What's your favorite country and why?

When I play with my friends, we do what you propose; we count the IPC value of a country at the end of its turn.  We find this to be simple because we simply count the IPC difference for each territory, and add this (or subtract) from the default IPC for this nation.

We find that when we adjust the tokens for all countries, that this is a very error prone method, and it forces us to do counting that is not necessary.  All that is necessary is to know how much your nation is worth at the end of your turn.  At all other times this information is useless.

But, you should still use paper money, because you collect money at the end of your turn, and you may also have saved some money from your previous turn phase.  The amount of money that you have in pocket is generally not the same as your IPC value at any given moment in the game.

@Nomarclegs:

The most important asset for any power in Spring ’42 is flexibility.  Japan (with her large air force and navy, as well as local production facilities) has incredible flexibility.  As USSR I’d opt to preserve as much of my flexibility as possible. That means keeping my men alive.

I agree with the issue of flexibility for both, but the first round is a window of opportunity to harass Japan’s flexibility by giving it a lot of targets to hit so that it can’t focus on everything. If the results of Russia’s opening attacks favored the Russians or just gave out the average losses then those units can be used to throw a few speed bumps at Japan or pressure it.
If you combine all 6 units on Buryatia then Japan has a very big problem to solve, in addition to the usual ones:

US fleet at SZ52 China UK cruiser/carrier at SZ59 UK sub at New Guinea/Solomon UK transport from SZ40 Remaining UK fleet on the Indian Ocean India

And this assumes that the UK didn’t went to attack FIC or Borneo, instead of retaking Egypt. If I’m playing Japan, one option is to attack SZ52, China and Buryatia, but to do so it would mean the Indian advance will be delayed, as well as any reinforcement of the Germans on Africa until round 3. I’ll have to use a lot of the airforce, to prevent any dice failures.
The other is to hit China, SZ52, and get rid of most UK naval units, while reinforcing Manchuria and transporting 1 inf, 1 arm to Indochina, ensuring the fall of India on J2 (and opening the possibility of building an IC on J3). At the same time it positions Japan to reinforce Egypt with plenty of fighters and units carried by the transport, which can also be used instead to bring the 2 inf from East Indies to attack India.

On the first one, Japan will kill 6 Russian inf at the average cost of 2 or 3 of its infantry. It will also have to bring more land forces from Japan if it wants to advance past Yakut. The UK will also have attacked Indochina, taking away the possibility for an IC build there until round 3, the same round that India should fall. Indian IC on built on round 4, produce units on round 5 that can finally be used on round 6. Meanwhile Africa should fall sooner to the Allies, will take more time to threaten/reinforce Africa with Japan.
But…  if Germany got lucky against the Russians (the deciding factor for me) and destroyed a large part of their army then this option is a must because it will give 2 simultaneous blows to Russia’s power.

Second one, the 6 Russian inf get away or make a kamikaze against 2 inf, 2 ftr on Manchuria. Usually they are pulled back and can reach Russia by round four. If there’s no Russian threat to retake India then I’ll get that IC for it and by round 5 I can start using its units. Meanwhile, the UK’s production is going down and down (India, Persia, Jordan, Egypt, the rest of Africa, possibly Australia), either forcing the Allies to retake Africa or start facing a losing economic situation, which gets worse as Japan keeps building its attack forces and advancing towards Russia.

Tough call? Yes, it can be.

@Col.Stauffenberg:

I was talking about if you use you sink the UK navy round 1. Do you still do the 1 ac, 2 Des build? We don’t because by then 3 subs and whatever planes are on france/Nor will be in range.

Usually you can buy the AC, 2 DDs for the UK and place them on either SZ2/8. It depends on the results of G1 but on average G will lose 1 sub on the SZ2 attack and a ftr on SZ13. You can see the odds for any German attacks those SZs during G2 on the Fortress Europe Strategy.

You can afford to spend 40+ Ipcs on planes for Germany? And this is more if you lose a plane in Ukraine right off the bat and/or one taking out the cruiser. If you’re buying that many planes then you’re not that much Inf. and by round 3 or 4 the germany income should be shrinking, or else you’re not playing the allies right.

Those Russian territories are worth only 3 ipcs. WR, UK, Belorus combine for 9. You only need to go up 6 and be down none to reach 30. Not hard at all with an agressive Russia.

I usually only buy 1 bomber on G1, sometimes more but it depends, so I’m only using 12 IPCs, not 40.

Belo and WR are only worth 2 IPCs each, so Russia only gets 7 IPCs from those 3 territories. Since Russia should lose Buryatia and possibly SFE by J2 it will rise to 31 IPCs on R2 but only receive 29 IPCs by R3 and lower afterwards.

UK needs planes for when they start attacking the Eastern Europe stack, amoung other things.

