I found it most interesting that no one thought Switch did anything wrong by capitalizing on the fact I left the Pacific fleet alone, until the game was lost. After reading the comments, you were most concerned about my leaving Western Europe in a weakend state, although the territory was never held for any length of time. Switch’s landing were not exactly powder-puff either. Landing 7 infantry and 7 armor is a significant force.
Switch clearly believed his defenses in Russia were sufficient towards the end of the game, even to the point where he believed he was robbed on dice rolls.
I am wondering how many games I will have to win or who I will have to beat to demonstrate that perhaps I am doing something different.
I thought that Switch’s early attack on the Japanese fleet was a huge mistake, well before the game’s conclusion. He could have permanently damaged Japan’s ability to send troops towards Russia if he had island hopped, but he didn’t. He didn’t press correctly there. If he had, Japan would be sending little to no troops westwards. Switch also let the Africa situation get out of hand.
You did have a couple of very lucky dice rolls, in Western Europe for one. Switch did get dice robbed. That is a fact, not something you can say he was believing incorrectly.
If you read my quote from earlier:
Maybe you haven’t had enough experience playing advanced players who don’t make costly logistic mistakes?
So all you have to do is beat an Allied player that doesn’t make logistic mistakes and without a net effect of luck. You haven’t demonstrated that yet. But I’m being rather hasty. I’ve only seen you play one game where both of you made mistakes, and I’m already saying that you’re doing nothing different.
But the only different thing you have shown so far is that you like to leave Western Europe relatively undefended. I believe that one lucky dice battle + the fact that the US didn’t come after you much earlier lets this image linger in your head. Every time I have let Western Europe relatively undefended has cost me the game earlier because you get into massive troop trades there + have to worry about defending your capital from amphibious assaults + can no longer trade troops with Russia with all your troops going westerwards. If you don’t kick the Allies out of Western Europe then it’s even messier, of course. If you take your lucky dice out of the equation and have the US in the Pacific much earlier, you have a mess on your hands. This game painted your W. Europe picture rather rosy because of luck and logistics.
Then you will say that if the US goes KGF that Japan will be unhindered, but I will say that I always completely abandon the East (abandon India + buryatia on turn 1) and even against dual complex builds, which is as fast as you can get, Japan is more often than not late. Sometimes I can manage to crash Moscow on the same turn as Berlin falls (usually with a bid), but that is an Axis loss there too that you will see once you’ve played that scenario a lot of times.
Oh and I apologize if I’m sounding overly hostile, that’s not my intent to beat up on you with words, Octo. In fact, I’m rooting for you and eagerly awaiting to see a good Axis strategy, because that’s exactly where I started too - I used to play the underdog Axis as much as possible and figure out ways to win, but after getting tromped on by someone very good 3 times in very quick succession I started to look the other way. Switch came to the board just as fired as you did about the Axis being overpowered, but his point of view has changed a lot since then as well (although we still do have our differences, we do agree that the Axis is underopwered in Revised).
