Safe Russia strategy

[taamvan]

I wasn’t really trying to taunt you, oytello, but rather offer something important up

I have noticed that exploiting your opponents (mis)conceptions or idiosyncrasies is a very important part of winning.  I have talked with people who say

1. I don’t SBR, ever
2. I don’t intercept, ever
3. I don’t bid, ever
4. I don’t build MiC in X place
5. I prefer KGF/KJG
6. I only play (one team)

etc. and I have found that once you know your opponents preferences, it can dramatically alter your play because you can tailor your predictions to his predilections.    If he HATES SBR, you don’t need to leave planes protecting your factories.  Some people even say “We don’t play with SBR (or something else) because that’s broken”;  if that were somehow true, it gives a big advantage to the Russians and UK (as bombing out the Russians/London/India is crippling);  the rules permit SBR whether any given player likes it or thinks its a good idea or not.  As a further example, if you don’t personally do SBR, or think it is worth it, then the Axis is weaker (because they have lost a tool that they can normally exploit simply because you don’t like it), so that would make me tend to want to play the allies (since I will SBR with either team).

So, know your opponent, its the path to victory. (sez Sun Tzu).

[taamvan]

another example would someone who says “I always/never invade Russia with Japan”…if they tell you that, you’ll know exactly what you need to do to protect that region (in some cases, if they wont cross an invisible border NO MATTER WHAT; leave nothing behind).

[theROCmonster]

I think you are talking about weak opponents Taamvan. A good player doesn’t use the term “never” when describing how they play. You have to be malleable and adjust your play according to what your opponent does. Most of the time there are good moves and bad moves, and if your opponent leaves themselves open to be exploited than you exploit them regardless of the fact that in most games a good opponent won’t allow you that option.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

I have never seen a good League player pass up an easy opportunity to bomb Moscow or other critical factory if left unprotected.  You risk losing 12/6 =2 PUs for an average return of 5.5*5/6 = 4.6 PUs.  You rarely see that kind of 2.3:1 payback ratio for any attack.  The only reason not to do the raid is if there are better uses for the bombers.  I also don’t see any good League player fail to scramble/intercept if the payback is good.  Those kind of rookie mistakes are not seen for people who have played 50+ matches.

Bombing Moscow is usually a critical part of capturing the city or enfeebling the country.  If you send 4 bombers and necessary fighter escorts, you will do 17-20 points of damage and have a 2/3rds chance of losing a 12 point bomber.  That will reduce the defensive stack on Moscow by 6 infantry = 12 pips, while potentially losing 4 pips of attack.  That is a huge game changer.  The main way to prevent the raid is funneling UK fighters to Moscow.

[theROCmonster]

Thank you Bomber Harris. Couldn’t say it better myself. I wish bombers had a 2 attack value. That way they would be used more for the purposes of strat bombing and not be an all around amazing unit. Well not an amazing defensive unit, but an a good offensive kind of equates to a good defense since you deprive your opponent of being offensive by having the bombers that can reach everywhere! lol.

[8thGuards]

@ShadowHAwk:

You quickly learn not to do Str bombing once you lose both japans strat bombers on their first run against india vs the AA gun :)
It is a risk reward thing that once you get unlucky a few times with it you are hesistant to use again.

I normaly dont Strat bomb if i can use the bomber more productive. In support of an attack it will kill 1 or 2 inf which is 6 damage with 0 risk, against a factory it will do 5.5 damage on average with a 14% risk of total loss.

But it really depends on the player, some by their nature cannot win with the axis unless they change their way of thinking. Others cannot win with the allies because they cannot react to whats happening on the board and can only follow standard strategies.

How to save russia is basicaly how to best use the income ( 40) of UK europe against germany to do maximum damage. And how to make sure that Russia keeps enough income.
You have to hurt germany every step and place you can, drop those 2 inf on norway if you can. Sure they take it back but it will cost them 2 inf that are not going towards russia.

The axis sometimes trade planes for inf just to capture a country or gain a strategic advantage, so should the allies sometimes throw away a transport or destroyer to hamper the axis.

