A&A newbie questions

[spottedcow]

So I used to play Axis and Allies when we were on deployment, with a version that was probably older than I was.  I recently found a plain Axis and Allies game at a local game shop, although it’s different than the one I used to play with(I certainly don’t remember “artillery”).

Anyway, so here’s the problem:

Battleships are busted.  I mean really, really busted.  The western US fleet is absolutely unstoppable, and will wipe the floor with Japan every game, no matter what we’ve tried as counter-measures.  Meanwhile, UK drops an industrial complex on India and between Russia and Britain, they squeeze Japan off the mainland while the US is mopping up the little islands in the South Pacific.  The way it usually goes down is that Japan will wipe out the AC and sub at Hawaii, and the US will spend it’s first turn buying a carrier and a battleship, dumping the transports and destroyers on the East Coast into Algeria, then flying the fighter up from Hawaii to West Coast and placing the AC and Battleship on West Coast, with the 2 fighters on the AC.  At this point, the Japanese fleet is outgunned, they can’t press the attack to the West Coast because of the disparity between carrier and fighter attacks and defends.  They can’t really hold Hawaii either, though, because the US has a much higher resource score, and is raking in over 1/3 again what Japan is.  Every turn, the US has another Battleship and half a carrier set(AC or 2 fighters).  Since Battleships can take 2 shots, and the controller of the units chooses which of their units gets hit, you end up with the US rocking a group of Battleships with a carrier or two and a single destroyer to neutralize enemy subs.  You get 3 or 4 hits, no big deal, because nothing actually gets sunk.  Japan can’t ever get a fleet large enough, especially being pushed on the mainland by Russia from the North and the UK from the East, and is stuck trying to fend off the increasingly strong depredations of the US fleet.

Meanwhile, Germany can get a solid start against Russia, but it gets bogged down rather quickly, since Russia just buys pure infantry and sits back to defend along the Caucus/Russia line, giving up Archangel and Karelia to solidify itself as a 2 zone front.  Germany can’t really break into the Middle East, because the line in the Caucus is held by the USSR and any forces sent to Africa get gangbanged by the UK and US.  If Germany’s initial Med. forces take out the UK battleship by Gibraltar, and the northern fleet heads along the Western Europe coastline, they can shut down the US Eastern transport lane and hold Africa, but doing so costs you resources that could be used to buy tanks to try and wear down the USSR.

I’ve done a little reading on the forums here, and heard some people say that this revised edition is well balanced, but it seems absolutely impossible for the Axis to win without some severe lucksacking on rolls.  Me and my roomate have been thinking that we’re just going to set a house rule that Battleships do not miraculously repair after every fight, they have to stop by a friendly coastal territory with an industrial complex to repair that point of damage.  Hopefully, that will help alleviate the Battleship push.

I also checked out the tourney rules thread at the top of the page, but the link in the first post didn’t lead to a list of rules, so perhaps with those rules it’s not an issue.  Can someone provide me with a current link or at least a quick down and dirty of what’s different about these LH rules?

[trihero]

I’ve done a little reading on the forums here, and heard some people say that this revised edition is well balanced,

Well, I’d have to say that people agree it’s well balanced - if you give the Axis a bid of 7 IPCS to place on the board or keep in their stash. That usually gets you an inf/art in Libya to overpower Egypt, causing the Allies some distress.

Battleships are busted.  I mean really, really busted.  The western US fleet is absolutely unstoppable, and will wipe the floor with Japan every game, no matter what we’ve tried as counter-measures.

Meanwhile, UK drops an industrial complex on India and between Russia and Britain, they squeeze Japan off the mainland

There isn’t an easy quick way to solve the problem. But let’s keep some basic Japanese principles in mind

1. Kill the fleet off of Hawaii if you can, otherwise you’re in really deep doodoo.
2. Don’t try to offensively take on the US fleet. It is already formidable at the end of US1 defensively. Navy is where the defenders really shine on defense, so be careful.
3. Maintain a fleet of 4 tran to ship units from the mainland
4. Instead of trying to hold all your territories, look for a weakpoint, or if there isn’t one, then centralize your units and simply trade territories. For instance, is India as easy to defend as it looks? It really isn’t. If you take China on J1 with all your men, on J2 walk those men to F. Indo and offload 4 transports into F. Indo. Suddenly India is staring at massive force of 13-15 inf 1 art 1 arm 6 fig 1 bom 2 bb shots. Realize that India isn’t invincible, and it is costly to hold if you are willing to sacrifice the short term.

