RE sea zone 110, if you bring the BB and two subs and still lose three planes, Germany is hosed IMO.
Re J1 Yunnan attack, if this fails you are not taking India by land. It’s a major setback. Game loser? Only if you were planning to take India to win.
G1 Paris you can win the battle but the attack can still be considered to have failed if the French defense got into your tanks. Good luck taking Moscow quickly if that happens.
Marsh
Well im one of those LL players and i dont mind the uncertainty, but i dont want the extremes.
I would love to have a system that is more random the Low-Luck currently is but that guarantees that your dicerolles are in the 50% part of the bellcurve.
I’m there with you on that desire, but frankly that also is not realistic. Weird stuff happens in combat, and those extreme results on the dice account for that possibility. It is odd how in every game we see at least one result that is 1% or less likely.
Marsh
@Marshmallow:
Re J1 Yunnan attack, if this fails you are not taking India by land. It’s a major setback. Game loser? Only if you were planning to take India to win.
I will not lose a plane to take the territory and suffer no real ill effects if that happens, other than not getting to kill a couple more Chinese J2/C1. What is the problem you are talking about? If you do lose planes and still withdraw?
My issue with LL is that it changes the game balance in ways I don’t completely understand, particularly for small, air supported battles.
For example: there are 3 infantry are in a province. I know I can send just 2 units and sufficient aircraft to land 3 hits, always be successful and always take the province. Depending how important both winning and taking the province was, without low luck I might have to send 3 or 4 units. This will be especially problematic in amphibious assaults, because knowing I only need to send one transport can make a huge difference.
I think this will further tilt the game into Axis hands. Germany and Japan both have large starting air forces, take part in many small battles, and guaranteed outcomes will free up Japanese transports for other tasks. Maybe it’d even out elsewhere, but I’m just not sure what all the ripple effects will be.
I will not lose a plane to take the territory and suffer no real ill effects if that happens, other than not getting to kill a couple more Chinese J2/C1. What is the problem you are talking about? If you do lose planes and still withdraw?
Yeah, losing the plane would be a bad call. But if China gets four hits on defense, you lose four ground units and do not take the territory.
You can still take India, but you have to do it by sea, and chances are you will not be getting any overland units to help. That means that India will be biting hard into your air force to take it.
China holding Yunnan is a bad beat for Japan.
Marsh
If you build the MiC in FiC, or Malaya, or the naval base on Yunnan, more reserves can be brought up by J3, easily.
Its just another way of saying that if China gets 20th% lucky and gets 6 extra dollars C1 rather than dying by J4, Japan quits because the road wasn’t standard level easy.
I agree with you that it’s not the end of Japan’s game if the Yunnan attack fails. However, I still maintain that it delays you from taking India by a turn if UK Pacific and China are run properly. Losing that turn is very costly for Japan.
That being the case, Japan may be planning to not capture India until late in the game for some reason, so you may just not care…
Marsh
I understand the feeling of being screwed after a bad dice role. But does it not reflect what happened in the real battles? Not some, but quite a few war changers happened against all odds! Just one example is the battle of midway where Japan traded 3 carriers for 1 US carrier. I can imagine Japanese admiral blame an other: that is why you need to play low luck!
In my opinion you should be able to handle some unexpected outcome. For me that is part of the game. Even if that causes to loose in some cases. Some other time you have more luck and you win. Nothing in this world is 100% based on skill!!!
I do agree that a bad first round has a big influence on the rest of the game. Much bigger than any other round! But that is part of the dynamics of the game!
:-D The Imperial Japanese Navy actually lost or ‘traded’ 4 aircraft carriers (Akagi-Kaga-Soryu-Hiryu) to only 1 aircraft carrier for the United States Navy (Yorktown). FYI!
:-D The Imperial Japanese Navy actually lost or ‘traded’ 4 aircraft carriers (Akagi-Kaga-Soryu-Hiryu) to only 1 aircraft carrier for the United States Navy (Yorktown). FYI!
