2015 Championship Game: JDOW Axis vs Zhukov44 Allies+40

[Zhukov44]

bumping to top.

[JDOW]

Is this an official bump?

[Zhukov44]

You haven’t downloaded the file yet so making sure you saw it.

[JDOW]

ah, ok, got it. I will certainly use your last file for my next turn.

[JDOW]

Alright, the game is over, I cannot post the map but I attacked NSW with everything and took air off first, your AA hit 3/9 and I just barely won the battle. I would have required all 7 inf to survive. You had 5 air to air strike, I would have needed to win with at least 3 survivors then you had 88% with UK. So all in all a 1-5% shot or so in the end.

Congratz to the win, well played.

This was certainly not a dice game. The only battle that imo really really influenced the game big was the 99,5% attack at Java that failed in J3. I guess this would have made a huge difference in the Pacific although I am certainly aware that I had a very fortunate Yunnan attack J1.

Your strategy worked well. You made concessions against the Germans the progressed quickly in order to grab the african gold for Russia. And just in time you managed to defend Moscow against the strong German push, although Germany could have penetrated the middle east fast, Egypt held long enough, too.

These +13 for Russia made the difference to stop eco dominance by the Axis. It worked out, well done.

In hindsight I regret, that I was not bold enough in 3 occasions. The problem is, I never had to before. I could always safely drag it out so I did not know it wouldn’t work this time.

The 3 occasions were:

1. Not making a more dedicated push towards Moscow, even if its dicey. Stopping the +13 could have made the difference

2. Not taking the 72-75%ish shot at Trans Jordan with the Germans. Of course this could have been game ending if it fails, but if I do well, Moscow the Allies might get in trouble without all that extra air.

3. Not taking a risky airstrike at the US fleet when it was at sz6. I could have tried to damage your carriers in order to play for a Japanese victory.

Your move to sz6 is in my opinion the only big mistake you made in that game (knowing this is a bold statement by the one who lost). As said it could have exposed your fleet to an airstrike followed by potential VC victory. Plus I really think you did not get anything there. You lost all your amphibious units and Japan did not have to worry about DEI and just lost 11 convoy.

I believe it would have been way stronger for the Allies to just sit at Caro and continue the threat. that would have stretched Japan even more.

The fun thing is that I saw that US move into DEI coming and was preparing for this. But I somehow miscalculated. I should have had 2-3 units more and I guess you would not have moved there.

In this case I still saw chances to win a long game as I saw chances for the Germans to get South Africa and in this case the income might have stayed very close.

Anyway, enough said. Congratz again to the new 2015 league Champion, Zhukov44.

Best regards,
Tobias

[Zhukov44]

GG thx.

It was a privilege to be involved in this one.  One of those rare A&A games where it was incredibly close and tense throughout.  Usually a game breaks for one side or another, this one just wouldn’t.  Overall, your Axis play was great and you deserved to win as much as I did–setbacks like Java were just freak dice.  I’m glad we managed to play this one out without the outcome hinging on some kind of error or oversight.

I agree moving to the fleet to sz6 was an error.  I think I was kinda demoralized from losing India (which maybe could have been avoided for a bit longer if I had anticipated your naval base) and wanted to stop playing passive and provoke some kind of battle.  I considered declaring on the neutral powers to try to save India (and maybe get established in Spain) but I concluded that would just make my problems worse.

I’d like to think I’ve learned a few things about Pacific warfare in Global since this game got going–for example my USA naval unit composition had way too many ACs and not enough subs.  I tried to correct this late game but it was too late.  Overall USA needed to be way more aggressive early on in the Pacific and not devote so many fighters to Europe.  But you did everything right as Japan to frustrate the KJF… The only thing I could criticize you on was not seizing Soviet Far East territories sooner, but I don’t know if you had any units to spare for that.

I felt like the stalemate conditions on both sides of the board favored Axis (given that you were able to stockpile air while I needed to stockpile carriers) and it was up to Allies to break through.  It was an error to not combine all my fleets into one grand fleet much sooner.