If you have the Japanese AF on W. Europe then attacking E. Europe with the UK can be very tricky because Japan can attack the invasion fleet before the US moves to reinforce it. And the UK will already need ships to defend itself from the Luftwaffe based on W.Eur because it will have to move to either SZ3/6/7 before moving to SZ7 to land on E. Eur. Any US builds won’t reach any of those SZs until US3.

Considering that the Germans should have 4 ftrs, 2 bmrs and 2 subs still available by G3, the UK will need to buy even more warships (AC, DDs or even cruisers) on UK2 if it wants to move to SZs 3/6/7 than the 1 AC + 2 DDs + 1 US cruiser + 1 Russian sub + 2 ftrs. Otherwise Germany will have 24 attack points and 8 units against the Allies 18 defense points and 7 units.

The Japanese airforce takes a long time to get to Germany and it’s not threatening the Asian mainland. We’ve done this before and from my experience it’s a "delaying the inevetable strat. It weakens Japan more than it helps Ger.

It only weakens Japan if the US decides to go Pacific (on which case the Axis will be more than satisfied since those units won’t be going after Germany). It will give less of a punch against the Russians but it is a matter of massing enough ground forces (and units used by the Russians against Japan won’t be available to use against Germany). Russia can’t deal with both Germany and Japan, without weaking its defenses against one of them.
Like I mentioned above, having the Japanese airforce on W. Eur really messes up the Allies’s ship movement on SZs 8/7/6/3 since they risk leaving ships unprotected to either the Germans or the Japanese and force the Allies to spend more money on warships.
If the Japanese have their carriers on the right positions (SZ34 and either SZ60/36) the fighters can reach W. Eur in 2 turns from SZ60. Japan can also land fighters on Egypt right on J1/J2, allowing them to start reaching W. Eur by J3. And if Japan buys the occasional bomber it can reach most of Asia on the next turn, and/or Japanese bombers on India can reach SZ5 (Baltic), also making it risky for the UK to go after E. Eur.

I just located a place that can print my maps on mouse pad material!!  from 4 to 10 feet long.

This is something that i have been looking for and the resolution is fantastic.

I got two new maps in production to finalize the quality.

This by far is the best method. It will never bend and will stay flat and make it easier to moves pieces. This is because the pliable nature of the material gives a bit. This makes picking up tokens easier.

I will post the results ASAP.

if the US thinks that the Pacific ocean is haunted get up to the Far east transport to Alaska and scare them build a factory there fight for West Canada and tell Germany to get an Industry in Brazil and then from West Indies they can land everyone up in there and do the rest so just do that

I’ve played games yesterday as allies and won them against the other player. We had played before using the same sides and I lost. Here’s my impressions of what happened and what you described:

The initial Russian opening is pretty much standard, he should have lost 3 inf according to probabilities but G will lose 2 of the following 4 territories to R on the first round: Ukraine/West Russia/Bielorussia/Norway. G has to push Russia back on the first or second turn. Buying only inf for G on round 1 is not the best choice (the allied player did it on both my games). Ideally, if you buy 5 tanks you can be able to make Karelia impossible to take by the Russians (depending on the number of russian casualties and their initial purchase). If that’s not possible then you will have to take and hold Karelia or Ukraine somewhere on the following rounds. What you do regarding the Brit fleets really depends on how much you want to risk sacrificing your air force. Taking out the UK Battleship and the Transport with the sub, fighter and bomber gives some breathing room for G on the Atlantic, along with killing the Cruiser. And don’t forget to move the G subs. Regarding J it really depends on what R and the UK have made. If they are playing aggressive then you’ll have 6 inf on Buryatia, UK controlling Borneo and New Guinea, UK fighter on US carrier on Hawaii. Your first buy should be 2 transports and 1 destroyer, in any case. You’ll need the DD do deal with any allied subs, while the factory can wait a little longer. With Japan I’d say that the US fleet is the biggest target, followed by China and Borneo. If R moved to Buryatia leave 1 inf behind in Manchuria and land as many fighters as possible there. If the US goes Pacific (like I did on my games) and starts building a fleet, then your focus is to prevent the US fleet from invading either East Indies/Borneo/Phillipines and building an IC there. You’ll need some infantry to drop on Asia using the transports available but combat ships and planes have the highest priority. On Asia focus on taking India, the Chinese territories and the 3 Russian territories. Don’t leave your ground units where they can be destroyed by allied  counterattacks.

@Romulus:

To me, it seems that the miniatures in AA42 have a better finishing. In my AA50 the miniatures are not so good. Russian an Japanese fighters are bend, ships of alla navies have molding problems. Maybe refreshed is intended in the sense they have re-modeled the “original” of each miniature.

I sent WOTC an email about my bent planes, ships, etc. They replaced all of them for me. I recommend the same. Check the box for the web site and go to customer service (not near my box at the moment).