IC in Egypt

The Egypt IC gives UK no forces immediately and commits them to spending more later. I prefer to buy a transport off South Africa with a ground unit or two and use the rest in the Atlantic.

It doesn’t work if Germany goes all in for Sealion, but not spending 12 on a minor leaves enough money to hold off a feint.

Off topic, but I just want to tell you that Tirpitz was sunk by Lancaster strategic bombers.

@orcageo:

Were they strategic bombers or stukas you tell me.
Do you think I do not know its an unrealistic game!!!
The thing is though that the game is based on real events, a real war with the real political situations of that time. Anyway thats the way I see it. Bombers bomb from thousands of feet off the ground, tactical bombers can bomb ships, that’s how the American and Japanese fleet lost ships. If I am wrong then I apologize.
Anyway we wouldn’t play with each other I think because we have different philosophies. Thank you though for your opinion.

Strategic bombers were regularly used tacticly.  It is simply a matter of what payload they are carrying.  The German strat bombers had a remote control torpedo bomb that could be steered by a guy in the left side of the bomber to try and hit the big ships smack dab in the middle, for example.  And yes they had to fly lower for this.

Sealion comment: I see some of you are focusing on the royal navy on turn 1.  I’ve been using the luftwaffe to hit england and take out those 3 fighters while they only have 2 infantry cobering them.  This also blocks the need for a german carrier as the brits lose their planes and the german fleet hides in the baltic.   I think this strategy is more costly to both sides by turn 3 (after the naval battle ensues), but Germany can afford it more.  Maybe it needs a few more tries though.

@moralecheck:

@orcageo:

Were they strategic bombers or stukas you tell me.
Do you think I do not know its an unrealistic game!!!
The thing is though that the game is based on real events, a real war with the real political situations of that time. Anyway thats the way I see it. Bombers bomb from thousands of feet off the ground, tactical bombers can bomb ships, that’s how the American and Japanese fleet lost ships. If I am wrong then I apologize.
Anyway we wouldn’t play with each other I think because we have different philosophies. Thank you though for your opinion.

Strategic bombers were regularly used tacticly.  It is simply a matter of what payload they are carrying.  The German strat bombers had a remote control torpedo bomb that could be steered by a guy in the left side of the bomber to try and hit the big ships smack dab in the middle, for example.  And yes they had to fly lower for this.

Sealion comment: I see some of you are focusing on the royal navy on turn 1.  I’ve been using the luftwaffe to hit england and take out those 3 fighters while they only have 2 infantry cobering them.  This also blocks the need for a german carrier as the brits lose their planes and the german fleet hides in the baltic.  I think this strategy is more costly to both sides by turn 3 (after the naval battle ensues), but Germany can afford it more.  Maybe it needs a few more tries though.

Umm, that means you leave at least a Battleship and another ship alive. If you keep your transports in the Baltic, I can block Z112 on turn 3, or, if you move your fleet to Z112, I can attack it with the BB and whatever fleet I built.

Again, it may need more plays.  The idea is that germany’s G1 builds are mostly aircraft.  The RAF is toasted on G1 (as is a lot of the luftwaffe).  The new German planes and ships move into z112 on G2 and engage the the Royal Navy if its there.  If it’s not, hopefully the aircraft and subs can reach it. If the UK is building ships instead of infantry that may backfire for them.  The G2 builds should also include a destroyer or 2 (or maybe now is the time to build the carrier).  I’ll try it a few more times anyway.  I’m beginning to think sealion is a bad prospect anyway.  It’s a lot of cost for one victory city and the USA will attack it relentlessly.  It also leaves the germans exhausted for barbarossa and its 3 russian cities.  I love the possibilities in this game.  Sorry for the threadjack.

I don’t think I like the UK Egyptian IC, to many mouths to feed for UK. I could see doing it though if Germany poses no real threat to England itself, and most of the Italian navy is gone (it is rare now a days that Germany doesn’t at least threaten some kind of amphib). That’s what is so cool about this game, you can try different things. Some will work, and some won’t. I don’t like to get locked into the same strats every time.

The others are right though, if UK builds additional IC’s it could defiantly backfire. UK only has so much money, and if you cut off the head, all those minors are useless (until US gets involved).

@orcageo:

Sorry i didn’t answer earlier but I went to sleep and had to work because I live in Greece and we have a big hour gap. Ok I agree that some BB may have been hit by strategic bonbers but mainly when they were in naval bases. I didn’t know that with the guided torpedo, I was unaware they had that technology. Did they use it widely?
Whatever, if we agree that strategic bombers bomb BB’s shouldn’t they have an attack less than 4 because they for surely aren’t that accurate as the tactical bombers?

You have a good point here. Fighters were single engined aircraft intended to destroy enemy aircraft. Single-engined bombers–such as Kates and Stukas and so forth–were intended to destroy enemy tanks and ships and so forth; while holding their own against enemy aircraft. Large, four-engined bombers were intended to destroy enemy cities.

Capturing that distinction was one of my primary goals in creating the Flames and Steel rules set.

I employed the following definitions for aircraft:

Fighter
    * Air combat value: 4
    * Land combat value: 1
    * Naval combat value: 1
    * Hitpoints: 4
    * Movement: 4
    * Cost: 10 PUs

Dive bomber
    * Air combat value: 2
    * Land combat value: 3
    * Naval combat value: 3
    * Strategic bombing value: 1 PU
    * Hitpoints: 4
    * Movement: 4
    * Cost: 10 PUs

Strategic bomber
    * Air combat value: 1
    * Land combat value: 1
    * Naval combat value: 1
    * Strategic bombing value: 3 PUs. Plus a permanent, 1 PU reduction in the territory’s value.
    * Hitpoints: 6
    * Movement: 6
    * Cost: 16 PUs

As you can see, I gave strategic bombers some ability to be used tactically; on the theory that they could be used that way in a pinch. But it’s not what they’re best at or intended for.

@orcageo:

I agree with you Kurt and I am playing the game that way. But what do you mean by hitpoints?

In my rules set, most units take multiple hits to destroy. Normally, whichever player is inflicting the hits gets to decide how to allocate them. That means that wounded units will get finished off before hits get allocated to healthy units.

As an aside, a land combat value of 2 means that when firing against land units, you roll two dice. Each die roll hits on a four or less. The extra hits help balance out the extra hitpoints.

A very interesting discussion here, and a very good point on the strategic bombers vs ships sidebar.

As far as the minor IC in Egypt, I am in agreement that the British need to get past the spector of Sea Lion before they can entertain thoughts of a minor IC in Egypt. Then there is the possibility that said minor IC could be seized by the Italians.

AAG is bigger and longer than AAP, and we’re only getting half as many reps in on the game as we did with AAP. That & the Pacific side setup went from the Chinese Menu to AFR to Alpha. So we’re just now getting steadied up on the alpha set up and begining to record some plays with AAG.

So back to the Egyptian minor IC, it has come to our attention as well, but the situation in North Africa and elsewhere have so far conspired to keep anyone from placing one there.

Aside from that, the British already have their S. African IC. That complex, along with a transport, works really well for the British. We’ve even seen the British transport from India move over to the S. African complex to help move the troops north much more rapidly than by just the one lone transport.

As far as the strategic bombers, I agree with the poster who commented that it depends on the aircrafts payload. This game is too abstract to try to make any hard conclusions as to what exact type of aircraft are being represented and what their capabilities would then be.

The American B-25 & B-26, the German Ju-88 & Japanese Betty are good examples of aircraft that were capable of performing a wide variety of missions including both high level bombardment and low level shipping attacks. The British operated a fair amount of American a/c types (Hudsons, B-25s, Catalinas), so in game terms, it’s plausible to say that they could be operating US built aircraft with this capability as well.

I tend to look at the strategic bomber gamepiece as representing multi engined aircraft, not necessarily strictly 4 engined a/c. The tactical bomber game pieces, I tend to view as the single engined bombers and attack a/c. Now before you say it, I know, what about the Mossie game piece! I think the Typhoon would have been a better choice as far as a game piece selection, but hey, the Mossie was an exceptional plane capable of just about any type of mission from being a fighter to a medium bomber.

As far as strategic bombing goes, we’ve seen none in all our games of AAP & AAG to date. Certainly an option we should keep in mind to try using more, especially in bombing naval and airbases. But the escorts and interceptors rules have fairly well neutered the strategic bombing. Now keep in mind that that statement comes from having played a zillion games of AAP where the Japanese used to operate nearly as many aircraft as they did infantry! With the alpha set up, this has changed. That and the a/c numbers in AAE are much less numerous as they were originally in AAP. So we may see the strategic bombing option resurfacing a bit, who knows?

Having said all that, we’ve really never had a problem with the strategic bombers being used against ships. To try to change that in this game system would be going to a level of detail that the game makes no attempt to represent in the first place.

As far as Sea Lion goes, we’ve tried it a few times, and from our experiences, it seems like a classic example of risk vs gain. We’re not experts at Sea Lion, but it comes not without its own risks. A block of SZ112 & needing the Japanese to hold off attacking in the Pacific being the obvious risks, not to mention the Russians.

We haven’t seen this to be broken though. I will have to look for some threads on this topic, as it seems that we may not be executing Sea Lion as efficiently as folks like Jim010. From our gameplay, it’s just another decision point for the players to make.

The British Royal Navy around England, I saw mentioned earlier. In every single game of AAG, Germany took Paris with ground forces (only one game saw Normandy attacked on G1, other than that, Normandy has been left to T2), and the Royal Navy around England has been wiped out by subs and air, every game.

I was going to start a new topic but found this.  I’m halfway through a game and the UK built a minor IC on turn 1.  It turned out to be a good decision because Italy has been taken out of the Africa picture but it was a very risky decision in my opinion.  Here’s what went down:

UK1 - minor IC, rest was infantry in London.
IT1 - advanced on Alexandria and amassed troops on the border of Cairo (from troops next door).  Then they used their 2 cruisers, 1 battleship bombarded Cairo with the two transports carrying 2inf, 1art, 1 tank, 1 fighter and almost took out Cairo (1 UK tank was left).

I’m not sure as the UK I would risk that again.  Is Cairo a lost cause for the UK?

Cairo is probably a lost cause if Germany is going Sea Lion, but it doesn’t always do that.  If you wait to build the minor on UK2 you can more easily prevent Sea Lion (because at that point you’ll probably know if Germany is going to attempt it) and with it there it’s a lot harder for Italy to take it.

@Ruanek:

Cairo is probably a lost cause if Germany is going Sea Lion, but it doesn’t always do that.  If you wait to build the minor on UK2 you can more easily prevent Sea Lion (because at that point you’ll probably know if Germany is going to attempt it) and with it there it’s a lot harder for Italy to take it.

If you wait until UK2 to build a minor IC in Cairo then you’ve just bought a minor IC for Italy.  Every game I’ve played (minus one VERY lucky one) Italy took Cairo either turn one or turn two.  I think Italy would have to really not focus on Cairo to make UK1 minor IC a viable option

@wwestpro:

@Ruanek:

Cairo is probably a lost cause if Germany is going Sea Lion, but it doesn’t always do that.  If you wait to build the minor on UK2 you can more easily prevent Sea Lion (because at that point you’ll probably know if Germany is going to attempt it) and with it there it’s a lot harder for Italy to take it.

If you wait until UK2 to build a minor IC in Cairo then you’ve just bought a minor IC for Italy.  Every game I’ve played (minus one VERY lucky one) Italy took Cairo either turn one or turn two.  I think Italy would have to really not focus on Cairo to make UK1 minor IC a viable option

In our games, it was always Italy that took Egypt, built an IC there and finally lost it to US/UK attacks.
Only 1 time UK built one after Italy had been neutered, and that was an Alpha3 Global game.

I love the Egypt IC, the Med is really the only place the UK in Europe can contribute early game, the risk of losing Egypt is quite low because Brit player trades Navy’s with both Germany and Italy Turn 1. Whether you play OOB or Alpha +3 it isn’t hard to put Italy on it’s heels. If Italy can’t lock the down the Med it can’t knock you out of Africa and that pretty much renders them impotent.
It’s incredibly easy to deter Sealion form happening, whoever said to buy 9 then 12 Inf has no mind for strategy and thinking long term. To make that purchase even REMOTELY worthwhile you’d have to buy 10 Transports which you would have to place in CANADA to keep them from being picked off by German Aircraft. London’s job is simply to survive until either the US enters the war or the Soviets capture Germany’s attention.
I use subs and Fighter/Tac Bombers to deter Sealion and bring troops over from Canada to bolster London when I can.
Whether we agree on how to play the UK or not I hope it gives someone some ideas of their own.

C

I was going to start a new topic but found this.  I’m halfway through a game and the UK built a minor IC on turn 1.  It turned out to be a good decision because Italy has been taken out of the Africa picture but it was a very risky decision in my opinion.  Here’s what went down:

UK1 - minor IC, rest was infantry in London.
IT1 - advanced on Alexandria and amassed troops on the border of Cairo (from troops next door).  Then they used their 2 cruisers, 1 battleship bombarded Cairo with the two transports carrying 2inf, 1art, 1 tank, 1 fighter and almost took out Cairo (1 UK tank was left).

I’m not sure as the UK I would risk that again.  Is Cairo a lost cause for the UK?

I’d say it’s a lost cause if. The attack you described is pretty typical of Italy’s advance. Even if UK cuts the Italian navy in half turn 1. Italy can still hit Cairo with alot, assuming they sent troops to egypt turn 1 and are in a position for more for turn 2 as well as built fighters each turn. A dedicated Italian player will take Cairo by I2 no matter what unless the dice is in your favor. Holding it with only 1 unit left shows how much of a gamble it is usually it means giving Italy a complex

I recommend if you are building an IC in Egypt T1 with the transport sitting off the coast of egypt to pick up the inf and AA gun in Malta and land it in egypt in the sea zone that lies outside of egypt. This way you have 2 more hits, an aa gun, and your transport survives to help later in knocking italy out of africa.