Posts made by U-505

Drama: Godfather 2

Comedy: Caddyshack

Action: Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon

Suspense: Silence of the Lambs

Sci-Fi: The Empire Strikes Back is in a league all it’s own.

Horror: Halloween

War: Apocalypse Now

@Yanny:

Do I really seem like a Carl?

And just WTF is that supposed to mean?

DOG, I think you gave Yanny’s name to IL by mistake.

It’s too bad thinking before you post isn’t a requirement here.

I used to be a strong advocate of attacking Ukraine instead of Belo but I recently changed my mind. For 3 reasons.

1. As stated before, an unfavorable result in Belo is a minor setback. An unfavorable result in Ukraine is potentially disatrous.

2. Armor is much more valuable to Russia than it is to Germany. Germany can easily replace the Ukraine losses while Russia can’t. Forcing yourself to have to completely rebuild the Russian armored corps when you should be building infantry is just helping the Axis. As the frontlines close in around Russia, armor located in a central point, such as Cauc or Rus, can threaten many territories at once. Don’t throw away your armor early when you might be desperately needing it later in the game.

3. Most importantly, the payoff is roughly equal. After you consider the gains and losses of unit IPC value, position, and restriction of Germany’s opening turn it all ends up being about the same except Ukraine is just riskier. If you attack WR and Belo, you’re usually going to get a first round kill in WR. If you attack Ukraine and WR, you may come out ahead by winning in Ukraine but it’s mitigated by the fact that you will be allowing Germany usually 2 rounds or more of defense in WR. By attacking Ukraine, you have to count on a good WR attack with far less firepower than if you had attacked Belo. If the WR attack goes poorly, no matter what happens in Ukraine, Russia comes out on the losing end. All the benefits of having Ukraine go well can be wiped out by a round or two of good defense in WR.

Attack Belo. No matter what happens in the Belo attack you’re still in a solid defensible position. Attacking Ukraine can sometimes leave you extended and vulnerable. Let the Axis make the risky attacks. There is no reason to take the chance of shifting the balance of power in Europe to the Axis before Germany even gets it’s first turn.

Mark my words, SG-1 is going to end it’s run going down in flames screaming toward a Texas-sized propane tank.

It doesn’t matter if they are planning on cancelling the show because Ben Browder is going to ruin SG-1 like he ruined Farscape. Farscape was the coolest, most original sci-fi show I had seen in a long time until it became the Crichton and Aeryn romancing the wormhole garbage it turned into.

Although Claudia Black is drop dead sexy in a drop dead sexy sort of way. I want her to call me up and talk dirty to me in that sexy Aussie voice of hers. Although I think Daniel Jackson is by far the best character on that show.

I’d watch more Atlantis but between My Name is Earl, Miami Vice on Sleuth channel, and just about everything on the History and Science channels my DVR has a backlog of about 30 hours of TV I need to watch.

I’m in. I’d rather just go by won/lost record with no limits, though. I want to be in the National League, Central Division. Bears all the way.

Actually the answer to question 3 is: yes. A sub may move through ANY sea zone during non-combat as long as the sea zone doesn’t contain a destroyer and it doesn’t end it’s move in a sea zone with enemy ships. So, yes, it may sail under another sub during non-combat.

My friend calls him “rottenburger”. Maybe Bengals fans should chip in and get him a new motorcycle before the season starts.  :evil:

And at least the Bengals have a good reason for losing in the playoffs. Palmer was injured in the first quarter. As a Bears fan, I had to wait 2 weeks for them to play a team that had Steve Smith as the only legitimate scoring threat and he gained over 200 yards and scored 2 TD’s because the Bears couldn’t be bothered with double teaming him. What in God’s name was Lovie Smith thinking?!! And to top it off, they go and draft mostly defense again this year. I love defense, but all I can look forward to again this year is one-sided football and an early exit from the playoffs.