Russia cannot win a straight up fight against germany alone, So dont make it a straight up fight, It might even be beneficial to use your northern troops to take scandinavia to allow UK planes to fly into russia that way. Is the expense of 14 units worth the difference of 26 ipcs a turn?

I think it is nearly always worth it to march into Scandinavia as Russia. You take Finland R4 and Norway R5. But you are out of 12-14 units that would normally help defend Moscow, that could be a loss of 28 hit points. However in turn 4 (at the latest) your gain would be 7 IPC (2 + 2 + 3) and from turn 5 it would be 21 IPC (2 +2 +3 +3 +3 +3 +5). By turn 6 that is a gain of 49 IPC that costs Germany 12 mech or 4 strat bombers.
Unless of course Germany buys fleet to try retake Norway, but any investment in that would mean less land units versus Russia.

And if I have a spare bomber or two in London then I will strat bomb the hell out of Western Germany. Forcing huge damage to a factory can be game changing.
I don’t think I have any “I will never…” principles guiding my gaming strategy in AAG40. Allies main problem remains Pacific.

[taamvan]

I’m talking about all live opponents not weak ones.  The examples I gave were meant to be more black and white, but everyone has a playstyle and preferences, and limitations.  They can tell me about their preferences in words, or I can just play with them often enough to see how they operate.

The Professor tends to like bold attacks and so he’s beaten me by taking Iwo and when the tables were turned, Hawaii.  That means that he likes to do one big attack and not dilute that with picking off the small stuff at the edges, which means the mice eventually eat his empire…

The Realtor likes to have a bunch of small navies all over the board, so that there are many targets that you cant kill, and he is around every corner.  He’s good as the UK, but he leaves too many ships where you can pick them off.  He intercepts every time he can.

The Postman is good at reacting, so surprising him probably isn’t going to work.  His proactive strategy isn’t as strong.

Maphead misses nothing, uses his planes like a lightsaber.  He used to be my student, since I can’t really figure out how to beat him, I usually try to get on his team so I don’t have to.

Knowing your opponent is key to victory.  Winning isn’t everything; but everything you need to win isn’t always on the board.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

ShadowHawk, you miss the value proposition for strategic bombing. Let’s look at a hypothetical attack on India with slightly realistic troop compositions:

Japan:  20 infantry, 4 art, 10 fighters, 2 bombers (36 units with 70 Attack strength)
India:  31 infantry, 2 fighters (33 units with 70 defense strength)
Odds of Japan victory:  68% (-21 TUV swing)

Take away one Japanese bomber and you get a 50% chance of Japanese victory (-41 TUV swing)
Take away two India infantry and you get an 84% chance of Japanese victory (+5 TUV swing)

One Japanese bomber gave somewhat similar benefit as the 2 India infantry units.  The chance of the bomber getting shot down is 1/6 while the chance of doing 5.5 PUs of damage is 5/6.  Things are a bit more complicated since you need 2 bomb hits to do meaningful damage and after that every round of bombing is hurting Indian production.  Still that gives about a 2:1 chance that you are hurting India more than you are hurting Japan.  I will take those odds every game, assuming that you don’t have something else critical to do with the Japanese air force.  Do a bunch of small battles with a 2:1 chance of favorable outcome and the game will start swinging more towards your favor.  You can’t be completely risk adverse and do will in G40.  Worrying too much about potential 1/36 outcomes like having both bombers getting shot down will guarantee failure.  Total turtling in the game guarantees failure.  Even Russia needs to look at chance to make smart exchanges, like attacking a lone Axis infantry unit with one Russian infantry + plane support.

Strategic bombing of Moscow is a game changing event.  Effectively losing 5 Russian infantry for a 2/3rds chance of losing 1 German bomber is a great trade for the Axis.  Sometimes the Axis can’t do the bomb runs because the planes are needed to ward off Allied invaders.  Sometimes the Allies stack a large number of UK fighters in Moscow and you can’t bomb.  Otherwise you would be a fool not to bomb.

