This is an issue I wish the game by vanilla would just let you turn over control of territory to your allies as this happened a lot between Germany and Italy. I have allowed enemies forces to capture a territory just so I can turn it over to another.
Italy a bad design
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@Blitz:
Seriously why not take away Gibraltar’s air and naval bases. Would it really have a huge impact on what the allies are able to do? Whereas it might mean that the Italians actually have a chance of doing something in their first turn. Meanwhile even without the Naval Base the UK carrier and destroyer can still get back to Britain or join up with the French fleet. It may not be historically accurate, but is there any other way that does not upset the balance of the game even more?
I think the Airbase is fine in Gibraltar. The Naval yard however is the source of a lot of grievance. If UK purchases one in round 1,2, or 3 it will still be valuable and will prevent Italy from ending up at bottom of sea before it goes. Or maybe even just having the Italian fleet in one bulk like the 1941 scenario on TripleA. There are many ways of making the Africa battle actually happen. Changes just need to be agreed upon.
Italy sadly was one of the Nations myself and many others were looking forward to playing with. Balance issues were bound to become known with new games such as Global and unfortunately Italy gets the worst of it. Larry must have miscalculated the ease of UK taking out the Italian fleet. I can see why, cause judging from initial setup it looks impressive.
Exactly, I really think this might be one of the easiest ways to save the Italians from just sitting around unable to do anything all game
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And what is japan doing while the UK completely abandons the pacific? Or are you just using starting boats to kill the Italy navy off after T1? Because I can easily see Japan taking India, Pearl, and ANZAC around J3, J5 at the latest if India is abandoned.
And even if they loose that half of there fleet, that means the UK will only have a handful of boats on the board after G2, and will be incapable of doing anything out of London until the US gets there, or watch it go down to the bottom from German air.
Also, they still have a dd/cru/trans left, they can add another dd, take greece and southern france, and on I2 drop a carrier if its really needed. They also start out with a unit advantage in northern africa to begin with. It will be at the earliest UK3 that the brits have any new units in the med to hit them with anyway.
I like the choice that is available for the UK in the early game, do you waste a carrier to slow down Italy, or keep it to threaten northern germany much quicker.
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Not sure what happened to my post but here goes again. This is going to be less informative and more to the point as I don’t have time and I spent some time on the post that seemed to disappear.
AA not meant to go the way it historically did
It is meant to accurately reflect the situation at the time.
Italy made a miniscule contribution. Performed so horribly, in Africa and balkans Germany had to do what they couldn’t. Italy being so weak is accurate. Depending on how you see the turns in terms of time length, you can argue if they should be irrelevant on turn 1, 2, or 3.
As long as Germany can do its part and have a reasonable chance of taking North Africa, game is not broken.
It is way to soon to determine that.
Italy should be played by the German player in a multi player game.
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Not sure what happened to my post but here goes again. This is going to be less informative and more to the point as I don’t have time and I spent some time on the post that seemed to disappear.
AA not meant to go the way it historically did
It is meant to accurately reflect the situation at the time.
Italy made a miniscule contribution. Performed so horribly, in Africa and balkans Germany had to do what they couldn’t. Italy being so weak is accurate. Depending on how you see the turns in terms of time length, you can argue if they should be irrelevant on turn 1, 2, or 3.
As long as Germany can do its part and have a reasonable chance of taking North Africa, game is not broken.
It is way to soon to determine that.
Italy should be played by the German player in a multi player game.
I guess its not really about Italy being ‘too weak’, from the looks of it Italy starts out fairly well, quite a few ships in the Med, respectable land forces in North Africa, what bothers people is the fact that Italy can start out in this reasonable good position and then suddenly be reduced to impotence, before they get a chance to do anything. How in this game can we really expect the German player to be able to help out that much, the Germans seem to be effectively shut out from the Med at the start, leading me to believe that the designers intended it to be Italy’s role to deal with the Med and Africa, but if their ships can be destroyed before they have a chance to move……
It also seems a bit frustrating that the French fleet in the Med can be saved by the UK, but the Italians have no hope, how can the Germans save then on turn 1?