I tried to divorce myself from reality. Does that count? I’m all better now though. The medication seems to be working.  :-P  :lol: And I’m still single but I did all of my heavy drinking in my mid 20’s. Now it gives me heartburn something fierce. And when exactly will I arrive at the getting laid nightly part again. Been a while since those days, too.

Sorry about hijacking your thread with the Japanese dilemma, Tri. But, never underestimate the power of 4 transports to deter the US from going into the Pacific.

I would say the most important decision in your life is when you decide what kind of person you are or will be. There are probably going to be multiple times in your life when you will have the opportunity to take advantage of a complete stranger and at other times to help one. What you do in situations like those define you. Where you live, what job you decide to do, how much money you make are irrelevant. Marriage and children are big decisions, but know yourself first.

The second most important decision is whether to buy 4 TP’s or 2 TP’s and an IC with your $32 on J1.

The problem is that the most important factor in these cases is that a game turn consists of many months and the size of the territory your units are operating in. If you want to look at it in a semi-realistic way then that is what you have to take into account.

When you lose a fighter, for example, it can be assumed that, over the course of those many months, that it has taken many losses due to a variety of factors such as AA fire, mechanical failures, resupply interdiction, sabotage, and loss of competent pilots. You don’t lose 1500 fighters in one day but you have lost enough aircraft over time that it ceases to be an effective fighting force and that the surviving aircraft and men have been reorganized into other units to replentish their losses.

The same goes for ground and naval units. A naval battle takes hours not months and an inferior force isn’t going to stick around to be decimated either. The way you have to look at it is that the larger force is making opportunistic attacks over time to inflict more casualties, by attrition, that it takes.

As far as I’m concerned the game is balanced to within a unit here or there and a couple IPC’s. If you want more realism you need to make an entirely new game. It would take a larger map, more territories, resource and supply chains, naval and air bases, unit limits per turn and a new combat system.

I can’t say how many times I have seen a US fleet operating deep into the Japanese controlled South Pacific when the closest base is Hawaii or German units in Southern Africa when the Allies control North Africa. In both of those cases those units would be under heavy amounts of resupply interdiction and should be a lot less effective than their numbers or combat ability would indicate.

I’m with Trihero on this one. I go with the retaking of Egypt. My policy is to also bring the UK bomber. Make Germany work for Africa’s IPC’s.

You guys were discussing what to do with the bomber afterward. My plan following that attack is to package the bomber and fighter together and land them in Congo. Germany will need at least 2 fighters and a bomber in Libya for them to have a significant advantage. If it comes down to having only 1 unit left after the Egypt attack then I lose the bomber because the fighter can land out of range of Germany’s ability to kill it which is exactly what happened in my game against jsp last time I did it.

The attack on the Japanese sub and landing in sz52 is also a good move. It reinforces the idea that, as Japan, you either come strong to sz52 or you don’t come at all. Anything short of overkill there is just asking for trouble.

AAR modified the “heavy bomber” problem so they don’t roll 3 dice anymore. Out of the box rules limits them to 2 dice and the LHTR limited them even further to 2 dice and pick the best result of the 2 rolls. Don’t get fooled into thinking heavy bombers are the game changers they were in Classic.

The problem with a turn 2 UK attack on the Baltic fleet is that the UK won’t have enough navy built to prevent heavy casuatlies. And the secondary feature of the Baltic fleet is that if the UK gets within range of it on UK1 in preparation of a UK2 attack is that the UK navy is within range of not only the Baltic navy but also the entire German air force as well so a G2 preemptive strike is likely to occur.

@trihero:

I didn’t mean to sound mean, U-505. I too think the full canadian shield is a one trick pony, I was just pointing out that your argument that it was spending too many IPCs on navy wasn’t well-founded.  :lol:

And before you attack Crazy Straw on the grounds that he has very few posts, remember that he is MarvinMartian of Caspian Sub, the most vocal and probably most pivotal of the CSub editors/players. He taught me just about everything I know in 3 quick, humiliating defeats close to a year ago. He’s like Yoda or Bruce Lee and I’m hairbrained Luke running around or Jackie Chan  :-P

I think even though the Canadian Shield paper might not be that useful to KGF players, it is a very important staging ground for managing the German navy in general. It opens up a lot of thought about what you can do with your German navy, and how a 2 transport buy can be an alternative to the normal carrier buy.

