G1 build and German air power

[dan123]

Had an idea for a G1 build and I’m looking for feedback from more experienced players.

Is ten infantry, one fighter a good idea? My thoughts were that while the fighter is less cost-effective than two tanks would be, it could be used both for fighting on the eastern front and for threatening UK/US ships. I then thought that an inf-heavy build on the first turn would be good because tanks purchased G2 could meet up with the slower-moving inf stack in Ukraine, Belo, etc.  Also, what about 8 inf, 1 art, 1 bomber?

This idea also brings up a broader question: How much should Germany invest in air units? Obviously it varies based on situation, but are there some general principles to follow, especially for early in the game?

[Hobbes]

@dan123:

This idea also brings up a broader question: How much should Germany invest in air units? Obviously it varies based on situation, but are there some general principles to follow, especially for early in the game?

Try reading this: http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=19962.0

[newpaintbrush]

The key to playing well is to not try to force the game to fit general principles, but to find the right general principles for the situation.

That is the first law.  Everything else is just a matter of identifying general principles, and knowing how to distinguish when using a particular one is appropriate.

The second law is to remember that the balance of power is very tight.  A couple of units one way or another means a huge difference in win/loss percentage.

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If you apply the first law to the question of the G1 build, it no longer becomes merely a question of whether or not ten infantry and a fighter are a good idea.  It becomes a question of when ten infantry and a fighter are a good idea.  (never?  sometimes?  always?  and if only sometimes, then when?)

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If you’re going to build German air, your best payoff comes if you use it to control Allied access to Africa early, while pushing for quick PU income gain in Africa.  The scenario is something like G2 in Anglo-Egypt, but preventing a UK2/US2 landing, then you follow with G3 movement through Africa.

But if UK builds a fleet on UK1, you can’t really prevent a UK2/US2 landing; the combined Allied fleet will just be too big.  Even doing a G2 submarine build at Southern Europe is usually not a good Axis answer because you pump all the income you get from Africa into the subs, the subs are easily trapped in the Mediterranean, and UK can just land in Europe, plus US can afford to build fleet to counter, so effectively Germany loses out.

So often Germany will build even TWO bombers, or a Baltic carrier, to threaten the sea zones around UK.  (But a Baltic carrier is another matter entirely from the OP’s subject so I will not elaborate).

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If you just build a single G1 fighter, you usually won’t have good odds on wiping out a UK1 fleet build, meaning a possible UK2/US2 landing at Algeria, and less odds of holding on to Africa territory for a while.

Still, you will probably land all fighters at Western Europe.  Even though the Allies can unite and land at Algeria, landing at Algeria in force means no landing in Europe, allowing Germany to maintain control of valuable Norway longer and generally allowing Germany to press Russia longer in the early game.

But maintaining German fighters on Western Europe is a pain.  If you keep fighters on Western Europe, they can’t really lend their power to attacks in Europe.  If you move them off Western Europe, then you lose the threat to sea zones.

So usually German fighters end up somewhere else.

Later on, you may have two fighter bases; one at Western Europe, and another at Eastern Europe.  The one at Western Europe will be to bolster the defense of Western Europe, threaten various sea zones in the Atlantic, and to trade Karelia.  The one on Eastern Europe will bolster the defense of Eastern Europe, threaten the Kar/Arch sea zone, and trades with various territories like Belorussia and Ukraine.  The fighters on Eastern Europe that hit Belo/Ukr targets can end up back on Western Europe; the fighters on Western Europe can hit Belo/Ukr targets and end up on Western Europe; this way Germany maintains a huge threat range with all its fighters.

If you can do it, it’s nice to establish firm control of Karelia for a turn.  After you maintain control for one turn, you can land German fighters there, which threaten off Allied navy from immediately reinforcing Kar/Arch/Norway/etc.

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Axis air builds and Africa go together.

[Mallery29]

I think air power should come later.  Have your Japs pour into Asia and breathe (but not enchroaching) down Russia’s back, I always start with 3 inf, 1 sub, 5 tanks.  Tanks will pour into Eastern Europe, while you use your planes and inf to defend France and Germany.  The subs every turn…regardless.  You are going to play cat and mouse on Russia’s front, but the hope is Russia just keeps expending forces to play into the Eastern Europe crush.  R4 you should add a bomber.  The goal should take out Egypt first turn though. I find with Libya units, 1 tank/1 inf from S. Europe, a Bomber, and two fighters (assuming Ukraine plane still exists), will crush Egypt.  Get your fighters and bomber back to Europe in R2. (Move your Algeria units to Libya to protect your 3 planes).  In the end, same thing always happens for me…Germans destroy Russian units, and what the Japs had staged on the back end conquers Moscow (because the rest of the Jap units defend agains an Indian Complex if built).  The goal is to have so many dudes and planes in France, that an invasion will take too much time.  Any failed invasion will mean the navy gets wiped by your planes and subs (DDs be damned).  By the time any other fleet can be of any threat, you are defacating all over Stalin.

