Challenge

[Chompers2]

I have played about a dozen games now and there has been only one axis win and that was because I did something really dumb with Russia.

I think the axis are much harder to play.  They have a super powerful county in Japan to match super powerful America but I think it is much easier to mess with Japan.

It seems to me the allies can have some bad dice luck and still win but if the axis get bad dice luck it can cost them the game because it takes them so long to get into position and they have less IPCs to replace lost units.

[plumsmugler]

A strategy I’ve found that is really helpful against Russia is to slowly surround their capital.

You get a major IC in Romania G1 or G2 and, after you capture Leningrad as well, start pumping out waves of infantry and artillery followed by waves of tanks and mech infantry.  Keep a special focus on taking Stalingrad as soon as you can to capture another 7 IPCs a turn for yourself and a minor IC near the Russian capital.  You might also want to build another minor IC somewhere in Southwestern Russia like the Ukraine or Rostov.  Once you’ve accomplished that keep your forces poised to attack any move Russia makes outside of its capital.  This will isolate Russia and make it very difficult for them to make any kind of moves whatsoever.  Once you have enough men and tanks amassed a couple of spaces away from Russia move them all in to territories adjacent to Russia.  Keep your forces spread out enough that if Russia wanted to it could take its whole army and defeat one of your stacks but leave the capital open to counterattack from all the other stacks you have around it.

The whole point of this is to isolate Russia without having to necessarily take it.  If you have it totally surrounded then it will be eventually making 3 IPCs a turn.  If you can make it to this point that essentially means that Germany merely has to spend 3 IPCs a turn to keep Russia in check.  Germany can then put its near total focus on defending the Western front.  If you even just spend 10 IPCs a turn on Russia you can eventually take it.  Surrounding Russia makes that huge stack they have pretty meaningless and allows the Axis to go about their business without having to worry about the bear to the east.

Keep in mind this strategy only has a chance of working if Japan doesn’t declare war on the US until J3 and America isn’t going for a total 100% commitment to a KGF strategy.

[The Dessert Fox]

Build a dummy sealion fleet and then send them to attack Leningrad. After this You can reinforce Norway with your remaining trannies if the US start moving units close to it. If the US build a major in Norway just concede. It is hard to win after that as they will throw ten units a turn into there you then need to draw units back from the Eastern front ot protect your homeland then the SU come and start to raid you and you will just end up turtiling especialy if the UK starts working on Italy and you will be stuck on Three fronts. You then can’t hold France the allies will liberate it and then you have four powers gunning at your capital. SO moral of the story play a dummy sealion and take Lenningrad and then follow it  up with Major in Romania so you can take CauCau and then move onto Stalingrad. Start taking SU territories close to the front and deprive them of their income so you can force them into Trying to hold out in Moscow. Most likely they will also call in the Far Eastern troops and then Japan can help you by taking there Easter territories

[Blitchga]

@Gargantua:

I played with Larry Harris’s revised setup.

I have not tried this yet. I have found that while P40 was unbalanced that G40 has been fairly balanced.

[billinjackson]

@Blitchga:

Here is my problem and my I cannot seem to find any concrete effective strategies that are not playing huge luck games with the Axis. Our group has not seen the Axis win yet in roughly a dozen games. This is as you can guess quite alarming. I am reading about people winning as the axis which has been leading me to wonder whether they have seen something we have missed as the axis or if their allied players are just not as sharp as ours. As such I am hoping that people could give me some strategies with Germany and Italy. This is where the majority of our problems are occurring. Japan can become almost as big as the US but we have been wondering if that is enough to actually win.

Regardless we are hoping that people could express all of their Axis strategies in as much depth as they are willing. We have tried, Major industrial complex in Romania, Yugoslavia minor, subs to stall Atlantic, large transport force in the Mediterranean, Inf/Art combos against Russia, tank/mech combos against Russia, Factory in Egypt after taking it… we can simply never seem to stop the Allied advance.

Looking forward to some brain storming.

What about ideas on increasing the advantage to the Axis. Perhaps giving them more tanks at start with Germany and an extra battlship with Japan? - something like that? thoughts and or ideas?