Quite. And in a 4 on 3 battle. Although the USN was reading the Japanese code and knew they were coming. They also successfully timed the attack to when a chunk of the Japanese planes where in the air on the return journey from ground pounding Midway Is.
They didn’t have many planes on Midway AIUI and some of them were level bombers - not much good against CVs.
Hmm, according to wiki, it was 127 land based aircraft and 233 carrier based aircraft on the US side vs a few more carrier based aircraft on the Japanese side. Looks the US carriers were also carrying more planes per CV.
I don’t remember the land based planes making much difference though.
Yep. I think that combat (and its subsequent depiction in movies) partially inspired the Trench Run in Star Wars. Most of the stuff in Star Wars space battle and theming seems inspired by WW2…
so we just need some special house Midway rules;
CAP Interdiction; if you attack with at least 2 tactical bombers without a fighter of your own, and the defender has at least one fighter, roll the bombers separately. If the first bomber misses, roll for the defensive fighter. If the fighter hits, remove one of the tactical bombers; the other hits the Carrier of your choice, automatically.
j/k
At work, don’t have time to read the whole thread right now but I had a thought -
Not tested, not well thought out mind you, just a thought: What if you strafe Paris with Germany and let Italy clean up on purpose? Might be a good way to let the Italians rebuild some warships after a Taranto meanwhile, if you strafe decently, Germany should be able to save the 19 IPC worth of units, maybe.
Just thinking…as I said, I really didn’t think about it overly hard, I was just pondering the option, which occurred after the OP mentioned it was 100% necessary to win with Germany round 1.
If your German attack fails, leaving only the French fighter, then Italy has at best a 75% chance of taking the territory if the UK lands everything it can get there. If France has more than a fighter there (exactly what depends on your strafe and the dice), that chance goes down considerably.
Marsh
If England lands everything there, I would almost prefer not taking Paris with Germany round 1!! This only makes strafing it better, in my opinion, because now you have a completely neutered England who won’t be any kind of threat to Europe - and no pesky aircraft racing to Moscow to help defend there.
Or am I missing something? (not that I am looking at the map right now.)
Anyone have numbers on what the likely result would be of a strafe? Assuming Fighter, armor, artillery but I don’t remember exactly what was on Paris round 1. Germany I would suspect would keep all armor and artillery that were used, maybe some of the infantry/maybe not.
Ms. Jennifer,
What you propose is how you execute the Italy Strong Strategy. Germany attacks first, killing almost everything, then Italy takes it, along with a heap of money, lots of income and all new possibilities for Italian Rage.
I do see what you are saying about intervening with UK between the Axis turns. The Italians can attack with 2 inf, 2 art, 1 armor, 2 fighters, 1 SB. Since you can bring a crazy amount of fighters (4, plus 1 Tac) to defend the French, 6 planes (also with an SB as a cas) might be an effective defense against that Italian attack.
This happened to me in a live game, and I chose not to intervene in Paris. This could have been because I didn’t see how many planes I could really bring by committing everything. Also, I may have perceived that even with the 6 ripping fighters, the Italians should probably attack anyway, just to inflict more casualties.
If UK does this, they cannot
Stop a G2 sealion
Taranto
Tobruk
Take Somalia without risk
Attack German subs with planes on UK1
So, overall, I’m thinking that this attack plan creates some risks for the Axis than it appeared to in live play. The strafe isn’t hard to execute, but leaving only a single fighter might be. I foolishly believed that somehow Paris was going to live until its turn.
If you do stack the planes, and somehow you prevent Paris from being taken, the French can bring in a bunch of stuff on their turn, and buy (???). Still, at that point, Germany will annihilate everything a turn later than usual, taking the entire UK airforce with it. It’s wasted an entire Axis turn on a failed gambit, but they still killed everything you had. This attrition can work in the Allies favor…
Overall however, the strategy is kinda flawed as well. If you make Italy rage, and if UK doesn’t commit to the defense, it can kill your fleet and forces in Africa. Then, you begin the game with a minor power having a ton of money that it might like to spend on strategic assets (ie buying a new fleet) but we’ve seen again and again that no matter how much Italy builds up in the Med, it isn’t going to be adequate after US5. Italy will grab the oil and north Africa, but German is permanently neutered by the fact it never got a threshold income to buy a stack of tanks or arty with, and so killing Moscow early is off the table.