[Hobbes]

@Mallery29:

I think air power should come later.

The advantage of Germany investing early on planes is that since the Allies are also making their naval build-up you get more chances of messing with their movements. Late game plane buys are also good though.

Have your Japs pour into Asia and breathe (but not enchroaching) down Russia’s back, I always start with 3 inf, 1 sub, 5 tanks.  Tanks will pour into Eastern Europe, while you use your planes and inf to defend France and Germany.  The subs every turn…regardless.  You are going to play cat and mouse on Russia’s front, but the hope is Russia just keeps expending forces to play into the Eastern Europe crush.

With so many money going to subs and planes the Soviets can make things hard for Germany by stacking Ukraine and preventing its recapture.

R4 you should add a bomber.  The goal should take out Egypt first turn though. I find with Libya units, 1 tank/1 inf from S. Europe, a Bomber, and two fighters (assuming Ukraine plane still exists), will crush Egypt.  Get your fighters and bomber back to Europe in R2. (Move your Algeria units to Libya to protect your 3 planes).  In the end, same thing always happens for me….Germans destroy Russian units, and what the Japs had staged on the back end conquers Moscow (because the rest of the ��� units defend agains an Indian Complex if built).

Play against a different (and better) Allied player. A UK1 build of an IC on India is usually suicide by the Allies against an experienced Axis player.

The goal is to have so many dudes and planes in France, that an invasion will take too much time.  Any failed invasion will mean the navy gets wiped by your planes and subs (DDs be damned).  By the time any other fleet can be of any threat, you are defacating all over Stalin.

You’re assuming the Allied player will want to take Western Europe at all costs, while he can just set a transport chain to land 16 units each round in Archangel/Karelia. And those units can be sent East to deal with Japan since Germany is keeping its many army to defend Europe instead of pressuring Russia.

[Mallery29]

German sub takes out American fleet G1?  Highly doubt that a fleet is going to get to land troops.  If the American fleet heads east, then that dooms the British fleet.  Even if the American fleet surives, It still takes too many turns to be of any use to the Russian front.  I’ll gladly trade terrritories with the Russians turn for turn with Japan on Russia’s back door.  I agree that a complex in India is not a great option, that’s why I support a 3inf/3trans J1 buy so Japan can pour troops into Asia.

[Mallery29]

My counter to stacking Ukraine is offering it as a gift.  I’ll turtle all three territories around E.Europe. Without air power to back up your forces after taking Ukraine, your only hope is the AA gun, but be prepared to lose an AA gun.  The Germans will hit your stack with everything.  The Russian lines will be no more.  Plus if you pull an AA, you’re likely to get IB’d instead.

[Col. Ty Webb]

@Mallery29:

If the American fleet heads east, then that dooms the British fleet.  Even if the American fleet surives, It still takes too many turns to be of any use to the Russian front.

How do you figure either one of those?

[Mallery29]

The continued buildup of subs and planes deter any invasion force.  I let Japan be the aggressor and Germany be defensive.  Any incursion by the allies to help Russia will be sacked.  If they take Africa back, so be it…Germany can win w/o Africa, but the Allies can’t w/o.  You’ll find by G3 a force of 6 fighters, 2 bomber, and 6 subs will handle anything the allies can muster.  You want France? Try it.  You want Norway? Try it. You’ll have no Navy left to speak of.

[Alsch91]

@Mallery29:

My counter to stacking Ukraine is offering it as a gift.  I’ll turtle all three territories around E.Europe. Without air power to back up your forces after taking Ukraine, your only hope is the AA gun, but be prepared to lose an AA gun.  The Germans will hit your stack with everything.  The Russian lines will be no more.  Plus if you pull an AA, you’re likely to get IB’d instead.

Uh Russia only stacks Ukraine if Germany can’t take it back.
That’s the only reason to stack it.  If Germany destroys the Russians in Ukraine, Russia made a huge mistake and Allies should lose.

[Mallery29]

Sorry, about one thing, when I read the Americans head East, I had Japan (EAST) in my head.   The American can only unite if it survives the sub G1 attack.  The BB and DD from the Pacific and letting Japan have free reign in the Pacific is bad for everyone.  And those two ships won’t get to help the Brits in time (no matter what you and the Brits buy).  My planes/sub strat is retalitory, not offensive.  Germany is a great D.  That’s why I say Germany doesn’t need Africa to win.  We’ll (axis) always have Moscow before you can threaten Berlin.