Likewise, bombing of Germany-captured Eastern European factories with UK or US bombers is a huge advantage for the Allies.  Minor factories are wonderful targets since one bomber can discourage future production.  I do draw the line with bombing of Western European factories.  I find that Germany has enough manufacturing flexibility to make it less impactful.

Another situation that I run into all of the time is attacking a lone destroyer that is used to ship block between the Allied and Japanese forces.  If I bring a bunch of planes, I have a 1/3rd chance of losing a 10 PU fighter.  If I bring a sub with the planes, I will essentially guarantee that sub will die the next round when the Allies again ship block with a destroyer.  The math works out so using just the planes is about 50% better change of PUs than using a sub as cheap fodder along with the planes.  Take a bunch of small risks with favorable odds; it can often change the outcome of the game to your eventual victory.

In regards to Scandinavia, I rarely see a good German player succumb to a Russian attack there except after Sea Lion openings with large number of planes shot down over London.  Usually the German infantry with plane support will stop the advance.  You have 7 infantry and 10-16 planes in the attack.  You need closer to 20 ground units to discourage the German attack; the units cannot easily reposition from Finland once you go that far, and there is no way that your remaining Russians can do anything but turtle down in Moscow.  At that point, the Germans can swing their fast movers up into Scandinavia and decimate the Russian invaders.

[theROCmonster]

Again perfectly said Bomber Harris. On your Pacific talk about using sub or not to use the sub. I’ve found that using the sub is a mistake also because usually then anzac will just sac a destroyer to kill it, and now you just lost a 6 IPC unit for basically “free” because it doesn’t take away any of the attack power of the US fleet, also you will have to kill the destroyer as Japan next round just as you said. I think one of the big keys that separates expert/master level players and intermediate/advanced players is the ability to make sure your strongest power doesn’t loose units but instead your weaker power makes the back and forth trades. In the pacific that means Anzac should do all the island taking/sub/dd killing, leaving the US fleet to only get stronger. In the Atlantic board killing Russian units with Italy is a huge win for the axis because of the same principle. This is also another reason why the allies are so poorly off on this map. In the Atlantic the allies can never seem to get strong enough to attack Germany because they have to attack separately, whereas Germany is a much more unified force.

[simon33]

@Arthur:

In regards to Scandinavia, I rarely see a good German player succumb to a Russian attack there except after Sea Lion openings with large number of planes shot down over London.  Usually the German infantry with plane support will stop the advance.  You have 7 infantry and 10-16 planes in the attack.  You need closer to 20 ground units to discourage the German attack; the units cannot easily reposition from Finland once you go that far, and there is no way that your remaining Russians can do anything but turtle down in Moscow.  At that point, the Germans can swing their fast movers up into Scandinavia and decimate the Russian invaders.

I think it is more the reduction in Moscow’s defence.

I still think Scandanavia has some merit for the allies but it needs to be a combined nation assault. Any slow movers which don’t head east immediately on DOW are out of Moscow defence and you have to accept that they will be cut off when Leningrad falls, or perhaps die in its defence. USA can’t really do it on its own because Germany can just put planes on Norway to support its inf and USA can’t bring in land based fighters/tacs without USSR claiming Finland as a landing field. Even then, US3 they could be facing 13 land units + planes on Norway. Difficult to have enough to take that down.

You also can’t allow Germany to position land units on Finland to push USA off Norway if they land on it.

[Tirano]

Well this isn’t exactly what I would call a safe Russian Strategy, however one way I found to defend it is through a live game I played this weekend.  I played the allies with a 29 Bid that went to the Med in a stereotypical method.  I purchased 3 AC R1 with US  I pulled Hawaiian fleet back to San Fran and appeared to play passively allowing Japan to play aggressive towards the DEI and India, I was feigning a draw towards the Atlantic.

R2 I purchased fighters to fill the one empty AC, other 2 had been filled from mainland US and Hawaii, while staying in San Fran other cash just went to filler navy.

R3 I purchased 7 fighters and moved my fleet from San Fran to SZ4.

