Challenge

hi everyone,1st post long time viewer,you guys r great. just wondering what u think about afactory in romania with german trannies for a trn. 3 or4sweep into s.russia :?

It does seem to me that the Axis are at a disadvantage in the game. I have yet to see a win as the axis, but I don’t think it’s impossible, even if the Allies are playing well. What I am seeing is large amounts of troops being bought for Calcutta, London, and Russia. I think that the Axis require much more thought to win with. The Allies can basically play extreme defense until the US gets into it. The Axis need to be not only very aggressive, they also need to be moved and attacked with near perfectly. I’ll get it though.

@veto:

hi everyone,1st post long time viewer,you guys r great. just wondering what u think about afactory in romania with german trannies for a trn. 3 or4sweep into s.russia :?

Welcome, good to see you.

I have built a factory there before, but not on turn 1. I think it is a very good idea if you can continue to afford to put men there… in addition to everywhere else you have to defend.

I just came away from my first axis victory. The crucial factor that led to the win was axis mobility, which allowed us to respond fluidly to Allied decisions and capitalize on their weaknesses.

I like building fleet as Germany on turn 1, because that fleet does several things. First of all, it forces England to pump out 9 infantry on the first turn. Then, you can use the fleet on turn 2 to either assist Barbarossa, enter the Mediterranean and help out Italy, or beef up with 9 transports to take England. If you take England, you can either continue pumping fleet if the Americans don’t seem too concerned about the Atlantic, or run away and throw 22 troops north of Moscow in a flanking maneuver. If the Americans are really stupid and don’t build much of anything in the Atlantic, you can bring your invasion force in range of Washington and take it the turn following, either as an alternative to or after Sealion. If Italy is having a tough time after Sealion, you might still want to consider throwing the troops into the Med if they can make it, crushing Britain and eventually threatening India and Russia’s southern flank. I also like laying down a smattering of minor IC’s as Germany so forces can materialize where they are needed, such as in Norway or Romania. This amounts to mobility as well.

Italy should build an Egypt IC if they can hold it, and if their transports can cross the Suez canal, they should. They can potentially shortcut to South Africa or even help Japan out against India or in re-taking the money islands for them. ICs are important for Japan as well, and transports are of course crucial. You want to plan several turns in advance so you can have a force to take or re-take crucial islands when the time comes. For all of the axis powers, air force is important. Bombers represent the most mobility of any unit, so buy them if you have the money to spare.

Back to the game I won, I admit that some of the “weaknesses” we capitalized on really should be categorized as mistakes. If we didn’t have mobility, however, we never could have taken advantage of those mistakes. Because Britain pulled their fighters out of England turn 1, I did a surprise Sealion on turn 2 and succeeded. On turn 6, I had a lot of tanks threatening Moscow and Russia left only 11 infantry to defend it with a “screen” of 1 infantry to stop the blitz. A squadron of Japanese bombers took him out and landed with the Germans, letting me take Moscow on turn 7. He retook his capital, but it set him back several turns. I dug in to Russia with a couple minor IC’s and kept pumping units for the 2nd battle of Moscow, eventually taking it for good.

Also of note this game, though certainly not game-changing: Italy took Sumatra back from the Australians. Italy also used their forces to make India stay honest and keep a garrison instead of sending everything out to retake China.

I do tend to think the game is weighted in favor of the Allies, but maybe not so much that the Axis should expect to lose every game. Hopefully they can get 1 out of 3 or 4 with skilled play. The key is keeping your options open and choosing the most effective strategy for the board as it stands.

Its hard for me to understand how people believe the game is weighed towards the allies-  with Sealion at such a high percentage and Japan having more aircraft than all other powers combined…  In fact, I have played 3 games so far and haven’t seen an Allied victory.

What do the allies do in your games?  What does the US do>?

I played with Larry Harris’s revised setup.

Extra inf in Manchuria and China, and 14 less aircraft from the pacific side of the board.  7 from each alliance.

Some ships got moved around too,  seemed to play pretty well, I won as Axis, personally playing Germany.  But I found if I hadn’t have been an experienced player, I probably would have lost.  It was the mistakes my opponents made, that gave me the edge.

G1 dice were bad, but after that the game fairly even for everybody.

I have played about a dozen games now and there has been only one axis win and that was because I did something really dumb with Russia.

I think the axis are much harder to play.  They have a super powerful county in Japan to match super powerful America but I think it is much easier to mess with Japan.

It seems to me the allies can have some bad dice luck and still win but if the axis get bad dice luck it can cost them the game because it takes them so long to get into position and they have less IPCs to replace lost units.

A strategy I’ve found that is really helpful against Russia is to slowly surround their capital.

You get a major IC in Romania G1 or G2 and, after you capture Leningrad as well, start pumping out waves of infantry and artillery followed by waves of tanks and mech infantry.  Keep a special focus on taking Stalingrad as soon as you can to capture another 7 IPCs a turn for yourself and a minor IC near the Russian capital.  You might also want to build another minor IC somewhere in Southwestern Russia like the Ukraine or Rostov.  Once you’ve accomplished that keep your forces poised to attack any move Russia makes outside of its capital.  This will isolate Russia and make it very difficult for them to make any kind of moves whatsoever.  Once you have enough men and tanks amassed a couple of spaces away from Russia move them all in to territories adjacent to Russia.  Keep your forces spread out enough that if Russia wanted to it could take its whole army and defeat one of your stacks but leave the capital open to counterattack from all the other stacks you have around it.

