Cutting the Italian legs out from under the axis

[shifty powers]

It seems that each time I’ve played that the Axis have won, Italy has played SOME sort of role during the course of the battle.  Whether it’s taking Africa, pounding Cauc, help against UK navy, taking islands, or just providing extra defense in EU, Italy always plays its part.

I know that this is an IF situation and probably not original, but i haven’t seen it here in the forum so I figured i’d throw it out here.  Anyways, If Germany doesn’t attack SZ12 and the Egyptian fighter survives, I’ve found attacking the Italian fleet with the UK Cruiser, Bomber, Fighter, Destroyer severely inhibits Italy from doing much of anything the rest of the game.  I realize that the chances of success (Italy losing all units) is only about 60%, but putting them down 51 ipcs when they are only making 10 is worth the loss in units and UK makes enough early game to easily replace that loss.

I’ve manage to try it twice and it worked both times.  After that, the other players in my group caught on and began attacking SZ12 w/subs (thus letting my battleship survive) or fighters/bomber which at least took out some of the Germany air and kept them distracted.

[alwayswin]

The one game I didn’t attack those two boats in SZ12, the UK attacked my Italian fleet and I had a miserable time with Italy and eventually lost.

Since then, my #1 priority with Germany first turn is to kill those boats and #2 is Egypt, even if I don’t take it.

Italy must have a navy to inflict any pain plus they have no chance at their NO’s without a fleet. Buy a carrier turn 2 and try to add to it as you go.

If the US goes all out to kill Italy early, that’s just fine by me because Japan is too powerful to be left alone the first few turns in the Pacific.

[Unknown Soldier]

Yes, the importance of attacking sz12 and/or Egypt on G1 has been discussed quite a bit on the forums already. Have a look at the thread on Egypt. As you point out, it is very much worth it for the Allies to take a slightly better than even shot at taking out the Italian fleet since it cannot be replaced. Even if you just take out the CAs, it’s pretty easy to finish off the BB with bombers on the second round.

One problem for Germany, as you alluded to, is that they can’t really do everything they need to on G1. You’d like to attack Egypt, sz12 and the British BB in sz2, but you if you do all 3 you won’t have great odds in any of them, plus you have to land aircraft in undesirable spots like Norway and Algeria. So do you gamble, or do you give up on one of those targets? And which one do you give up?

My preference is to clear sz12, hit Egypt with the bomber, and forget about the BB. But at this point, I don’t think there is any one clearly superior G1 opening.

[alwayswin]

Totally agree. My first few 1941 games I thought the battleship was too good to pass up without the 1942 destroyer and Russian sub there. However, the more I played the more I realized how important Italy is. If they can’t move Russia doesn’t have to be as honest.

Anytime I spread myself too thin I end up losing on all fronts. Same goes on land, the more you try and do the more fodder you’ll lose along the way.

Just for the record, in one of the games I played my opponent got LRA with the UK first turn and despite doing what I needed to do with Germany, my Italian fleet was lost……he still had the Egypt fighter as well.

[gebs99]

i would go for the BB first since they are so expensive.

[Unknown Soldier]

@alwayswin:

Just for the record, in one of the games I played my opponent got LRA with the UK first turn and despite doing what I needed to do with Germany, my Italian fleet was lost……he still had the Egypt fighter as well.

Yeah, that’s one thing that really irks me about this game. Why didn’t they make it so that you roll your tech tokens at the end of your turn? Didn’t the designers learn their lesson from the whole Sealion debacle in revised? It really makes you wonder…

[LuckyDay]

yeah, there’s a reason the allies went after control of the Med and into Italy before DDay.

As germany, I try to do whatever I can to secure those Italian ships, if I can’t take Egypt G1 along the way, ok, that can wait, but the UK ships gotta go.  I’ll get Egypt G2.

