Best posts made by TheDesertFox

@surfer

When you lose Kiev. Hell you might not build it turn 1, maybe not even turn 2, but seeing as the majority of Soviet players are losing because they can’t seem to figure out that giving up the main abundance of their IPC’s to Germany so it so much so to say that an industrial complex in the Caucasus might do yah a little bit of good to beating back the Germans?

Listen man, at the end of the day, maybe it is a bad idea. Maybe the dice just weren’t with you that game or maybe your German counter part was too cunning with their tactics, bottling up and condensing your forces together doesn’t work anymore, people have tried this and it’s failed all the same, General hand grenade’s counter attacking strategy had a good run for seeming ‘impossible’ to defeat when combined with Middle Earth and that predicament died fast, leaving a Soviet Union with absolutely nothing left to bring to the table, so understand that I’m trying to think of a way to win over as the Soviet Union or at least provide some ample coverage to keep those Germans at bay, but all the same it won’t bode well for the Soviet Union either way.

Germany is just too strong. They get 70+ IPC’s on the second turn to spend on nothing but mobilized ground units to send into the Soviet Union so how could there be any hope anyway. I’ve already made a counter to the Soviet counter attacking strategy to go along with emphasizing counters to middle earth and the floating bridge, so maybe at the end of the day Moscow is just destined to fall. Personally I don’t think the Counter Attacking Strategy works. I thought it was an incredibly lame way at calling a combined Allied strategy “impossible to defeat”, and frankly nothing’s changed. The Axis still have a huge advantage in this game and even with bids it still isn’t enough. I’m typically not very fond of playing the Allies and I’m more of an Axis player so I know and understand everything that you’re saying. Even if America gets ground units into Europe, it’s 8 a turn, by turn 6 to which the Soviets are on their knees to Germany with the Middle East and North Africa crumbling to the Axis powers.

In order to really stop them, you need all 3 Allied members going after Germany. All of them. There need to be British and American troops in mainland Europe as early as turn 5 to even stop Germany or have a chance to, and even that sometimes doesn’t work.

But, in any debate, it’s important to understand the merits at which are and are not possible, and with any benefits come downsides to doing something, bottling up on Moscow is leaving Germany completely untouched as they make their way to Moscow, counter attacking is throwing your units into a counter offensive against a Germany that might be delayed, but will still roll over the Soviet Union as a whole, a factory on the Caucasus? Will just forget it because apparently prioritizing the major IPC hub of the nation is just one sacrifice too great, but that’s the game, making sacrifices and winning battles.

How exactly would you as the Russian player stop this? It’s currently R3 right now and they have a multitude of things they can do however one small blunder or one mistake can cause the downfall of the Soviets on the first turn they’ve been attacked. Any thoughts?

@barnee

Wish I had a time traveler to take us into the 1950s now that you mention it… problem solved at that point. I actually managed to figure out a solution myself that involved… well… retreating, as the Russians.

@panther

Gotcha, so it’s just a matter of whether or not you wanna lose such an expensive item.

I know it has been a rather tedious argument for both sides on whether the United States should go after Japan first or Germany first, however the more games I play and the more test runs I do I find that Japan takes precedence over Germany in a lot of the games. Granted, maybe going all in on the Pacific just to kill Japan may not be the answer however leaving Japan completely unopposed in the Pacific just doesn’t work either. I admire the idea of going after Germany and Italy as the United States however the U.S can only do that once Japan has been contained. My question to you is this: how would you go about it? How much time and resources do you invest in the Pacific, if any at all?

@superbattleshipyamato

Due to the way warfare in the Pacific works the Americans dont need that many ground units but still, Japan can threaten Honolulu and Sydney and thus threaten to win the game if America just lets them have Hawaii.

@andrewaagamer

So to give credit where credit is due, this obviously isn’t my strategy. The way that I first learned of such a strategy was from GHG. However, I’ve taken the liberty to modify it to better suit my needs in the event that I find myself playing the Allies.

The initial thought for this strategy was commit 70% to the Atlantic and 30% to the Pacific, however that I disagree with all the more. Take America’s turn 1 purchase for instance. What I typically buy on turn 1 is 2 carriers and a battleship. I’ll likely swap it and put one of each in the Pacific and opt to put the other carrier in the Atlantic. The point is, I recognize Japan’s ability to win and found a way for Japan to counter the Floating Bridge by means of taking Honolulu and Sydney.

In another test run of mine to counter Japan, I opted to initially focus my first 2-3 turns of committing my purchases nearly all to the Pacific side of the board. Make no mistake, the part that I changed about this strategy was the fact that America was idle in the Pacific. The American player at some point will have to start making headway in the Pacific and being an active threat to Japan.