If you can’t beat India, then simply trade territories with it. Mass units in Kwangtung, and make sure to collect the money from F. Indo every turn. From Kwangtung you can trade China, Manchuria, and F. Indo. There’s no way you should be getting pushed off the mainland for a while.

Also, don’t try to get into a naval game with the US early on. You need to boost your economy first. I wouldn’t recommend buying much more navy for the first couple turns.

At some point buy a carrier, and you have a nasty defensive fleet of 2 bb 3 car 6 fig 4 tran 1 dd and maybe 1 sub. That’s plain nasty. I would be hesitant to attack that any time soon with the US. For those 16 IPCs spent you have a great defensive navy. They would need a shitload of battleships in order to try to attack that, and a lot of fodder too so their battleships don’t die.

There’s absolutely nothing the Allies can really do to stop Japan from dropping 8 men every turn for 4-5 turns. Use that to your advantage to increase cash flow in Asia, and push up to Novosibirsk. With Germany hailing in from the West, Russia will dry up fast. Russia can’t dump 8 men into north asia every round. And all you need to do then is keep some men in Kwangtung (build a complex there at some point) to trade F. Indo.

And also, don’t get your navy trapped. There’s no need for that. And please, don’t sit there if you think the US can overpower you. At some point your nasty defensive fleet is no longer nasty enough, so at that point, run away towards Africa. Don’t let the Americans trash your navy. Let them spend tons of money on navy, and then when they’re about to blow their load, whisk the target away. When you run away, it’s time to use those excellent 6 fighters on the mainland for pushing and defense.

Meanwhile, Germany can get a solid start against Russia, but it gets bogged down rather quickly, since Russia just buys pure infantry and sits back to defend along the Caucus/Russia line, giving up Archangel and Karelia to solidify itself as a 2 zone front.  Germany can’t really break into the Middle East, because the line in the Caucus is held by the USSR and any forces sent to Africa get gangbanged by the UK and US.  If Germany’s initial Med. forces take out the UK battleship by Gibraltar, and the northern fleet heads along the Western Europe coastline, they can shut down the US Eastern transport lane and hold Africa, but doing so costs you resources that could be used to buy tanks to try and wear down the USSR.

Germany has to win the game, because Japan is getting slowly slowly pushed back. So what Germany has to do is take Africa first. Make sure you’re doing this. That’s what turns Germany into a 50 IPC monster against Russia’s income which should be in the teens very soon with the Japanese marching infantry stacks along the north.

I can ramble a lot more but  you have any other specific questions?

[Lucifer]

The game is not very well balanced. With a 6-9 bid, axis could be equal with allies, depending on bid rules.
I’m surprised that there seems to be some delusions going on, perceiving that BB’s are worth buying. Generally there not.
Germany is the hardest country to play, usually getting pressure from 3 countries.
Imo, there is no allies strat really, it’s about playing well generally, which is not easy, this game consists of approx. 200 units on
both sides.
As for axis, I think this is harder. I used to think Jap was easy, it’s not. No countries or sides are easy to win with,
although US is the least hardest country.
Axis needs both good strats and wise gameplay. Allies needs mostly wise gameplay.

[axis_roll]

@spottedcow:

So I used to play Axis and Allies when we were on deployment, with a version that was probably older than I was.  I recently found a plain Axis and Allies game at a local game shop, although it’s different than the one I used to play with(I certainly don’t remember “artillery”).

Anyway, so here’s the problem:

Battleships are busted.  I mean really, really busted.  The western US fleet is absolutely unstoppable, and will wipe the floor with Japan every game, no matter what we’ve tried as counter-measures.  Meanwhile, UK drops an industrial complex on India and between Russia and Britain, they squeeze Japan off the mainland while the US is mopping up the little islands in the South Pacific.  The way it usually goes down is that Japan will wipe out the AC and sub at Hawaii, and the US will spend it’s first turn buying a carrier and a battleship, dumping the transports and destroyers on the East Coast into Algeria, then flying the fighter up from Hawaii to West Coast and placing the AC and Battleship on West Coast, with the 2 fighters on the AC.  At this point, the Japanese fleet is outgunned, they can’t press the attack to the West Coast because of the disparity between carrier and fighter attacks and defends.  They can’t really hold Hawaii either, though, because the US has a much higher resource score, and is raking in over 1/3 again what Japan is.  Every turn, the US has another Battleship and half a carrier set(AC or 2 fighters).  Since Battleships can take 2 shots, and the controller of the units chooses which of their units gets hit, you end up with the US rocking a group of Battleships with a carrier or two and a single destroyer to neutralize enemy subs.  You get 3 or 4 hits, no big deal, because nothing actually gets sunk.  Japan can’t ever get a fleet large enough, especially being pushed on the mainland by Russia from the North and the UK from the East, and is stuck trying to fend off the increasingly strong depredations of the US fleet.

