Big wall, mainly to craykirk, but some thoughts on the transport as well somewhere in there :-D
@craykirk:
I agree to a point; the carrier really can’t get away and without the fighters, it’s a sitting duck… The game seems to be setup wrong in my opinion. Germany and Japan can decimate the British navy without much fear of loss…
In the 8+ games that I’ve tried it, only once did I take the East Indies. Every other time, it was a total loss for Britain and Japan had only a single hit on the battleship in two rounds of combat. Hard to not get frustrated by those odds. if the battle doesn’t go well for the Allies, it’s hard to recover. You lose 2 transports and 4 infantry as well.
This is where I get frustrated with the AI; my rolls will hit the 1/16 bad followed by the computer 1/16 good. Time after time after time after time. Again, the game shouldn’t be decided by rolls of the dice.
Modelling moves on the standard AI response isn’t going to get you very far against a human being, but there are some general tips I could toss out that might be helpful… and maybe also help demonstrate why it is probably better in the long run to send the transport home rather than against East Indies or New Guinea or anywhere in an attack.
Just like every 5 man Axis and Allies board at this scale, the map itself and the production distribution in 42.2 heavily favors a KGF strategy. Despite the suggestions I made to you in the other thread about how to destroy the IJN on a pacific orientation when G stacks infantry (noting that its possible to do this via the med, or with air armadas too), the reality is that for your endgame set up, KGF will almost always be a better use of Allied resources than going all Pacific. This is for several reasons, but the main one is that the movement onto Europe is much faster. There is more production/income there, more capitals either to protect or pressure, a faster transit to stack transport/carrier fleets, and a better endgame set up for income parity as Allies. Consider this, from the Allied perspective…
From sz 5:
It is possible to get the drop on 7 Axis territories, worth 25 total ipcs. You can shuck 8 ground units per round out of UK itself, and threaten the German capital. From sz 5, you can launch carrier based fighters to or from Moscow in a single move.
From sz 13 it is possible to get the drop on 8 Axis territories, worth 18 total ipcs. You can shuck 8 ground from UK, and launch 12 ground out of E. US per round. From sz 13 you can threaten Africa and the European underbelly, while deterring a Med entrance from Japan, and you can launch carrier based fighters to and from Caucasus in a single move.
If at any point Berlin is taken, the Axis game is generally over. It takes a very adept Japanese player to set up a JDTMT that can take Moscow/Caucasus, and can stand up to the Anglo-Americans in Europe, without buckling. It’s not impossible, and it can be done (if for example, Berlin is taken by UK rather than US after an initial botched attack, or if Axis can push the capital trade by a round and take Moscow before Berlin falls, or if the Japanese fleet is massive enough ). In a 2v1 vs Japan, with both Western Allies able to push stacks together, even if Moscow falls to Japan, Allies are still solid. Compare this to the KJF deep endgame, where its 2v1 vs super G and you have to creep around from the back with Super USA, and you start to get a picture of why KGF predominates on pretty much every board. It’s just a better endgame set up overall after Moscow collapse, for Allies, because they will have more money, production, and safe places to drop ships.
Now considering before, the issue you mentioned elsewhere, about G just stacking infantry as a way to forestall this kind of game… This is a sound strategy from Axis, but its also very hard for Germany to do two things at once. Either they can pressure the center, and threaten the Russian capital, or they can ensure that Europe is secure and that Berlin has no chance of falling in the endgame. At some point this comes down to a decision, whether to launch the line on Moscow and set up for an early knock out on the 1-2 punch, or withdraw the armor from Caucasus in order to defend Europe against Western Amphibious assaults. If you break too soon, before Japan is in position to take over and handle Moscow alone, then you could very well let Russia back into the game, which is massive problems for Axis in the deep endgame. Allies don’t necessarily need to control the center to Win in the long run, but Axis definitely do. It’s one part psychological, since many Allied players will concede after Moscow falls as just an expedient, but if the Allied player doesn’t throw in the towel and plays on, you will see very quickly how critical it is not only to hold the center, but to be able to quicky transition forces after Moscow falls to protect the new lines that develop. So a KGF Europe focused game exploits this.