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And what is japan doing while the UK completely abandons the pacific? Or are you just using starting boats to kill the Italy navy off after T1? Because I can easily see Japan taking India, Pearl, and ANZAC around J3, J5 at the latest if India is abandoned.
And even if they loose that half of there fleet, that means the UK will only have a handful of boats on the board after G2, and will be incapable of doing anything out of London until the US gets there, or watch it go down to the bottom from German air.
Also, they still have a dd/cru/trans left, they can add another dd, take greece and southern france, and on I2 drop a carrier if its really needed. They also start out with a unit advantage in northern africa to begin with. It will be at the earliest UK3 that the brits have any new units in the med to hit them with anyway.
I like the choice that is available for the UK in the early game, do you waste a carrier to slow down Italy, or keep it to threaten northern germany much quicker.
I’m not sure you get it. The UK needs nothing more than their starting boats in adjacent areas to kill Italian fleet. This did nothing detrimental to India. If anything, it allowed UK to keep suez open and get more men towards India since Africa isn’t being contested. Italy was made irrelevant in round 1. There is no reason for the UK not to do it.
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@Blitz:
And what is japan doing while the UK completely abandons the pacific? Or are you just using starting boats to kill the Italy navy off after T1? Because I can easily see Japan taking India, Pearl, and ANZAC around J3, J5 at the latest if India is abandoned.
And even if they loose that half of there fleet, that means the UK will only have a handful of boats on the board after G2, and will be incapable of doing anything out of London until the US gets there, or watch it go down to the bottom from German air.
Also, they still have a dd/cru/trans left, they can add another dd, take greece and southern france, and on I2 drop a carrier if its really needed. They also start out with a unit advantage in northern africa to begin with. It will be at the earliest UK3 that the brits have any new units in the med to hit them with anyway.
I like the choice that is available for the UK in the early game, do you waste a carrier to slow down Italy, or keep it to threaten northern germany much quicker.
I’m not sure you get it. The UK needs nothing more than their starting boats in adjacent areas to kill Italian fleet. This did nothing detrimental to India. If anything, it allowed UK to keep suez open and get more men towards India since Africa isn’t being contested. Italy was made irrelevant in round 1. There is no reason for the UK not to do it.
they could always fight along side germany in securing stallingrad
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The Axis should have a chance to take the French fleet in the Med(die roll for each ship…maybe 50/50?). Thats why the UK attacked it in real life.
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German sub builds make taking out the Italian Navy a very low priority. When the UK is getting convoyed for 11 IPC’s a turn and Japan is keeping the USA out of the war the Italians are free to grab Gibraltar and create a safehaven in the med.
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German sub builds make taking out the Italian Navy a very low priority. When the UK is getting convoyed for 11 IPC’s a turn and Japan is keeping the USA out of the war the Italians are free to grab Gibraltar and create a safehaven in the med.
But you have just said it, if the UK does not attack the Italian fleet in turn 1 ‘the Italians are free to grab Gibraltar and create a safehaven in the med.’ Therefore why would the UK player not do this? That is the problem the UK can effectively hamstring the Italians completely in their first turn, if you were the UK wouldn’t you be willing to take a couple of turns of convoy disruption to knock-out one of your enemies?
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German sub builds make taking out the Italian Navy a very low priority. When the UK is getting convoyed for 11 IPC’s a turn and Japan is keeping the USA out of the war the Italians are free to grab Gibraltar and create a safehaven in the med.
But you have just said it, if the UK does not attack the Italian fleet in turn 1 ‘the Italians are free to grab Gibraltar and create a safehaven in the med.’ Therefore why would the UK player not do this? That is the problem the UK can effectively hamstring the Italians completely in their first turn, if you were the UK wouldn’t you be willing to take a couple of turns of convoy disruption to knock-out one of your enemies?
First, the Italians have two(2) fleets. Second, the Italians can take Gibraltar on I1 if they wanted to. Third, if you have not read the other posts on this thread, the Axis can eliminate the UK/French fleet in the Med.
Italy is not bad off at all, and if you allow them the minors in the Balkans and the NO’s they get, they can be a great help to the Germans.
