Posts made by UKcommander

My history teacher recently presented the idea of my group of friends creating a World Diplomacy-type simulation for another one of his classes.  There would be 25 countries, one for each student.  The scenario would take place in the present day and would involve military, economic, and governmental interaction between everyone involved.  The goal is to teach students how governments work and interact with one another.

My question is this: besides Wikipedia.org, which is a great source of information, is there any place where I can acquire current day military statistics for modern nations?  Such as the number of troops in the Canadian army including reserves, number of ships in the Royal Navy, and number of aircraft in the Royal Air Force.  WIkipedia gives this information for some nations but not for all. The simulation will be very comlex in a variety of ways and so therefore it is crucial that I acquire this information.  I would very much appreciate any information that people on this forum could give me.  Thank you.

Yeah, it just is a nuisance to have to take command of all Allied units to win a war.  Has anyone tried HOI Doomsday yet?

It is amazing to imagine just how much research had to go into the making of the game.  There are pictures and stats of over 18,000 politians and commanders just to give one example.  Axis and Allies used to have no rival in my opinion but now I’m changing my mind.

One thing that does bother me though is that when playing as one of the less powerful Allied nations (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, ect…) you are the only nation that helps France (if you choose to).  The United Kingom sits by and watches as you have to fight off the Blitzkrieg.  This forces you to have to take military control of the UK.  Firstly, that’s not very historical (a Canadian Supreme commander over the British forces?) and secondly; not only do you have to deal with the constant responsible of your own nation, you now have command of the entire British empire, and have to do a lot of clicking on those pop-up boxes.

As anyone found a remedy for this problem or ,perhaps, I’m the only one who this bothers.

Can you attack a territory and SBR it in the same turn?

NC, you make a good point.  However, your reasoning could work either way.  An Allied power without the UK is a much weaker alliance.

You pointed out that the United Kingdom cannot take WE by itself.  That may be true, but I wouldn’t be so quick to say that the United States could do it by itself either; and if they could, it would be delayed a significantly higher number of rounds than usual.

You also pointed out that the United Kingdom could not hope to defend Karelia by itself, but neither can the Russians in a fair amount of those cases.

If their was no UK presence in Africa, well; the Allies don’t want to think what would initially happen to them in that instance.

So, my point is, the Allies work as a team and cannot do well without the specialities of each country.  The UK however, is the country that most interests me because of the reasons originally stated.

Obviously my answer is going to be the United Kingdom. Previously posts mentioned the challenge of playing as Japan and Russia. but what about the challenge placed on the United Kingdom?  Their empire covers the entire globe and they must defend it against the threats of two Axis powers with limited troops.

They are constantly under the threat of SBR’s from Germany and also the that nation’s naval power (at least initially).  They also must supply near half of the total force that it will take to bring down the combined might of Japan and Germany while also dealing with the possibility of a reduced economy.

Trihero, armor is a must-need purchase for the Allies if they plan to defeat Germany.  However, if the Allies were to incorporate a strategy where the UK concentrated on armor/inf purchases and the US on the inf/art purchases, you have yourself and very diversified army and a strong one at that.  This works particularly well if you’re using the Joint Strike capability.  Once the British and Americans have established themselves (hopefully in the same round), the Allies can then choose the right time to use this ability and crush Germany with a one, two, three punch of inf, art, arm.

Virtually no offensive army can be successful without the use of armor, but I have found the inf/art build to be extremely useful with the Allies in the downfall of Germany along with a good stream of armor.

The artillery piece is a valuable unit but does have its drawbacks, such as mobility.  However, when playing as the Americans or the British, infantry and artillery are always the more valuable purchase over inf and arm because you don’t need a lot of mobility when moving from Western Europe to Germany and fighting in that theater.

The artillery piece could also be an invaluable piece to the Germans who, if playing with National Advantages, may use Fortress Europe to hold off combined Allied forces for 2-3 turns at least; allowing the Japanese to take Moscow and giving the Axis a fighting chance to win the game.

Artillery purchases for the Russians are rare because, of course, their main purchase is infantry.

You see the major downfall of the artillery piece when playing as Japan.  The Imperial Army has to move quickly and agressively against Russia to have any hope of winning the game, thereby, allowing the Japanese player little oppurtunity to invest heavily in artillery.

It would be nice if weather was incorporated into the game, but this time as a bigger factor than it was in D-Day.  For instance, one of the keys to the Allies’ success was the weather breaking after a prayer by General Patton that allowed the Allies air superiority.  Armor and infantry could be hampered by horrendous snowfall and some of the men might suffer weather related injuries.

