Posts made by Xandax

@jim010:

You aren’t showing that the US alone is the problem or that altering it is the only solution. The US should be able to tip the scales either way it goes. However, if it goes all out on one side, that should let the Axis on the other side win. And that does happen now if the US goes 100% Europe. It does not happen when the US goes 100% Pacific. That’s the problem. Strengthen Italy, weaken Russia, whatever as long as lack of US intervention allows Axis Europe to win.

Agreed.  If with the absence of the US in Europe, the Axis still can’t take Russia, then making the US spend $ there will only make it that much worse.

They can take Russia, even if Russia does nothing but turtle. They just can’t do it fast enough for some people - meaning before USA have contained Japan enough in the pacific that they can focus with near 100% in Atlantic and let the Allies in the Pacific mob up. Remember, USA do not have to take Japan to contain them.

Yes, 1 AA can roll a die for each attacking airplane attacking units in the zone. Roll of 1 hits the plane.

@Kobu:

@Xandax:

Germany will take Russia and England if USA stays out of the European board, baring bad dice.
The problem is that they rarely can do it fast enough when the USA is dumping near 100% into one side of the board until the enemy there is contained. And you do not “fix” the game by making it faster.
Therefore - the issue is USA being able to go effectively 2 countries (US Pac/US Eur) into one side with no real penalty.

You aren’t showing that the US alone is the problem or that altering it is the only solution. The US should be able to tip the scales either way it goes. However, if it goes all out on one side, that should let the Axis on the other side win. And that does happen now if the US goes 100% Europe. It does not happen when the US goes 100% Pacific. That’s the problem. Strengthen Italy, weaken Russia, whatever as long as lack of US intervention allows Axis Europe to win.

If you weaken Russia or strengthen Italy, you’re removing the Sealion strategy because then killing off Russia will be too easy. That would make the game shorter, and remove strategies which IMO will harm the overall replayablilty of the game.
I’d much rather encourage the US to have to spend time and resources on both sides of the board instead by tweaking what appears to be the problem, rather than trying to fix the symptom.
And the problem is that 2 USA nations can go into one side of the board without much penalty.

@Kobu:

I don’t know about that. I think the problem more is that when the US goes strong in the Pacific, Germany and Italy still can’t win the game the large majority of the time. All it takes for the European Axis to fail is for Moscow to hold or UK to control Egypt or France. These are not hard objectives to achieve while the US mops up Japan. Any solution that tips the power to Germany and Italy when the US stays out of Europe is going to be better than what we have.

Germany will take Russia and England if USA stays out of the European board, baring bad dice.
The problem is that they rarely can do it fast enough when the USA is dumping near 100% into one side of the board until the enemy there is contained. And you do not “fix” the game by making it faster.
Therefore - the issue is USA being able to go effectively 2 countries (US Pac/US Eur) into one side with no real penalty.

@Gargantua:

You can blitz Pro Neutrals like any other territory.  They are enemy controlled, and if they have no units in them, consider them yours.

Only if they’ve previously have activated the standing army (and it had an army) in it. And then it is a non-combat move and you must stop when entering.

@special:

Wasn’t the USA mostly going 100% Pacific these days?  :-D

While I understand the tone of your statement - then….
One of the benefits of the (successful) Sealion is that you’re likely to pull the USA out of the pacific and into the Atlantic. And if the USA sees the potential for a successful Sealion, perhaps even get them to not go 100% Pacific to begin with.

Taking London is not a flaw - least of all Major - it’s a strategy.
It’s not a given, but can be a very good move.

I prefer a G2 or G3 myself if attempting it. G2 if things goes well for me in G1, G3 if not.

3. Can a tank blitz through an enemy’s neutral territory if the territory has no unts in it?

If the neutral country have been activated on a previous turn and there are no longer any enemy units present in it, you can blitz through it. At that time it functions as enemy land. The key here is activated and no enemy units remaining.

You can’t activate friendly neutrals this way, activation of them can only happen in non-combat and ends your movement.
You can’t blitz through a non-activated enemy neutral or true-neutral territory. Entering them in the combat phase is activating the units present there and therefore stops your movement.

Units loaded in combat movement phase must be unloaded for combat. So no.

@Cmdr:

I have, on occasion, purchased an extra 3 carriers.  The issue comes in that you only have a finite number of aircraft and if they are all on your carriers, what do you have to fight with in China, India and Russia?

Plus then you’ll have a harder time replace the losses than the enemy because you can’t take as much land and hold it.

@knp7765:

<snip>However, if we end up forcing USA to split their involvement over both theaters, which seems to me to be a losing proposition nearly every time, aren’t you then imbalancing the game toward the Axis?</snip>

I don’t think it is a loosing proposition nearly every time, so I disagree with your premise.
It’s a game opener more than anything else. Remember originally - the stand alone games were balanced with a half USA in each. If you then combine the boards and throw the USA into one side of the conflict, you’re effectively putting two countries into one side. And the other allies basically just need to avoid loosing, and the game is won. India doesn’t need to win the game, they just need to not loose. Russia doesn’t need to win, they just need to slow down the axis enough. And so on.

