Path to Berlin - which point to invade?

[ashoka]

I’ve mostly played with Axis and had success, but the last few games I’ve tried my hand at Allies. However, I haven’t been able to take Germany before Japan takes Russia. I’ve tried two different paths to Germany with no success.

1. UK lands in Norway by turn 4 while US lands in Algeria, and then S.E. by turn 5 or 6. However, Germany usually has a stack of forces in Karelia and crushes the UK, while also being able to trade S.E. By turn 6, Russia is in retreat mode, so Germany can turn its forces back westward while Japan moves into Caucasus and takes Russia usually by turn 8. Also, one game Ger. had 4 fighters and 4 bombers, and was able to easily switch fronts to trade territories, as well as force UK/US to spend significant amounts of money to defend the fleets. :-(

2. UK and US combined landing in W.E. by turn 4 or 5. Turn 4 is usually too early to set up the pipeline of forces so turn 5 works better. Africa is left for Ger and Jap to split. But again Ger is able to pull its forces back by turn 6 and just hang in there while Russia falls to Japan.  :x

Any advice or alternatives to take germany?
Thanks! :-)

[Concealer]

You got the right idea. I usually attempt to bridge units from the UK to Norway, or if that gets to rough you can use Karelia/Archangel. With the U.S. in Africa you want to cut Germany off from taking over the continent so make that a priority.

The general plan for me in a KGF is to get rid of their navy first. Then try to bleed them out but taking Africa, Norway, West Russia, Belorussia, Ukraine, Eastern Europe and the Balkans. They can have their three big territories. Make sure you continue to trade territories with Russia and Germany and keep your U.S. bombers in London. If you can’t use them to take out boats do a strategic bombing raid on Berlin with U.S. or the U.K. This also requires you to stack the starting infantry to hold of Japan. You can easily get a stack of 8, or more if you want to reinforce, in western Russia and near Sinkiang/Persia.

[Hobbes]

I use a different approach:

1. UK needs to land on Norway as fast as possible to stop permanently Germany from receiving those 3 IPCs and recover from the eventual loss of India and other Asian possessions. Landing by turn 5 or 6 allows G to gather 15 IPCs or 5 infantry.

2. The US sends its 2 starting transports on US1 to Algeria, unescorted. Yes, the Germans will sink them but meanwhile they have 4 US ground units in Africa to deal with or retake Egypt on G2.

3. Southern Europe is a dead end to the US. Even if the US masses enough transports to take it the Germans can usually counterattack it with their armour stack and the resulting battles will cost more to the US than Germany. Plus, the US will need to have 2 fleets capable of defending against German/Japanese planes in Europe, in both SZs 12 and 14, requiring more naval builds.

4. Usually the US can free Africa with 2 rounds of landings on Algeria, together with the sinking of the German fleet by round 2/3. There are a number of options available to sink that fleet: on UK1 pull back the carrier on the Indian Ocean to SZ33, have the fighter landing there after the attack on Egypt and bring a 2nd fighter from the UK to West Russia/French West Africa. If the carrier survives J1 the 2 UK fighters + bomber can attack the German fleet on SZ 15 if it dared to retake Egypt/Trans-Jordan. Another option is to buy a sub for Russia on R1 and on R2 attack the German navy with the planes. A third one is to leave the job to the Americans.

5. On round 3/4 the US fleet should join the UK one, I usually do it on SZ6. This has the advantage of reducing the number of naval units necessary to protect the Allied transports, freeing more money to go to land units and transports.

6. From there you have 2 options with either the UK/US: take W. Eur/E. Eur/Karelia or send reinforcements to Russia through SZ4 and landing on Archangel. The UK should focus on earning 30-32 IPCs per round (allowing them to build up to their maximum 8 units on the UK) and usually should take whatever territories are necessary to achieve that goal. Since both US/UK fleets are combined you’ll have some flexibility.

