Is it time for Beta +1

If UK wants to hold against a Sealion Italy goes gangbusters. The idea is that UK can wear Germany down enough that USA will be able to retake them before germany can really turn on USSR. The game is far from over in most situations where Germany takes UK.

you know. I never tried to get the african planes back to britian… mostly because italy can attack them if i land… so i use that to attack italy. (I also bring the india uk ships toward italy as reinforcements).
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Also the game is over in most situations. usa doesn’t make enough to stop japan from winning the game and to win the game in europe.
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When UK doesn’t get taken over… oh yeah allies have huge advantage.
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that’s why I need to know what is supposed to happen, before we can balance the game.

@GoSanchez6:

I think England should be a tad stronger at the beginning of the game to keep Sealion from being an almost guaranteed success. Maybe make Germany,Usa and USSR weaker to accomplish this.Historically taking England was going to be a huge undertaking it should not be as easy as it is. Not to mention it is not much fun to play UK in this game. If you play against a good German player you are pretty much a punching bag.

I don’t think it’s a guarantee until turn 4. Turn 3 is usually risky unless UK didn’t purchase well. Even then, Germany has to invest so much, maybe losing more than 60 IPCs of units (plus all the transport money) for a ~40 gain. We don’t have a lot of evidence yet that Axis are doing well at all long-term with that strategy. As written above, we need more games played.

I find UK very fun to play even with the Sealion threat. You can still mess with Italy pretty badly and there’s a lot of maneuvering and small battles to do between India, the Middle East, and Africa.

How can anyone say that Sealion is a nearly guaranteed success?  For one thing, Germany still has to do away with the Royal Navy and with the scrambling option, that is not an easy task and can cost Germany a lot of planes.  Secondly, it also depends on the UK buys.  If the UK stacks up defense, or if Germany didn’t completely get rid of the Royal Navy, there’s no way that Germany can build up enough to make Sealion a sure success.  The more transports Germany buys, the more defense UK buys.  It’s a standoff.  Also, if Germany is committing so much to Sealion, he is leaving himself weak on the Eastern Front while Russia just has to build up units for 3 rounds.  A lot of times, it’s the German navy that gets bashed by what’s left of the Royal Navy and the RAF so Sealion is a no-go.  No navy, no invasion.  Usually, I have found Sealion successful only when UK tries to rebuild the navy or RAF, in other words buying fewer, more expensive units, and is unsuccessful at destroying the Kriegsmarine in SZ 112.
Regarding Sealion, there are 3 possibilities:
1.  Sealion success =  PRO: Germany expended a lot of assets but now has a lot of money to build for Barbarossa and no England to harass from the west.  Also makes Italy’s job much easier in Africa.  CON: USA can enter the war now and cause Germany trouble from the west.
2.  Sealion failure = Worst case for Germany.  They expended lots of assets with no money to show for it.  Now faced with dealing with Russia with less money and probably a much weaker force.  Also, Britain can still harass them and will steadily grow stronger.
3.  Sealion not attempted = Now Germany has more assets to deal with Russia but faces the dreaded two-front war.  This could go either way.

Look. Are you playing dice games or low luck? I can see round 1 going bad vs uk naval in a dice game. It’s happened to me one time out of 5 games. Even then it’s not like I got to sink all of it.  I usually leave something alone. and overwhelm the rest.

you can scramble fighters like a moron and lose them… that makes sea lion easier.

you can buy all inf for uk. Still what 30-100% odds in a LL game? 30% assuming you hit all your die rolls?

in a dice game it’s kind of like a 30-70% thing. It usually goes down.
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as far as dice games go. yeah taking uk can be very taxing depending on what kind of casualties you get. but round 2 you drop guys on scotland or whatever. then round 3 you get scotland + max transport buy to body slam.

Maybe larry harris forgot germany can drop guys off between a few rounds. in a LL game it is easy to hit it and retreat. but you’re slamming round 3 anyway. typically.
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I don’t know what is going on in your games. some people say uk falls everytime others say it holds.

Well, I think it should be possible for Germany to have a business case for Sealion - otherwise no-one would do it (and the battle for brittain did happen, not being sealion off course). The alpha2+ version gives players so much more routes that the game is truly challenging.

And yes, there is a distinct chance seelion can go wrong, and yes your entire weekend will be ruined

“oh sealion didn’t work good game i lose most likely.”
                              or
“yes sea lion worked good game you most likely lose.”

This is the problem with sea lion. You play 3-4 rounds to take uk then 3-6 more rounds of desperate allies trying to make something happen. OR you lose the battle for berlin (which rarely happens) and spend 3-6 rounds being desperate trying to make something happen.

People did this in revised sometimes, except russia was much closer and usually germany lost.

Almost never see sea lion in AA50  (mostly because transports aren’t cannon fodder anymore, so in the event uk/usa has too many land units you can’t just sink some ships and lose the transports+naval and retreat the air… or swing it around to merge with italy)

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I am amazed people want to discuss tank changes more than transport changes in conjunction with less naval and more infantry UK.

@Cow:

Look. Are you playing dice games or low luck? I can see round 1 going bad vs uk naval in a dice game. It’s happened to me one time out of 5 games. Even then it’s not like I got to sink all of it.  I usually leave something alone. and overwhelm the rest.

Yea, if you’re using low luck just shut up b/c you’re not playing a and a, and you’re definitely not helping.

What I find in our games at least is that if Germany takes UK it hurts them too much on the Russian front but USA spend a lot in the alantic trying to keep the Germans and Italy down and in the end if the axis wins it’s because japan got off easy from the US.

In most games we have had on G3 sealion attempt germany builds a major in Romania if sealion is sucessful they have loads of cash to restock the front line before Russians attack.  If USA doesn’t keep the pressure on germany slowly rolls the Russians wih loads of infantry.

@Cow:

In order to balance the game I need to know if UK is supposed to fall or not. In every other game holding uk was easy. just buy 10 inf if you are worried.  In this one you can max out the number of guys on your capitol and still be overwhelmed. Which leads me to believe UK should die.

Worse case scenario: subtract 12 total unit value from USA and +4 inf on uk.

UK is NOT supposed to fall.  I have yet in my games seen Germany take UK and actually win the game.  Mainly because they can’t defeat Russia when they spend an ungodly amount of money the first 3 turns attacking UK and for what, ONE VC. I know that w/o UK in the game, africal opens up for ITaly, but only one VC down there.

G1 build is a CV, SS and TT from what I have read here
OR
G1 Build:  3 Transports
Bank 9 IPC

G2 Build:  6 Transports, 1 Airbase (Normandy), 1 Bomber

G3 Sealion Attack:  10 Infantry, 8 Tanks, 2 Artillery, 4 Fighters, 4 Tactical Bombers, 2 Strategic Bombers
Run 1 Fighter and 1 Tactical Bomber with Battleship and Cruiser

Meanwhile, Russia has built up their forces and is ready to invade on turn 4.

So you have committed 100 IPCs plus an enormous amount of military units that will never see Russian soil.  Plus now you have to defend uk against the US coming in a few turns.

Germany can win by holding UK at bay and concentrating on Russia.