Germany playbook: overall strategy guide

[Cpt. John Miller]

Anyone in Phoenix area?

[Jeff28]

Early German questions for Cow, et al:

How much is everyone sending into Yugo when you want to strafe for a G2 attack?

Is 7 inf 2 art plane and tac safe in dice? Should I add a tank to soften further for Italy?

How to you set up to most efficiently take Novo? Stack Baltic with everything in sight?

Do you move the entire 7 inf+ Finland force forward or just enough to take Kar and Vyborg? Are you worried about a counterattack out of Novo losing the stack and beefing Russia with Finland NO money?

Do you try to take Gib or hole up in 112 or 113 with your navy?

G1 do you ever attack the 91 cruiser in lieu of 106?

–Jeff

[rmcbride]

@Cow:

Oh yes I been meaning to get around to it. I play a game on Saturday and today a midterm is going to fry my brain. I try for Sunday.

Ok awesome, I’ll be watching for it, thanx!

[variance]

Good questions! Replies in red but I lose a lot of games.  :-)

@Jeff28:

How much is everyone sending into Yugo when you want to strafe for a G2 attack?
Is 7 inf 2 art plane and tac safe in dice? Should I add a tank to soften further for Italy?
I send just the 2 art, 7 inf.  Too paranoid to send more.  Italy can handle it and Germany will get South France.

How to you set up to most efficiently take Novo? Stack Baltic with everything in sight?
Yes, intimidation makes them withdraw or they stand and die.  If you build tanks/mechs instead of inf/art they will have to pull out through Archangel/Vologda/Moscow instead of Belarus/bryansk, so you will get Bryansk/Rostov/oil

Do you move the entire 7 inf+ Finland force forward or just enough to take Kar and Vyborg? Are you worried about a counterattack out of Novo losing the stack and beefing Russia with Finland NO money?
Yes move forward but leave a couple in Finland so you can airstrike.  Anything they send North will make Moscow fall that much faster.  If they don’t attack them, the Finns in Karelia add to the threat on Leningrad

Do you try to take Gib or hole up in 112 or 113 with your navy?
z113

G1 do you ever attack the 91 cruiser in lieu of 106?
No, and no sealion threat either.  I want them to do Taranto so I can sink their fleet in z97 by airstrike.

–Jeff

[Young Grasshopper]

@Jeff28:

G1 do you ever attack the 91 cruiser in lieu of 106?

The only sea zones that the 107 sub can hit are 106 and 109, so when talking about hitting the 91 cruiser, you’re talking about using a different sub than the one used in 106. I never hit 109 because the risk vs. reward ratio doesn’t make sense due to the 4 scrambles, so I send 2 subs into 110, and 2 into 111 leaving the 107 sub with nothing to do but hit 106. I see the value of getting the cruiser, but its not worth the attempt unless you send 2 subs on it, which would leave a battleship and a cruiser for the Brits just to save an Italian Destroyer.

[Eqqman]

@Young:

I see the value of getting the cruiser, but its not worth the attempt unless you send 2 subs on it, which would leave a battleship and a cruiser for the Brits just to save an Italian Destroyer.

Well, you’re saving 15 IPC because of the Italian TT there.

[Young Grasshopper]

@Eggman:

@Young:

I see the value of getting the cruiser, but its not worth the attempt unless you send 2 subs on it, which would leave a battleship and a cruiser for the Brits just to save an Italian Destroyer.

Well, you’re saving 15 IPC because of the Italian TT there.

Well, to get technical… The sea zone that gets skipped for the cruiser will give the Allies a battleship, a cruiser and a French cruiser (assuming it’s 110). That’s $44 passed to get $12, and save $15… a difference of $17… that’s not including air units lost due to a possible scramble which would amount to a possibility of $74 lost in sea zone 110. Now in all fairness, I’m not considering the possibility of hitting all four sea zones (106, 97, 111, 110), but that will require less sub soaks in 111, and/or 110, which will unbalance the economics of each battle when German fighters start slamming into the channel.

[Cow]

Technically instead of 110 you could wack 109 without added subs.

[Young Grasshopper]

@Cow:

Technically instead of 110 you could wack 109 without added subs.

Face 4 fighters for a destroyer and a transport?

[Cow]

yes. sea lion buy and if he scrambles then go through with the sea lion. without fighters the defense for london is weak

[Young Grasshopper]

@Cow:

yes. sea lion buy and if he scrambles then go through with the sea lion. without fighters the defense for london is weak

But hits from subs don’t get applied to air units, so your subs will face 1@2 & 4@4 with zero risk for the UK fighters. If you bring in German air units to help, UK player will be satisfied that you diverted a large force for a destroyer and transport and will not scramble, but rather use what ever ships were spared in their counter attack on 109.

[Cow]

If you think UK would be happy to scramble against the luffewaffe then sea lion will hit you 8-9/10 times.

[Cow]

update: posted a medit gambit strategy, the optimal sea lion strategy, and the gambit play.
~

I realized the med sea play usually follows a sea lion feign. So you really want to optimize for sea lion. Then you have the option of doing sea lion if the allies get fancy / do something other than buy to defend london… or you can strait up buy more naval and surge it into the med.