I don’t see many other viable choices to a balancing act upon USA to be frank.
By buffing/nerfing the other axis/allies you’re effectively removing strategy and closing options by making alternatives too easy. If it becomes easier to take Russia by Germany/Italy for example - nobody will go Sealion. Strategy removed and game made more narrow.
By giving USA a clear incentive to split attention somewhat (I’m not saying 50/50 product limit or something) you open up the game and provide the chance for more strategies. If the USA can’t dump 2 battleships, 1 crusier and plans into the Pacific each round at war without loosing something on the Atlantic side - it will provide more possible strategies for the game overall.
A clear benefit as I see it.

Tweaking the USA is a win/win in my opinion. It makes the game more balanced and it will provide more choice for how to play. All other options as I see it might balance the game, but will remove choices.

@knp7765:

<snip>So, in my estimation, the best way for the Allies to win is for USA to go one way or the other.  If USA tries to split between theaters, they won’t have enough to fight each of the Axis in those theaters and will keep getting beat down.  At the very least, they simply won’t build enough to really make a difference – like liberating UK or France or taking out Italy in Europe, or defeating the japanese navy in the Pacific.</snip>

That is why some of us would like to see some sort of balancing act for Alpha+3 that “encourages” the USA to split more between the two sides, instead of just promoting a near 100% involvement on either side of the board to begin with.

@knp7765:

I know, it sounds silly.  However, in one game we played where the Allies won, USA liberated France as well as Normandy and S. France.  The Italians never really built up much steam in Africa so they had most of their colonies there so they were making somewhat decent money.  France bought some tanks, art and men.  Meanwhile, Germany was struggling desperately.  Both the US and UK threw invasions at Western Germany and were repulsed, although with a good number of German casualties.  Who ended up taking W Germany?  France.
Although, since US and UK went before France, they didn’t have a lot left to hold it and Germany took it back next round.  The damage was done though.  The IC was reduced to a Minor and Germany was getting spread thinner and thinner.  I’m just saying that France, once liberated, could be a factor in the game depending on how things are going.

So in other words …. after the French were liberated by the UK/USA and the UK/USA removed the Germany troops … then France was a factor? Heck - then anybody would be a factor in that situation  :evil:

I find that Japan have an easier time taking over Asia than Germany/Italy have over Europe.
Therefore it IMO makes most sense to curb Japan first, and then focus on Germany once Japan have been contained enough that they can’t roll over Asia.
Just my experience.

@Commando:

You would have to wait till the next turn. You can build in a territory that you just took that turn, either via combat or non-combat. That includes building IC’s.

I think your “can” should have been a “can’t”.

@Young:

Looks like there are some page allignment issues due to windows not reading my Mac fonts. I may need to change the funky Impact font from the downloadable Pacific rulebook to some thing more universal (to bad because it was a very cool font). how does it look to you guys?

Convert it to PDF or some other similar format, to avoid font issues.

@mikemikemike:

Is there any rule that prevents Russia from joining the Axis?  That is, could Russia declare war on the Allies?

What if Russia stays Neutral the whole game?  Just builds up technology or something like that… and the Allies lose the game.  Would Russia’s player be considered an Ally nation that ‘lost’?

MP in Kuwait

The core of the game is that Russia is allied. There’s nothing to hinder that they stay neutral all the time if you want to play them that way, but if Allies loose, Russia looses.

As suggested by the poster above, you can make house rules yourself that declare them on the Axis side. You can make anything you want. But “out of the box” - they’re Allies.

@GoSanchez6:

<snip>. On another note I am laughing at these posts a little because when the game came out so many shouting for Alpha 3 were saying Germany could take London and still have plenty of money to fend off the Russians. What Happened?</snip>

They found out that while they could fend off the Russians, they didn’t stand much chance against a combined Pac/EU USA economy dumped into one side of the board on top of it.

@Dylan:

What will Germany do about the Russians?

Defend at first, but once the US is taken, kick them out of Europe. If the US goes down (early), it should pretty much only be a matter of time.

@Dylan:

Also who’s not to say that the British won’t build submarines so fighters can’t attack them?

Destroyers make planes able to attack subs.

@Dylan:

Who knows if the German air force can handle the whole British navy anyways?

Nobody, but that does not mean you can’t try to plan something unexpected in this game. And a G3/G4 run into US mainland is unexpected. If you can hide intentions well enough.

I’m unsure whether it will work - but I too have started crafting up G3/G4 invasion plans for the next time I’ll play Axis in Global (some time away as next time’s my turn to be Allied).
It is a gamble, but if it pays off, it can have a huge effect. But if you do not take it, the game is pretty much lost as you’re pushed into the defensive in both Europe and Pac and that’s where the Axis don’t want to be.

I suspect I can get a couple of Italian transports along for the ride if timing it correct for a double push, but I need to run some permutations of opening rounds before drafting up my attack plan.