[LHoffman]

@billinjackson:

What about ideas on increasing the advantage to the Axis. Perhaps giving them more tanks at start with Germany and an extra battlship with Japan? - something like that? thoughts and or ideas?

If anything, I would say Japan could use more mainland Asia land forces… far more so than another Battleship.

[billinjackson]

@LHoffman:

@billinjackson:

What about ideas on increasing the advantage to the Axis. Perhaps giving them more tanks at start with Germany and an extra battlship with Japan? - something like that? thoughts and or ideas?

If anything, I would say Japan could use more mainland Asia land forces… far more so than another Battleship.

I see where you are coming from. That would help the mainland strategy. I was just thinking that if one increased their navy it could slow down the US in the Pacific.

Maybe stager the US IPC to take a few turns to get to full IPC wartime potential?

Just some thoughts…

[calvinhobbesliker]

Or perhaps reduce japan’s planes? It is too powerful. The US is not. Reemember that for every 9 ipcs of land units it wants to ship to Europe or Pacific, it requires 7 ipcs of transport. Thus, US is spending 16 ipcs to equal the force of a German 9 ipcs.

[billinjackson]

@calvinhobbesliker:

Or perhaps reduce japan’s planes? It is too powerful. The US is not. Reemember that for every 9 ipcs of land units it wants to ship to Europe or Pacific, it requires 7 ipcs of transport. Thus, US is spending 16 ipcs to equal the force of a German 9 ipcs.

Understood, but if the problem is that the Allies keep winning there needs to be a governor on the Allied machine. What do you think?

[calvinhobbesliker]

@billinjackson:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Or perhaps reduce japan’s planes? It is too powerful. The US is not. Reemember that for every 9 ipcs of land units it wants to ship to Europe or Pacific, it requires 7 ipcs of transport. Thus, US is spending 16 ipcs to equal the force of a German 9 ipcs.

Understood, but if the problem is that the Allies keep winning there needs to be a governor on the Allied machine. What do you think?

The allies don’t keep winning. In the 2 global games I’ve played, the axis have won

[billinjackson]

@calvinhobbesliker:

@billinjackson:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Or perhaps reduce japan’s planes? It is too powerful. The US is not. Reemember that for every 9 ipcs of land units it wants to ship to Europe or Pacific, it requires 7 ipcs of transport. Thus, US is spending 16 ipcs to equal the force of a German 9 ipcs.

Understood, but if the problem is that the Allies keep winning there needs to be a governor on the Allied machine. What do you think?

The allies don’t keep winning. In the 2 global games I’ve played, the axis have won

Wow, that’s great to know. In many of the threads I have been reading people where expressing that the Allies keep winning. My Pacific 40 just arrived today so Europe should arrive tomorrow. I will be able to add to the debate with personal experience in a week or so but you give me good hope for balance.

Thanks

[calvinhobbesliker]

You’re welcome.

In our games, I think the reason the allies lost was that
1. Japan got strong too easily(in the 1st game, we played OOB, as opposed to with Larry’s changes; in the 2nd game, Germany did a successful Sealion, so the US moved its Pacific fleet into the Atlantic).
2. In the 1st game, Russia fell easily due to an unlucky counterattack on Baltic States. In the 2nd game, Germany is using 7 transports to shift units into Russia.

Overall, we feel that the US is very far away, and if the axis play correctly, isn’t in a position to do anything until turn 3, or even 4.

[billinjackson]

@calvinhobbesliker:

You’re welcome.

In our games, I think the reason the allies lost was that
1. Japan got strong too easily(in the 1st game, we played OOB, as opposed to with Larry’s changes; in the 2nd game, Germany did a successful Sealion, so the US moved its Pacific fleet into the Atlantic).
2. In the 1st game, Russia fell easily due to an unlucky counterattack on Baltic States. In the 2nd game, Germany is using 7 transports to shift units into Russia.

Overall, we feel that the US is very far away, and if the axis play correctly, isn’t in a position to do anything until turn 3, or even 4.

Thanks for the breakdown.

[Sgt. Wonko]

We had a game of global, no tech, rules OOB, with national objectives and the Axis managed a projected win. Germany had enough air power to destroy the allied atlantic fleet and then invaded Russia with around 40 tanks. Japan helds it own and managed a decisive victory in Guam when the US left a third of it’s airforce/navy too far in with no possibility of a US counter-attack. Japan took out around 120 IPCs and only lost a sub, ouch.

