German IC in Romania

[drummerinheat]

I’ve read posts on here regarding purchasing a Major in Romania.  It seems to me to be a waste of ipcs. Wouldn’t it be better to spend that 30 on inf or fast units?  Am I missing something?  Is it to better equip Army group south?

[Argothair]

It depends how many inf you’re building and how long you expect the game to go, I guess. There’s no such thing as mechanized artillery, so having ten production slots lets you swap out something like 7 inf, 3 art for 7 mech, 3 tank – a savings of $13 each time you do it. At that rate, you’ll make your money back in three turns; it seems likely that you’ll want at least three turns of ground troops heading east, so it’s not a bad deal. Of course, the slower troops will be kind of stuck once you get to Moscow, but you need to leave some infantry there anyway to garrison the thing – so once you take the capital, you can leave your Romanian infantry on garrison duty and bring your German tanks back home.

[teslas]

The following assumes you did not Sea Lion, and you are a competent player, as are your opponents.

The longer you wait to go into Russia, the more Russians (and probably British) that are there waiting for you. Delaying your advance might sound cheaper, but it is not. You will pay for it later. At best, you’ll break even. At worst, you’ll pay more than you saved.

As Argothair pointed out, if you do take Moscow, your slow units are done. There’s nothing else for them to do in a timeframe that is practical, leading to either a slow loss or an excruciatingly slow victory. Neither sounds appealing to me personally.

If you have slow units, and Moscow is not looking great, ducking south through the caucases and the middle eastern oil fields is made much harder if your force is not highly mobile.

Everything about Germany favors them being fast and flexible the first 5-8 turns of the game. A MIC in Romania is, as you said drummer, 30 IPCs of non-fast units. Could it work? Yeah maybe. Will it work better? Probably not.

[Karl7]

I often find a minor IC is the way to go.  Most the time most of your Russian invasion army is stacked in one place going north to secure Leningrad. Thus you need units in the south to put pressure on that front.

[madscientist]

I played against someone once who did this, and he took Moscow, but he was so focused on building units in his Romanian factory that one round he forgot to place any units in Berlin. Guess who had a UK transport with one inf within reach of Berlin…

[calvinhobbesliker]

@Karl7:

I often find a minor IC is the way to go.  Most the time most of your Russian invasion army is stacked in one place going north to secure Leningrad. Thus you need units in the south to put pressure on that front.

That’s what the Ukraine IC is for?

I played against someone once who did this, and he took Moscow, but he was so focused on building units in his Romanian factory that one round he forgot to place any units in Berlin. Guess who had a UK transport with one inf within reach of Berlin…

Ah, the classic Denmark can-opener?

[knp7765]

Another thing that you could do with an IC in Romania is put some transports in the Black Sea and send some troops straight over to the Caucasus. Then while your main army is advancing on Moscow, you could have this small force moving down into the Middle East.
Of course, Russia could immediately crush that force to take the Caucasus back, but that could weaken the front before Moscow or even the Moscow defense.
This plan actually is kind of costly. Besides the 30 IPCs for the Major IC, you have to buy transports plus men and equipment to fill them. Plus you have to defend those transports so you need to buy an air base for Romania and keep 3 fighters there to scramble. You should probably also get a destroyer in case Russia puts a sub from the Ukraine IC.
This could be a quick way to get the Middle East NOs or attack Stalingrad earlier than usual, gaining Germany another 5 IPC NO, a Victory City and another Minor IC very close to Moscow. I guess it depends on how you want to play as to whether this investment is worth it or not.
The first time I tried this, my Allied players (especially the Russian player) really kind of freaked out and couldn’t figure out how to react to it. As a result, Germany took out Russia pretty quick that game.
I tried it again in a later game, and one of the other players tried it when they played Germany, and both times the Allied players were able to better react and take advantage of where Germany was short due to the big expenditures in Romania.
So I don’t say it would always work, but it is an interesting way to go after Russia. You also have to watch what Russia is doing with her forces.

[NoMercy]

I think it all depends on your play style.
I don’t think I ever will buy a Romanian IC or any IC with Germany

If I really had to buy an IC, I think you might get more bang for your buck letting Germany take Greece and building a minor IC there with an AB. This way you can help the Med a lot more and protect Italy and SZ97 (you could build transports either in the Med or Baltic from there as well as it covers 3 sea zones)

I think I would only build slow moving infantry or artillery for the first 1-3 rounds with Germany, otherwise you need mobile units (mech, tanks) and maybe more planes.

[calvinhobbesliker]

@NoMercy:

I think it all depends on your play style.
I don’t think I ever will buy a Romanian IC or any IC with Germany

If I really had to buy an IC, I think you might get more bang for your buck letting Germany take Greece and building a minor IC there with an AB. This way you can help the Med a lot more and protect Italy and SZ97 (you could build transports either in the Med or Baltic from there as well as it covers 3 sea zones)

I think I would only build slow moving infantry or artillery for the first 1-3 rounds with Germany, otherwise you need mobile units (mech, tanks) and maybe more planes.

