May I ask how that plays out? Has that meant Italy gets Cairo early while UK pressures Germany?
UK barbarossa strategies
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a little too light on london purchases, might be tempting to do round 2 sea lion with germany.
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Well lets look at it:
1 Minor leaves 16 IPC to place in London which equates to something along the lines of 5 Inf Bank 1 or 4 Inf, 1 Art Bank 0.
My purchase only changes the units on London slightly (from 5 units to 3 units). I can put more pressure in Italy from the get-go without completely sacrificing two rounds of purchases for 3 Inf on Egypt.
Consider this: If G1 is 10 Inf, there really isn’t much of a reason to scramble over SZ110 and SZ111. Of course, you still can and try to shoot down some aircraft which deters Sea Lion outright.
However look at it this way: G2 is going to have to either have both the BB and CR survive to give 8-10 TT a chance to cross the Channel or it will need to buy a CV on G2 which means at most 8 TT are coming on G3 Sea Lion. By not scrambling, you force Germany to have to fly aircraft into SZ110 in a G3 Sea Lion or face the potential of at a minimum 3 Ftr scrambling.
You can reinforce this on UK2 with a CV purchase and possibly 1 Ftr (I forget if its 35 or 36 ending IPC). With a potential CR, two DD and a CV with 2 Ftr and 3 scrambling over it you have effectively removed the German aircraft from hitting London anyways because Germany is going to have to divert multiple aircraft to address 4-5 Ftr, 1 CV (absorbs 2 hits right away), 1 CR, up to two DD.
Even if Germany decided to land all the units, its going to have to face the music of losing a ton of aircraft in the process - which is a primary tenet of the European Allied Strategy.
And realistically I don’t think two less units on London will make a HUGE difference in the German determination, whereas 5 Ftr and a CV would if G1 did not include ships to support G3 Sea Lion.
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@Cow:
a little too light on london purchases, might be tempting to do round 2 sea lion with germany.
This is based off no TT purchases on G1 meaning Germany only has 1 TT for G2. UK London will have the following for G2 to look at:
Any remaining remaining aircraft from UK1.
7 Inf (2 Starting, 1 Purchased, 2 French, 2 NCM from Scotland)
1 Art (Purchased)
1 Mech (Starting)
1 Arm (Purchased)
5 AA (4 Starting, 1 NCM from Scotland)I’m almost 100% positive Germany is not going to send its entire Air Force and 2 ground units to London on G2 with its single TT with the first 5 hits being absorbed by AA guns. Even if Germany manages to break through the 5 AA guns, it still needs to get 10 more hits to take London.
Now the door is still open for G3 Sea Lion, but with a lesser contingent landing, which is fine because UK2 can be a full Inf Purchase (minus potential SBR damage) and I do not think 2 less Inf on London makes a world of difference to a German Sea Lion Plan - which for all intensive purposes should NOT include a 10 Inf purchase on G1.
I have not decided if scrambling on G1 is a good idea or not for London with a 10 Inf purchase on G1.
A lot probably depends on what G1 does in SZ111 and SZ110. SZ110 is interesting because with no DD present, the German SS cannot be used as fodder against 3 Ftr rolling @4 which means you have the potential to reach into sinking a german aircraft or two. I don’t think I’d scramble if the BB went to SZ110 along with 2 SS. I’d save the Aircraft at that point and take my chances with the dice on London - you are just throwing those aircraft to the wolves with 2 absorbed hits to the BB before you can break through.
I don’t particularly care for scrambling the Ftr in Scotland because the DD present allows Germany to take SS as fodder before cutting into a BB or aircraft. I’d rather save the Ftr for London later if Sea Lion does occur. If it doesn’t, I have that many more Ftr to reinforce US landings in Europe later.
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keep the french fighter there at least. germany can still buy 1 dd 8-9 transports (has to buy dd so you can’t sub defend). 18 man drop with 9-10 air .
as far as scrambling goes, don’t. if germany does it right you should only have 10% to win and it ruins your odds on 97, because without a fighter from uk, sz 97 is 52% with just a bomber from uk.
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I wish I could give “stars” or thumbs up to spendo, your detailed analysis rocks.
We used to allow that. It didn’t work out, some of us ended up with thousands of positive and hundreds of negative because people logged in to only bump or slam someone.