[Mallery29]

Stacking only works if you have planes to back it up though, and I won’t let them…I’ll trade punches like Bradley/Pacquiao (w/o the bias judges though :-D)

[Alsch91]

Oh okay.  Looks like you’ve discovered something that no one here has up to date.  :lol:
I apologize for questioning you.

Try a couple games here with that strat; see how Russia responds.  I think it’ll be a bit more agressive than you think.

[Mallery29]

I want Russia to be aggressive…I pull back the German forces in hopes of just building @ E. Europe and building a counterstrike to the allied fleet.  Now, if the Russians only decide to take 1 of the three territories, then it could get interesting, but if 3 is too hard for lot of people to pass up.  Meanwhile the Japan army gets closer and closer to Moscow…a breaking point will occur, and it does not favor the allies.

[Hobbes]

@Mallery29:

German sub takes out American fleet G1? Highly doubt that a fleet is going to get to land troops.

First, a SZ10 attack on G1 has 55-45% odds. If you are counting that you’ll sink the US fleet most times, you’ll have a few bad surprises.
Second, you’re assuming that the US is going Pacific all the time. Don’t. Usually the US should focus instead on Germany, unless something unexpected happened on the previous rounds, like bad dice for Japan.

If the American fleet heads east, then that dooms the British fleet. Even if the American fleet surives, It still takes too many turns to be of any use to the Russian front.

Really?
US1 - buy 2 transport, 1 carrier, 1 destroyer, 1 armor. Move Battleship and transport to Panama and drop 2 inf there.
US2 - move SZ10 fleet (4 loaded transports) to SZ12. Move Panama (BB+ TRN) fleet off to Brazil with the 2 INF.

The US now have 5 US transports in range of Western Europe to hit on US3 - and you’re saying that G can ignore it and simply focus on the Soviets? Well, it can on G3, but on G4 it will have to retake Western Europe. Unless you’re trying to fortify Western Europe, on which case you’ll have to move nearly all of the infantry to Western Europe to fortify it - and all of those units are moving away from Russia.

I’ll gladly trade terrritories with the Russians turn for turn with Japan on Russia’s back door.� I agree that a complex in India is not a great option, that’s why I support a 3inf/3trans J1 buy so Japan can pour troops into Asia.

How do you deal with the UK and US subs? You can ignore them, but that means the entire Japanese fleet is tied to 1 or 2 locations because of a couple of Allied subs.

The continued buildup of subs and planes deter any invasion force.

How do you stop the Allies from using SZ2? or SZ4? The Allies need only to secure those 2 seazones to be able to offload troops to Europe. By having Germany building subs? OK, how do they survive Allied attacks with destroyers?

I let Japan be the aggressor and Germany be defensive. Any incursion by the allies to help Russia will be sacked.

LOL. How? How do you stop them from offloading units to Archangel? By moving your airforce to Eastern Europe? Fine, then they offload in Norway, since they can’t cover both SZs.

If they take Africa back, so be it…Germany can win w/o Africa, but the Allies can’t w/o.  You’ll find by G3 a force of 6 fighters, 2 bomber, and 6 subs will handle anything the allies can muster.

I love numbers - by UK1 Germany loses 1 sub and 2 ftrs on average, in Ukraine or attacks on the UK fleet (SZ2 and SZ13). So, to reach those levels it needs to buy 2 ftrs, 1 bmr and 4 subs, which translates into 56 IPCs. Assuming a 40-42 average income for those 3 rounds, thats almost half of 124 IPCs it earned spent on airforce/subs.

Meanwhile, Soviets earn 24 + 31 + 30, or 85 IPCs, which it all spends on ground units, so it reinforces its army by that amount, while the Germans only buy 68 IPCs AND it needs to send units to reinforce Western Europe and to Africa…. leaving only…? How much against the Soviets? Probably not enough, since Japan can’t really threaten the Soviets during those rounds and they can send everything against Germany.

You want France? Try it.  You want Norway? Try it. You’ll have no Navy left to speak of.

You keep assuming that the Allies want to attack those territories at all cost. Or that you can sink any Allied fleet on G2/3 with those buys, regardless of Allied buys/moves. OR that the UK won’t build a destroyer on SZ6 to block any German subs on SZ5 from attack SZ3.

Play first against a decent Allied player or get TripleA and I’ll show you. The claims you make depend either on bad dice or on stupid Allied mistakes to succeed.