Greece doesn’t border the Baltic. I think you mean the Black Sea.

[drummerinheat]

I see the consensus is against the factory.  I wish I could find the old thread discussing what the benefit of it was.  Maybe it was just a passing mention of the potential to put one in that territory.

[teslas]

A major IC there, I can’t see any reason it’d ever be better than just using what you already have apart from one:

G2: Transport buy
G3: Do Sea Lion + buy MIC in Romania
G4: Dig in for a really long game.

This would let you dump art/inf directly on the front with Russia. Obviously, don’t let Russia take it R3.

A minor IC there? I’d just rather have two more tanks or three more mechs and go and take the Ukraine factory Russia was nice enough to already build for me.

[MarshmallowofWar]

@drummerinheat:

I’ve read posts on here regarding purchasing a Major in Romania.   It seems to me to be a waste of ipcs. Wouldn’t it be better to spend that 30 on inf or fast units?  Am I missing something?  Is it to better equip Army group south?

I believe the standard position of those who use the major industrial complex in Romania is that it gets units to Moscow a whole turn faster.

Typical builds are:

G1: major industrial complex in Romania
G2: 10 artillery in Romania complex
G3: 5 mech, 5 tank in Romania complex
G4: 5 mech, 5 tank in Romania complex
yada yada yada

Personally, I think the Romania complex is a waste of 30 IPCs, but the folks in Portland OR apparently love it.

Marsh

[ColonelCarter]

If you’re going for a G6 rush, it is a complete waste. Yeah, you can get troops to the front a round quicker, but it took you a round (and 30 IPCs!) to build the IC, so you don’t come out ahead at all.

[WILD BILL]

I think that building a major on Romania G1 tips your hand to the allies too much. It will give the UK some breathing room to be more aggressive IMO. Of course maybe you want to build a minor in Romania to make UK feel all warm and fuzzy inside, then when they don’t build home def UK1 buy transports G2 lol.

Anyway you have enough starting German units to push into both of the Russian front line minor ICs (Ukrainian and Leningrad) where you will use those ICs to build more German units as needed. You can start your move on Russia G2 if you want (especially if they fail to pull back from the front).

In the north you might need to buy a transport or two in the Baltic to threaten the northern IC to force the Russians to abandon it (or hit them hard if they try to stack it). Transports in the Baltic will also help you feed units into Norway/Finland, or more likely retake Norway if the allies make a landing there. Keeping some German navy in the Baltic for as long as you can will stall the allies from making landings in Scandinavia.

In the south you will have enough starting German slow units to push towards Ukraine (including your AA guns), but make sure to bring any surviving German mobile units from Paris through N Italy to Yugo on G2 so they can catch up to your front line units by G3 on Russian territory. An Italian can opener works well once on Russian territory. A couple Italian mech w/bmr used to open up territory next to the Russian stack so you can bring in a couple German ftrs for air cover (so the Russians can’t hit and run your southern stack).

[Narvik]

@drummerinheat:

I see the consensus is against the factory.  I wish I could find the old thread discussing what the benefit of it was.  Maybe it was just a passing mention of the potential to put one in that territory.

I believe the Romanian IC was more common in the first edition, when there was no Ukraine IC to take over.

[WILD BILL]

@Narvik:

@drummerinheat:

I see the consensus is against the factory.�  I wish I could find the old thread discussing what the benefit of it was.�  Maybe it was just a passing mention of the potential to put one in that territory.

I believe the Romanian IC was more common in the first edition, when there was no Ukraine IC to take over.

Good point Narvik

[gamerman01]

@teslas:

A major IC there, I can’t see any reason it’d ever be better than just using what you already have apart from one:

G2: Transport buy
G3: Do Sea Lion + buy MIC in Romania
G4: Dig in for a really long game.

This would let you dump art/inf directly on the front with Russia. Obviously, don’t let Russia take it R3.

A minor IC there? I’d just rather have two more tanks or three more mechs and go and take the Ukraine factory Russia was nice enough to already build for me.

Actually, Larry built it for you.  The Ukraine facility wasn’t in the first rendition of the game (and Berlin had a MINOR  :roll:)

[gamerman01]

@Narvik:

@drummerinheat:

I see the consensus is against the factory.�  I wish I could find the old thread discussing what the benefit of it was.�  Maybe it was just a passing mention of the potential to put one in that territory.

I believe the Romanian IC was more common in the first edition, when there was no Ukraine IC to take over.

Just saw this.

And there was only a MINOR in Berlin.  That’s probably why.

So like everyone is saying - hard to imagine it being very effective now that you have the Ukraine complex AND a MAJOR in Berlin.

[calvinhobbesliker]

Interestingly, Germany is the only economy to start with two major factories.

[gamerman01]

Yeah, when you put it like that, British boy  :wink:

The UK is a second playable POWER that has 2 major complexes to start