How is the balance with the new Alpha 2 changes? Please give your view.

@jim010:

You can just do as Cmdr Jen suggested, but land in Scotland on turn 3 instead and then hit turn 4.  The odds are very good, but you have emptied Europe to do it.

The only option for UK is to hit Scotland for 2 turns and retreat, and hopefully the odds will have dropped for Germany.

But isn’t that still Doing Sea Lion and it being Successful?

I never claimed you’d have the man power to do Sea Lion and blitz into Russia!  I assumed you’d lose Poland, Hungary and Romania to Russia on the round or round before you take London, I am only contending that if Germany really wants England, they are going to get it.  There’s nothing England can do to stop it.

You sink the Royal navy, in its entirety, on Round 1, on Round 3 you take England.  Trick is stacking Scotland on Round 2, so you need less transports.  England either attacks the stack weakening London or does not attack the stacks, giving you more to hit them with. Either way, they lose.

You argued for a G3.  You also argued for removing UK’s fleet  round 1.  Neither are possible if played properly.

Now in a concession to you, I have been too chicken to do a Sealion 4.

It takes everything I have to hold Russia from entering Poland on turn 4, so I wouldn’t like the position I’d be in if 90% of my army is in London when Russia attacks turn 4.

I don’t mind Russia invading Poland, Hungary and Romania.  I’ve cleared out Russians after they’ve gotten all the way down to Greece before.  Thing is, I’ve only done it if London was in my hands.

Also, in regards to fleet, if all England has left is a destroyer and a transport, I have effectively left them with no fleet.

In regards to G3/G4 sea lion, they are instance specific.  If you cannot do it on G3, you will do it on G4.  If you don’t throw away perfectly good planes defending replaceable Italian ships, you can probably do it on G3. (Saving them is great and all, but the opportunity cost isn’t worth it in my book.)

Once England is gone, you have +13 IPC a round, that effectively covers your 9 IPC loss in the East.

Not having done a G4 (but I have played against it), I would have to say it is a bad idea.  G3 is your window.

And UK will have at least 1 DD, 1 TT - or have 2 DD, 2 TT plus whatever fleet is brought out of the Med.  That is not insignificant.  That is a core fleet.

But I’d be happy to play Allies if you want to try it.

I don’t think it really matters which round you take London in, as long as you take London.  Of course, it is kind of an issue to see what America is doing for a few rounds as well…if they are loading up transports in SZ 101, you might want to weigh things differently.

That said, London is far easier and more rewarding than Russia, I think.

I don’t think it really matters which round you take London in, as long as you take London.

I say G4 is too late.  But you are welcome to try :wink:

That said, London is far easier and more rewarding than Russia, I think.

Agreed.

@jim010:

That said, London is far easier and more rewarding than Russia, I think.

Agreed.

My thinking has moved in this direction also.  After dieing in the Russian winter in too many games I am thinking Sea Lion may be a viable alternative to achieve victory after all…

@Frank:

@jim010:

That said, London is far easier and more rewarding than Russia, I think.

Agreed.

My thinking has moved in this direction also.  After dieing in the Russian winter in too many games I am thinking Sea Lion may be a viable alternative to achieve victory after all…

I view it less of achieving victory so much as staving off defeat!

Think of it this way:  After you have finally taken Russia (and we will assume you do so, for the sake of argument) how do you get England?

@Cmdr:

@Frank:

@jim010:

That said, London is far easier and more rewarding than Russia, I think.

Agreed.

My thinking has moved in this direction also.  After dieing in the Russian winter in too many games I am thinking Sea Lion may be a viable alternative to achieve victory after all…

I view it less of achieving victory so much as staving off defeat!

Don’t get me wrong I do believe the game is still broken in favors of the Allies between two semi skilled opponents.  I am all for making the Axis somewhat stronger.