Oh yeah. Certainly you must have a good reason for doing a large German naval build. I was just defending my position for my CV/TP build as opposed to the Baltic buy.

I believe Crazystraw and I are past that. I don’t doubt Crazystraw’s abilities at all. I’ve seen some pretty good stuff batted around Caspian Sub, but I just thought Canadian Shield was easy to recognize coming. I took our exchange personally and that’s a weakness with this game. I have to work on that certainly. Clear heads always prevail in A&A.

In a KJF game it would work much better, yes. But, the UK player would almost have to be bullheaded to purchase an IC with 4-5 German TP’s in the Atlantic. That’s a lesson in Capital defense right there.

The biggest concern I have is that a Baltic TP buy almost forces you to make the fleet consolidation in sz7. Depending on how many units would be needed to defend UK against a landing, a large UK1 air build would likely make short work of the Baltic fleet and if the German fleet merged in sz7, it might be worthwhile for the Allies to do a couple strafe attacks while the German navy is making the Channel Dash. It is situational, for sure, but I would never make a UK1 IC purchase if I saw a German TP build. I’m not sure if I would ever make an IC build. But, the GenCon and Origins tourneys definitely add a wrinkle with their point system for winning.

Darth, Jennifer,

If the threat of combined landings makes you squeamish then, building armor in W US and inf in E US both to be moved into E Can won’t delay you at all. And it allows you to move the armor directly to E US in case the landings happen and you need to fortify the E US at the expense of W US.

Crazystraw, I will even give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the landings somehow happen. The US/UK combined fleet can crush the German fleet in sz9, the UK rebuilds TP’s, and begins landing in E Can to help keep Japan bottled up in W US. The UK army won’t be needed in Europe because Germany will have it’s hands full facing a Russia that likely has more units, more income, and is trading E Eur and Balk every turn. Don’t forget, Germany spent most of it’s income on TP’s in G1 and the Canadian Shield attack means 5 inf, 5 arm have just left W Eur for Canada. What does Germany have left to fight off the Russians? The fighter’s certainly. But, if Russia manages to somehow get into Balkans in force Germany would be in trouble.

Also, Japan will be spending the bulk of it’s new income just trying to hold onto the W US so Russia could probably bleed off a couple units and hold them off in Asia.

I will asses the other possible uses for the aborted Shield in another post, but for now, I have to say I neither enjoy nor desire slinging sarcasm at anyone and it is a welcome relief to finally get into the non-partisan portion of the debate. I wave the white flag of truce.

And I have used the Partial Shield without knowing it with japan versus Trihero to turn the US back from landing in Africa with mixed results. The US was delayed but it left me lean in  ground units in Asia.

@CrazyStraw:

Frankly, when it is so clear you haven’t really read the paper, why would I spend time debating you?  If you were serious, you would at least look at the original document rather than dismissing it like you know what you’re talking about.

I enjoy a good debate.  But you’re just beligerent.

As for playing a game, sure.  GenCon is in a couple weeks and at least two CSub teams will be there.  Show up and let’s see what you can do.

I don’t plan on replying to this unless something substantial comes up.  So the last word is yours.  I’m sure you’ll use it well.

Adios.

Actually, I was being sarcastic, not belligerent. Two posts from you insulting my intelligence aren’t even close to making me belligerent. Although, it is more than enough to make me sarcastic. You see, I happen to know the difference between being sarcastic and being belligerent.

Why do you persist in your false assumptions that I haven’t read the Paper on the Canadian Shield?

