INDIA REVISITED
So what if Axis adjust their plan? What if Axis push India?
Remember, even though this is a mostly abstract discussion where we don’t have defined lines to work with, in practice the Axis must make real commitments. It’s not that Japan’s entire airforce just got blown up then Japan flies in another six fighters - or if it does, then Japan’s ground pressure will be very late and/or weak.
If the Axis push India, they have a lot less flexibility in terms of applying pressure against R since their whole air force is blown up. UK likely still has fighters even after losing some in the UK2 attack on G2’s Caucasus. Not for sure! But probably.
So UK is 6 infantry down (edit: and a couple fighters), having bled India to counterpressure Caucasus. Isn’t that a problem?
Well, J is down 6 fighters and a bomber. I’m not saying problem solved, but you can see where some of the heat is taken off.
Which makes me wonder about why J should commit fighters in the first place, but then again, how else do you explain G2 committing to Caucasus, and do Axis really want to fight an even more understrength major stack battle?
YOUR TAKEAWAY (THE THIRD PART)
Things are not going to be smooth. Something is going to go wrong. If nothing goes wrong then congratulations you won.
The numbers are important, vital, in assessing states and together with turn order knowing how to transition between states.
But at some point, a player will have to shift to gestalt thinking, where they are looking not merely at immediate tactical applications, but counts and compositions, consciously thinking about what the major points of the opponent strategy are and how to counter them - and how to counter the counters and so forth.
This gestalt thinking is not the same as the vague references that lack detail that plague most meta discussion. Understand, you are not flailing about mouthing empty platitudes. You use calculation tools to assess state by looking at how particular battles may play out, you can use the same tools to predict how future actions may play out, you move on from using these calculation tools to look at specific battles and potential specific battles to looking for repeating patterns of counts and compositions, and apply that understanding to your prediction of how board states develop over time rather than simply using calculation tools. Which does not mean you stop using calculation tools, in fact maybe you deliberately study and memorize common battles and try to develop formulae to predict outcomes.