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Build a transport at south africa, move the egypt one to the red sea SZ with the french destroyer.
Shuttle units from South African factory to egypt every turn.
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@Blitz:
I’m not sure you get it. The UK needs nothing more than their starting boats in adjacent areas to kill Italian fleet. This did nothing detrimental to India. If anything, it allowed UK to keep suez open and get more men towards India since Africa isn’t being contested. Italy was made irrelevant in round 1. There is no reason for the UK not to do it.
I’m right there with you Blitz and Model. Sigh.
UK buys one Minor IC and 1 transport + whatever else it wants…
The only thing Germany can do to prevent UK from crippling the Italian Navy is to try and hit the Aircraft Carrier off of Gibraltar. To do this the maximum that can reach is 2 subs against 1 destroyer, 1 Aircraft Carrier and one Tac Bomber. The AC can absorb a hit which will be repaired by the Gibraltar naval base at the beginning of its turn, so that’s no big deal. If that happens the TB can land in Gibraltar. In fact, the UK player would prefer to take one hit on the Carrier so that the plane can land in Gibraltar which has an Air Base. It is highly unlikely that the sub will hit anything. At best it might get the Destroyer.
So Italy has 1 Battleship, 1 Cruiser and 1 transport in SZ 95. The UK hits that with 1 destroyer (probably), 1 Aircraft Carrier(repaired and can absorb 2 hits), the TB and either 1 fighter from England (if the TB starts on the carrier) or 2 fighters from England (if the AC took a German hit and the TB landed in Gibraltar, increasing it’s range so it can land in Malta, freeing up a space for another fighter on the carrier.) In short, that Italian fleet SZ95 is TOAST. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Who cares that the UK commitment to the Med is going to get smeared by German planes. The point is that now Italy’s Navy consists of 1 Cruiser, 1 Destroyer, and 1 transport and has an income of, wait for it, 10 IPCs, which isn’t even enough to get a carrier.
Pause.
Now in Egypt, the UK has a convenient little buffer zone with Alexandria, allowing them to fall back and build a minor IC in Egypt. Turn 2 and every turn after there’s three feet on the ground. If the UK player then also drops a transport in South Africa, he can start a two unit per turn shuffle of troops to Egypt, every turn. That’s 5 units per turn! With Italy’s one transport, hell, even if they manage two transports, they just can’t get enough feet on the ground to keep pace with the UK in Egypt. Egypt is the key to Africa (thanks Sahara) and Egypt is never under any serious threat from the Axis, so Africa is never under any serious threat from the Axis. Once the UK has Egypt in it’s stone cold death grip, it can shift it’s attention across the Indian ocean, sending help to India and making Japan’s life a little more difficult.
Is the whole game broken? You’re right, probably too early to know, but it sure seems broken. Kind of how we looked at Pacific 1940 set-up pictures and said “wow, that’s a butt-load of planes.” And looked where that ended up. Any experienced player will recognize a gaping hole when they see one. And the UK attack turn 1 on SZ 95 is a Grand Canyon sized gaping hole.
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Build a transport at south africa, move the egypt one to the red sea SZ with the french destroyer.
Shuttle units from South African factory to egypt every turn.
Not a bad plan, but probably needs to be defended well since Germany can quickly get airpower in that area, and the Japs are right around the corner.
If Sea Lion does not need to be repelled, taking the CV, DD from Gibraltar and the CA off South America, the CA off Egypt and the DD you mention is a pretty good fleet. Maybe the French DD can be used as a stationary defense at one of the TRS points.
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@Blitz:
I’m not sure you get it. The UK needs nothing more than their starting boats in adjacent areas to kill Italian fleet. This did nothing detrimental to India. If anything, it allowed UK to keep suez open and get more men towards India since Africa isn’t being contested. Italy was made irrelevant in round 1. There is no reason for the UK not to do it.
I’m right there with you Blitz and Model. Sigh.