The allies will probably have some better strats next game but Global doesn’t seem horribly imbalanced right now.

[Blitchga]

@billinjackson:

What about ideas on increasing the advantage to the Axis. Perhaps giving them more tanks at start with Germany and an extra battlship with Japan? - something like that? thoughts and or ideas?

I am hoping to be able to find some strategies that do not require this as I often find that the problem then becomes that you must constantly re-balance the game as new strategies are developed. Right now the Allied strategies are easier to see and so finding some good Axis strategies are all that are needed.

[Blitchga]

@Sgt.:

The allies will probably have some better strats next game but Global doesn’t seem horribly imbalanced right now.

I am not calling it unbalanced, I am calling allied players as a whole less experienced or making mistakes when the axis win since in many of the groups the allied strategies are easier to see (for veteran players) and so allow them to be more powerful. I could go into all sorts of Allied strategies that rip apart the axis but this thread is for Axis strategies. Lets try to keep it that way please. I can make another one for allied strategies if the idea is catching on.

I think the game is balanced but from my 13 and a half games experience the axis have won only once and we are all players of good caliber. Therefore some strategies for the axis seem to need some developing. That is what I have been hoping to do and so far have found a few strategies that appear to be working. Some are ones I came up with in my group and others are ones that are either tweaked with information found on this board or ones that we have tweaked that were first found on this board.

[calvinhobbesliker]

@Blitchga:

@Sgt.:

The allies will probably have some better strats next game but Global doesn’t seem horribly imbalanced right now.

I am not calling it unbalanced, I am calling allied players as a whole less experienced or making mistakes when the axis win since in many of the groups the allied strategies are easier to see (for veteran players) and so allow them to be more powerful. I could go into all sorts of Allied strategies that rip apart the axis but this thread is for Axis strategies. Lets try to keep it that way please. I can make another one for allied strategies if the idea is catching on.

I think the game is balanced but from my 13 and a half games experience the axis have won only once and we are all players of good caliber. Therefore some strategies for the axis seem to need some developing. That is what I have been hoping to do and so far have found a few strategies that appear to be working. Some are ones I came up with in my group and others are ones that are either tweaked with information found on this board or ones that we have tweaked that were first found on this board.

Yeah. One side usually has a higher learning curve. In time, we’ll see whether or not it’s as unbalanced as P40

[Blitchga]

@calvinhobbesliker:

Yeah. One side usually has a higher learning curve. In time, we’ll see whether or not it’s as unbalanced as P40

I am not so sure that P40 is so unbalanced in G40 as attacking early may be in the best interest of Japan but not the Axis and the Axis cannot win the war without the European Axis powers. In truth p40 is not even unbalanced if you force the Japanese to attack on J3 or later. However, that being said the fact that you would need to force that means it has some balancing issues, however I do believe that some of those issues are based on people who purposely go out and attempt to find exploitive strategies that take advantage of things. (such as the naive people who believed that attacking Japan with Russia on R1 would really give them their NO.)

I suppose in the interest of staying on topic I have found that a J1 minor in Manchuria, J2 minor in French-Indo and an eventual third minor or major in Malaya is great for keeping India in check and eventually moving to take Australia. As for Germany and Italy their is a lot more to learn but a Romanian Major on G1 with 10 art on G2 and 8-10 art on G3 with 8-10 Mechanized on G4 when you attack that can then meet with your advancing troops has proven unstoppable for the Russians. Italy and Germany can work together with bombers and subs to keep the British and US navies from joining together off the coast of Africa. Italians can hit the British and the Germans can hit the US forces. This way the British cannot move until they are defended well enough against the Italian counter attack to them landing in Africa and Germany can make sure that USA will need to sink massive IPC’s into a navy before doing the same.

[LHoffman]

@Sgt.:

Germany had enough air power to destroy the allied atlantic fleet and then invaded Russia with around 40 tanks.

Good God! That is a hell of a lot of tanks… how did you get so many? Buy them and then hold them in reserve all game?