take sub-Saharan Africa. It’s actually a shorter route on land from West Africa to get to the middle east and USSR, than by going through North Africa – but the lack of a harbor effectively makes this shipping lane twice the distance from the US, compared to just landing in Morocco.
I recently ran a game in TripleA where I played as the western Allies (as I often do) and was gifted a particularly strong start w/r/t my French units. So I wanted to share that game here:
best France start ever - US18.tsvg
As the file name implies, the game ended with the USSR taking Berlin in round 18; towards the end I was sort of deliberately trying to feed France additional territories (with mixed degrees of success.)
I also was trying to funnel the lone surviving Italian infantry in east Africa into taking French Equatorial Africa, but he never did go for it ;)
