Having problems playing Allies

[macphearsome]

@jbriggs:

Take Norway for example  Russia takes Norway in turn 1, Germany counter attacks, then Britian attacks and takes Norway.  Germany has to attack Norway again if Not, Britian builds an IC on its next turn there and starts shuttling tanks into The russian lines, wich doesn’t turn out to well for Germany.  Germany has to respect the IC in Norway because It allows The allies to have access to Central Europe.  Yes Germany can control the sea zones, but Britian has a toe hold established in Europe and doesn’t have to waste transports to shuttle units into europe.

I have to ask about something.

Earlier it seemed that you weren’t aware that you can only build as many units on a tile as its IPC value - for example, you suggested a R1 placement of 6 artillery on Caucasus despite the 4-IPC limit.

Are you aware that Britain would be restricted to placing only 3 units a turn on Norway?  It’s not exactly the sort of thing that makes the word “shuttle” jump to my mind… more like “trickle”

[Papasmurph]

@jbriggs:

Most people I have played against, see’s russia as very weak, and they play them defensively.  I can’t play that way.  My first round purchases for Russia is 6 artillary.  This will do a few things for you……it creates options.  Doing this for your first 3 rounds along with attacking Germany every turn will make you stronger.  Buying the artillery adds an offensive option to you your stratagy.  First round combat movements should consist of attacking Norway with 2 fighters and 3 infantry from karelia.  You will limit the fighter from norway from attacking the british fleet in SZ2, and it gives you an easy 3 ipc’s.  Then attack west Russia with everything else from russia, your tank in archangel, and artillary and tank from caucas.  You should win both battles with little loss.  Your non combat phase, move 3 infantry from archangel into Karelia and land 2 fighters into karelia.  Move 2 infantry from kazakh into Caucasas.  2 infantry from yakut to Buryatia.  2 infantry from novosibursk into sinkiiang. 2 infantry from E.N.O into Novosibirsk.  Move your submarine from sea zone 4 to 2. Place your 6 artillary into caucasas.  What this does is creates a wall for germany to attack.  If Germany goes on the offensive they will be very weak for a counter attack by britian and russia.  Caucasas will have 5 infantry and 6 artillery to defend with.  Karelia will have 3 infantry and 2 fighters to defend with.  West Russia will have 3 tanks, artillery and at least 1 infantry to defend with.  If Germany attacks either one of these they will have to attack in force.  They will be hurt badly and then you’ll be able to clean up with your other units the next round.  Doing this will put you at +5 ipc’s for your next round, and will give you alot of firepower to attack Ukraine in round 2 from west russia and caucasas.

I couldn’t disagree more with this strategy for Russia.  First off, artillery are the worst piece in the whole game to buy and I will explain why in a second.  Secondly, dividing your forces is the worst possible thing to do when you are Russia.  There is a book called “the art of war” which gives a mathematical explanation for why you never divide your forces and it applies perfectly in this situation.  Basically it is being suggested that Russia spreads its units between Norway, Karelia, Caucusus, and West Russia.  This gives Germany the option to pick a battle that gives them overwhelming odds and does not put their units at risk of counterattack.  I would throw absolutely everything at Karelia, including two infantry i can transport over.  I would kill all of the Russian fighters that Russia will ever have and lose maybe two or 3 infantry.  I think the 3 “easy” IPCs make for a very big loss the next turn.
As for artillery, they are absolutely horrible.  At first glance people read artillery and they say, “Fantastic!!! They are like a tank when they are with an infantry and even if they aren’t with an infantry they attack at 2!!!”  Here is what is wrong with this analysis:  If you are attacking and you think that you are barely going to win, then you are going to eventually have fewer infantry than artillery.  This means that you have units that are slightly less expensive than tanks but significantly worse at attacking.  Once you win your close victory you have units that defend the same as infantry but cost more.  If you are going to overwhelmingly win then the concern is not so much how good they are at attacking but how good they are at defending a potential counterattack.  Here is another way to look at it.  Look ONLY at attacking.  Would you rather have 8 infantry and 8 artillery or 7 infantry and 7 tanks.  I would rather have the 7 infantry and 7 tanks every single time.  As you lose infantry artillery become worse but tanks don’t.  If you aren’t convinced then try some mock battles and see what happens.  Also consider what you are left with at the end of the battle if it is a losing battle.  Most people are convinced at this point but every now and then somebody says, “Yea I guess, but what if you make sure that you always have more infantry than artillery?  Then, like, they would be better than tanks cause they are cheaper.”  First, they would only be better at attacking, not defending, and they don’t have two moves which is not a trivial difference.  If you are attacking and winning then the new infantry will always be at least one space behind.  So then you would want to make sure that you will have as many infantry as artillery at the END of the campaign and not just after the first battle.  If you think that you are going to continue to attack and win then you probably want tanks that will actually make it to the later battles.  Units that never see a major battle aren’t very good purchases…  So replenishing infantry later on is not so practical.  Also, there is the issue of transportation.  You cannot transport an artillery with another artillery or with a tank.  This means that you may end up with transports that aren’t full because you don’t have enough infantry.  This happens almost never but it is one more disadvantage that I thought I should point out.

If anyone is interested I can also explain why subs, destroyers, battleships, and bombers should never be purchased

[77stranger77]

Don’t worry, I haven’t heard anyone else espouse that sort of Russian strategy.

I will challenge your assertion that units that don’t ever see battle should not be purchased. Why do people buy carriers for the US in the Atlantic? They are there so that Germany can’t safely attack US transports. Why do I often buy 3 inf, 3 tanks R1? I buy them so that Germany can’t stack Karelia without being decimated. A smart German player won’t stack Karelia or make any suicidal advance for that reason, those tanks probably won’t see largescale battle(until a Japanese attack on Russia) but they still served the useful purpose of containing Germany to Eastern Europe.

