New players - couple of questions

[daefish]

Good morning all from frigid Minnesota (it’s currently -24C or 15F out)!

My roommate and I first picked up a copy of AA42SE and then decided, what the heck, let’s go all out and sprung for G40.  We’re very happy with our purchase, even if it takes up a huge chunk of the living room floor currently.

We had a couple questions from the first couple of turns in the game.  We’re still on R1, and we’re entering the US’s phase.

1. When playing G40 - does the US collect its income as one country or is it more like the UK where it has to collect two separate incomes.  I couldn’t see in the rules anywhere anything describing it, but I have two boxes, one for P40 that says it collects 17 IPC and the one for E40 that says it collects 35.

2. Can you move a transport ship BEFORE picking up a unit that is attempting to make a combat move.  IE Start in a sea zone adjacent to a country you want to invite, move it one SZ over and pick up a unit on an island (mainly looking at Japan), then move it back to the SZ and start the amphibious assault. 
   I’m not sure personally because it would seem like to me, moving the ship the first zone would be more a noncombat move than a combat one.

3. Can a tank move 1 additional space after unloading from a transport if it hasn’t moved previously (other than load and unload from the transport)

4. (this is more a joke but kind of serious) - I’m stuck playing all the allies and minor powers except for Italy.  Strategies to beat the growing Brown, Black and Orange menace?

5. Does America, when it enters war, pay to upgrade its IC from 3 to 10, or does it automatically get the upgrades free of charge?

[wheatbeer]

1. The US operates as a single power with a single economy. If you haven’t already, make sure you read through the Global-specific rules which start on page 33 of the 2nd edition Europe rules (a lot of important info here). It shows the US starting income as 52 (no separation).

2. Yes you can (assuming the SZ where you intend to load land units isn’t occupied by an hostile surface ship that would block loading and stop movement). Assuming no hostile surface ships, a transport can load at any point during its combat movement and nothing prohibits returning to the starting SZ.

3. No, tanks cannot move any further after offloading. They also cannot move two spaces in order to load onto a transport.

4. Probably others are better qualified to answer this than me. I would just suggest that you try to focus the United States on containing one side of the map first (don’t divide your US income to both maps equally, or you’ll likely be too weak to accomplish anything on both sides).

5. The IC upgrades are free of charge.

[ItIsILeClerc]

4. Beer is right. I don’t know if he thinks he qualifies or not but he gave some good advice ;-).
   I’d only like to specify a bit more for you so it’s easier for you to work with. Do not split the US income 50/50 (Pac/Eur), but roughly 20/80 or 80/20.

Allies must be patient and build up and reinforce key strongpoints so that it is beyond the Axis to take those. The key strongpoints are:
#1 Moscow (Russia must build as much land units as it can and the UK can provide some RAF if needed)
#2 Egypt/Middle east/South Afrika (try to hold Egypt but fall back towards ME/SA if you cannot. Keep your army intact!)
#3 Gibraltar/London (UK and US invasion forces are build up here, ready to strike)
#4 Sydney (ANZAC turns it into a fortress, or builds offensively in synergy with the US’ Pac spending)
#5 Hawai (what you do here depends on your Pac/Eur spending ratio. >Pac will be offensive and >Eur will be defensive).

You may notice that India is not in the list, that’s correct. Just keep it as long as possible and fall back as soon as you Judge Japan will attack it and take it next turn in an unfavourable ratio for the UK.

Don’t panic If a strongpoint falls. Usually you are in good shape to take it back soon, or the axis exausted themselves to take it, gaining a mere Pyrrhic victory. At least, that is your strategy ;-).

You need to Judge when to switch to the offensive, but the usual key is when you can take back lost ground without immediately being kicked out again.

There is a lot more but let’s leave it at this for your first game ;-)

[AK_Grown]

Brown, Black and Orange menace?

KGF.  Land by 6 in Norway (people forget about Norway).  -8 IPC to Germany.  Factory and march to Leningrad.  Yes, there are counters and counters to counters of counters…

Never scramble unless you have an assured win.  Those planes are more handy as attackers or being sent to Russia.

Stack VC’s in PAC.  Japan can go buck-wild in the Islands (ooo 5 whole IPC bonus) - but if they never get Sydney/Hawaii - GG.  India can fall and you’ll still be fine.  By then, you should have overwhelmed Italy or Germany.