7. At this point, with Africa and Norway in possession of the Allies the income should favor the Allies. Germany will be earning 35 IPCs, Japan some 41-46 IPCs (without Africa or Australia/NZ), for a total of 81 while Russia will be getting 26-28, the UK 30-32 and the US 40, or a total of 96 or more. Plus the Allies should have their transport fleets set up and won’t be spending any more money on naval units, meaning that all production is going to ground units.

8. Then it is a matter of choosing: if you want to take Germany or prevent it from advancing you should mass a stack of UK/US/Russian units on Karelia and build them up until you can take and hold E. Eur and from there on Germany. If meanwhile the Japanese advance too much you can detach some tanks to boost up defenses on Caucasus/Russia. The UK is in a great position to do so since it plays between Germany and Japan, so its units can switch quickly from dealing with Germans to stopping the Japanese.

9. If the Germans are simply focusing on defense and building huge numbers of infantry then the Allies have another card on their sleeve: to punish Japan. The bottom line is that if the Allies keep reinforcing Russia with ground units then eventually they will have a sufficient force to push back the Japanese advance and threaten any ICs built on India. The key for this is that the Japanese have to split their forces when moving towards Russia through 3 routes, each uncapable of supporting the other and Allied teamwork can make a few nasty surprises, like the US clearing Persia, Russian armor on Caucasus taking India and the UK producing units there on a captured Japanese IC. It is something that Japan can prevent but it will force him to commit most of its ground units to the southern route and relieve pressure on Russia from Japanese units coming from Sinkiang/Yakut.

This is all ideally, of course. But above all, don’t be stuck to a KGF mentality. The Allies can also win if they keep outproducing the Axis and preventing a conquest of Russia. And if Germany is simply playing defensive then you can use that respite to make Japan pay dearly for its advances against Russia.

[Concealer]

You are much smarter than I am. I must write this down.

[ashoka]

thank you Concealer and Hobbes for your advice, sounds like a well thought out strategy.

I’m going to try landing on Norway earlier with UK, but what can i do if germany is building up their forces in karelia and can crush my troops in norway?

Also, how many transports do you usually have with US by turn 4 when you join up with UK?
If you lose the 2 initial ones, then it takes a while to build up to 10 which is what i usually work with.

I gotta try this out and see how it goes

[Advosan]

Kudos to Hobbes, for he pretty much described the ultimate AA42 Allied way to victory, there is really nothing to add to that.

I only want to say that taking out NOR, besides the 3 IPC, also deprives Luftwaffe from its airbases, making it much easier for the UK navy to build in the safety of SZ2. The Allies must perform Plan R4 asap, no matter the cost to shipping or manpower.

[Hobbes]

@ashoka:

thank you Concealer and Hobbes for your advice, sounds like a well thought out strategy.

I’m going to try landing on Norway earlier with UK, but what can i do if germany is building up their forces in karelia and can crush my troops in norway?

Just land enough troops to take Norway. If Germany retakes it that’s less troops to use against the Russians, especially their precious infantry (since it takes a while to move them from Germany to Karelia)

Also, how many transports do you usually have with US by turn 4 when you join up with UK?
If you lose the 2 initial ones, then it takes a while to build up to 10 which is what i usually work with.

2-4 transports, depending on the situation. My initial objective is to have 4 transports to lift from E. Canada to the UK and the other 4 for landings on Europe as fast as possible (sometimes even buying only infantry to load them). With the 9th transport it is usually used to land additional units on Algeria, if the Japs are going after Africa. If not, then I’ll get the 10th transport.

[ashoka]

I played another game as Allies today and using these strategies held up much better than before with Russia staying around a lot longer. However, Moscow still fell on turn 12 to Japan.

UK had a chain of inf funneling into Moscow by turn 8. (It took that long because Germany stacked Karelia. US funnelled troops into Karelia and kept them there to keep Germany at bay and protect UK chain to Moscow. Germany still crushed Karelia once more but with great loss of units. From that point on Germany simply produced men and sent them to E.E. to prevent any further advance by US. Meanwhile, Japan was rolling through Asia and took Caucasus by turn 7 and was slowly building up force to take Moscow. Also by turn 7 Japan got into Africa and while I could have sent US forces to retake it, it would have taken time and effort away from Europe.