[Young Grasshopper]

Instead of Strategic Bombing Raids Britian and America could use Archangel as a staging ground for their bombers to hit the Italian fleet and than land in Gibralter. Archangel because it is the fastest place bombers can deploy to and still be able to cover the entire Mediterranean as Italy will see what the British have done and sail east to avoid the US from doing the same. These would be costly suicide missions of course but if it means the difference between winning and losing the war than it might be worth it. It could be called “The Dead Angel Run” thoughts?

[Jennifer]

@Unknown:

@alwayswin:

Just for the record, in one of the games I played my opponent got LRA with the UK first turn and despite doing what I needed to do with Germany, my Italian fleet was lost……he still had the Egypt fighter as well.

Yeah, that’s one thing that really irks me about this game. Why didn’t they make it so that you roll your tech tokens at the end of your turn? Didn’t the designers learn their lesson from the whole Sealion debacle in revised? It really makes you wonder…

Because your tech is completely random.

Sure, there’s that 1 in 36 chance you can yell YAHTZEE with the price of 5 IPC, but odds are very strongly against that scenario.

Meanwhile, why punish a player by allowing their opponent to completely destroy the benefits of the technology by allowing them to see and respond to what you get for a full turn?

Anyway, it’s my humble opinion that players who don’t like tech or want to shove it off until the end of the round are just weak players, strategically.  Good players will account for the possibility of their opponent getting a technology that would be a thorn in their side and work preemptively to negate it’s utility.

[Unknown Soldier]

This:

Sure, there’s that 1 in 36 chance you can yell YAHTZEE with the price of 5 IPC, but odds are very strongly against that scenario.

is exactly why this:

Good players will account for the possibility of their opponent getting a technology that would be a thorn in their side and work preemptively to negate it’s utility

is false.

In general, planning your turn around someone acquiring LRA or HB or whatever next turn is bad strategy. The fact that you have to get lucky to get those techs is exactly why you shouldn’t be planning your turn around it, because it just doesn’t happen the vast majority of the time. Subsequently, when it does happen, it can unbalance the game since you are not given a chance to respond.

Rolling for tech at the end of your turn certainly would not “completely destroy the benefits of technology”. Honestly, where do you come up with this stuff? Are techs useless after the first turn you get them? Obviously not.

Don’t get me wrong, I like having tech in the game as it makes gameplay much linear. I’d just prefer to have more strategy and less Yahtzee.

[axis_roll]

@Unknown:

This:

Sure, there’s that 1 in 36 chance you can yell YAHTZEE with the price of 5 IPC, but odds are very strongly against that scenario.

is exactly why this:

Good players will account for the possibility of their opponent getting a technology that would be a thorn in their side and work preemptively to negate it’s utility

is false.

In general, planning your turn around someone acquiring LRA or HB or whatever next turn is bad strategy. The fact that you have to get lucky to get those techs is exactly why you shouldn’t be planning your turn around it, because it just doesn’t happen the vast majority of the time. Subsequently, when it does happen, it can unbalance the game since you are not given a chance to respond.

Rolling for tech at the end of your turn certainly would not “completely destroy the benefits of technology”. Honestly, where do you come up with this stuff? Are techs useless after the first turn you get them? Obviously not.

Don’t get me wrong, I like having tech in the game as it makes gameplay much linear. I’d just prefer to have more strategy and less Yahtzee.

excellent post.

Bravo!

[Jennifer]

U. Soldier:

Perhaps you are not thinking critically enough.

Good players will account for the odds their opponents will get the technology to give them an edge.  What goes into those odds includes more than just the dice.

a)  Your opponent may not have a history of rolling for technology in this game.  So the odds of them getting that technology is significantly lower than normal.

b)  Your opponent may not have a history of rolling for technology in any game.  So the odds of them getting that technology is virtually zero.

c)  Your opponent may already have 6 researchers on staff and 5 of the six technologies, so the odds of them getting the last one is virtually guaranteed.

d)  Your opponent may have a few of the technologies and no researchers on staff, so the odds of them getting the one s/he needs is significantly higher than normal.