Spend money as UK in Africa.  A mech or tank buy can go a long way in later rounds.

Don’t neglect subs.  While they’re horrible on defense, they’re cheap and if you have a stack heading to a big naval battle its pretty awesome.  Think of them as over-priced infantry.

Don’t listen to me, I’m horrible at this game.  :)

[daefish]

Can someone explain to me why, when I take a territory over, the planes I have over that territory cannot land in that territory that turn?  I’m seeing this in TripleA.  I was under the impression I could land in just conqurered territories.

[wheatbeer]

Planes can only land in territories which were friendly at the beginning of the their turn (or on carriers).

TripleA is following the rules correctly there.

[daefish]

I just won my first tripleA in 33 rounds…that’s a lot isn’t it?

[Karl7]

usually a “long” game is 20+ rounds, so yes.  Long.

[ghr2]

@daefish:

I just won my first tripleA in 33 rounds…that’s a lot isn’t it?

Vs AI or a Human?

[daefish]

AI - I think I made the mistake of keeping my fleet in the Japanese sea zone right out of Japan so they couldn’t actually move their units from the homeland to China.  Ended up being a race to get enough things built to take them down and I probably spent 10ish turns dealing with that.

[daefish]

Couple more questions -

If I’m the USA and I am at war with Japan and Italy (I’m not clear if entering into war with Italy automatically enters into war with Germany), and I park my fleet on a space with British ships, and Germany attacks that space, what happens to my ships?  Are they considered out of the battle because of the neutral status?  I suppose this would also be important pre-declaration of war as well.

Also - my roommate swears up and down that the Allies have the upper hand (namely because of USA and the insane increase of IC they get post declaration of war).  I’ve heard of bidding but I don’t understand it - is bidding a way to equalize the IC differential some how?

[wheatbeer]

Germany/Italy are not linked like the UK/ANZAC and can separately be at war with the USSR, China, and US.

Most bids here give IPC to place additional Allied units. Although the Allies start with more money and more units, the Axis have greater offensive potential and only need to succeed on one half of the map. Not everyone agrees that a particular side is favored though.

[daefish]

Okay that helps a little - but what happens if a faction I’m not at war with attacks a space that I occupy with another faction that IS at war?

[Witt]

They can only do that at sea; in that case, the side not at war sits in the SZ and is an observer only.
No combat can happen in a (land)territory where not all sides are at war.

[daefish]

Okay so if I land US trooper on a land zone that has Italian troops on it and one german soldier but I’m not at war with Germany, this is not a valid combat move until I’m at war with Germany.

[wheatbeer]

Correct

[wheatbeer]

I should maybe also note that there’s rarely a reason to not declare war on Germany with the US as soon as possible, so this specific situation shouldn’t happen except by mistake.

I would worry more about it in the Pacific, where Japan could purposely declare war on UK/ANZAC but not the US in order to attack on a portion of the ships in a SZ.

[daefish]

Ahh good to know - I dec. war on Japan and Italy last night thinking it would be beneficial to keep Germany from protecting Italy while I mopped them up - but this is our first game of '40, so I have no idea what I’m doing really :D

[wheatbeer]

If Germany had a ship blocking a sea route needed to amphibiously assault Italian territory, that could be a good reason.

Or if Germany and Italy were sharing a SZ and you could get a better victory attacking just one of them, that could also be worthwhile.

So there are situations where it could be good to postpone a DOW against one of them … but they only work if your opponent also decides not to declare war.

[knp7765]

@daefish:

Okay so if I land US trooper on a land zone that has Italian troops on it and one german soldier but I’m not at war with Germany, this is not a valid combat move until I’m at war with Germany.

If US troops attacked an Italian territory that also has German units in it, you would basically be declaring war on Germany at that point. In land battles, all Allied units defend together so there is no way not to have war between US and Germany.
I think that going strictly by the rules you are supposed to declare war on a nation before making your combat move, but I think most players simply take the combat move as the DOW without making a formal declaration.
You have an interesting situation there with the US being at war with Japan and Italy but not Germany. I can’t help but wonder how well that would work if you kept it up, but I don’t think it would work out. Germany would simply put an extra infantry in each Italian territory and you would never be able to fight the Italians without attacking Germany as well. Then again, in most of our games, Germany and Italy are pretty separated. Italy usually goes up against the Brits in the Med and Africa while Germany dives into Russia.