Regarding the merits of how much money is being made/spent, in my test runs, Japan never got to the point where they were making 72$, and that’s all thanks to my combined British and Anzac strategy. I am someone who firmly believes in the concept of building up a British and Australian navy in the Pacific Ocean to contest Japan. Are they going to build up as big of a fleet? Absolutely not, and that’s not the ideal goal either. The goal in building a fleet is to do 2 things. #1: Contest the money islands #2: Make it a costly victory for the Japan player should he decide to try to take said navy out. I’ve seen it time and time again where the British player did nothing but turtle up on Calcutta and let Japan run wild getting all of China, the money islands, and all their national objective money for controlling the islands in the Pacific to include Honolulu. I’ve seen it, and it doesn’t work. Because like you, I know that Japan doesn’t need Calcutta to win.

Now to sum it all up, 4 transports is obviously 28$ each. Initially you won’t want to straight up by 4 transports one turn but rather split it between 2 different rounds. However, in the end you’re going to want 12 transports. After you get your 12 transports, all you have left to do is spend your money on 8 units (doesn’t matter what they are). 4 of them will obviously be infantry, and the other 4 can be whatever you want, tanks, artillery, mech, or even more infantry. 47 IPCs will be more then enough to adequately fight Japan.

@andrewaagamer

So I’ve counted out all the provinces and in order for Japan to control that much money, they need to have taken ALL of China, ALL of the money islands and ALL of Southeast Asia. That’s without Australia, Honolulu, and Russia. I’m not sure what you’re Allied player is doing to allow Japan to take over that much money but whatever they’re doing is wrong… just straight up wrong. So then my question to you is, do you seriously believe that Japan just “has the ability” to take all that money without the Allies opposing them at all? You speak as though japan has an endless amount of resources to throw into China and South Asia and India and ANZAC and Russia and the United States. The one part that I agree with is when you said that Japan has the ability to impose their will on anybody they want. These words are true in every fashion. The problem that Japan ultimately faces however is that they can’t be everywhere at once. I don’t care how good you are or how good you think you are, no player playing Japan early to mid-game has the resources and efficiency to just “be everywhere” at once. That’s how my Pacific strategy worked in the first place. I built up sizable navies that would take a heavy enough toll on the Japanese fleet enough so to allow the other Allied power to control of the sea.

Now do keep in mind, I even admitted to the fact that, yes, Floating Bridge is not viable should the Japanese threaten to win the game by taking 6 victory cities. However, if the Allies can prevent them from taking atleast 1, (which they can), then it’s a done deal. I’m not sure why this has become so apparent but I guess Allied players have just gotten too comfortable with turtling up on Yunnan and Calcutta and Sydney and Honolulu and just letting Japan take all the money and all the islands. I think you would be quite surprised at how effective the Pacific Allies can be by taking an aggressive stance in contesting certain areas. I wouldn’t have come to my conclusion that Japan can’t be everywhere at once if I hadn’t played it time and time again.

@andrewaagamer said in Was KJF really that bad?:

If you want to say that Japan cannot do everything IF the USA provides sufficient resources into the Pacific then I agree with that 100%. That has not been my argument. My point is that trying this Floating Bridge strategy would impose such a material loss for the US that they CANNOT provide enough resources into the Pacific to stop Japan.

How do you know that it will? You clearly haven’t tried it before, you’re just speculating that it could never work so where’s the credibility in your statements? I’ve tried Floating Bridge before, and it works like a charmer against Germany alongside the UK and Russia. I think you’re seriously misunderstanding how much money the U.S in reality is having to spend VS what you see on paper. How do you know that Floating Bridge prevents the Americans from being able to adequately build up in the Pacific? Once again, you haven’t tried it so you wouldn’t know. I on the other hand, have tried it. I can guarantee you I never had any problems with my Pacific military either, all the while maintaining Floating Bridge in a timely manner.

If you remove $63 from the US over the first 1-4 Turns (9 additional transports) and then $32 more, at a minimum, every Turn thereafter by Turn 8 we are talking almost 200 IPC worth of resources. There is no way the US is going to have a remotely even fleet to the Japanese down 200 IPC.

You assume that the U.S is going to straight up just pump out transports in the beginning… this is not true. In fact, you don’t start building transports until turn 3 while you bolster the Pacific Fleet and add a few ships to the Atlantic fleet as well.