The whole point of this is to isolate Russia without having to necessarily take it.  If you have it totally surrounded then it will be eventually making 3 IPCs a turn.  If you can make it to this point that essentially means that Germany merely has to spend 3 IPCs a turn to keep Russia in check.  Germany can then put its near total focus on defending the Western front.  If you even just spend 10 IPCs a turn on Russia you can eventually take it.  Surrounding Russia makes that huge stack they have pretty meaningless and allows the Axis to go about their business without having to worry about the bear to the east.

Keep in mind this strategy only has a chance of working if Japan doesn’t declare war on the US until J3 and America isn’t going for a total 100% commitment to a KGF strategy.

Build a dummy sealion fleet and then send them to attack Leningrad. After this You can reinforce Norway with your remaining trannies if the US start moving units close to it. If the US build a major in Norway just concede. It is hard to win after that as they will throw ten units a turn into there you then need to draw units back from the Eastern front ot protect your homeland then the SU come and start to raid you and you will just end up turtiling especialy if the UK starts working on Italy and you will be stuck on Three fronts. You then can’t hold France the allies will liberate it and then you have four powers gunning at your capital. SO moral of the story play a dummy sealion and take Lenningrad and then follow it  up with Major in Romania so you can take CauCau and then move onto Stalingrad. Start taking SU territories close to the front and deprive them of their income so you can force them into Trying to hold out in Moscow. Most likely they will also call in the Far Eastern troops and then Japan can help you by taking there Easter territories

@Blitchga:

Here is my problem and my I cannot seem to find any concrete effective strategies that are not playing huge luck games with the Axis. Our group has not seen the Axis win yet in roughly a dozen games. This is as you can guess quite alarming. I am reading about people winning as the axis which has been leading me to wonder whether they have seen something we have missed as the axis or if their allied players are just not as sharp as ours. As such I am hoping that people could give me some strategies with Germany and Italy. This is where the majority of our problems are occurring. Japan can become almost as big as the US but we have been wondering if that is enough to actually win.

Regardless we are hoping that people could express all of their Axis strategies in as much depth as they are willing. We have tried, Major industrial complex in Romania, Yugoslavia minor, subs to stall Atlantic, large transport force in the Mediterranean, Inf/Art combos against Russia, tank/mech combos against Russia, Factory in Egypt after taking it… we can simply never seem to stop the Allied advance.

Looking forward to some brain storming.

What about ideas on increasing the advantage to the Axis. Perhaps giving them more tanks at start with Germany and an extra battlship with Japan? - something like that? thoughts and or ideas?

@billinjackson:

What about ideas on increasing the advantage to the Axis. Perhaps giving them more tanks at start with Germany and an extra battlship with Japan? - something like that? thoughts and or ideas?

If anything, I would say Japan could use more mainland Asia land forces… far more so than another Battleship.

@LHoffman:

@billinjackson:

What about ideas on increasing the advantage to the Axis. Perhaps giving them more tanks at start with Germany and an extra battlship with Japan? - something like that? thoughts and or ideas?

If anything, I would say Japan could use more mainland Asia land forces… far more so than another Battleship.

I see where you are coming from. That would help the mainland strategy. I was just thinking that if one increased their navy it could slow down the US in the Pacific.

Maybe stager the US IPC to take a few turns to get to full IPC wartime potential?

Just some thoughts…

Or perhaps reduce japan’s planes? It is too powerful. The US is not. Reemember that for every 9 ipcs of land units it wants to ship to Europe or Pacific, it requires 7 ipcs of transport. Thus, US is spending 16 ipcs to equal the force of a German 9 ipcs.

@calvinhobbesliker:

Or perhaps reduce japan’s planes? It is too powerful. The US is not. Reemember that for every 9 ipcs of land units it wants to ship to Europe or Pacific, it requires 7 ipcs of transport. Thus, US is spending 16 ipcs to equal the force of a German 9 ipcs.

Understood, but if the problem is that the Allies keep winning there needs to be a governor on the Allied machine. What do you think?

@billinjackson:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Or perhaps reduce japan’s planes? It is too powerful. The US is not. Reemember that for every 9 ipcs of land units it wants to ship to Europe or Pacific, it requires 7 ipcs of transport. Thus, US is spending 16 ipcs to equal the force of a German 9 ipcs.

Understood, but if the problem is that the Allies keep winning there needs to be a governor on the Allied machine. What do you think?

The allies don’t keep winning. In the 2 global games I’ve played, the axis have won

@calvinhobbesliker:

@billinjackson:

@calvinhobbesliker:

Or perhaps reduce japan’s planes? It is too powerful. The US is not. Reemember that for every 9 ipcs of land units it wants to ship to Europe or Pacific, it requires 7 ipcs of transport. Thus, US is spending 16 ipcs to equal the force of a German 9 ipcs.

Understood, but if the problem is that the Allies keep winning there needs to be a governor on the Allied machine. What do you think?

The allies don’t keep winning. In the 2 global games I’ve played, the axis have won

Wow, that’s great to know. In many of the threads I have been reading people where expressing that the Allies keep winning. My Pacific 40 just arrived today so Europe should arrive tomorrow. I will be able to add to the debate with personal experience in a week or so but you give me good hope for balance.

Thanks

You’re welcome.

In our games, I think the reason the allies lost was that
1. Japan got strong too easily(in the 1st game, we played OOB, as opposed to with Larry’s changes; in the 2nd game, Germany did a successful Sealion, so the US moved its Pacific fleet into the Atlantic).
2. In the 1st game, Russia fell easily due to an unlucky counterattack on Baltic States. In the 2nd game, Germany is using 7 transports to shift units into Russia.

Overall, we feel that the US is very far away, and if the axis play correctly, isn’t in a position to do anything until turn 3, or even 4.