So I’ve been recently picking away at a game on triple a, here and there when I have time. I’m playing the allies with out of box set up, no bids against hard ai. Pulled off YG’s beachhead gameplan with the US. UK Europe is doing excellent as well controlling all of Africa as well as the Middle East and Turkey. Zero Italian ships left and have them convoyed and strat bombed to 3 ipcs. Also moving into Europe via Greece. US is ready to drop another 20 units into Spain and also hold southern France with UK fighters as extra defence.
I’m at USA-8 but Germany has built nothing but land units for 8 rounds. Paris has 20+ infantry as well as some art and tanks and western Germany just put another 10 infantry down. They also have 12 infantry and 6 art in northern Italy(German). Italy holds southern with close to 40+ defensive units. Russia is at 24 ipcs thanks to Japan from the east but wot lose Moscow soon as German /italian units are starting to dwindle on the eastern front.
I have 80 ipcs as the USA to spend and as I said am ready to ship another 20 units into spain on non-combat. Problem is Japan is 1 VC away from victory after they capture Calcutta next turn after emptying it this turn but losing all attacking land units. I don’t know if the 20 every two turns for US is enough to take Paris/W Germany now even with UK help(6 loaded transports ready from London this turn). A Spanish factory only allows 3 units as well as the southern France one so I’m hesitant on building one in Spain. With Japan inching closer to victory subs and destroyers with bombers in the pacific might not cut it now. I’m finding myself at a stall in Europe ATM until Russia can start moving in to help if Japan can be held off from the rear.
I tried to explain this in as much detail as possible. Any suggestions?
The AI has several specific weaknesses that you might be able to exploit. It relies on general strategic algorithms but it’s lacking in tactics. In particular, it can’t see any plan that you may draw against it when it’s two turns away, and there are some specific tricks that it will fall for, too. I’ve played it a few times, and while I’d like to emphasize that I greatly respect the impressive work of the programmer who created it, it’s not even close to a somewhat skilled human player. The probable reason why you’re having some trouble defeating it outright, could be that you “believe” it too much because its moves make sense when you look at it superficially.
Having said that, in your actual game, since it looks like Europe is pretty much under control, I wouldn’t bother too much about that theater right now, because like you said, Japan may win the game if you do. You say that Japan will take Calcutta and then be 1 VC away from the 6 it needs, so I suppose that Hawaii and Sydney are still in Allied hands. Without additional information it’s hard to say whether either of those is likely to fall, but against the AI and knowing what it does, I’d go for knocking Japan straight out of the game. Typically, if you equip a strong US fleet with a bunch of transports (probably a few more than the 10 you’re using for Spain right now) and it’s in SZ10 (near Western US), then any human player would start to make sure that Japan itself is properly defended. But the AI won’t - it will only see you coming once you actually move that force to SZ26 (near Hawaii). So I wouldn’t send those units to Spain, but rather, in the other direction. Even if you can’t take Japan, you can reclaim the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies, which is a huge money boost to the US.
As a disclaimer, I’m saying this without any knowledge of the actual situation in the Pacific in your game. It’s based on my observation that the AI will happily leave Japan almost undefended if it can send its units far away to conquer territories.
Disclaimer:
The problem with playing without the bid seems to be that if the Western Allies fail to reach their economic and strategic momentum in the early game, that the Atlantic Wall isn’t hard to defend with some extreme stacking. If Germany is at threshold income (60+), it can fight Russia and turtle at the same time. This is where you need some extreme economic warfare, bombing the crap out of his factories, sitting on all his convoys, and killing 30-50 IPC defensive stacks with your firepower every turn. However, the G40 scenario makes it too difficult and late game to attack Germany at all. Unless Germany has too many irons in the fire and has over extended itself; it is exactly at the moment that they defeat Russia that they get the rest of the $$ they need to lock you out of Europe. The US begins to smash the stacks on US 6 but that is way too late to stop the Germans from establishing their economy and so the German stacks are easy to replace. However, the UK and US stacks are not; the US takes 3 turns to develop and the UK doesn’t have the money to build any towards any 2 goals at one time. This means that the US has to attack Germany and focus 100% on that front in order to make progress and as long as they hold the German capitol, they can continue to counterattack.
Sydney and Hawaii are indeed still in allied hands. With Anzac holding a somewhat healthy fleet on it’s own of two loaded carriers, 3 loaded transports with a cruiser 2 destroyers that’s parked right now in the Caroline’s. Tokyo is bare in the water minus 2 US subs that are convoying. But has just enough on land to deter an Anzac invasion(7 infantry, 3 art and 2 fighters). I thought about a Central America naval base allowing the US to reach Hawaii in two turns with it’s entire Atlantic fleet but am hesitant to completely abandon the European front fearing a loss on the European board while I destroy Japan.
You’ll have to consider whether you can hold at least Cairo while much of the US forces would be away to deal with Japan. The problem is that if you don’t do anything about Japan, it will just keep growing. Hawaii and Sydney seem safe for now, but you’ll lose the economic game if you maintain the stalemate situation in Europe while ignoring Japan. In fact, if you were playing a good human player, you’d most likely lose this game for that reason. Against the AI it will take longer, but generally it does a decent job building land units and sending them towards the enemy. Which, in Japan’s case, will be Russia. So if you keep on doing what you’re doing now, Russia will fall.
It’s at sea where the AI’s main weakness lies, but Anzac alone can’t keep it in check. In fact, that Anzac fleet at the Carolines is counterproductive, because the AI will see the direct threat to Japan, and keep Japan defended against a force of that size. So if Anzac can afford it (I don’t know about the state of the Japanese navy), it would do better to start eating at Japanese possessions that are more remote (maybe the Dutch East Indies), and the AI will start shipping troops away from Japan to use them elsewhere. Once that happens, you can sail your US invasion fleet to Hawaii. But make sure you have enough to defeat anything they build (10 units) plus any planes they may land.
A naval base may help to quickly transfer your Atlantic fleet, but it’s better placed in Southeast Mexico if you want one in that region. And remember that when your transports are in SZ 101 (US east coast), they can reach Hawaii in two turns anyway.
On a side note, the AI will typically fall for the old Denmark trick (US takes Denmark, UK sails in to take a poorly protected Germany). And a UK plane on a US carrier may also do you some good in killing some unprotected transports.
