So essentially there are three fundamental schools of thought. The first is to go full Sealion then Barbarossa as Sealion takes away about 30 Ipcs from the Allies while adding 8 to the Axis and helping Italy in Africa, hurting the Allies up front though but while giving the Axis little reward until later. The second school of thought is completely Barbarossa first as it takes away a few Ipcs per turn from the Allies giving to the Axis, while taking away more Ipcs and earning more but over a long period of time. The third school of thought is to simultaneously do both while staving off one slightly until the other is dealt with, getting more done but with both operations taking longer. What do you guys think?
General consensus is to do Barbarossa unless London is quite weak.
You may want to look back into these forums because by no means is Sea Lion Actual a fundamental strategy in AxA G40. Sea Lion is a threat, an attempt to occupy UK’s attention (not their capital).
If UK responds poorly, building all over the world and/or
They build navy too early, which draws their fighters onto the sea
2 Italian TTs survive and Italy Air +4 men can suicide against UK first and/or
you can set up 2 or even 3 waves of troops by dropping them on Scotland first
Against a strong player, your chances of taking London are not going to be high. Even if you do take London, this attack should be extremely costly, leaving you with a badly damaged German air force. Then, the US can take London back.
Losing London is devastating to the Allied economy, so any Allied player who doesn’t stack London’s defense is asking for some serious problems. Its not difficult, especially if you buy 6 infantry and 1 plane on UK1, which is pretty optimally flexible and vanilla.
While you’re doing all this, the USSR should be quite a ragebeast, with +3 bonuses from taking your stuff over…which is why its not really a viable strategy in the sense of committing to it from the beginning no matter what the Allies do…
Definitely Barbarossa. I prefer a G2 DoW with every hope of getting to Bryansk G4, giving access to all the additional income NOs.
I did once do an unplanned Sea Lion when London was left poorly defended and with no allied TTs allowing to be retaken for at least 2 turns. The odds were 70% in my favour, which is not the best, and unfortunately I failed. Nevertheless, despite the lack of TTs, nor any significant distraction of land unit builds for the eastern front, my very much more experienced opponent was adamant that even if I had captured London the loss of air power would cost me the game.
Being less experienced as I am I reckoned the c. 90 ipc swing represented by holding London for 2 or more turns was irresistible. And the 40-50 ipcs into the German bank meant a lot of replacement aircraft.
Perhaps one day I will be given the chance to successfully take London and experience still losing! :-o
@MachineDeus:
So essentially there are three fundamental schools of thought. The first is to go full Sealion then Barbarossa as Sealion takes away about 30 Ipcs from the Allies while adding 8 to the Axis and helping Italy in Africa, hurting the Allies up front though but while giving the Axis little reward until later. The second school of thought is completely Barbarossa first as it takes away a few Ipcs per turn from the Allies giving to the Axis, while taking away more Ipcs and earning more but over a long period of time. The third school of thought is to simultaneously do both while staving off one slightly until the other is dealt with, getting more done but with both operations taking longer. What do you guys think?
Your math is off. Yes, you gain about 30 IPCs from the UK, plus the per turn income from the London/Scotland pieces. However, you lose whatever IPCs you spent on transports, plus whatever IPCs you “spent” on casualties (especially those to your air force, which are very hard to replace). That’s typically on the order of 70 IPCs, giving Russia about 20 more ground units than you have (and that’s before you start trying to replace your air force).
It is true that losing the UK creates an unbalanced situation for the Allies. However, I’ve never had an issue recovering as the Allies.
The only time I ever did Sea Lion my opponent left the UK so weak that I did not have to build transports at all. It only cost me about 30 IPCs after the seizure of money and my losses. I have, however, intentionally encouraged an early Sea Lion from my opponent because it is a losing move on the part of the German player. So much is spent on transports that Germany cannot effectively push against Russia.
A late Sea Lion, which the UK player must AlWAYS defend against, is a much more effective strategy for the Axis. Late in the game, the UK is often laser-focused on the Middle East and occasionally forgets about the UK defenses. The balance of powers after Moscow is fully turtled, the Middle East is highly contested, and India has fallen is much more delicate than it is on G3. Losing the UK at that point is devastating for the Allies (as in, they lose outright).
Marsh
Only on triplea have I had the pleasure of successfully pulling off Sea Lion. I’d love to do it on a table top game. The most recent time I had I think 8 tanks standing. No loss of aircraft as hits (2 fighters due to an AAA gun hit). I left the tanks there to really make it costly for the US to liberate London. My team won the game…London didn’t get liberated until like round 11. It was a very long game.
I prefer Barbarossa, but if the UK hands London a silver platter because it got too aggressive…then it needs to get punished. I don’t care what anyone says, no allies player like the advantage of London being knocked out for several turns. I’m not going to G2 purchase of a Sea Lion if several factors occur of course. But if Sea Lion is done right, the US has to respond and Japan has the chance to rage. Also, if Germany DOWs at the right moment, Russia can be pushed away from E. Poland (which I think is the critical position to keep Russia from getting to). They will come back, but then Germany might have the chance to get in position to start pushing Russia back from the border territories. Scandinavia might fall for a time being. Private Panic mentions losing a battle with favorable odds. That’s not going to occur on a regular basis.
If the UK gets really aggressive in it’s spending in the middle east UK1 and Sea Lion doesn’t occur, then in those situations I have a very difficult time overcoming a substantially large stack of UK fighters.