UK buys one Minor IC and 1 transport + whatever else it wants…
The only thing Germany can do to prevent UK from crippling the Italian Navy is to try and hit the Aircraft Carrier off of Gibraltar. To do this the maximum that can reach is 2 subs against 1 destroyer, 1 Aircraft Carrier and one Tac Bomber. The AC can absorb a hit which will be repaired by the Gibraltar naval base at the beginning of its turn, so that’s no big deal. If that happens the TB can land in Gibraltar. In fact, the UK player would prefer to take one hit on the Carrier so that the plane can land in Gibraltar which has an Air Base. It is highly unlikely that the sub will hit anything. At best it might get the Destroyer.
So Italy has 1 Battleship, 1 Cruiser and 1 transport in SZ 95. The UK hits that with 1 destroyer (probably), 1 Aircraft Carrier(repaired and can absorb 2 hits), the TB and either 1 fighter from England (if the TB starts on the carrier) or 2 fighters from England (if the AC took a German hit and the TB landed in Gibraltar, increasing it’s range so it can land in Malta, freeing up a space for another fighter on the carrier.) In short, that Italian fleet SZ95 is TOAST. And there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
Who cares that the UK commitment to the Med is going to get smeared by German planes. The point is that now Italy’s Navy consists of 1 Cruiser, 1 Destroyer, and 1 transport and has an income of, wait for it, 10 IPCs, which isn’t even enough to get a carrier.
Pause.
Now in Egypt, the UK has a convenient little buffer zone with Alexandria, allowing them to fall back and build a minor IC in Egypt. Turn 2 and every turn after there’s three feet on the ground. If the UK player then also drops a transport in South Africa, he can start a two unit per turn shuffle of troops to Egypt, every turn. That’s 5 units per turn! With Italy’s one transport, hell, even if they manage two transports, they just can’t get enough feet on the ground to keep pace with the UK in Egypt. Egypt is the key to Africa (thanks Sahara) and Egypt is never under any serious threat from the Axis, so Africa is never under any serious threat from the Axis. Once the UK has Egypt in it’s stone cold death grip, it can shift it’s attention across the Indian ocean, sending help to India and making Japan’s life a little more difficult.
Is the whole game broken? You’re right, probably too early to know, but it sure seems broken. Kind of how we looked at Pacific 1940 set-up pictures and said “wow, that’s a butt-load of planes.” And looked where that ended up. Any experienced player will recognize a gaping hole when they see one. And the UK attack turn 1 on SZ 95 is a Grand Canyon sized gaping hole.
Great post explaining the situation. I think saying game is broken would be over dramatic and knee jerk, however there is no way the game was intended to give the allies Africa for free. The Italian fleet is there for a reason, at least it’s meant to besides being there to be sunk round 1. Idk how larry missed this turn 1 UK attack. Drugs maybe.
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Or they are a speed bump like they were in the real war until Germany got there. Italy utterly failed in Africa. That is just how it happened. Not by chance. Not by some unlucky battle or bad manuever that if they could redo would change things. No, they just really really stunk. Look up there battle against Ethiopia and other battles in the balkans. They really stunk. Now if 1 game turn is suppose to be 3 months, as I have read it is suppose to be,(which by the way I have a problem with) it makes perfect sense.
The real question is, is there a way for Germany to get in there and help. That is the question.
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Shouldn’t they have at least left Italy a chance to achieve an ahistorical outcome though? It’s completely impossible outside of hoping for a massive dose of dice luck currently.
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The purpose of AA is not to force the game to take a historical route, but to start the game with an accurate historical representation of what was at that time. Then change history from that point. Italy taking over Africa is ridiculous. You are not playing Italy then, but some other power in it’s place with the same name.
Italy to me serves as a tool to not allow Germany to be so consolidated unlike the traditional game. Again, it is about getting Germany there to help.
I am in my first game. By the 10th game or so, I will probbably have more to say on this subject and hopefully a KISS suggestion on how to balance the game if it indeed ends up being broken.
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Or they are a speed bump like they were in the real war until Germany got there. Italy utterly failed in Africa. That is just how it happened. Not by chance. Not by some unlucky battle or bad manuever that if they could redo would change things. No, they just really really stunk. Look up there battle against Ethiopia and other battles in the balkans. They really stunk. Now if 1 game turn is suppose to be 3 months, as I have read it is suppose to be,(which by the way I have a problem with) it makes perfect sense.