Overall however, the strategy is kinda flawed as well. If you make Italy rage, and if UK doesn’t commit to the defense, it can kill your fleet and forces in Africa. Then, you begin the game with a minor power having a ton of money that it might like to spend on strategic assets (ie buying a new fleet) but we’ve seen again and again that no matter how much Italy builds up in the Med, it isn’t going to be adequate after US5. Italy will grab the oil and north Africa, but German is permanently neutered by the fact it never got a threshold income to buy a stack of tanks or arty with, and so killing Moscow early is off the table.
I agree with the last part of this. A few of my friends argue this same strategy idea for the Italian Rage and I gladly offer them to try it however I want the allies alone. I don’t want any false ideas that it worked but in reality it’s cause of a over passive Russian player. I am a firm believer that this strategy isn’t a good idea. Germany needs the money more then Italy does. There is ONE VC in Africa and THREE in Russia. Italy cannot gain an axis victory with German help.
@Cmdr:
If England lands everything there, I would almost prefer not taking Paris with Germany round 1!! This only makes strafing it better, in my opinion, because now you have a completely neutered England who won’t be any kind of threat to Europe - and no pesky aircraft racing to Moscow to help defend there.
Or am I missing something? (not that I am looking at the map right now.)
Yes, what you’re missing is now Germany has spent two whole turns trying to take Paris, at a disastrous cost, and there is no way that Germany can win in Europe. Russia and the UK are more than capable of constraining Germany and Italy by themselves at this point, leaving the US for a full court press in the Pacific.
In short, there is no way the Axis can win if you wait to take Paris on G2 because the UK defended it on UK1 and you failed to attack with the Italians.
Marsh
@Marshmallow:
I’ve been pondering the turn one attacks that absolutely cannot fail – i.e., if these attacks fail you should concede and start a new game. This is my list so far:
1. G1 Paris attack – yes, you can let Italy mop up, but it changes the whole dynamic of the game. Germany has lost a lot of resources and is deprive the Paris income. At best you now have to give Italy a large role in the attack on Russia which gives you a severe disadvantage because you now have to use an Italian sacrificial attack to soften up Moscow and then two-punch with Germany, and at worse you’ve lost the game.
2. G1 sea zone 110 attack – in this case, absolute success means destroying the fleet with no aircraft lost. If you leave ships alive or lose multiple aircraft, it changes the whole dynamic of the game. Is it worth a restart though? Probably not unless you lost three or more aircraft and left ships alive.
3. J1 attack on Yunnan – if your J1 attack on Yunnan fails, is it a total catastrophe? My opinion is yes. This rises to the level of “Japan will never be able to win” in my opinion.
4. C1 attack on Yunnan – if you lose this attack, India will fail on J3 with absolute certainty barring insanely fluky die rolls (by “insanely fluky” I mean “you get 12 antiaircraft hits when Japan goes in and Japan misses its entire first round of attacks”). Losing this attack is an utter disaster for the Allies.
5. UK1 sea zone 96 battle – this is so bad that when my opponents fail I ask them if they want to continue the game. The whole dynamic in the Med changes. The UK really cannot hold Egypt and secure the Middle East if this attack fails.
I’d been thinking about this too. in my experience, France needs to fall by by I1, not necessarily in G1. And I agree on the J1 & C1 attacks on Yunnan. But the others aren’t gamebreakers.
I also want to highlight a danger with looking at battles this way. If some battles become established win-or-startover battles, players might start to cut corners on those attacks, knowing that they’ll just restart the game if they fail. That’s risky to me. Yes, France is designed to fall G1, but you still have to take in enough to win it. If Germany tries to spread itself thin by attacking too many territories, the player should have to live with those consequences, just as the opponent would have to live with them if the gambit pays off.