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hey garg’s tournament thingy play jen.
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Still don’t understand why you always buy 10 transports germany 2 if you aren’t going sealion. I’d literally beat you everygame jen. Russia would be so strong it’s ridiculous. so what if you can take lenningrad easily. I almost always give it up anyways. No reason to try and hold it if germany can just go right by it and take moscow and then come back and take lenningrad.
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I concur. 70 ipc that is not mech/tank is pretty good. also I am stacked up for romania when you make such a purchase. so you take leningrad but I get my bonuses for a bit?
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Still don’t understand why you always buy 10 transports germany 2 if you aren’t going sealion. I’d literally beat you everygame jen. Russia would be so strong it’s ridiculous. so what if you can take lenningrad easily. I almost always give it up anyways. No reason to try and hold it if germany can just go right by it and take moscow and then come back and take lenningrad.
Karelia, Novogorod, Arkhangelsk, Nentsia, Baltic States and if you want Vyborg can all be hit on Round 3. 13 Transports (or even 11) means a very sizable force dropped. I like to hit Karelia if empty, since it is worth money, Novgorod for the double whammy of one less complex and one NO (and money!), Arkhangelsk to block a blitz over to Nenetsia and drop the most in Nenetsia. Usually this means you can blitz behind the Russians and sap their strength without giving them Mongolia.
Better still, learned this week that Japan can reinforce a German held Russian territory adjacent to Mongolia, so you just opened the door for them with one tank (or more if you need it.) The added benefit is no Russian is going to annoy Japan with his 18 infantry anymore, now he has to bee line for home.
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Most russian players do have mech and a few tanks, given you invested g1 and g2 money in naval. you give up romania and those 3 spots for +9 NO for russia. given that russia does not have nov, he should be making mech/armor at the least off volgograd.
you are dropping the 13 starting mech/armor, which is not hard for russia to match. Russia does have to fight for archangel for his +5.
Usually I see german naval, I buy artillery and mech only. then I see more german naval I buy all mech and 1 tank. leave nov empty. you come drop into nov. I give you funny look, take 3 adjacent germany territories for my bonus, buy infantry / artillery for russia and ukraine. I shove enough to hold romania and the rest in bessarabia so I can move back if I need to. The russian mech moves to western ukraine. Then I stack hungary and since I don’t have archangel allies fly in their air.
meanwhile russia is pumping 10 units out and with the bonus money I can get mech/armor in the two minors. If you make a run for russia allies fly in from hungary. Since everyone acts after germany and before italy, it is easy to retreat when russia has to or advance.
This is a pretty simple concept. I mean maybe you play people who only buy infantry with russia, but most experienced players don’t.
Most likely USA will get the bombers to sink it or provide naval for uk so he can just make 5 transports and start unloading.
In any case russia banking off axis territories is not the best move for you. Granted you made UK buy 10 ground uk1 and uk2 instead of a minor on egypt or naval or what have you. those units will still find use later on.
europe becomes very messy for axis instead of taking london and then pushing russia back or instead of advancing on russia the traditional way where you move up and russia moves back and makes less and less each round. you give russia a nice source of income.
not to mention 3 transports usually achieves your goal anyway.
Also count the spaces. germany takes 5 moves to reach russia. shuffling to novgorod then marching to russia is 4 moves. you spent all this money to advance 1 whole space. Very similar to a romania major IC, it is a suboptimal way of doing things given that ICs and transports don’t attack and typically shuffle infantry/artillery which has less mobility than mech/armor and it is a target for air units.
The fact that you win games doing things like this is very disappointing. I mean someone did do this to me when he saw he had 33% on london only, it was interesting, but it did not work out for him. You can’t dump truck full boatloads into nov and kick russia out of original axis territories. Italy does not make enough money to do africa play and make enough men to fight russia (he has to pick) and if you make italy buy ground forces off the bat you give up the african opportunity, which is the whole point of doing a sea lion buy.
Here is how it went down. he dump trucked into nov. I pushed to romania. Turn after he took the finland/norway guys off vyborg brought it to germany, but russia moved to hungary anyway and allies reinforced it. Germany build up even more ground forces, he also had to make another carrier or I’d hit with usa and then follow up with uk. russia fell back to romania and had lots of income made mech/armor. when germany kicked russia out of europe, russians had tanks/mech to take back all the spots germany blitzed around for the spots back. It took a long time for him to get the other minor industrial complexes and hold it.