Aye, I am just saying I feel Germany’s only real chance of victory is to take London and then kill Russia.  I am not saying this is a great strategy or one that will even win most of the time, like I am saying the American Pac-Strat is.  There’s just no possible way Japan can hold out against America for 10 rounds if America goes all in to the Pacific giving America a full 3 rounds to secure a victory city, if not 4 or 5 rounds to do so.

@Cmdr:

Aye, I am just saying I feel Germany’s only real chance of victory is to take London and then kill Russia.  I am not saying this is a great strategy or one that will even win most of the time, like I am saying the American Pac-Strat is.  There’s just no possible way Japan can hold out against America for 10 rounds if America goes all in to the Pacific giving America a full 3 rounds to secure a victory city, if not 4 or 5 rounds to do so.

A German occupied London is pretty sweet for Italy to say the least.  I hate when people mess up my Italy :(

I was looking for the 100% pacific strategy results thread but it was buried so far I gave up.  I figure here is a good place to post my results.  Had a game that ended in Axis victory on the Europe board on turn 18.

I drew axis and followed the standard German strategy of limiting losses G1 and building 2 trns 1 cv.  Japan built an ic in Shanghai and 2 trns, Italy built 1 art and saved 6.  Sealion was executed on G3 after taking scotland on G2, and Germany declared war on Russia G4.  Japan declared war on the allies J3 after the fall of London, grabbed the DEI and prepared for the US assault.

US went Midway->Iwo->Korea, built a NB/AB in midway and Iwo and a minor IC in Korea.  His fleet continued to chase the Japanese around India into the red sea.  Here the US fleet moved south of Africa while the Japanese moved through the Med and joined up with the German fleet off Gibraltar.  While US had been beating back Japan Germany had been uber aggressive and made landings in Caribbean and twice in Brazil.(lost both times to horrible dice, damn those jungles!)  With the help of the Japanese ships the combined axis fleets captured panama again and fled to the pacific before the new mega combined fleets of the US could stop them.

The game ended with a slow grind in Russia where the axis took every opportunity to kill Russian units they got.  At all times there were Italian can openers present and the initial German thrust reached Rostov.  Here I swept south with my mobile reserve and met the Italians who were fighting over persia.  This combined force was able to hold the region until the Russians moved away to deal with a threat coming from Novgorod, then this army moved north on their heels and took Stalingrad.

In the end the Russian army could not keep up with the insane income Germany was collecting, and by using my italian mobile units in suicide attacks I was able to maintain German superiority in numbers and capture Moscow.  Japan was being resuscitated by the axis fleets in the pacific and had reclaimed Korea with trns that it had saved throughout and troops that were holding Japan.  Italy had recaptured SAfrica from ANZAC and established dominance of the Indian ocean and a secure hold on Egypt and Sitaly.  India had a large army in Perisa, Anzac had a small presence in Wafrica after capturing Brazil from the Germans.  Also the US had a massive fleet in the Med and was poised to drop Italy down to 20ipcs.

I think the reason I won the game was because my opponent over bought subs.  Each time I would feint with my navy he would build subs, for instance building 3 subs in Brazil as ANZAC when I moved toward Panama.  Then when I did the unexpected and kept going West towards Hawaii the Subs were worthless.  He also did not do well with China after the expulsion of Japan, but there are differing strategies there.  He went big stack where I would have spread out to defend all borders.  The best idea of course is to just save ipcs and build if threatened…but we use the paper money and it is finite.  Germany may have also been too keen on holding the Atlantic as long as possible, even doing a straffe attack on US production in sz 101 to kill subs.  Still those ipcs could have been spent on units in Russia to end that front earlier.  Once US is placing all 90 some ipcs in the Atlantic it is too hard for Germany to compete, even if Russia is down to 25 by then.  Another mistake I made was not attacking Russia as soon as possible as Japan.  I still ended up paying off the 12 ipcs to Russia in order to SBR behind the lines so it was a moot point.  And with a 100% pacific strategy there is no motive for Russia to declare war on Japan, the US can handle it.