Let me enlighten you. I have been a member of Caspian Sub for about a year now. The posts get sent to this e-mail address. I have the Canadian Shield paper in pdf form and I have read it more than once. And I even double checked it to make sure I was correct in my assessment of the buys, moves and unit placement. How else would I have known about the armor in WE, the fleet in sz7, or the TP buys on G1?

And I love the part about you replying to this unless something substantial comes up. Your posts have been insubstantial. They have been nothing but insults about my knowledge, while the bulk of my posts have analyzed the gambit in detail. Apparently an insubstantial post involves having an opposing opinion to yours.

Trihero is the only other Caspian Sub member that I know plays here, and while I respect his intellect and gameplay, it’s really hard for me to take you seriously when you have a grand total of 27 posts on this board consisting of: 2 insulting posts toward an ACTIVE member of this board and 25 advertisements about how great Caspian Sub is.

I thank you for your generous offer to go to GenCon and would like to say that if the Caspian sub group would chip in and pay for my flight, hotel and rental car to go to GenCon, I would be more than happy to pay for them to sign up here and actually prove the merits of their strategies by playing games at this board.  :-D

So that this post comply’s with the flavor of this thread, I will respond to Trihero’s statement. Much more substance in Tri’s post.
@trihero:

I don’t think you understand, U-505, that it is recommended to buy only 2 transports against experienced players. That is exactly the same amount you spend on 1 carrier. Even if you buy 3 transports, that is the same amount of money that you like to spend on your carrier/transport in the Med. You are hardly spending yourself into a hole compared to other naval buys.

Tri, trust me, I do understand. The G1 purchase for Canadian Shield is 3 TP, 2 inf, 2 arm. A 2 TP build is only effective versus a UK1 air attack and after that it becomes a lot less useful than a CV build. The allies can have more than enough navy in sz8 to make a naval/air attack from sz7 simply a fleet trade. The Allies rebuild and Germany is out of Africa for good.

And come on, man. Throw me a bone, here. Canadian Shield is nothing but a one-trick pony. You gotta admit that the gambit relies heavily on the bid to ensure that an attack on Egypt is manageable. The fleet merge in sz7 leaves Africa to easily fall. And the worst part is that he needs max fighters in WE to make the threat stick and keep the Allies at bay. Otherwise, the Allies can just strafe the TP’s out from under him and put the gambit out of business without having to worry about about a German counter attack. Or, like I said, the UK can just build a sub in sz7 and then he can’t load units so it’s easily countered. And with 5 armor and the bulk of his fighters in WE, the Russians are coming hard with lighter than normal resistance by Germany in Europe. Canadian Shield takes 2 turns to set up and 1 turn to execute. A lot can go wrong in between.

My CV/TP Med build is not without it’s shortcomings but at least I control Africa and that makes up for Russian and UK gains in Europe. Plus, I have the flexibility to shuttle units through T-J or back to Europe to threaten the Russian advance with frontline landings and BB shots.

@CrazyStraw:

@U-505:

Jennifer, don’t bother with the Canadian Shield strategy. It’s basically a one-trick pony that won’t work on anyone twice and an astute US player will be able to prepare for it.

Yipes! That was a masterful demonstration that you do not understand the move.

As the paper mentions repeatedly, A) you don’t have to land the killer blow to get value out of the setup, B) you don’t do it in all situations, and C) if you are playing a good transport game, the setup won’t be a deviation from your normal pattern.

But other than that, you have fully understood the gambit.  :roll:

A) And if you don’t land the killing blow, what value will you get out of the setup with 5 armor in Western Europe and 3 purchased transports on G1? Perhaps an angry bird flip across the channel at the UK. I’m sure the Russians are getting plenty of value from that setup. If you assume value from that setup means the UK/US won’t be able to land in Europe for 3 or 4 turns, that they will have to purchase more navy than usual, or bulk up their ground forces before they have enough transports to move them from their staging points, then yes, that is value. But it is offset by the fact that Germany has made little or no gain in Africa beyond Egypt, Germany bought a bunch of transports that are costly and largely useless when a Baltic CV buy is cheaper and works better on defense, and 5 armor are sitting in Western Europe for at least 2 turns when they could be on the Russian front.