I’m not sure what I did wrong, possibly spent too much on navy early on because I was afraid of Germany’s 4 bombers being in range. Also, I ignored and empty W.E. maybe I should have considered sending forces there…I think maybe I just tip my hat to Axis player and call him my daddy!

[Hobbes]

@ashoka:

I played another game as Allies today and using these strategies held up much better than before with Russia staying around a lot longer. However, Moscow still fell on turn 12 to Japan.

Congratulations for the game lasting until the 12th round :)

UK had a chain of inf funneling into Moscow by turn 8. (It took that long because Germany stacked Karelia. US funnelled troops into Karelia and kept them there to keep Germany at bay and protect UK chain to Moscow. Germany still crushed Karelia once more but with great loss of units. From that point on Germany simply produced men and sent them to E.E. to prevent any further advance by US.

The trick there is the potential UK-US-R move against Germany. In other words, UK takes Karelia, US reinforces it with more ground units + lands planes and Russia reinforces it more if necessary with tanks from Russia + 2 planes. That way, unless the Germans have a massive army on E. Eur. it will impossible for them to attack Karelia. Meanwhile, Germany’s production just when down another ladder and should be down to 30-33.
That should be the equivalent to the UK’s production, meaning that the UK/US can be landing almost the double or more of land troops that G is producing by round. This makes G vulnerable since the fleet means that some units will have to be on Germany to protect against an amphibious assault while trying not to lose E. Eur. (if G loses that territory then it should be game over in the next rounds).
The missing part of your final strat seems to be that while you contained the Axis well (round 12 is quite decent) you couldn’t give the killing blow to either Germany or even Japan. (in contrast your dad managed contain the UK/US in Europe while using Japan to kill Russia).

Meanwhile, Japan was rolling through Asia and took Caucasus by turn 7 and was slowly building up force to take Moscow. Also by turn 7 Japan got into Africa and while I could have sent US forces to retake it, it would have taken time and effort away from Europe.

At that stage the fighting on Africa can become completely secondary if the UK is still earning its 30-32 IPCs from captured German territories in Europe. The Axis shouldn’t hold Africa but if they want to divert resources to it and you can take the loss of income for a few turns let them have their units there.
As for holding Japan at bay… it’s really all about Russia. Russia is a boxer on the middle of the ring with 2 opponents at the corners. It needs to contain both at the same time and make them pay for any advance. Since it holds the middle it can quickly respond to any threat which greatly helps in switching units from 1 front to the other. Now, if you have US/UK units on Russia, then the UK can respond to any German incursions into Russia or the US can do the same against Japan. And that give Russia some freedom, allowing it to rebuild forces and/or to break the Japanese momentum.

I’m not sure what I did wrong, possibly spent too much on navy early on because I was afraid of Germany’s 4 bombers being in range. Also, I ignored and empty W.E. maybe I should have considered sending forces there…I think maybe I just tip my hat to Axis player and call him my daddy!

Against only 4 bombers you just need 1 carrier, 2 ftrs and 3-4 warships. Your dad most likely left empty W. Eur because he identified Karelia as being more important and also to make you use units there (which you didn’t) instead of Karelia. The Allies need W. Eur mostly for the money it provides to the UK although sometimes it is necessary to make a full landing there.

[ashoka]

Hobbes, thanks so much for the detailed analysis.

Looking back, you’re right, I never went for the kill on Germany. I probably could have went full force on E.E with US/UK combined and soon overwhelmed Berlin. I got too defensive there. Hopefully, I’ll get another shot soon.