This was my first encounter as the Axis with a 100% pacific strategy, next game I will be allies and try and execute it, preferably better than my opponent did this game.

I think your failing was in America chasing the Japanese fleet ANYWHERE.  Screw em.  Once you have all their destroyers or they are out of the Pacific, ignore them.  From that point on you’re building fleet to invade the Med (if, when done in your game, the Japanese couldnt have hidden in there, btw) and a WHOLE MESS OF TRANSPORTS! (yes, I am the transport queen, but still, when you have Japan on the ropes, there is no reason you shouldnt have 16-20 transports dumping 16-20 ground units into Africa a round.)

Are you then advocating the US leave that fleet near Japan to prevent them from bringing their fleet home and restarting the war?  My opponent sent his fleet to dominate the Indian ocean and chase me away while building subs to stop my convoy income, dropping me to 0.  At that point I saved my money and twice bought a dd to try and  thin the sub herd, but he could build new ones out of Korea.:(

As Japan I wasn’t sitting around even though I had no income, my fleet supported Italian moves in the Indian ocean and my aircraft posed a serious threat that forced him to stack his army. (7 ftrs 1 tac 3 lvls will drop most anything)

When I saw US was going 100% pacific I made it an early priority to take Gibraltar and stack an army there and I was busy harassing the US coast when he switched production to Atlantic.  I then pulled all assets in the area together to strafe his production zone and kill his subs and dds, letting me hobble back to Gib to meet up with the Japanese.  This meant the battle in Russia raged along the border for some time before I began to make headway, only Germany’s increased income in relation to Russia spelling Moscow’s demise.

I recommend keeping your fleet in the Pacific until you reduce Japan to less than 5 IPC in income, then leaving 3 destroyers at max range from SZ 6.  If they save up and build a submarine, you can chase that down and kill it.  As for the rest of their boats, once they are out of destroyers you can pretty much ignore them.  If they start moving towards SZ 6 again, just build new ships to deal with them at that time.  For now, move most of your ships to the Atlantic so you can invade the Med and sink whatever Germany has in the N. Atlantic.  From there, it’s a matter of time before you blitz over to Egypt and stop a VC win and then invade S. Europe (S. Italy, Greece, Albania).

The impetus for him to chase me down was the presence of the Jap fleet plus air plus the ground troops onboard, it wasn’t until this threat was neutralized and the Japanese forced towards the Red Sea that he was able to reclaim the DEI and Chinese coast.  This is when it sounds like you are advocating a switch to the Atlantic, but the fleet already built it out of position to assist in the Atlantic until the battle there is already decided.

As it happens this is also the time my opponent switched to Atlantic, but by then the axis had taken Brazil and Windies along with Saf.  He used his US fleet to recapture Saf and built a new US fleet, which Germany then smacked and retreated.  This was roughly around round 8ish.

Still, during the Chase there is attrition to the Japanese fleet (the American one is getting resupplied, Japanese one cannot due to presence of the American fleet and lack of income) so many of the American ships should have been able to break off much sooner than is implied.

If Japan has 5 loaded carriers, 2 battleships, 2 transports, a few submarines and a few destroyers, I am not keeping 5 battleships, 7 carriers (loaded) 18 destroyers, and 16 submarines out there chasing it.  I’ll pull a few carriers, a few destroyers and most of the submarines off to go to the Atlantic.  The rest is just strong enough to kill him (even if I am wiped in the process, I don’t care) or push him away.

I see, so leaving the Japanese/Italians dominate in the Indian Ocean so long as they don’t return to the Pacific.  The Jap fleet I escaped with was 2 bb 2 CA 4 CV’s plus 5 or so trns and a full complement of planes.  I never used blockers and just stayed ahead of his fleet until meeting the Italians.

This would have prevented his recapture of Saf and heavy pressure in Persia, but I suppose he could have just concentrated on the middle East and sent a few ships towards the Atlantic.