Well if USA is buying a BB and a carrier every turn, Germany better be taking advantage of the reduced o pressure on their western coast and get after Russia ASAP.

I read through your post a couple of times and two things come to mind where it’s not clearly communicated what you mean.

First, when you say “Since Battleships can take 2 shots,”  You do not mean BB’s get to fire twice when attacking, right?  They are two hit units, meaning they need to be hit twice to be sunk.  Your sentence could be mistaken as they roll 2 dice when attacking.

Also, you say: “…and placing the AC and Battleship on West Coast, with the 2 fighters on the AC.  At this point, the Japanese fleet is outgunned”  This is not exactly true.  Assuming that Japan buys 3 tpts on J1 and has successfully ‘redone’ Pearl harbor, they IJN is at 4-5 tpt, dd, 2 a/c, 2 bb.

US would have 2 BB, loaded a/c, dd, tpt.  Japan still has superiority at this time.

Also, you say:
@spottedcow:

because the US has a much higher resource score, and is raking in over 1/3 again what Japan is.  Every turn, the US has another Battleship and half a carrier set(AC or 2 fighters).

Japan should have $32 J1, and hopefully 34 the next round and sustainable.  USA should be down to 40 US1, 38 US2 forward.
If we split the difference, we can say that USA can outproduce Japan naval wise by 1 sub a turn.  That’s not huge.  Japan should add another carrier (they have the planes to load it already) and subs.  Japan would be very hard for USA to attack head to head, even with USA’s ability to absorb 3,4 hits (as many BBs as they have).  japan can absorb 2 hits of their own, and it’s not out of the question for Japan to buy a BB of their own.

All this naval build up takes time, several round before the US can just out muscle a combined and defensive Imperial Japanes navy.  Meanwhile, The german army shuold be banging on  Moscow or at least caucasus.

IMHO, even an all out USA naval barrage on Japan won’t be unbeatable/broken.  It is very hard on Japan, as they will have to play very conservative and probably will lose some islands to the US, but this should take 5,6,7+ rounds….

[tekkyy]

@spottedcow:

I also checked out the tourney rules thread at the top of the page, but the link in the first post didn’t lead to a list of rules, so perhaps with those rules it’s not an issue.  Can someone provide me with a current link or at least a quick down and dirty of what’s different about these LH rules?

Oh yes somene give him a link I can’t think of one right now.
LHTR is like almost essential. It stops a long list of undesirable things.

*9 VC instead of 8 VC for minor victory
*SBR limited to territory income per turn
*weapon developed effective end of the turn
*units loaded in combat move must be offloaded in combat move
*national advantage changes

@axis_roll:

Also, you say: “…and placing the AC and Battleship on West Coast, with the 2 fighters on the AC.  At this point, the Japanese fleet is outgunned”  This is not exactly true.  Assuming that Japan buys 3 tpts on J1 and has successfully ‘redone’ Pearl harbor, they IJN is at 4-5 tpt, dd, 2 a/c, 2 bb.

US would have 2 BB, loaded a/c, dd, tpt.  Japan still has superiority at this time.

spottedcow in a few games you’ll find why this move axis_roll is taking about is a Japan starting move in the revised version.

[Pervavita]

SpottedCow i’m new to the new board too, Japan is my personal fav to play, and lets face it Pearl Harbor was a death sentence in 2nd ed (i’m thinking it was 2nd ed i had for so long), now i have played the new Revised (with out the LHTR rules) game once and the first thing i saw was Pearl Harbor could be done and not be suicide. 2 hit battle ships area a blessing, i think for Japan above all else as now Japan can buy them if they want, but more so because they have 2 to start with.
the game i played i used Japan to destract the US to me and it worked. i would drop men into Alaska and then pull them back out before they could be hit, my fleet was large and right off the coast of LA and the US had to commit a good sized land force to keep me from landing but at the same time couldn’t build a Navy because i could sink it as soon as it arrived.
my point is the new rules help all the nations, you just have to think of new ways to play them. Japan is a powerfull nation in the revised game. you just have to use it as such. don’t let the US build there navy on the West Coast, use your plains to desimate the UK navy, and transport large numbers of troops into main land Asia to put the presure ok USSR and push past India to aid the Germans in Africa if they need it so they can hold it out longer if it comes to that.

[newpaintbrush]

@spottedcow:

So I used to play Axis and Allies when we were on deployment, with a version that was probably older than I was.  I recently found a plain Axis and Allies game at a local game shop, although it’s different than the one I used to play with(I certainly don’t remember “artillery”).

