For your reference, the A&A Classic FAQ:
Most Important Neautral in Axis and Allies
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A german naval strategy won’t work against anybody good though. :lol:
Anyway how do you conclude the other neutrals aren’t worth their ipc value? Is this based on experience? I think Baker made a very good case for SAmerican neutrals, and I think I showed how Mongolia, and Sweden are both potentially valuable as well.
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@AgentSmith:
Peru and Argentina are about the same though, but you made a good point. Like I said I think just about any neutral has a reason for being invaded, and it seems like it is usually the Axis who can benefit whether its Peru, Turkey, Mongolia, or Sweden. The few neutrals that benefit the Allies are Spain, Angola and Afghan, but the benefits of the last two are minimal at best.
How does Turkey and Sweden benefit the Axis and Angola and Afghan benefit the Allies?
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Well the only times I’ve ever seen Afghan violated was by the US in order to stash the 2inf in Sinkiang there so they can attempt to retake India/Persia on US2. Also, I’ve only seen Angola violated by Britain in order to allow American tanks in BCongo to blitz through to SAfr. Considering these are the only instances when violating Angola or Afghan will be seen there certainly seems to be an Allied advantage to taking these two countries. As for Sweden and Turkey I said above that Turkey is great to store 2arm f/Ukr if Germany takes Cauc on G1. If the German bomber overflies Turkey on its way to Syria the Germans can on G2 control most of Africa and India if the Brits counter attack Egypt. As for Sweden it is used to store the German forces in FinNor in order to keep long term pressure on Finland which should force the Allies to divert forces away from Karelia to kill these troops or to ignore them in which case Germany may be able to trade Finland for 2-3 turns longer than usual.
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The only time I’ve ever seen Afghanistan violated was in a game we played in October 2001 at my house. I cut out a small Afghan flag from a big world map I had with all the flags and attached it to a FLAK gun, placing the gun on Afghanistan. The house rule was whoever violated Afghanistan’s neutrality first got a free turn. UK of course got it… :D
Getting back to the Spain issue; I know how the Spain strategy works, my argument was just that I thought a USA player who’s shuckin’-and-jivin’ like a pro could accomplish pretty much the same thing using UK as the staging point and without bothering with paying the IPC fine for violating Spain’s neutrality…
And I was wrong :D . I’m sold–the Spain strategy is more cost effective. Check it out;
AgentSmith used the example of deploying 10 USA INF onto Spain. OK, but let’s do it in the most cost-effective way, using everything that’s on the board T1. T1 you move the INF on West USA to East USA and now have a TR (assuming it survives T1), 4 INF and an ARM on East USA. You build 3 TR’s and 4 INF (for 36 IPC’s). Now you can invade Spain on T2 with 8 (not 10) INF. Lose 3 IPC’s. Assuming you’ve lost all of China, in East USA you can build a number of things, but we’re trying to attack Western Europe as early as possible, with as great a force as possible, as CHEAP as possible, by utilizing Spain as a base. So on T2 we build 8 INF and a TR (we can load that ARM on the extra TR). On T3 we move our 4 TR’s back to Eastern USA, and with our 32 IPC’s build 2 TRs and 4 INF. We now have a grand total of 8 INF in Spain, 12 INF 1 ARM in Eastern USA, and 7 TRs
So now we’re set up for a big USA4 attack. We can deploy in Western Europe a total of 20 INF 1 ARM and whatever aircraft we’ve flown in. We’ve purchased a total of 6 TRs and 16 INF. We’ve violated Spain’s neutrality for 3 IPC’s. Total time = 4 turns. Total cost = 99 IPCs
OR you could USA1 build 3 TRs and 4 INF. T2 you move everything on Eastern USA to England–that’s 4 TRs carrying 6 INF 1 ARM (or 8 INF) into the UK. T2 you build (assuming you lost all of China) 4 TRs. T3 you build 8 INF and a TR (another 32 IPCs). On USA4 you can now attack Western Europe directly with a total of 16 INF and an ARM (OR 18 INF), plus whatever aircraft you’ve put in place. Total time = 4 turns. Total cost = 100 IPCs.
The Spain strategy costs you 1 IPC LESS,and you get to attack in the same time frame with 4 additional INF–a total cost savings of 13 IPCs.