Re. the big battle at Java, I didn’t expect you to attack there.  I felt like I was losing badly enough that I had no choice but to risk it and if I managed to win the battle and retain my transports I’d be in very good shape.  The battle outcome was quite devastating for Allies (prolly would have conceded if you had won with 4-5 more units), but the attempt to go for the Pacific win was just too dicey and risky with USA having so much income…it seemed like you were in better shape in Europe.

The way Europe played out was different from any game I’ve been involved in so it was totally uncharted territory.  Germany heading south with the main army gave me the opportunity to go offensive with Russia and once that ball got rolling it was super effective and was the first time Allies got some positive momentum since early in the game.

I’m on the fence as to whether trying to defend Egypt with a multi-national force is a viable strat at all…I suspect that if you had moved on Egypt with all of the mech/armor/air at your disposal you might have taken in on G8 or G9.  The Trj stack you mention was a big risk for me but I only took it cause the calc said it was in my favor TUV wise.  In the end, you brought your main army down and surprisingly I almost had enough to defend Egypt, which makes me wonder if in some circumstances it’s worth it to buy the Egy factory and extra South Africa units in anticipation of this contingency (needing to wall off Egy).

Re the bid, imho 40 is probably kinda high (though I would have preferred to be Axis even with the 40 bid) and Allies should have better than even chances at that number…  With the benefit of hindsight, my bid placement was a missed opportunity.  The Yunnan stack strat seems suboptimal with the 1 unit per territory limit and you demonstrated in this game how dicey it is to defend Russia when Russia loses its fighters J1.  Nevertheless it was very smart giving me Allies–I only entered the tourney (initially the 2014 one) because I felt I had an unstoppable Axis strat but I never had equivalent confidence or skill with Allies.  But thanks to additional games on the lobby I think I’m slowly getting there and have figured out an effective KJF strat… but it’s still very hard to pull off against an expert Axis who knows what to do in Europe.

Thanks again for your great play and sportsmanship JDOW!

[lexgreat]

very interesting reads from both perspectives.
Congratulations, 2015 Champion!

[simon33]

Small point on the Yunnan stack strat. You can put fighters on Stalingrad and Caucasus if you want so an additional fighter being deployed is enough to make the battle <50% IIRC. Although using more than half your bid for this is questionable.

[Adam514]

From an Allied point of view, you want to invite the Yunnan stack attack, or just barely dissuade Japan from going for it. Chinese fighter + extra Russian fighter instead of Chinese inf + extra Russian fighter would put the odds below 50% and be quite useful to China in the long run too.

[gamerman01]

@Zhukov44:

It was a privilege to be involved in this one.  One of those rare A&A games where it was incredibly close and tense throughout.  Usually a game breaks for one side or another, this one just wouldn’t.  Overall, your Axis play was great and you deserved to win as much as I did–setbacks like Java were just freak dice.  I’m glad we managed to play this one out without the outcome hinging on some kind of error or oversight.

Yeah!  Congratulations to both on being involved in a great game then, and congratulations to Zhukov on winning it all!!

[JDOW]

@Zhukov44:

GG thx.

It was a privilege to be involved in this one.  One of those rare A&A games where it was incredibly close and tense throughout.  Usually a game breaks for one side or another, this one just wouldn’t.  Overall, your Axis play was great and you deserved to win as much as I did–setbacks like Java were just freak dice.  I’m glad we managed to play this one out without the outcome hinging on some kind of error or oversight.

I agree moving to the fleet to sz6 was an error.  I think I was kinda demoralized from losing India (which maybe could have been avoided for a bit longer if I had anticipated your naval base) and wanted to stop playing passive and provoke some kind of battle.  I considered declaring on the neutral powers to try to save India (and maybe get established in Spain) but I concluded that would just make my problems worse.