Also about the navy, I think I was being too cautious but let me give you more details. Germany has 3 bombers by G3 and 3 ro 4 fighters stationed in Karelia. At that point, if I take Norway, I need enough navy to defend against that airforce which can attack at 21 to 24. Do you think just defending at around a 21 with about 7 pieces is enough to deter attack by Germany? He would have 60 to 70% odds but would be left with 2 bombers usually. And maybe it’s a good thing if Germany loses most of it’s airforce taking out that fleet since I can replace the navy (UK/US combined) faster than Germany can replace the airforce? Or is it smarter to bring more US navy and make sure the transport chain is secure?

Lastly, about holding off Japan with Russia. Japan was very well played. They took a slow road to Moscow with 3inf, 3art landing in Buryatia every turn and heading on the northern route to Russia while 3 tanks per turn produced in FIC stationed themselves in India for a few turns along with a few inf, art thrown in. Sinkiang was held with 4 inf and 3 of the tanks from FIC. From there Japan didn’t advance for a couple of turns while the forces slowly built up and soon an IC in india was producing tanks as well. By the time they were in range of Russia, they were too large for the attack to be worthwhile and they were able to storm into Caucusus and then build mix of inf/art/tanks there. Do you think Russia should extend itself early on to help UK hold India or perhaps stack allied forces in Persia?

Thanks again, I think I have a much better grasp of allied strategy now with these discussions.

[Hobbes]

@ashoka:

Also about the navy, I think I was being too cautious but let me give you more details. Germany has 3 bombers by G3 and 3 ro 4 fighters stationed in Karelia. At that point, if I take Norway, I need enough navy to defend against that airforce which can attack at 21 to 24. Do you think just defending at around a 21 with about 7 pieces is enough to deter attack by Germany? He would have 60 to 70% odds but would be left with 2 bombers usually. And maybe it’s a good thing if Germany loses most of it’s airforce taking out that fleet since I can replace the navy (UK/US combined) faster than Germany can replace the airforce? Or is it smarter to bring more US navy and make sure the transport chain is secure?

Against that kind of airforce (3 ftrs + 4 bmrs) then you definitely need more ships than the ones I mentioned, since the most important is to protect. Be glad your dad hasn’t discovered yet the wonders of bringing the entire Japanese airforce to Europe, since he seems to like a large Luftwaffe (I do as well ;) )

Lastly, about holding off Japan with Russia. Japan was very well played. They took a slow road to Moscow with 3inf, 3art landing in Buryatia every turn and heading on the northern route to Russia while 3 tanks per turn produced in FIC stationed themselves in India for a few turns along with a few inf, art thrown in. Sinkiang was held with 4 inf and 3 of the tanks from FIC. From there Japan didn’t advance for a couple of turns while the forces slowly built up and soon an IC in india was producing tanks as well. By the time they were in range of Russia, they were too large for the attack to be worthwhile and they were able to storm into Caucusus and then build mix of inf/art/tanks there. Do you think Russia should extend itself early on to help UK hold India or perhaps stack allied forces in Persia?

Thanks again, I think I have a much better grasp of allied strategy now with these discussions.

Yup you should definitely have pressed Germany harder. But you can also prevent Japan from building those single large unit stacks on Yakut/Sinkiang. The problem with Japan is that the 3 routes (northern, chinese and southern) can’t support one another while advancing and they have long communication lines. Thus if you see Japan starting to advance stacks over the 3 routes you can move an infantry stack to Novosibirsk to create dead zones in Sinkiang/Yakut. You shouldn’t usually actually attack if he only leaves 1 inf on those territories (Russians liberating Sinkiang gets no money to the US since Japan will retake it afterwards) but as long as you keep the larger stacks away you’ll gain more time to finish Germany.

Basically for Russia (and the UK/US) against Japan is let it advance and punch and destroys its units piecemeal without allowing it to concentrate. And if G is not advancing then Japan can suffer some severe punishment from the Allies: US retakes Russian territories taken by Japan. Russia retakes more and/or uses a tank stack to crush Japanese reinforcements behind the original frontline. UK reinforces the position taken from Japan with more tanks and fighters. It isn’t easy to pull it off but it can be done.