B) Exactly what situations you avoid using it in must be so insignificant as to not be worth mentioning in the paper or in your post, apparently.

C) What good transport game? With Germany? Japan always has a transport game. For Germany, it seems to be a very large deviation from any normal pattern I’ve ever seen. And where are the Germans going to transport anything if the gambit fails, anyway? Back toward Russia likely. Where they should have been from the beginning. Or maybe Africa. Germany should have made some gains there by G6.

There, have I even begun to slightly understand or am I missing a great deal of the subtle parts of the gambit?  :|

I notice you only quoted the first two sentences and didn’t bother to dissect the rest of the post. Perhaps I understood more of the Canadian Shield one-trick pony than you were willing to give me credit for.  :-o

Tell you what. When I am done with the 2 on 2 Tourney here, maybe Caspian sub can send one of their weaker players to this board to challenge my Allies, display all of the merits of the Canadian Shield gambit, and crush me. I’ll even play low luck so I can’t whine about getting worked over by the dice-roller.

@jsp4563:

After the results of my J1 turn in the tournment, I’m gonna say Japan. :evil:

After seeing your J1 results in the Tourney, I’m gonna say Japan, too.  :-D

@Jennifer:

I’d like more details on the Canadian Shield.  It might be interesting to try one day.

Jennifer, don’t bother with the Canadian Shield strategy. It’s basically a one-trick pony that won’t work on anyone twice and an astute US player will be able to prepare for it. It just costs a lot of axis money for a 1 shot deal that, should it fail, puts the axis into a big hole.
I’ve never seen it in action, however. But, it looks to me that the UK/US basically have to let it happen for it to work. It also requires a large group of armor to be stationed in Western Europe for the landings so that is a pretty good indicator. And the Russians should be making good progress in Europe because of all that hardware in Western europe and a ton of German money being spent on TP’s.

The easiest way to defeat it is for the UK to build a sub in sz7 on UK2. The german fleet won’t be able to load their transports in a hostile sea zone and a 1 turn delay means the UK/US should have enough naval units to crush the German fleet after that.

@Jennifer:

Exactly, and it works in reverse too. If America starts buying bombers (or may the makers forbid it, heavy bombers) to support aerial sorties over Japanese fleets you could see your carriers sinking quickly leaving you with nothing but land based aircraft.

3 CVs, 6 FIGs, 6 TRNs, 2 BB vs 6 HBs, 6 FIGS, 6 SS’s and I’m showing a 92.5% chance of American success with no defenders left.

Jap IPC Loss: 204 IPC
US IPC Loss: 108 IPC

And you don’t even need Allied CVs for that attack. So that’s a huge reduction in cost, though I’d stilk get them because the plan is to take away the islands reducing Japan’s income AND bolstering US income.

Wait a minute. Of course you need to build allied CV’s for that attack. Where are your 6 fighters going to land for this attack? And do you think Japan is going to let you move 6 subs within range of it’s fleet without crushing them with aircraft? The only naval units the US has in the Pacific after a Hawaii attack is 1 BB, 1 DD, 1 TP. Is that enough to protect your subs from a Japanese first strike? Not really. You also have to add a DD, and a sub to Japan’s forces unless they are destroyed in J1. And to get the 3rd CV in the Japanese fleet you listed it will only cost 16 IPC’s. On the other hand, to get the US forces you listed it will cost 75 IPC’s,(5 bmb) plus 30 IPC’s (3 fig), plus 48 IPC’s (6 SS), for a grand total of 153 IPC’s. That’s 4 full turns of US production not including another turn of production to roll for heavy bombers. Japan could buy 1 SS per turn plus a CV somewhere along the way and still have between 20-25 IPC’s per turn to land units in Asia.