I’d like to think I’ve learned a few things about Pacific warfare in Global since this game got going–for example my USA naval unit composition had way too many ACs and not enough subs.  I tried to correct this late game but it was too late.  Overall USA needed to be way more aggressive early on in the Pacific and not devote so many fighters to Europe.  But you did everything right as Japan to frustrate the KJF… The only thing I could criticize you on was not seizing Soviet Far East territories sooner, but I don’t know if you had any units to spare for that.

I felt like the stalemate conditions on both sides of the board favored Axis (given that you were able to stockpile air while I needed to stockpile carriers) and it was up to Allies to break through.  It was an error to not combine all my fleets into one grand fleet much sooner.

Re. the big battle at Java, I didn’t expect you to attack there.  I felt like I was losing badly enough that I had no choice but to risk it and if I managed to win the battle and retain my transports I’d be in very good shape.  The battle outcome was quite devastating for Allies (prolly would have conceded if you had won with 4-5 more units), but the attempt to go for the Pacific win was just too dicey and risky with USA having so much income…it seemed like you were in better shape in Europe.

The way Europe played out was different from any game I’ve been involved in so it was totally uncharted territory.   Germany heading south with the main army gave me the opportunity to go offensive with Russia and once that ball got rolling it was super effective and was the first time Allies got some positive momentum since early in the game.

I’m on the fence as to whether trying to defend Egypt with a multi-national force is a viable strat at all…I suspect that if you had moved on Egypt with all of the mech/armor/air at your disposal you might have taken in on G8 or G9.  The Trj stack you mention was a big risk for me but I only took it cause the calc said it was in my favor TUV wise.  In the end, you brought your main army down and surprisingly I almost had enough to defend Egypt, which makes me wonder if in some circumstances it’s worth it to buy the Egy factory and extra South Africa units in anticipation of this contingency (needing to wall off Egy).

Re the bid, imho 40 is probably kinda high (though I would have preferred to be Axis even with the 40 bid) and Allies should have better than even chances at that number…  With the benefit of hindsight, my bid placement was a missed opportunity.  The Yunnan stack strat seems suboptimal with the 1 unit per territory limit and you demonstrated in this game how dicey it is to defend Russia when Russia loses its fighters J1.  Nevertheless it was very smart giving me Allies–I only entered the tourney (initially the 2014 one) because I felt I had an unstoppable Axis strat but I never had equivalent confidence or skill with Allies.  But thanks to additional games on the lobby I think I’m slowly getting there and have figured out an effective KJF strat… but it’s still very hard to pull off against an expert Axis who knows what to do in Europe.

Thanks again for your great play and sportsmanship JDOW!

Thanks for your post, good read.

Re Yunnan I personally would only stack Yunnan with an extra fighter because I’d fear to lose all the Russian air there.
Bum especially, against top competition there is imo nothing wrong in inviting the attack, especially as you maybe wanted to create some dice variance after my very good G1.
That battle went certainly good for me.

Re Egypt: Yes, it was shocking for the Axis to see how strong your defense at Egypt could have been, that’s why I bought so many bombers with Germany. However, in Egypt you imo wisely retreated because losing there would have been worse than losing in TJ because in the latter case Germans would certainly have had just 1 tank left + air and Egypt would have held for a while.

Re invading Russia: I believe Japan did not have enough troops to do so early. Again, if Java wouldn’t have happened, Japan would have had a different momentum but on the same time, I could have said “If Yunnan would have failed, the game would have headed into a way worse direction from round 1 already”
In hindsight I should probably not have invaded Russia at all and just play on a VC victory after your fleet was at sz6.

I guess, one reason I refused to do so was, because you look very stupid if such a dicey attack does not work and I guess I did not want this to happen:D

[Omega1759]

Congrats to the Champion! The good guys have won this one. It takes tremendous strategy to beat a strong Axis player in Second Edition, tipping my hat to Zhukov44!

[gamerman01]

40 bid helps too

[StuckTojo]

Just reading the comments.  Sounds like it was a hell of a game.

Congrats to both of you for putting on a great show.  :-)

[axis-dominion]

congrats zhukov