It’s more than just 1 in 36.  1 in 36 is the odds of getting any technology assuming you have not gotten any on that chart and are only rolling one die.  It’s significant to note, but it’s not the entire calculation a GOOD player will account for.

Bad players, the ones who complain about technology usually, do not account for their opponents playing habits when it comes to technology nor the impact of the technology.

I’m sorry, I just cannot feel sorry for someone who puts their fleet in range of a dozen bombers when their opponent has 5 of the 6 technologies on their chart and gets the last one, Heavy Bombers, and sinks their fleet.  It’s not the technology’s fault, it’s not the fault of getting the technology immediately instead of next round, it’s the fleet owner’s fault for being stupid enough to move their fleet in range without accounting for the significantly high chance their opponent would get the tech needed.

I can feel a little sorry for the guy who leaves his capitol undefended and his opponent gets Paratroopers taking it without loss when he had no technologies at all.

But let’s remember, tech cuts both ways.  Good players can work this to their advantage, bad players whine about not having a full game turn to evade a technology and thereby basically eliminate it as a useful tool.

[Uncle_Joe]

I usually stay out of the ‘tech’ arguments but honestly, planning for low-odds events does not make you a ‘good’ player. If you have 9 Inf and 1 Fighter in Germany and your Brit opponent can land with 2 Art, 3 Inf and 1 Fighter with a BB shelling his odds of taking Germany are LOW. So does a ‘good’ player reinforce Germany (at the cost of weakening his position in Russia) on the off-chance that he gets abysmally screwed by the dice?
I would think definately ‘no’. But if he makes that attack and you lose, you still lose the game to outright luck.

You have to play the odds or else you will lose in the long run. If you get screwed by bad dice, you get screwed by bad dice whether it be tech or battles or whatever. So that means you more or less have to plan for the odds and try your best to overcome the ones where you get zapped. If its a critical battle or a critical tech, you might lose the game right there. But in either case, its bad luck (or opponents’ good luck, I guess) which is the deciding factor, not some ‘failure to plan’ because you are a ‘bad player’.

[Unknown Soldier]

Perhaps you are not thinking critically enough.

:roll:

Yet another insult to my intelligence. What about the people who agree with me? I guess they’re just “not thinking critically enough” either, huh?

I’m sorry, I just cannot feel sorry for someone who puts their fleet in range of a dozen bombers when their opponent has 5 of the 6 technologies on their chart and gets the last one, Heavy Bombers, and sinks their fleet.

That’s obviously NOT what I’m talking about here. Why must you always resort to straw-man arguments and ad-hominem attacks to prove your point? Perhaps YOU are the one who is not thinking critically enough?

I can feel a little sorry for the guy who leaves his capitol undefended and his opponent gets Paratroopers taking it without loss when he had no technologies at all.

This is the kind of thing I’m talking about. How would it be a bad thing to eliminate these Yahtzee plays from the game? This is a strategy game, not roulette. Yes, luck play a part. But you should’t be able to lose the game on round 1 from one lucky roll, in my opinion.

[Stoob]

I agree and support Unknown Soldier’s opinion.

[Jennifer]

You seem awfully defensive for a man who I did not attack.

Furthermore, it’s not a straw-man argument, it’s a logical and very often seen scenario.

Say Japan has 5 techs on Chart 2 and none of them are Heavy Bombers.  America moves their fleet into range of LR Bombers, knowing they have a 90% chance to win if attacked as the board is set up now.  Japan rolls and gets heavy bombers (maybe they spent 100% of their cash on it, dunno…logical though considering they have 5 techs already and probably have at least 40 IPC to get 8 rolls for the last one) and now the odds are not 90% defender advantage but now 85% attacker advantage.  Now the Japanese sink the Americans.

Many people, I suppose yourself included based on how guilty you seem to feel and how defensive you are, would whine that technology is broken.  Technology is not broken, you made a bone-headed move and a superior player capitalized on it.  But instead of learning from that mistake, you want to nerf technology so that the same situation would result in you being able to sink the Japanese fleet (since they blew all their cash on technology for HBs instead of buying ships to defend their fleet) or at the least, forcing them out of position and now you can laugh and sail off into the sunset.