Thus, by Turn 8/9/10 when Japan has taken China, India and some of Russia they will Turn towards Sydney/Hawaii and there will not be a big enough fleet there to stop them.

Again, you’re not making any headway by just speculating what might happen… play it out. Try it out. I think you’d be genuinely surprised how effective it can be. I never had any problems with Japan, in fact, some of the things I did as the U.S were instrumental in taking Japan down in my playthroughs and testruns. By turn 2, The U.S can have 3 Carriers and 2 battleships in the Pacific Ocean along with all their other smaller vessels. That’s a large enough navy to get the attention of the player playing Japan and hell, if they don’t pay it any notice then great for me, it means I’ll be able to start moving towards the Caroline Islands and then the Philliphines or move North toward Japan.

@andrewaagamer

I have used it before. I’m actually doing a test run right now based on the constraints that you’ve laid down to see if the Pacific Allies can beat a strictly Ground and Pound devoted Japan.

@andrewaagamer

So since you brought that up, let’s talk about that. I’m always for adaptability in strategies and you know just as well as I do that there’s variation to the J1. If I knew you were going to try your hand at attacking Yunnan, which let’s say in this case you are, then let me propose an alteration to you. Instead of sending 2 infantry in you send 1 to Hunan and obviously send the fighter as well so that you can devote the other infantry to Yunnan. The artillery may hit, it may not, regardless, the battle is 90% in favor to China and it doesn’t really matter either in this case if they do have the infantry left to take it or not, just removing the artillery from the board is what matters. Then it’s just a matter of moving the other infantry from Kweichow to Yunnan and putting the 4 infantry you built on your turn on Yunnan as well, giving you a total of 11 Chinese infantry plus the 2 that come from the UK giving you 13, and on top of that their 2 fighters and their tac bomber that you neglected as well… this battle has Japan at a win, but a negative trade of 5 IPCs against the combined Chinese and UK force, which may as well be a loss for you at that point if you were really willing to throw in all your planes in the name of China not holding the Burma Road…

(Edit: Sorry, I forgot as well that if you wanted to actually take Yunnan from China then that would cost you an extra 10 or 11 IPCs due to having to keep the infantry alive, so it’s actually a 10+ IPC negative trade)

@andrewaagamer

With the risk of losing a large portion of Japan’s aircraft along with it? I’d be more than happy to have Japan throw away their 2 infantry and half their air force in the name of China not getting the Burma Road.

And on another not-so-important note, typically I like to send in the fighter from Formasa down to take out the British battleship along with the cruiser and 2 Strat bombers. Personal preference whether or not someone does this but with the things dice are capable of, it’s never an impossibility to get completely screwed over in that battle and end up having to lose a strat bomber… anyway, point is, I have to land the fighter on Siam which is why I leave 1 infantry on Siam to protect the fighter but that’s just when I do it.

@Colonel-Mustard

If Im not mistaken, one round of combat must be had before the attacker gets to retreat.

Edit: Also, I just remembered, you can’t retreat from amphibious assaults

@Galendae

I find the most success shocking troops from Gibraltar into Southern France as America. Gets the troops there the fastest

@Galendae

Not to mention the fact that the Americans will be on your doorstep to retake London again and then what would you do?

@shadowhawk

Precisely. As for Norway though, I always make it a goal as the U.K to take that and Finland to strip Germany of ten whole IPC’s.

@surfer

Much appreciated Surfer. This concept always had me scratching my head and I appreciate the insight you’ve given.

As per fast movers I mainly use those to take Stalingrad since if I were to divert actual infantry and artillery it would take too long to get to Moscow and not to mention that Stalingrad is the deepest Victory City behind Soviet Lines so it would only make sense to send your airforce and fast moving units there.

Thanks again!

The Can opener concept has been pretty foggy for me, I’ve never really attempted it since it never seemed necessary but from what I know so far it seems that the Axis (German and Italy) tend to use can openers to give Germany an edge over the Soviet Union that prevents counter attack? I’m not really sure what can openers do for you as the Axis so if someone could explain this to me I would really appreciate it.

Secondly, something a certain General hand Grenade mentioned as “The British being capable of doing the reverse can opener on Germany”. Now, from what I know, in order to do a can opener you need to be in the turn sequence that goes after your enemy you want to can open, and somewhere after your turn your allies’ turn happens to be able to use the can open. So how would reverse can opening work for the British? If the British moved units in to can open for Russia Germany would counter attack since they go before the Soviet Union right?

@flyingbadger

Thats a joke you can’t tell me Japan’s mech infantry look bad when Italy be driving Fed Ex trucks for mech infantry around Africa