Many people and often newer Allied players will make the mistake of using their transported infantry a round to early, trading them for enemy units and lower value territories, when what they should be doing is positioning them rather than trading them. Using Fabian tactics, keeping the ground alive, activating it as a threat (not necessarily attacking with it) and then shifting it ever so craftily such that it threatens Berlin directly.
What Allies need most is to put a solid drop on Berlin as quickly as possible, since this will pull ground units back off Russia faster than anything else you can do. Along the way you trade in France or the North or the Med just enough to maintain income (especially for UK). Baltic states is probably the single most important territory from the Allies point of view, since it allows you to creep down overland, and max the threat of amphibious on Berlin. What you want most, is to just drop a deep stack of ground somewhere that borders the German capital. We’re talking 20-30 ground or more with air cover in a single spot, so that means you have to build up to it usually over several rounds.
Sz 5 is the money spot. Make sure you have enough carrier decks and dd fodder to adequately defend the massive transport stack that will end up here. Good rule of thumb is 3 carriers with 6 fighters and a handful of dd to deter all air attacks from the Luftwaffe/Japan on the double hit. Creep on Baltic States first, France is much easier to trade lightly once you’ve got the line on Baltic. UK shouldn’t need more than 4 transports until you are ready to drop Berlin. By the time the Australian transport circumnavigates the globe and returns to England, this is around the time you start pressuring the larger drops on Europe. :-D
USA on the other hand will need at least a dozen transports or more, to start properly shifting their ground where it needs to be.
This all seems daunting when Germany is dropping infantry from the outset, but really all you need to get Europe going is the ability to park 12 US ground where they can hit Berlin on amphibious, with enough air in the area to back up the threat. Once you do this, Germany has to immediately pull back, and will have a much harder time trading territories, whether in the West or the East, for fear of losing the capital.And don’t forget the potential advantage of an SBR campaign against Germany. Even one solid round of max damage to the Berlin factory can really screw Axis, from a winning position on Moscow, to one where they have to start redirecting armor and air to defend Berlin. Basically in the long run, if you can do this in Europe and maintain parity on the water with the IJN, you’ll have a strong position in the endgame post Moscow collapse, and USA can focus in pretty much 1 direction, just all Europe. All Pac focus for USA is more challenging, and most players prefer to do a stall and redirect if they go this route, since UK has to buy in Europe regardless, it’s less one dimensional than the all Atlantic game.
For Japan the most important route in a KGF oriented game is probably the sz 61 to Yunnan shuck. This is the shortest route from Tokyo to Moscow. With 4 transports you can shuck 8 ground to Yunnan every round, overland to Szechwan, then Kazakh. Basically if you can do this three rounds in a row, you’ll have enough fodder to start making the Russians sweat their capital. Just like the W. Allies on Berlin, the trick is not to move your Japanese ground forward too quickly and expose them in poor trades for 1 ipc territories, instead hold them back another round until they are stacked deep enough to defend themselves from Russian counter attacks. Szechwan is the optimal convergence spot for the main advance, and the push comes out of Yunnan via 61. This is to allow you to threaten India and Burma without having to put yourself out of position on Moscow. Later if you can launch into Africa or India uncontested thats great, but the main line is out of sz61 Szech push. Otherwise you leave the back door open to wiley Zhukov moves, with Russians running amock in Asia.
Because sz61 is such a clutch zone for Japan, most Allies I see will consider hitting the starting Japenese transport here a top priority, more important than the warships in sz37. You can cut the Japanese transport capacity in half during the opening round if you take your hit on sz61, and it can be done at relatively low risk for the payoff. I see most people jet out of Australia towards Brazil. The transport makes a less attractive target if you don’t fully load it. Just nabbing the dude off New Zealand for the ride. But again, I just don’t see the sz37 attack all that much on the bid lately. Even with a sub, or an extra Egypt fighter, it gets pretty dicey. I think the Allies are better served by keeping their forces in tact. You can still give Japan headaches, although full Pacific press is very hard if Japan has all their capital ships. Probably easier to face them in the med, if you don’t want to hammer 37 on a gambit. But KJF Pacific style games seem to always have a gambit of some sort, going all the way back (some risk you take as Allies to open up the game against Japan) and for that I like that sz37 exists. I just don’t use it as much, once the novelty wore off, and when you see that Europe is still the more attractive endgame on this map.