[Mallery29]

Friend and I have tried it against each other using the same strat.  Usually, we see the US abandon the Pacific, so I’m not assuming anything (don’t know where you got that but sorry if you got confused by my writing…didn’t mean that to happen). I’m not counting on the sub to working to win, but if I’m looking for an opening attack that can hit the Allies the hardest, it has to be that…therefore, it’s opening attack everytime for me.  You say you can hit on US3 for W. Europe, but I guarantee you won’t hit with 5 fighters, 2 tanks, and about 9-10inf depending on the Russian Front.  You are right about the destroyer in the path…I find that an effective tool to keep the German subs at bay.
As for the Japanese, I only concern myself with the subs if I see a buildup of subs in the Pacific.  By keeping 2 BBs and 2 armed carriers protecting my land bridge, I find I’ll have copious time to plant destroyers to counter the approaching subs.  The two Allied Pacific subs are of no threat unless they decide to form a wolfpack, but that mean the US is contributing a lot of resources to the Pacific, and thus, hinders the Atlantic, thus giving Germany its victory.  And if the US is going to try to send bombers to take out that fleet, I can again put down enough fodder of DDs to make any attack suicide against six 4s and two 2s (not counting any DDs that would be down).

[Mallery29]

Also, would love to play you, but on a public computer for the time being….my laptop fried itself (well, the Hard Drive is still intact, I just can’t get to the boot), so I’m currently attempting to figure out how to fix it, or looking into get a new laptop (and my desktop is on the otherside of the country right now).  When I get this resolved, would love to.

[Alsch91]

9-10 Inf?
You understand, that if you’re going to be buying subs/fighters and moving defensive forces west like that, that Russia will be able to press a lot harder.

By press harder, I mean stacking Ukraine without you being able to destroy it.
Russia will never stack Ukraine if you have land/air forces in range to destroy them.  That will never happen if Russia isn’t bone-headed.

When Hobbes mentioned the allied subs in the Pacific, he means that - without an destroyer buy - Japan will have to have its fleet in two groups.
You said that you’d keep two groups, so fair enough.  But that means you can’t take allied holdings in the Pacific or pick infantry off of all your islands.

[Hobbes]

@Mallery29:

Friend and I have tried it against each other using the same strat.� Usually, we see the US abandon the Pacific, so I’m not assuming anything (don’t know where you got that but sorry if you got confused by my writing…didn’t mean that to happen). I’m not counting on the sub to working to win, but if I’m looking for an opening attack that can hit the Allies the hardest, it has to be that…therefore, it’s opening attack everytime for me.� You say you can hit on US3 for W. Europe, but I guarantee you won’t hit with 5 fighters, 2 tanks, and about 9-10inf depending on the Russian Front.

The US doesn’t have to hit. It only has to draw German forces away from Russia as you described and thus it affects events on Europe right from US2-3.
Going back the math above, you need to send 7-8 inf and 2 arm to W. Europe to defend it, from new builds. So now Germany only has 37 IPCs do deal with the Soviets’ own 85 IPC total income during those rounds. And less the units sent to Africa.

� You are right about the destroyer in the path…I find that an effective tool to keep the German subs at bay.
As for the Japanese, I only concern myself with the subs if I see a buildup of subs in the Pacific.� By keeping 2 BBs and 2 armed carriers protecting my land bridge, I find I’ll have copious time to plant destroyers to counter the approaching subs.� The two Allied Pacific subs are of no threat

They can be a true nuisance if you are planning to land units on Africa or Australia. You can only cover 2 locations and you usually already have to cover SZ60 and FIC.

unless they decide to form a wolfpack, but that mean the US is contributing a lot of resources to the Pacific, and thus, hinders the Atlantic, thus giving Germany its victory.� And if the US is going to try to send bombers to take out that fleet, I can again put down enough fodder of DDs to make any attack suicide against six 4s and two 2s (not counting any DDs that would be down)

Why would the US want to use bombers to try to threaten SZ60 or even build subs for the Pacific if you are not going KJF? If you are playing against a Japanese noob, yeah the bombers may work.

[Hobbes]

@Alsch91:

Russia will never stack Ukraine if you have land/air forces in range to destroy them.  That will never happen if Russia isn’t bone-headed.

I disagree. Russia SHOULD stack Ukraine, if it forces Germany to attack and achieve suffer a Phyrric victory on G2-4. The Russians may get blooded but there’s no way Germany afterwards can stop the Allies on Europe and Japan will still be too far away to conquer Russia soon.

What usually happens is that Germany NEVER attacks on this situation because the Allies just created a ‘let’s play chicken position’. Unless the German player wants to risk its luck they will back off and not attack Ukraine. Which suits the Allies proposes just as fine, since they took away initiative from the Axis in Europe and denied Germany 3 IPCs from Ukraine.