I bought bombers usa 1 and flew them into london. usa 2 i pulled all the pacific air to central usa and bought carriers. After that I went almost full pacific. All that naval did was sit in sz 110. uk/russia worked africa, egypt minor went down subs convoyed 97, air units from hungary went to malta so no 1 destroyer scramble BS could come from italy, uk was only using 2 transports to dump men off london for awhile, shutting italy down is my priority as uk.
In the end Russia was making more than 30 (+19 from africa +2 persia) while uk was making 40 (28 +5 + greece holland normandy). italy making 0-5 ipc. germany could not make income off of normandy southern france yugoslavia greece or norway (making 73 ipc+).
It just took too long before germany could stack up next to russia, because the extra income meant russia could have a higher attack and it takes time before you get more use out of 10 transports compared to mech. Long story short, KJF was before moscow. those 5 bombers of usa traveled to around and went to russia some time ago and hit small japanese infantry stacks. Japan was screwed around round 8 and 10 usa fighters made their way toward russia from the pacific. they landed round 10 and usa split income on 10.
UK showed up a bit sooner. It took awhile for the units that kicked russia out of romania to merge with the infantry in nov, because germany had two seperate stacks that had to merge in order to stack up against russia. russia was making good money for a long time.
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Point is 3 transports a dd and carrier is all you really need and you should win with that. Axis is the favorite. -
No, most Russian’s cant get to Romania, Hungary and Poland. You think I’m retreating all my units from the front???
Germany SHOULD have the following at the end of their 3rd turn:
- Karelia
- Novgorod
- Arkhangelsk
- Nenetsia
- Baltic States
- East Poland
- Bessarabia (?) - if needed
- Vybord (?) - if needed
Russian Armor/Mech should be nuetered in either Belarus or N. Ukraine - which is primarily where those units are on Round 2.
Yes, most “experienced” players will toss in a few mech and a few armor to make up for the deficiency. Most “experienced” players dont suicide run stacks of Russian tanks against stacks of Germany infantry and armor - especially with Italian reinforcements (I don’t like to toss my Italians into the garbage, they serve a much higher purpose taking land so Germany can land fighters there to reinforce later in the game.)
So meanwhile, Russia is pumping out 6 or 7 units (if they go all infantry) with their lack of funds while Germany is pumping out 20ish units a round.
American bombers, left picking their noses in Washington have to wait for Round 4 to even get in range - by then it’s already over for Russia. They’re packing it up and running for home, their last best hope is to somehow magically hold off the Japanese, Italians and Germans long enough for planes to come in - but wait, they can’t send them through the north anymore, that route was cut off! Oh they die fast and painlessly! (Since England pulled all their planes back to London in response to “Operation Stalking Horse” where I had Rommel pull a Patton and command over inflated balloons.)
Do I see a lot of the “mech only” Russias? Yea. On the off chance THAT happens, Japan drops a major in Korea and goes 6 Mech, 4 Arm a round until they are crushed so taht Germany can win the war. (America ALWAYS goes 100% Pacific when they see Japan pull that maneuver, meaning they are not really much help in the Atlantic.)
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Germany SHOULD have the following at the end of their 3rd turn:
- Karelia
- Novgorod
- Arkhangelsk
- Nenetsia
- Baltic States
- East Poland
- Bessarabia (?) - if needed
- Vybord (?) - if needed
Yes this is true.
But how many units are you dropping into novgorod? How did you setup your germany. In order for UK to believe you are hitting london, you buy transports right and you have to have men in germany, where are you getting enough forces to take back romania? you can’t dump all your mech / armor into novgorod and expect germany ground to move into hungary and hold it. you don’t have enough guys for that. what the hell are you talking about?
italy giving up in the mediterrean to make ground forces is just asking to get convoyed out of the game even sooner.
I edited my above post instead of reposting to include an example game.
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As far as a typical game goes. Axis does not do africa play = allies win. Japan does not take calcutta = allies win. It is simple really.The longer italy makes income and does not get convoyed to 0 from sz 97, the longer before uk can do something against germany.
The closer japan is to victory in the pacific the more usa has to commit to the pacific. This is not rocket science.
if you want to keep russia from holding romania, you are not going to get full use out of your 10 transports on g3.