Yea, you probably played 2nd (classical) edition without artillery.  The current version is commonly known as Revised.  Includes artillery, destroyer, and altered game map.

Anyway, so here’s the problem:

Battleships are busted.  I mean really, really busted.  The western US fleet is absolutely unstoppable, and will wipe the floor with Japan every game, no matter what we’ve tried as counter-measures.

When one country as an income of about 40 and another has an income of around 35, and the one that has the lesser income has to fight a battle on the mainland - it ain’t pretty.  Of course, if US goes whole hog against Japan, Germany ought to be cleaning up pretty well against Russia.

Meanwhile, UK drops an industrial complex on India and between Russia and Britain, they squeeze Japan off the mainland while the US is mopping up the little islands in the South Pacific.  The way it usually goes down is that Japan will wipe out the AC and sub at Hawaii, and the US will spend it’s first turn buying a carrier and a battleship, dumping the transports and destroyers on the East Coast into Algeria, then flying the fighter up from Hawaii to West Coast and placing the AC and Battleship on West Coast, with the 2 fighters on the AC.  At this point, the Japanese fleet is outgunned, they can’t press the attack to the West Coast because of the disparity between carrier and fighter attacks and defends.  They can’t really hold Hawaii either, though, because the US has a much higher resource score, and is raking in over 1/3 again what Japan is.  Every turn, the US has another Battleship and half a carrier set(AC or 2 fighters).  Since Battleships can take 2 shots, and the controller of the units chooses which of their units gets hit, you end up with the US rocking a group of Battleships with a carrier or two and a single destroyer to neutralize enemy subs.  You get 3 or 4 hits, no big deal, because nothing actually gets sunk.  Japan can’t ever get a fleet large enough, especially being pushed on the mainland by Russia from the North and the UK from the East, and is stuck trying to fend off the increasingly strong depredations of the US fleet.

Meanwhile, Germany can get a solid start against Russia, but it gets bogged down rather quickly, since Russia just buys pure infantry and sits back to defend along the Caucus/Russia line,

Hold on there a second tiger.  Germany ought to control Africa, and should be able to threaten London as well.

Also, Japan ought to be able to make a case to take India BEFORE the US can really mess with Japan’s major IPC islands.  After all, Japan starts with 6 fighters 1 bomber 2 battleships 2 carriers, should have purchased transports - shouldn’t really be a problem for Japan to kill India’s ass.  Of course, if the US got an industrial complex in Ssinkiang, then Japan might have some difficulty - but then, with all that going on, Germany really SHOULD control Africa, and have a considerably higher income.

giving up Archangel and Karelia to solidify itself as a 2 zone front.  Germany can’t really break into the Middle East, because the line in the Caucus is held by the USSR and any forces sent to Africa get gangbanged by the UK and US.

Shouldn’t be possible.  You can’t “gangbang” Africa while trying to run a hardcore KJF.  You can try running four infantry into E. Canada a turn, but then where’s your fleet of US battleships?  You can’t have everything.

If Germany’s initial Med. forces take out the UK battleship by Gibraltar, and the northern fleet heads along the Western Europe coastline, they can shut down the US Eastern transport lane and hold Africa, but doing so costs you resources that could be used to buy tanks to try and wear down the USSR.

I’ve done a little reading on the forums here, and heard some people say that this revised edition is well balanced, but it seems absolutely impossible for the Axis to win without some severe lucksacking on rolls.  Me and my roomate have been thinking that we’re just going to set a house rule that Battleships do not miraculously repair after every fight, they have to stop by a friendly coastal territory with an industrial complex to repair that point of damage.  Hopefully, that will help alleviate the Battleship push.

I also checked out the tourney rules thread at the top of the page, but the link in the first post didn’t lead to a list of rules, so perhaps with those rules it’s not an issue.  Can someone provide me with a current link or at least a quick down and dirty of what’s different about these LH rules?

LH rules fix national advantages and change tech so it isn’t as easily exploitable.

If you were playing Out of Box rules (no FAQ off the website), you ought to have looked into German Rockets.  Wow, that’s a game that just isn’t fun to play, because Germany just kills everyone.

[Funcioneta]

I won a Face to Face game with allies with German rockets researched and I’m going to win another soon  :-D

[middleware]

@Craig:

LHTR v2.0:

http://www.daak.de/indexe.php?sprache=e
http://www.axisandallies.org/LHTR

Craig

Is only LHTR make the game balance enough, or still need it together with some bids?

[Guest]

Bid still needed.

Average is $7 to $9