[Papasmurph]

@Fleetwood:

Don’t worry, I haven’t heard anyone else espouse that sort of Russian strategy.

I will challenge your assertion that units that don’t ever see battle should not be purchased. Why do people buy carriers for the US in the Atlantic? They are there so that Germany can’t safely attack US transports. Why do I often buy 3 inf, 3 tanks R1? I buy them so that Germany can’t stack Karelia without being decimated. A smart German player won’t stack Karelia or make any suicidal advance for that reason, those tanks probably won’t see largescale battle(until a Japanese attack on Russia) but they still served the useful purpose of containing Germany to Eastern Europe.

Good point.  I had in mind a group of like 8 infantry that are not near the front.  I think my assertion still stands there.

[S31JohnnyBGoode]

@gnasape:

Please take a look at the play boardgame section and find a game by DM (Darth Maximus_, JWW, KGB.  You would need to download AA battlemap, all the moves are posted, buys, comtat, non-combat.

Please forgive my ignorance, but is there a simple way to find this game other than trawling through hundreds of pages?

[theROCmonster]

You can play the game at tripplea.com, gametableonline.com, and right here at axisandallies.org.

As the allies UK is the key to the game. A poorly played UK means disaster most of the time. Russia should be easy to play once you have a couple hundred games under your belt, but UK is still difficult well into the 400 game mark. Try to pressure as much with UK as possible, but keep your fleet safe. Buying a lot of fighters early on is a sound strategy if Germany has all 6 of her fighters and bomber and decides to build more. Just keep sending units to africa. Once UK has a sufficient ammount of planes and Germany moves some of her fighters away, then move your fleet up and get 4 transports pumping 8 ground units a turn into Europe.

[Kolpi]

Here’s my strategy for the Allies, it has worked well for me.

Africa is a must. Loose it and UK is dead in the water, literally.

USA -> Should invade Africa from R1 and on, relentlessly bringing 2-3 tanks + 2-3 inf each turn. By R3, Japan sees a lot of movement in northern Africa (that Germany can’t take care of) and start paying attention, that gives Russia some breathing room.

UK-> R1, remove the Japanese tran in SZ59 with destroyer and AC from SZ35; remove Japan sub in SZ45 with sub in SZ40 and fighter from AC in SZ35 – fighter lands on US AC in SZ52. As for the rest, the goal is simply to annoy Germany, nothing else. First, rebuild its navy ASAP and start invading Norway. If Germany is still strong in the water and in the air, which is probably the case in the first 3 rounds, start over and rebuild again. Every IPC Germany spends on fighters and navy units are IPCs not going into tanks to attack Russia.

Russia -> First of all, forget about Norway, it’s suicide plain and simple. Attack West Russia to invade and Ukraine to diminish Germany’s forces there and retreat to Caucasus. Buy only ARTs for the first 3 rounds, then a mix of tanks and INF. Unless Germany was super agressive, smart AND lucky, they will see a barrage of 30+ units capable of attacking at D2 – this will match their 20+ tanks (as far as probability is concerned) with one great advantage, if both Russia and Germany each loose 10 units in the first round, which is likely to happen, the odds are already in Russia’s favor in the second round of combat (Russia’s punch is 40 and Germany 30). Finally, as Russia, never ever loose your fighters, they are precious in exchanging territories with Japan or Germany.

The great thing about AA is that there are no fail-safe strategies.

[Kreuzfeld]

what I prefer to do is this;
3 inf + 3 tanks on R1, hit ukraine with 2 tanks 2 planes and 3 inf, everything else on west russia, stack bury, and mover everything else west. turn 2 I prefer to buy 1 ftr, 1 art and 5 inf, this is to be able to scirmish on a front that is 3 terretories wide.

on UK1 my first priority is to retake egypt if possible,  to do this I use the bomber,  the india ftr, 2 inf from india, 1 inf from jordan, this should usually at least be enough to kill all the german units, even tho you lose all your infs (depending on defending luck turn 1)
I usually land in algeria, because germany are usually not capable of counterattacking the combined UK an us fleet, If this is not possible, gather the fleet west of UK with my new AC.
if for some reason germany has done a quite common mistake to only have 2 inf and 4 ftrs in france, I attack it, if egypt is not possible i often land in borneo and papua, while using the ftr + sun against j sub, and land the ftr on pearl.

US will usually buy AC + trs + inf/art tanks (if I buy 6 units it will be 4 inf 1 art 1 tank, and long game, more tank than art)

the overall gameplan from this point will be for US to land 8-10 units in africa each turn,  UK build 6-7 units + 1 ftr and at some point swich to landing in norway, when strong enough. USSR keep on scirmishing germany.

If I have a successful game, the US in africa will make it to persia, and be able to match the japanese there, possibly making it to cauc. I once had more than 150 units in cauc, only 50 was ussr. then the win is plain.

if japan manages to be fast enough, I will move all my us trannies to the med (8-10) and start landing the units in africa in s europe (16-20 / turn). I will lose it a few times, but germany will not be able to build more than 10 units / turn, at the same time UK will land in france each turn, and if USSR are not able to hold moscow from the japanses, the entire russian army will start walking towards berlin, doing a final suicide charge to kill german units.

I have had a more than 80% successrate with a bid of 8-10 (set in libya) with this stratigy.

on, and people seem to forget that trannies are prolly one of the best fleetunits on defence, UK/US fleet is often 1 BB 1-2 AC 2 DD and 10-12 trannies. you need a pretty good attacking force to deal with that. And that is before you add the ftrs on defence.

btw, I also 400 games in an insane amount, with some intelligent research, and planning, you should be able to figure it out in much less, especially playing online.