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Cow I would love to play against you and show you what 50 ground units for Italy can do. It is really easy for italy to get 40+ units.
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UK sinks 97 always (barring lucky dice). there is no fly everything into uk BS anymore. allies can actually do attacks now and roll dice and have fun. There is no automatic axis wins everygame bs anymore, allies can actually do stuff now.
russia has 19 inf 8 mech 5 artillery 1 tank 2 aa guns in range of romania, usually all stacked in eastern poland. +3 more mech if he bought mech on novgorod round 1 usually artillery goes in ukraine and the rest is whatever usually mech.
For the allies to believe you are doing some kind of london play, you drop guys on scotland on g2, something is amiss if you don’t.
if your armor is in germany, yeah you have enough to kill eastern poland all he can get is 19 inf 4 mech 2 art and 2 tanks 2 aa gun 2 fighter 1 tactical (+3 more mech if he bought mech round 1 off ukraine for some reason).
usually you have 16 inf 3 art (depends on yugoslavia casualties and I am going to assume you skip greece or italy took greece), sometimes 3 mech from france if they survived.
Sure I will assume russia doesn’t have enough to stack up assuming you setup right. He’ll have to be in western ukraine and belarus. you going to drop enough to hold novgorod that turn without russia moving into eastern poland??? Nope. Then again I did not calc full mech / bomber buy from germany.
I will tell you this though, to keep russia from stacking eastern poland you need more than 3 average attacker units left. This was a fast game, germany needs his air more than russia.
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Cow I would love to play against you and show you what 50 ground units for Italy can do. It is really easy for italy to get 40+ units.
how many rounds does it take before you get convoyed out of sz 97? it don’t make me long for uk.
I still say that axis is the slight favorite for many reasons, but this is not one of them.
The only thing transports does is make UK buy 10 inf on round 2.
3 transports does the job of getting nov. you hold baltic states round 2 and move your big stack to novgorod round 3. It is the same result with more ground units and less transports.
you may think you will take russia sooner with 100 ipc total in naval purchases, but that is just silly logic.
Also people play their opponents more than they follow a set strategy. getting convoyed in 97 sucks hardcore, puts axis out of a country. If germany helps you, you can keep exchanging till round 7 if usa goes full PAC. The best way to stop this is to take egypt.
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So basically, this is similar to a Sealion strategy in that if Germany goes Barbarossa on G1, G2, Allies need to hit Italy hard with Taranto or something. What I’ve noticed is that when Axis do an early attack like a G1, G2, J1, J2, Allies must punch back immediately with a counter-gambit.
If Sealion, then hit the Med, MiddleEast and Scandinavia hard.
If an early Barbarossa, then it seems like the same.I’ll tell you what, I’ve noticed the 18inf in the Siberia is a key here. I’m currently playtesting to see how this affects the whole game. I methodically use those 18inf to take Korea and Manchuria by rounds 3 and 4 and march them down south in ignored. Japan always has to attack and get rid of them, losing tempo of at least a round if not 2. This of course allows India and the Pac Allies to survive and regather themselves every time. Hasn’t let me down yet.
What does this have to do with the Euro side??? EVERYTHING. Why??? B/c on a normal game where those 18inf, 2AA are moved to Moscow, they can get there by round 6 (6inf) or round 7 (all 18inf, 2AA). That means that any strategy that the Allies come up with must revolve around holding off the EuroAxis from Moscow til round 6 or 7. If the Allies can do this then its lights out for Axis. Moscow will be heavily defended and Paris and Rome will be in Allied hands or pushing the door down there by that time.
BTW with Russia I always buy a combination of infantry, art and tanks every round so that by round 5 or so I have a stack of infantry, some art and 15+ tanks to counterattack with, stalling the EuroAxis further from Moscow. Mech and planes from UKIndia and Australia is a must and very helpful. I’ve even flown planes in from the US to help defend!!!
Actually I’m testing to see if I can hold off the EuroAxis WITHOUT the 18inf, 2AA. It seems that I can and if not, it is very close. If I can do this, then the 18inf goes towards Japan. Japan can be neutralized and the EuroAxis run out of steam. If not, then at least I know the 18inf will hold off the Euro Axis and the US can invest more on the Pac side to keep pressure on Japan through the SPacific route etc. Of course the UK must do its part and build in SAfrica and a reestablish its navy which it can do by round 3-4 ready to shuck a ton of material over, preparing a strong second front.