R4 I was able to fly all the aircraft from SZ4 to Yakuz in USSR and in R5 I had 7 US fighters and a tac in Moscow.

This might have been a one trick pony for my group, however it was very effective because keeping my navy in San Fran threatened the Germans as they thought I would swing around and let the Japanese be aggressive, however my move to SZ4 instead of moving to Hawaii or the Atlantic threw them off and effectively allowed the US to bolster Moscow with it’s airforce while at the same time UK was liberating Leningrad allowed the allies a decisive victory in Moscow and they surrendered afterwards seeing as the Japs had India but still needed Hawaii or Sydney and neither was feasible.

Hope that made sense, and works for others.

[Arthur Bomber Harris]

If you want Allied fighters in Moscow, it is far easier to just build a factory in Persia and start flying 3 of them up beginning UK3.  Alternatively they can be built in Egypt or South Africa and flown up there slightly more indirectly.

Trying to get the American fighters there via Siberia early in the game is generally wasteful.  It can be a smart move mid-game if you can get an Allied foothold in Korea or Manchuria.

[Tirano]

@Arthur:

If you want Allied fighters in Moscow, it is far easier to just build a factory in Persia and start flying 3 of them up beginning UK3.  Alternatively they can be built in Egypt or South Africa and flown up there slightly more indirectly.

Trying to get the American fighters there via Siberia early in the game is generally wasteful.  It can be a smart move mid-game if you can get an Allied foothold in Korea or Manchuria.

Certainly it is not the most effective route, however it is not easily foreseen such as a MIC in Persia and so there is an element of surprise and last minute muster of defense to it.

[oysteilo]

oysteilo and ShadowHAwk play Global 2nd edition with no bid for ShadowHAwk.

http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=39233.0

Wish us luck and no trash talk to ShadowHAwk for taking on the challenge. He deserves only repect for this hard mission. At the end of the day, he might even win. Pay attention guys (and girls if any)!

[goobs024]

I attack the second term with my main attack in the south as the Germans.  my third term I have tanks in position to hit at Leningrad and Ukraine which I can grab by turn four.  As the Russian player,  I usually wont build anything for Russia until the 3rd turn or attacked.  I grab Iraq when at war or on my fourth, I usually invite USA player over to East to bomb japan for their so what about lend lead money if you can keep them out keeping you focused on Germany which should be Russia’s main goal.  If not attacked by Germany by the fourth I try to grab Romania and upgrade the Ukraine factories for tank and mechanized infantry to drive into Balkans.

[simon33]

That doesn’t seem right unless they are playing unlimited production or some other weird rule.

[MarshmallowofWar]

@oysteilo:

how are you getting UK fighters to moscow end of UK3 or UK4? Are you taking out italian navy or not?

Speaking with only movement potential being considered (and not with the impact of taking these units from other duties):

• 3 ANZAC fighters can make it to Russia on A4, assuming that Japan does nothing to impede them on J1/2.

• UK India can build four mechanized infantry on UK1, which make it to Russia on UK5.

• UK planes (3 fighters and two tactical bombers) can make it to Russia on UK3 if the UK activated Persia on UK1.

• An MIC build in Persia on UK2 can land three fighters in Russia on UK4 (built them turn 3, fly them on turn 4).

• An MIC build in Egypt on UK1 can land three fighters in Russia on UK4 (build turn 2, land Persia turn 3, land Russia turn 4

That is more than enough firepower to stop a G6 attack on Moscow, if Russia is prudent and builds nothing but infantry and pulls the Siberian forces towards Moscow.

Marsh

[simon33]

One of the Anzac fighters can reach by turn 3: Shan State->E Persia->Moscow. All can reach with a neutral crush.

Siberian troops can’t reach before a G6 attack though.

[MarshmallowofWar]

@oysteilo:

if anyone is interested in taking on a league or non leage game for 0 bid to show I am wrong I am up for it. I am not a very good axis player but feel confident at this one. text me

I’ll do a zero bid G40 game with you.

PM me and we can set it up.