The real question is, is there a way for Germany to get in there and help. That is the question.
I suppose the problem for me is that I don’t think the German player really has the incentive to help the Italians in Africa, I mean if you are Germany do you really want to be fighting on three fronts? From looking at the map it almost seems that Italy is meant to be the only Axis player in the Med and Africa, Germany has too much on its plate to realistically commit to helping the Italians out too much.
This means that the weight of the Axis campaign in Africa rests almost entirely on the Italian player, and I’m not sure that with a UK attack on the Italian fleet in turn one that Italy will be capable of handling Africa.
Although this might seem historically accurate to a degree is it really desirable in a game like this. From the looks of it the Italian player will be spending most of turn one gritting their teeth in frustration as the British deal them a very heavy naval blow. The UK player might even land in Greece to nab the 4 guys and extra IPCs to cause further annoyance, if all this happens I just don’t think Italy has the IPCs and the units to cope. That is why I think the Gibraltar Naval base might be a bit too much, but who knows, it needs to be tested to destruction…
Maybe the game was designed that way or maybe it was an oversight, but I definitely think its a little too much pain for the Italian player to take before they can even get to move. Just my tuppence worth.
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Eddie,
You posted right as I was considering - of writing much the same as what you said. Though there is one point I disagree with, not too strongly though :wink:
“to start the game with an accurate historical representation of what was at that time. Then change history from that point. Italy taking over Africa is ridiculous. You are not playing Italy then, but some other power in it’s place with the same name.”
Well, we can’t really put a cap on how much of a deviation is possible from the historical representation at that time. Perhaps in our game of alternate history, we have an Italy with a vast majority of the populace supporting the war effort, perhaps other nearby countries supporting them as well. I think the tech. charts are perfect examples of these alternate WWII settings, to limit ourselves to being too historically accurate is to make the game relatively boring… I’d just watch a couple documentaries or read some history books instead of playing. Having said that, sure, we don’t want a game setting that has no resemblance to the start of WWII. It’s the fine line of the game, sometimes a game session provides players the suspension of disbelief, others, not so much.
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Or they are a speed bump like they were in the real war until Germany got there. Italy utterly failed in Africa. That is just how it happened. Not by chance. Not by some unlucky battle or bad manuever that if they could redo would change things. No, they just really really stunk. Look up there battle against Ethiopia and other battles in the balkans. They really stunk. Now if 1 game turn is suppose to be 3 months, as I have read it is suppose to be,(which by the way I have a problem with) it makes perfect sense.
The real question is, is there a way for Germany to get in there and help. That is the question.
I suppose the problem for me is that I don’t think the German player really has the incentive to help the Italians in Africa, I mean if you are Germany do you really want to be fighting on three fronts? From looking at the map it almost seems that Italy is meant to be the only Axis player in the Med and Africa, Germany has too much on its plate to realistically commit to helping the Italians out too much.
This means that the weight of the Axis campaign in Africa rests almost entirely on the Italian player, and I’m not sure that with a UK attack on the Italian fleet in turn one that Italy will be capable of handling Africa.
Although this might seem historically accurate to a degree is it really desirable in a game like this. From the looks of it the Italian player will be spending most of turn one gritting their teeth in frustration as the British deal them a very heavy naval blow. The UK player might even land in Greece to nab the 4 guys and extra IPCs to cause further annoyance, if all this happens I just don’t think Italy has the IPCs and the units to cope. That is why I think the Gibraltar Naval base might be a bit too much, but who knows, it needs to be tested to destruction…
Maybe the game was designed that way or maybe it was an oversight, but I definitely think its a little too much pain for the Italian player to take before they can even get to move. Just my tuppence worth.
Exactly. Can the Germans move its whole fleet towards med. sea and try to open it and kill UK surface ships so Italy can build some ships? Yes. But would they want to? No. Too much resources being expended and for too long. Just so Italy can have some navy? Please that is ridiculous and thus I feel a change to setup is required for balance. The prior “italy sucked in real life and thus must loose Africa before it takes a turn” is very poor logic. Can we just agree the Gibraltar Naval Yard needs to go?
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