This is why I believe the game is slightly Allied favored- NOT Axis. People who claim Axis advantage are not playing Alies as effieciently and cooperatively as they possibly can. Coordination is huge for the Allies. This is how they win.
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The reason why it is so hard to discuss this sort of thing is because 1) we don’t know how how many air units make it out of G1 in tact and if you do both normandy and france the possibility of france cutting into mech/armor increases. 2) 109 or 110 being sunk changes what medit sea looks like. 3) if you don’t scramble 97 italy has a difficult time killing a carrier destroyer cruiser 2 fighters on his own, usually germany kills that for him when you don’t scramble. Should you scramble that is -1 fighter for germany, because usually you lose but you kill the carrier dd cruiser and 1 fighter at the least and uk lands the rest of his air n malta.
Then there other variables you got to deal with.
like did the dd in 96 hit, french dd and cruiser in 93 (if italy scrambles he has a difficult time doing greece and sz 93 and can expect to lose his only remaining transport from the malta air should he attack greece). This can lead to germany hitting greece with 5 inf and couple armor.
So lots of things can enable russia to stack eastern poland. Each game is different except low luck games, actually those games fluctuate depending on how much the allies got for bid (I don’t go below 4 so usually I get axis, but the more axis wins low luck games the less inclined people become to bid lower for allies).
Anyway the moral of the story is, russia is not as pathetic as you think. In fact If you spend 100 ipc in naval and russia still cannot attack or hold a territory, no one would want to play allies (start off not at war and then when they are at war they still can’t do anything… how is that fun again?). For low luck games this tends to be the case as far as russia goes :grumbles:, but that is why the bid exists. TA DA, insert magical game balance here.
Also most of the allies wins centers around russia making +19 off of original italian african territories and some form of stall in russia. It is cheesy but without it, screw playing allies, give me axis all day.
18 inf 2 aa guns depends on what japan does. Japan should take india round 3-5, it is a VC and a NO.
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This is why I believe the game is slightly Allied favored- NOT Axis. People who claim Axis advantage are not playing Alies as effieciently and cooperatively as they possibly can. Coordination is huge for the Allies. This is how they win
you also stated that japan is not taking calcutta, that is a big difference in gameplay. the 18 infantry and 2 aa guns does not keep japan from taking calcutta. You get korea, you get manchuria with russia. Those are not VCs. Allies still have to defend ANZAC while trying to keep japan from sailing home to dump infantry off of japan… a tall order for someone doing a split income with USA. USA has to go full pacific at some point to stop japan or at the very least MATCH japan’s income.
I say this again. Typically if allies hold onto africa/middle east and india then they win, played enough games to know this. Usually allies can hold onto africa/middle east at the very least and it is a toss up from there, but sometimes they fail and it is GG, unless something crazy happens, like japan sucked all game.
The game is fine as far as dice games go. Axis have to do like a bajillion attacks and should get diced somewhere, seldom do you get more survivors in dice games.
The thing I worry about the most is france defending in league or tournament play… that would be so traumatizing.
funny thing is I only hit one or two times with that aa gun when people do send the tactical in, it is fun to say, “bang.”
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You take Calcutta, I take Manila and Shanghai. Tit for tat. If you threaten, which I have not seen yet b/c you refuse to play me, then I can easily evacuate/fall back to Russia with a ton of mech and planes to help them.
So you have India, a round later you will either have to deal with the Russian infantry taking Shanghai b/c you want to ignore them and the US will be breathing down neck in the Carolines, more than able to strike HongKong and Manila. Yes, this will take an 80% effort by US, but if you strike early you are negating that by giving me the cash to do that and invest in Europe earlier than normal. If you attack the Russian stack, you lose precious land units and you run right back into the loving clutches of the US, who by that time are ready to sack your expansion efforts.
You are not looking past round 4-5 and seeing the consequences. What about the Barborossa push??? What about it??? They will be able to hold off with British India reinforcements and soon to come a stout Second Front opening (France, Norway, Gibraltar–>Italy)- pick your poison.
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Attacking Australia or the Russia is stupid for Japan- it puts them out of position. I would wholeheartedly invite that foolish move.
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