The strategic object of the Ardennes Offensive was to push the Allies all the way back to the key port of Antwerp creating with what in all likelyhood would be a second Dunkirk.  Will that be the lone objective of the game, or will other key objectives be involved, such as the siege of Bastogne.  I know there has been a little chatter on this subject but I don’t believe the question was ever fully answered.

Besides for the paratrooper ability, are all other special abilities used as many times as need be?

Can a paratrooper use it’s ability of moving into any territory at the end of the move sequence more than one time?  To me this seems unfair especially if the Axis player moves first which would allow the paratrooper to land in a hex with an enemy tank and simply destroy it becuase it cannot fire back.  My second question is if you can use all special abilities more than once throughout the game.  Thank you for your time.

The first time I ever played was when I was in about 6th grade and the uncle of my friend introduced us to the game and didn’t have the time to teach us all of the rules so he simply told us that all the units could move 5 spaces, you put all the units that belonged to you wherever you wanted in your territory to start the game.  The game lasted probably about 4 to 5 hours considering none of us hardly even knew what we were doing.  It then took me even longer to figure out the game when I actually bought it because I was still playing by the rules taught to me  :roll:

This discussion has brought a few more things to mind.  If the Axis player can stand to last that long, what do you guys believe is the best way to move in on Japan?  I know tri and nc started discussing it a little bit.  I personally would establish IC’s with UK on Asian mainland as soon as it is obvious that Japan cannot capture them.  Then, if Russia’s economy is still low, I generally use them for SBR’s considering the time and money needed for a tran and troop buildup in the Pacific is simply too much for the Russians; unless they are in control of Berlin and the majority of Europe.  As the US I will generally start building up trannies with inf and arm with air and naval support.  If Allied naval power allows, an island hopping strategy is another good way to put a joke hold on Japan, while also eliminating any reinforcements to Tokyo.

Another question, which could quite possibly be a stupid one considering the good amount of years that I’ve played this game is, “Can a nation have negative income?”  Of course, my initial response is no but this would be an interesting house rule.  For instance, if the nation’s economy is -3, it must take away 1 inf a turn until restored.  This may give the SBR privelage even more power than it already posesses but it could be interesting to try once.

You are correct in your assumptions on the allies having the firepower but not the fodder, it’s just a matter of getting the transports and other units organized for a organized offensive.  Japan, believe it or not, split their forces between Russia and the U.S., causing the United States to have to invest in defense two turns.  We have bombed the German economy down to 0 at one point, since then it has returned to 6.  The game is essentially over it is just the annoyance of German stubborness and insane Japanese moves that are keeping the Axis forces alive.

I didn’t come up with this strategy, but I can’t remember who posted it on this forum.  It’s a basic Russian strategy for R1 which brings 3 inf, 1 figh (Kar) vs. 3 inf (Belo).  2 inf, 1 arm (Arch), 2 inf, 1 art, 1 arm (Moscow) vs. 3 inf, 1 art, 1 arm (WRus).  3 inf, 1 art, 1 arm (Cau), 2 arm, 1 figh (Moscow) vs. 3 inf, 1 art, 1 arm (Ukr).  It’s a good fundamental strategy that’s not too hard to master and starts the Russian economy and the Allies as a whole on good footing.

I played a game today where by turn 3 the German player realized that he could not break through the Russian defenses.  He then commenced to retreat all of his units to Germany and played around with the defense of WEU and SEU.  Once WEU was concurred, my allies proceeded to build up quite a large army while Germany did the same until eventually Germany’s economy was down to 0.  However, by this time the German army was at an enormous size and we have been playing for 6 and a half hours while the German commander refuses to surrender.  My question is how do u treat this player?  Would you let him continue his hopeless fight or tell him to just give up and put the board away.  Let it also be known that Japan is doing very little offensively.

Looking it over it does seem that your game is impressive.  I’ve always tried to keep up with Imp on what was going on because I really liked their East & West game, but it looks like I might have to give up on the Great War.

Just a little test of your WWII knowledge considering today is the 64th anniversary of The Day of Infamy.

What United States ship fired the first shots of WWII for the Americans?

A.  U.S.S. Arizona

B. U.S.S. San Francisco

C. U.S.S. Gibson

D. U.S.S. Ward

I’ve been on Imp for months about their Great War game, actually about 2 years.  Still, no board game.  I know they’ve been trying ,but they just aren’t having much luck.  Did you hear that they were for sure releasing it in 6 months IL?