OK, I’m sold. I finally have an interesting USA strategy.
Ozone27
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Again Ozone the problem with attacking WEuro directly is that you open yourself up to an Germany counterattack. As the Germans I would trade WEuro with Germany the first few turns in order to consolidate my hold over Africa. With you sending all Americans into England into to take WEuro you will have to concede Africa to Germany. Since I almost always make a first or second turn tank heavy purhcase for Germany I should have 12-13 inf 9-10arm 4-5ftrs bmb to hit 18 American inf with. Even if you land with the Brits I will still get a very good strafe. So if I can trade 9inf for 18inf I will everytime. Especially, because doing so prevents the Americans from stacking and amassing force to use against Germany.
By the way what do you base this knowledge on? Have you ever played against anybody that used Spain? Have you ever played against somebody that used Afghanistan other than as a gimmick? It’s easy to judge moves as weak when only implemented by weak players.
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@AgentSmith:
Again Ozone the problem with attacking WEuro directly is that you open yourself up to an Germany counterattack. As the Germans I would trade WEuro with Germany the first few turns in order to consolidate my hold over Africa. With you sending all Americans into England into to take WEuro you will have to concede Africa to Germany. Since I almost always make a first or second turn tank heavy purhcase for Germany I should have 12-13 inf 9-10arm 4-5ftrs bmb to hit 18 American inf with. Even if you land with the Brits I will still get a very good strafe. So if I can trade 9inf for 18inf I will everytime. Especially, because doing so prevents the Americans from stacking and amassing force to use against Germany.
By the way what do you base this knowledge on? Have you ever played against anybody that used Spain? Have you ever played against somebody that used Afghanistan other than as a gimmick? It’s easy to judge moves as weak when only implemented by weak players.
HAHAHA! :D LOL!!! :D AgentSmith, with all due respect; have you read ANY of my above posts?
Dude! I’m AGREEING with you! :)
Ozone27
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With all due respect your last post made it sound like going directly to WEuro was as good as going to Spain first.
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The Spain strategy costs you 1 IPC LESS,and you get to attack in the same time frame with 4 additional INF–a total cost savings of 13 IPCs.
Ozone27
I’m sorry if I was somehow unclear. My point was that you are correct.
Ozone27
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no doubt…. SPAIN
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Spain is the most Important because it blocks Germany from the British Gibraltor. It is a airfield for alot of allied planes and with the neutral spain blocking Germany, Germany either has to make a full-total commitment to capturing Gibraltor, or let it stay there under British control.
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I believe turkey is, because if germany takes it, its an open path to africa from europe…
my second choice would be spain! -
Good point MR. Sgt Slice I have found Gibralter to be completely worthless to both Germany and the Allies, therefore I would never bother with it as either side.
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Spain. I love amassing a huge army in Gibraltar, then move into Spain when I feel ready to confront the German forces in Western Europe.
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I believe turkey is, because if germany takes it, its an open path to africa from europe…
my second choice would be spain!So you play as if there were a bridge over the Black Sea? I’ll need to check my rules again. I’ve always thought you couldn’t send troops across this as its the outlet of the Black Sea.
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You can’t send troops from EEuro to Turkey, but the way Turkey is used is to take Cauc on G1 and overfly Turkey with the German bomber en route to Syria, the EMed or AES. Since both Cauc and Turkey are now in German hands in noncombat they can move 2arm f/Ukr to Turkey.
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Exactly Agent smith, thanks for explaining that for me!
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:D I get it. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
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Spain is the only one I’ve used. All others are a waste of 3 IPC’s, IMO.
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Based on what 3ipcs is not a big deal consider there is a risk involved with most trading battles like 2inf ftrs versus 2inf. There is a chance you won’t take the territory and have thus wasted units for Germany. 3ipcs is never too high a cost if it will gain you something tangible in return, and as I have stated before all the neutrals I listed have at least some gain to be had for taking them.
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3 IPC’s isn’t much for the allies esp the US, but I doubt I’d ever spend the 3 as Ger or Japan. I’d rather have the extra inf, esp for Ger. With a bid maybe Ger could afford it but again, I think I’d rather have the inf. Then again I like to buy an occassional ftr with Ger. So heck, maybe it is worth it.