~

Well I think that concludes this for some time. I may update with other round 2 buys, but I think everyone has their own preferences as far as that goes.

~

I would also like to say that since I posted my openers with a general description of my overall strategy for each one that the allies play against me has become stronger.

Hopefully this helps newcomers to the board get a good feel for what the axis is all about. Then when you are the allies you can look at various NOs of the axis and figure out where their weaknesses lie. Perhaps this helps you gauge the timing of when and how many fighters you need to send to Russia to defend it against a German attack (also how many units are necessary to deflect a sea lion attack etc). Knowing what the axis are trying to accomplish by their opening moves should help considerably.

[Guest]

See this game how I call Cows sealion bluff.
http://www.axisandallies.org/forums/index.php?topic=30061.0

My buy? 2subs,1bomber and an artillery.

Sealion and J1 is not a good combination. Anyone who buys 9 inf is to defencive. If Axis go London nothing stops Soviet,US,Brit,China,Anzac from killing Japan.

[Cow]

In that game I got some bad dice on G1. Come on.

Outlier results are outlier results, they happen, but it is not the norm.

In a low luck game where everything goes smooth, I would do sea lion if you did that buy. In a dice game in which maybe I lost southern france, but not 3 air units in sz 111… I would do sea lion against that buy.

Lost too much stuff G1. Plus I did not send 2 subs to 106. It was intended to go barb after and strafed yugoslavia instead of taking it. I recommend skipping Southern France if you plan on doing barb, it makes france a bit dicier and you will want your mech in tact.

Normally against that buy Rommel I would do sea lion, all day, everyday. Lost 4 air units which made the battle a coin toss if I opted to go for it. I do not see the relevance of bringing that up.

Do we need to bring up all of soulfein’s games? He does exact openers by the book. I think RPG44 does the optimal sea lion thing, which has worked out great for him in the last 5 games (his current one he got diced on France, France was 98% battle and he lost).

I mean crazy stuff happens sometimes, but it is not the majority of games. Maybe 1/10 if you count both Germany and Japan round 1 attacks and where they can go wrong.

I lost the attack on philipines in a couple games and that is a 99% battle… all of a sudden J1 should never be done?
~
It is a dice game. The confidence interval depends on scrambling, but assuming no scramble one can be 95% confident if you calculate the odds of these battles. Just add the % odds of losing each battle up. It is pretty darn close to 95% confidence.

I usually send 2 subs to 106, losing that battle sucks, but that is the part of the turn I am generally least confident in. If it works out I am happy, if not oh well what else were the subs going to do.

[Cow]

Yes it is true, if Germany loses 4 air units, you can get away with buying bombers n such. How many games is that?

[Guest]

Remember units stacked in London have no value exept for defence. As have units in US no value before transported. Units in Anzac have no value unless transported away or attacked.

If Germany where to attack UK with 60-80% (the odds I would be willing to give), odds that would give every defending unit instant value (as they kill of germans obviusly). Not only that but it would force germany to invest 100tuv in trannies that have small value later. If US anticipated sealion they can bmb fleet and land in Ire, Scotland. Germany can buy more fleet to protect its fleet, but that just might be counterproductive.

London is not a big gain for Germany if the price they paid was to high. It simply conclude that germany have close to zero chance of europe victory because soviet will have to high amount of landunits and everyone is free to destabilize Japan in 8 rounds. Surviving a full pacific by US player with some amount of skill is nearly impossible for Japan, even if they deside to “suicide” themselves on India.

I have no problem buying a sub,fgt or bmb my first turn as UK. Most good players will go for soviet anyway as their lebensraum NO’s are there.
Dont worry about loosing London, just make sure you understand what type of strategy you must play after London is lost.

My logic is undeniable.

[Young Grasshopper]

@Cow:

If you think UK would be happy to scramble against the luffewaffe then sea lion will hit you 8-9/10 times.

Actually, I said the opposite, but oh well.

[variance]

@Cow:

If you think UK would be happy to scramble against the luffewaffe then sea lion will hit you 8-9/10 times.

But don’t those z110 ships being left alive kind of make up for losing the fighters in z109?  When you do your sealion you will have to divert planes to the sea zone.  Plus you will probably lose 3 planes against the 4 fighters & destroyer.  Fighters from Malta & Gibraltar may be in London in time to intercept an Italian SBR on the airbase I2, and those same planes (plus the tac) can scramble if the airbase is still operational.

If you strafe z109 and back out, the transport survives and it might be used to bring the french guys from Morocco and Algeria to London, plus the inf/AA from Malta with the z98 transport.  The z110 ships and carrier will protect the transports with the z98 destroyer moved to block z94.  Planes that hit z109 have to land in Holland and they can’t attack z92 without and airbase and Algeria as landing spot, all very unlikely.  That fleet will sit in z110 and if you try to go in thru z109 you won’t be able to protect your fleet from US airstrike with carrier build G3.

[Cow]

A capital is a capital.

USA can try to liberate it, I like that, because my Japan play is strong.

USA can try to ignore it, I like that, because I will come over and take a shot at America eventually and drop many men onto East USA.

~My logic is undeniable~

If you do not score enough hits on defense with UK, at least enough to cut into the armor, then you lost. That armor kicks Russia out of Europe, real fast.