Russian Alpha 3 NO a Mistake?

[WILD BILL]

I agree w/Vance, German tanks in N Africa is cool, they should and do get an NO for that (Egypt), but Russian mech or tanks?. The Lend lease angle for the Russians getting the Mid East countries is something I hadn’t thought about, but makes sense. The rules don’t allow them to get the NO for Persia (only the territory value), but they would get a bonus for Iraq so its all good. If the Russians hold those two countries they get 7 IPCs, and deprive the axis from the Oil bonuses.

Like I said we have experimented with the Russians getting an NO for both pro allied and even the strict neutrals (under certain circumstances), but don’t really have enough play time to give an honest opinion. We have stuck to territories in mainland Europe & Mid East for quite some time (which most ppl seem to support), and am hopeful that a change may come in the upcoming revisions as they will have had time to evaluate it.

[Guest]

Sorry, got confused about my Persias.  :-)

Maybe once Gargantua’s online global tournament winds up we can look and see how many games have the Russians going down to Africa.

[Canuck12]

I’m cool with the Russians in the mid-east, it’s a little weird in Africa but so be it. It gives Russia some extra income, which is ahistorically low in my opinion. So you can trade one historical falsehood for another.

I say: Give them back the Russian battleship in the Baltic to balance things out. I so miss that thing!

[Cow]

14 IPC is a HUGE deal, are you trying to make a joke? 4 more land units PER TURN doesn’t make a big difference?

you will conquer russia before that is a factor and if you do sea lion to get uk, guess what you got a country out of the game on round 3 or 4 and you can easily pressure america so japan can win it.

germany makes a ton of cash without even advancing on russia, I see no problem with the NO as it is. allies have it bad enough, but little things like this makes it closer to an even game.

[BulwFi]

Historicaly if the Soviets had of went anywhere near the middle east durring ww2 the British would have went mental. Im Thinking of doing away with the Middle East NO’s for the Soviets and introducing a NO bonus forthe British to balance Soviet IPC loss, some thing along the lines of ‘Strengthening of the CommonWealth’

Any thoughts??

[Witt]

I think a NO for having the Atlantic free of Axis Subs is  a good starting point for the UK.
There are already two for maintaining the empire (hard to collect most of the game, admittedly.) What else were youthinking?

[BulwFi]

Maybe something like Allied (not Soviet) control of Iraq, Persia, NW Persia the Suez Canel and the Straights of Gibraltar (‘Stratigic Oil deposits and shipping lanes’) for a NO of  10 IPC’s to counter the loss of the Soviet middle east NO, if they where removed.

The thought behind this is that this would force the German player to committ more to the defence of western Europe and the Med as the British would play a bigger role earlier on, therefor take some aggro off the Soviets.

Just a thought…

[Witt]

I see.
Thought the idea of the NOs was based  on each country’s people thinking the war was going its way and so excess income was being generated from happiness or hard work (or that could just be pure dementia based fancy). Anyway, my point is: did the UK care as much about the Middle East as Hitler did? Otherwise makes  sense.

[BulwFi]

The British knew that the Wehrmachts Afrika korps had to be stoped otherwise they would have swept right through Egypt into the Middle east. Realisticly who would have stoped them if not for the Commonwealth??

Think in our groups next game i will try the NO I mentioned inmy last post and see how it pans out.

[Cow]

???

the whole point of the middle east / africa NO is to make up for the loss of London should germany take it… which happens often in games.

I don’t really see the problem with the NO. It is pretty easy to stomp russia as germany if you go barb as long as Japan is doing his job in the pacific and trying to win. The allies have a hard time saving russia while stopping japan.

There is a reason why some people refuse to play the allies with less than 10 bid… especially low luck games.

[vonLettowVorbeck1914]

@Cow:

???

the whole point of the middle east / africa NO is to make up for the loss of London should germany take it… which happens often in games.

I don’t really see the problem with the NO. It is pretty easy to stomp russia as germany if you go barb as long as Japan is doing his job in the pacific and trying to win. The allies have a hard time saving russia while stopping japan.

There is a reason why some people refuse to play the allies with less than 10 bid… especially low luck games.

Just because that is the “whole point” does not mean it is a good reason to have it. It does not just “make up” for the loss of London: the NO makes sealion a doomed strategy. I don’t see why it needs to be that dead sealion=good.

You make it sound in an earlier post as though the USA MUST  commit everything right away after sealion retake London. With Sealion, Russia can easily outearn Germany for a good several turns, and easliy push into eastern europe and get Romania, Poland, and Slovakia, and sometimes bulgaria for a turn or two. If Germany doesn’t invest a lot in protecting their fleet from even modest american (or even soviet) threat, then Norway and Finland are easily Soviet for a long while too. USSR does not need USA to forfeit the game in the Pacific for USSR to survive.

We all know that Germany can stomp Russia if they go Barbarossa. We Know. We Get it. We Know. What I have been saying is that this NO from many of the games I have watched and played is what really kills SEALION.

The main question that I am asking is if this NO is a mistake because of what it does with Sealion? Saying that Germany can just go Barbarossa to avoid the NO is not the point and has never been the point. With sealion neutered tons from A2 from AA guns taking hits and the German NO for UK being gone, and this NO really coming into play only when Germany goes sealion, is it really any good at all for the game? Isn’t sealion already deterred enough relative to A2?

[Guest]

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

Just because that is the “whole point” does not mean it is a good reason to have it. It does not just “make up” for the loss of London: the NO makes sealion a doomed strategy. I don’t see why it needs to be that dead sealion=good.