Nah, stop trying to screw up the game and learn how to play.  Sorry, it’s brutal, but it’s also true.

Trying to nerf technology like you are is akin to nerfing tank blitzes because you forgot to leave a man in position to stop your opponent from blitzing into your under-defended capitol and you lost.  Just like I won’t support you nerfing blitzing, I won’t support you nerfing technology either.

(PS:  For the record, that last WAS a strawman, I wanted to show you what one was since you obviously have no clue what they are, you just decided it was a cool thing to say so you could appear smarter than your average bear.)

[Jennifer]

Let’s not change the subject.  Anniversary Enhanced was released for players who enjoyed the added complexities of Revised Enhanced.  It’s a completely different scenario.  Either admit you’re defeated on this topic, or stick to the topic.

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Your suspected inability to handle the dynamics of normal game play resulting in your unrealistic hopes of nerfing rules that you seem to be unable to handle is the matter in which we are discussing.

Fact:  Every incarnation of Axis and Allies has been released with technology coming into effect immediately upon discovery.

Sure, LHTR changed this, but LHTR was never officially endorsed by the game manufacturers and has always been considered house rules.

So what does this fact tell us?  It tells us the games have always been designed that technology comes into play the instant it is discovered.

At least in LHTR there was a good reason, getting LRA with Germany round 1 prevented England from ever really playing.  Since there was no way for England to avoid it, something had to be done.

You don’t want to nullify the impact of something you cannot possibly avoid.  You want to nullify the impact of something you should be perfectly capable of avoiding or at least planing contingencies around.

To me this smacks of very bad game play on your part.  This is not an issue of the rules providing a scenario that is both devastating and unavoidable.  This is an issue of your inability to adequately plan your strategies so instead of getting better at the game, you want to screw around with the rules to make it easier for you.

[axis_roll]

@Cmdr:

Fact:  Every incarnation of Axis and Allies has been released with technology coming into effect immediately upon discovery.

Fact: MANY and I mean MANY Classic and 3rd edition (Cd-Rom) players did NOT play with the much too-random (read dicey) tech rules.

Fact: LHTR fixed this problem.  Tech at the end of a turn does not allow a player to ‘win the game with a yahtzee roll’

And Anniversary fixed this issue too.  Tech is an OPTIONAL rule.

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Don’t get me wrong, I actually like the new tech rules, although they are still a bit too random for me (only can target 1 of 6)

I have said it before, and I will say it again:

Directed guarenteed immediate tech is not a good thing.

The enables the team with the most money to leverage their IPC advantage.  No delays, no risk to not get a weapon… I have the cash, tech “A” will give me a huge advantage… I can afford it, I buy it and use it right now.

The game is totally different by allowing techs to be bought and used the same turn.

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Apologies for hijacking this thread and turning it into a discussion on tech.

[Pvt.Patterson]

Footsey??

Well I think that If you sink Most of teh UK navy in G1. CA and DD, DD and BB and tran. The I-ties should take gibralter I1 and build a transport and G1 should be reinforcing Lybia with andother tank and Inf.

Why attack when you are weak and your opponet cant reinforece. You can attack G2 with 2 tanks 3 inf and a bomber and 2 fighters form sinking brit fleet and in I2 you can attack with 2 tanks 4 inf a CA’s amd BB and a fighter. Perpare you forces first. then attack. Your loss will be less the more you attack with because there is a more likey chance that there will be a wipe out in the first or second dice roll  not the third or fourth.

[Lucifer]

@Cmdr:

Trying to nerf technology like you are is akin to nerfing tank blitzes because you forgot to leave a man in position to stop your opponent from blitzing into your under-defended capitol and you lost.

You are actually delusional enough to think that dice rolls and combat moves/non combat moves are the same issues  :roll: