How good is this game?

I’ve been playing a Europe 1940 game against myself, trying as the Axis to win (I haven’t been quite successful enough in my last 3 games).

This the closest and furthest Germany has managed to get to Moscow while still preserving most of the Western Front and holding the UK and US back (the Italians were set to dominate in Africa before bad dice sunk that hope).

What can the Axis do in the next few turns to achieve victory?

2024-8-27-World-War-II-Europe-1940-2nd-Edition.tsvg

Regarding Italy in general terms: use the fleet to dominate the Mediteranean and put troops in Africa. This will mean you can take oil fields in Persia (national objective) + make the USSR nervous. Specifically: you can build infantry, artillery etc. in Italy each turn, and use the fleet to move them from SZ 97 to 99 the next turn. Taking Cairo and moving those troops south will also take points from the UK + take away their national objective. Your aim is to aid Germany as much as possible in taking over the world.

Regarding Germany in general terms: Take France on the 1st turn at all costs. Build around 10 troops every turn to send against USSR. This doesn’t mean you can just march up to Moscow but it will mean your forces will be balanced. Keep pushing the front every chance you get and take away every point you can. Bomb Moscow to smithereens using strategic bombers. Destroy every stack of infantry with as little troops as you can + as many airforce as you have. This will conserve your precious troops. Don’t spend money on factories. It’s tempting and it’s fun to test out , but I haven’t seen it work.

Generally: try not to land airplanes in territories without an airfield. It’s sometimes necessary, but it’s usually more beneficial to put them on an airfield.

On another topic: I see the major industrial complex on Paris hasn’t been downgraded. It should.

@Oyvind:

Could someone explain the “bid” in the first question?

It is a way of evening up the playing field when it is generally considered that one side has an advantage over the other. Using this as an example:

@Colt45:

Personally, i take Axis with a 3 bid otherwise il take Allies.

Colt45 554 has said that they’ll take Axis if they are given a bid of 3. This means that at the start of the game before the first turn they either get to put down units to the value of their bid, 3, in any of their territories, or accept 3 bonus IPC into one of their countries for spending at a later time.

In a general bidding arrangement, the opponent would have the opportunity to take the Axis for a bid of 2 if they thought they could win with that and that process repeats until a bid has been determined and teams are set.

A bid of 3 is considered a pretty well balanced game. I believe the current bid for 1940 Global is sitting between 20-30 for the Allies. We can read into that that people think that playing the game without bids leads to many more Axis wins than Allied wins by evenly matched players.

@theROCmonster:

Honestly I think if anything the allies are advantaged in this one. US is just so powerful. Russia will always fall no matter what the allies do, but it then becomes a struggle for the axis to take Egypt. Normally a game will come down to the US having factories in finland/Norway, and possibly southern france and Normandy. While Germany has a ton of money, and Italy is making under 10 because of convoy raids. Germany has a ton of money that it tries to use to in both defense against a monstrous US, and a pretty powerful UK, while also trying to take Egypt. As long as allied players don’t freak out when Moscow falls then they have a good shot at victory.

The allies have to play very smart, and not rush into things if they are to keep germany from getting the final VC.

@Gargantua:

USE THE ALPHA 3.9 RULES FOR EUROPE - They are substantially better.

Everything works properly and is covered by Alpha 3.9, with 3 exceptions.

1. France starts with 2 less IPC’s (17?) becuase French-Indo-China is not included
2. Russia gets + 9 IPC’s a turn from it’s eastern territories
3. USA only collects NO’s represented on the European side of the board

Don’t ask me why Krieghund/Larry thinks it’s ok to give Russia + IPC’s from other maps, but not America or France. :p

They’re response so far has been that ‘somehow’ it makes sense.

They get +9 but lose the 2 infrantry bonus each turn comming from novosibirsk so they only gain 3IPC per turn.

@jim010:

[You can’t block the G3 London attack.

If you get luck and survive with some UK ships, then you could stand in front of the Germans.  But I doubt it would prevent the Germans from pushing through - and that scenario wil not be the norm.  Likely you won’t have any ships in range except for the Gibraltar fleet.
[/quote]

Oh no? It happened in the game I played last night. Germany got crappy dice rolling and the UK player took a bunch of risks, managed to take down the German AirForce. That really changed the game and made it pretty much impossible for Germany to invade England. Amazing though Germany managed to sneak a fleet across into Mexico and distracted America for another 2 turns defending itself. It was decided after bad rolling in Russia that the allies would win out even with Amercia distracted and the game was called an allied victory.

@Imperious:

On UK 1 they build the 9 inf, not naval.

The ships from Gibraltar move to block, but these are lost if Germany tries anyway.

The advantage is your getting some German air exchanged.

The latter problem is if they don’t attack, you still have a buy a fleet and make it save because Germany will still have subs and UK needs to kill them to get its NO’s

If the fleet attacks Italy, they take out the Italian navy in addition to german air

@i:

If I can work with the game using a german AA gun as artillery

you know the 88mm gun was a good aa gun anti armor and artillry so why would you not be ok with that? it was the best anti tank gun in ww2. so really it should get plus 1 attack or defence if the enyme force is all vehicles.

It was a great AA gun and a tip top AT gun (and was purpose built in both roles).  It was an ad hoc artillery gun.  Still good, but a 105mm would have been more appropriate.  I guess my point is it’s not necessary to use stuff that “kind of” works when there are so many choices that were a perfect fit.  It just strikes me as odd that there were so many complaints about the stuka being used as a fighter but few about this.  On the other hand, perhaps the 88 was chosen as it had a more distinctive look than a 105 would have.  The distinctive look was the reason Rob Daviau gave me for using the stuka, so I’m guessing this is it.  My favorite A&A odd choice though is the German tank on the cover of the original AAE.  It’s the 3 turreted prototype tank.  Only 3 were made and they saw action only in Norway and were not considered successful.  Didn’t take away from the game at all, but I guess the art department folks are not WW2 buffs.