You make it sound in an earlier post as though the USA MUST  commit everything right away after sealion retake London. With Sealion, Russia can easily outearn Germany for a good several turns, and easliy push into eastern europe and get Romania, Poland, and Slovakia, and sometimes bulgaria for a turn or two. If Germany doesn’t invest a lot in protecting their fleet from even modest american (or even soviet) threat, then Norway and Finland are easily Soviet for a long while too. USSR does not need USA to forfeit the game in the Pacific for USSR to survive.

We all know that Germany can stomp Russia if they go Barbarossa. We Know. We Get it. We Know. What I have been saying is that this NO from many of the games I have watched and played is what really kills SEALION.

The main question that I am asking is if this NO is a mistake because of what it does with Sealion? Saying that Germany can just go Barbarossa to avoid the NO is not the point and has never been the point. With sealion neutered tons from A2 from AA guns taking hits and the German NO for UK being gone, and this NO really coming into play only when Germany goes sealion, is it really any good at all for the game? Isn’t sealion already deterred enough relative to A2?

Very good points.  Personally I find it really fun to play as Russia in a sealion game  :-)

[BulwFi]

Personaly in 3.9 I think too much is lost on a successful sealion for Germany, i.e land units, air units and IPCs, after all they still need to go deep into the USSR and/or Egypt to achieve victory. The Soviet IPC income becomes enormous during rounds 3+ and time is against the Axis.

If anything Sealion should be used for Japan to achieve Victory in the Pacific, with the diverted USA spending into the Atlantic.

[knp7765]

BulwFi,
Personally, I think your Middle-East NO for UK is a great idea. I’ve always thought it really sucked that UK only gets 1 NO and that one is usually gone round 2. I’ve also thought that the Allies should be able to get NO points for controlling the Middle-Eastern countries; UK for certain and perhaps even the US.
Not Russia however. They had different goals, mainly trying to gobble up as much of Eastern Europe and Scandanavia as possible.

[Cow]

Sea lion is not a doomed strategy. Maybe if you are a bad player it is. You can easily kick russia out of Europe within a turn or two.

If russia loses this NO, USA should start with 6 more inf, russia should get a bomber, uk should get another destroyer somewhere, and a inf on london.

hmmm these changes sounds like fun.

I do not understand why people complain about this bonus. The axis win most games anyway.

If you are going to nerf anything from the allies you should give them stuff.

[Cow]

The way I see it, if one side is favored to win the other side needs to be in position to make big things happen.

The allies can make big things happen in the pacific, but europe not so much. So most games end up pacific heavy with usa to try and cut japan’s income down enough that china/anzac can take it from there at the round russia falls, because after that it is pretty much full atlantic usa to stop the europe win and that is it… huge allies income advantage and done. Usually the axis beat that strategy if Japan is wise and germany is quick… you can expect to take russia over at round 6 or 7 with germany.

[ghr2]

@Cow:

The way I see it, if one side is favored to win the other side needs to be in position to make big things happen.

The allies can make big things happen in the pacific, but europe not so much. So most games end up pacific heavy with usa to try and cut japan’s income down enough that china/anzac can take it from there at the round russia falls, because after that it is pretty much full atlantic usa to stop the europe win and that is it… huge allies income advantage and done. Usually the axis beat that strategy if Japan is wise and germany is quick… you can expect to take russia over at round 6 or 7 with germany.

The key is being able to get enough in position to save londn/egypt in time.  Russia usually falls turn 6, this gives the US very little time i think.

[cenator01]

I can’t understand why they removed the german sub national objective. I think it was quite historical and the brits are not too strong at all, even with 5 IPC more every other round. They added quite some NO for Italy and Germany (Oil bonus, North Africa) while they skipped the submarine Bonus for the UK. UK isn’t the most exciting country to play. They are every where, but can’t accomplish much after round one without the help of the US.

I would prefere the submarine NO for the UK (no german submarine in atlantic or indic oceans, except hidden behind Danmark) and the London NO for Germany (or Italy as well). Sealion seems not to be the best and game winnig strategy in Alpha 3.9 any more (USSR NO) and it became a lot harder to accomplish compared to earlier versions

[vonLettowVorbeck1914]

@Cow:

You can easily kick russia out of Europe within a turn or two.

Cow do you have any games saved on TripleA or on the forums where the above actually happens?

@Cow:

The axis win most games anyway.

As we’ve already established. The issue is though, that it is done with Barbarossa. Not sealion. I have played in two games recently (both allies) where Germany went sealion, and have watched several more, all of which saw Russias outearning Germany for 3+ rounds.
My question (which you seem to keep ignoring or just lack the ability to comprehend), is whether or not sealion should be a feasible strategy to make games less one-dimensional. That is NOT the same thing as wondering whether things should be made easier for the axis overall.

[Zhukov44]

@vonLettowVorbeck1914:

My question  is whether or not sealion should be a feasible strategy to make games less one-dimensional. That is NOT the same thing as wondering whether things should be made easier for the axis overall.

That’s a pretty subjective question.

From what I understand, the versions of Global prior to 3.9 favored Sea Lion.  In the OOB game, Sea Lion was pretty much mandatory for Axis against an expert Allies.  Initially, playing Sea Lion over and over was a lot of fun, but eventually people tire of this and want Barbarossa to be an option.

With the 3.9 changes, I wouldn’t say Sea Lion isn’t viable, provided that Germany/Italy is a strong player.  Absent bid, Axis probably has a better than 50% chance to win via Sea Lion.  After all, even after 3.9 came out there were complaints that Sea Lion was the only way to go, and presently there are threads wondering how to counter the seemingly unstoppable Sea Lion.

However Sea Lion (in 3.9) seems risky compared to Barbarossa.  And….that is probably the (historical) dynamic the game designers are going for.

If they tinker with the set-up, I wouldn’t object to strengthening Russia.  But I doubt they would go back to a set-up where Sea Lion is the the most optimal strategy.